Unbelievable feedback! What should I say?

[iminbus_18]

I sold an item to a customer, before I could send it, it was damaged. We had a lot of rain and flooding in California lately and this package was a victim of this. I told my customer that I no longer had the item. This was after he paid for it.

Then he sends this:

I attempt to send him $29.70 and I can't?

When I enter the amount, the only amount this page will accept is the total paid, minus the tax which is $27.44?

I sent this screen shot to him and told him I don't know why this is happening? I asked him if I can Cash App or Zelle the $2.26 tax?

Then:

I send $27.44

I said; OK, I just don't want any problems with people.

This is the feedback he left me!!

I need people to see this for what it is. If anything, it's nothing like what occurred. I tried to make sure he got every penny because he should have.. and I have never had anyone talk this way about me in my whole life!

[caldreamer]

I am really sorry that you are experiencing flooding and water damage.    My heart goes out to you.

That customer seems like an insensitive jerk and was really "over the top" with his criticism.   What a jerk!

The reason the "refund amount" shows invalid is because you only received $27.44 (you cannot refund $29.70).   EBAY refunds the "sales tax" separately (after your cancellation comes through).

[gator08041971]

A lot of people can be two faced.  Say one thing, but be completely different on another level, and not expect to be peer reviewed like that.   Which in this case I find amusing.  Though the tone where they told you to have some cushion for selling seemed a bit harsher to me, like this nastier side was somewhat there.  But there again, we are trying to assign feelings to words on a page that may not match the actual feelings.

Not sure why you were having an issue with the refund though.  But the system does the tax part for you, so that may have been correct, and the difference should have shown up for them on their end.

Still, they did go a bit overboard I suppose.  Next time, just refund what it allows you to refund and try not to make more out of that.  I have done a partial refund once or twice and every time I forget to figure in the tax, so the buyer gets the amount + tax, but mine shows an even smaller amount and then ebay refunds a portion of the value fees to make up that difference, its all confusing sometimes.  lol

[luckythewinner]

IMHO the buyer's feedback seems to sum up what he experienced and it matches up very closely with what you admitted in your post. 

When you tried to refund, why did you choose "buyer canceled" as the reason? This was very clearly an out of stock issue because the item was no longer available. 

[gator08041971]

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@luckythewinner wrote:

When you tried to refund, why did you choose "buyer canceled" as the reason? This was very clearly an out of stock issue because the item was no longer available. 

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Huh, I missed that.  Yeah, why would they choose a reason to throw shade at the buyer like that?  At that point, it wasn't their fault.  And if you sent them a screen shot of that, they would have seen the same thing.  Not cool.

[robbie31415]

Should Have just issued a full refund as OOS taken the defect and moved on without talking to the customer.

Sellers always trying to avoid defects.

[mam98031]

@iminbus_18 

There is so much wrong in that string of communications.  You assumed some stuff that isn't true and it simply added to your issues with the buyer.

1.  Buyers can NOT cancel a transaction, they can request a cancellation from the seller, but only the seller can actually process a cancellation.

2.  When issuing a refund to a buyer, a seller can ONLY issue that refund back to the buyer's original funding source for the item.  There are NO options for a seller.

3.  Sellers can only refund the amounts they received and nothing more.  Ebay WILL refund any sales tax that the buyer paid, so your buyer did receive all their money back.

New sellers accidentally create problems for themselves because they don't know the process but are willing to ASSUME they know instead of seeking out the correct info BEFORE proceeding.  You need to stop assuming you know something that you don't or you will only cause yourself even more issues.

You should have been honest with your buyer from the beginning and tell them HOW the weather in your area created this issue.  Apologize to them and then issue them a full refund.  Ebay would have taken care of refunding them the sales tax.

[mam98031]

Here are some important links to areas you should really take the time to learn about as a new seller.

https://academy.ebay.com/student/catalog?locale=en


https://www.ebay.com/help/selling/selling/selling?id=4081

https://pages.ebay.com/seller-center/get-started/seller-fees.html

https://pages.ebay.com/seller-center/service-and-payments/funds-availability.html

https://www.ebay.com/help/selling/getting-paid/getting-paid-items-youve-sold/pending-payments?id=415...

https://www.ebay.com/help/listings/creating-managing-listings/creating-listing?id=4105


And make sure you know this policy extremely well.

https://www.ebay.com/help/policies/ebay-money-back-guarantee-policy/ebay-money-back-guarantee-policy...

