What gets me are the neutral feedbacks where buyers say something like, "I've not tried the product yet." I've also seen some negatives on other seller's pages where the person indicates "they don't know" (whatever that is supposed to mean) and they've not opened the item yet.
I had a negative a couple of years ago from a lady who bought an iPod charging dock alarm clock combo. This also had a radio, which I did not test. I never mentioned the radio in the listing. The lady got the dock and the radio did not work. She immediately left a negative without reaching out to me first. I contacted her and set things right, because I knew I had overlooked checking the radio. She was kind enough to revise her feedback to positive.
There has probably been once or twice where I thought I deserved a negative and the customer was gracious enough to actually leave a positive because I fixed the mistake quickly. One was when I sent out the wrong item. It was similar to what was ordered, but not the exact item. They were not even angry. They just asked could they send what they got back and get the one they ordered. I told them to keep it, and I priority mailed them what they ordered.
I had a nut case leave me negative a few nights ago. He had ordered ink cartridges, opened them, then realized they were the wrong ones for his printer. He opened a return stating they did not work. While technically true, I suppose, it was because they were the wrong ones for his printer, which he stated in his messages to me. I had the listing set up to not accept returns, but since he opened it up as item did not work, I had to take the return. I called eBay when I got them back and they advised me to return 50% of his money, report him for abusing the return system, and once that report got reviewed I would be reimbursed the amount of the refund. When he saw that he only got 50% of his money, he filed a claim with eBay, which was closed ten minutes later in my favor. I presume this was an automatic thing. A few days later, I got back what I had refunded him. Fast-forward a couple of weeks and this nut used every character he could in all caps talking about how horrible I am, that I only gave him 50% of his money, etc. I laughed. I made a brief response, then filed an appeal. The feedback was gone within a few minutes. I didn't even get an email from eBay letting me know it had been removed, so I again I guess it was automatically done.
When I buy, I follow what another poster said: I look for common themes. If I see a lot of buyers (relative to the number of orders they've sent) stating their item never came, then that's a red flag for me, especially if that type of thing goes back years. Also, I have seen quite a few sellers outright belittle buyers just for giving what seems like to me genuine criticism. I personally avoid buying from those people. I don't mind cheeky comments from sellers when responding to buyers who may say something like, "The shipping was too high." But if the seller also looks like a nut case, I'm good. I'll give my money to someone else, even if I have to pay more.
CONSERVITVS • Volunteer Community Mentor