[iamalwaysright]

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@caldreamer wrote:

That customer seems like an insensitive jerk and was really "over the top" with his criticism.   What a jerk!

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Shrugs. He wasn't wrong though about his lecture aside from his assumption of being tight on money. Also, note that he is a Christian though, just wanted to be clear on that as the buyer wanted it to be known 😉

@iminbus_18 If you've been a victim of California floods and can prove it with documentation affecting your ebay, ebay says they'll cover you. Not exactly sure how as fortunately I've never had to play this card despite me being in Calif too. If anything, I'd say in hindsight they would've covered you for not shipping to the buyer. I would've tried to contact ebay about this at the very beginning the minute I knew the item was flood damaged before even reaching out to the buyer. They might be able to do damage control now if you contact them. Good luck

[wastingtime101]

Your screenshot shows you tried to use the "send refund" option @iminbus_18 which was not the right way to handle this. Instead you should have used the option to cancel the order. It would have triggered a full refund to the buyer with eBay reimbursing the sales tax automatically.

[myfrugalboutique]

@iminbus_18 

Wow, you really need to work on your customer service skills. ! These are situations that should never have happened, and frankly some of your comments were unnecessary.  The feedback that you replied to about your health and passing out.  No one cares. Too much information and very unprofessional. 

I would say that most recent feedback was probably deserved. You could not ship the item, and used the wrong reason for cancelling. I don’t blame the customer for being irritated. 

[iminbus_18]

Thank you everyone for your input. I fully understand what everyone is saying, I understand everything I have done that should have been done differently. At this point I can't change any of it, all I can do is become a better seller and I will which is a good thing. Never the less, Am I someone to "Stay away from?" I wasn't at fault for an item that was damaged. Yes, my customer asked twice for the refund. It didn't have to be this way, but, it was in the name of trying to make sure he received all of his payment. I didn't realize Ebay would automatically add the tax. There is a box a box where I'm supposed to enter the amount of the refund. If I can't enter the true amount, it's reasonable to suspect (I now know Ebay adds the tax) that the complete amount won't be sent. OK, I asked if I could send the rest using other methods and caring about my customer he says it's Fraud? Really? Then he says that after he got mad I sent the whole amount? Really? I remember trying to send him the whole amount long before this! As I said' I fully understand where I went wrong, but, I feel that I have been wrongly accused and misjudged. Am I really someone to stay away from? Am I a bad person?

[jameshen1]

You are lucky you got a neutral and not a negative feedback.  Learn from this and move on.

[robbie31415]

I mean the most important part is learning from mistakes.

I would have immediately canceled OOS. Then possibly messaged them.

I'm very sorry I had to cancel your order. Your item was impacted by recent weather events in California, and part of our inventory experienced water damage.

You should be receiving confirmation from eBay with information in regards to receiving a full refund.

The problem would have been done. Just don't be one of those bad sellers who relist the item at a higher price, then you may tick off your buyer.

I don't think you are a bad person, just inexperienced and you created a whole unnecessary situation due to that inexperience.

I'm also in California, and I had to take some steps to safeguard to insure my warehouse didn't experience flooding.

ALSO: I sell on local markets such as fb marketplace and offerup, when we hear 'zelle or cashapp', it's very connected to thieves who stole someones account information. So there whole 'fraud' part I can understand because as soon as I heard those words I would be questioning things even more.

Just learn, research. Heck posting on the forums while the situation was active before responding to the buyer would probably have netted you a good way to handle the situation.

[12345jamesstamps]

Item got damaged...show buyer a photo of item damaged. Ask buyer if they want it. Give buyer a discount.

One needs to work with the buyer even before doing the item "out of stock".

One has to try all solutions to save a feedback.

Heck I would have done the refund and send the damaged item for free.