eBay

gurlcat · ‎09-15-2021

A couple days ago I made a lonnnng post about a payment dispute situation I'm in, the result of which is still TBD. No need to rehash the whole story here, but something crucial and almost 'separate' has occurred to me, a detail I hadn't considered relevant to the situation, but really want to know now. See, in the several emails this buyer sent before even paying for her auction win, and in the 3 she sent after delivery, trying to get a partial refund, the badness of her English was just off the charts, as was the neg she wrote about me. I guess the "worst" thing she said about me was "she refuse to help". On the contrary, I offered the ultimate help, a free return label for her to get a full refund. And of course her statement to Paypal was also a crazy word salad and chock full of bee ess. But only after days of thinking about it do I realize that one phrase was remotely true, or I THOUGHT only remotely: "she block to avoid hepl me".

I didn't even consider that part; I was more focused on the bad advice the phone CSR gave me about handling the dispute and how messed up it is that scammers can just skip ebay's money back guarantee if they want to simply get free stuff. If I thought much about any of this buyer's wackadoodle words, it was her calling me "savage" (which I kinda love) and claiming that she was getting headaches from smoke smell (from jewelry, lol)! But the thing is, I did add her to my blocked buyers list, after her 3rd post-delivery email to me. I just wanted to make sure she couldn't buy from me again, and I thought that's ALL it could do. But now I think she may have actually tried to write me again, found she was blocked from doing so, and even though she still could have filed an ebay return, being cut off from writing may have been the thing that inspired her to go straight to Paypal.

So today I posted about it on Ebay For Business on Facebook, asking what exactly blocking does and doesn't do. An employee gave a nice thorough answer, including stuff like how blocked buyers can still see your listings, etc. As for messaging, she confirmed that YES, blocking them DOES block messaging, but not while a transaction is "open." Well, that just leaves me wondering, when is a transaction closed? Upon delivery? At the end of the 30 day return period? Or when? I replied to ask for this clarification, but from what I've seen, the EFB people tend to give only one reply, no follow ups.

So my best guess here is that the transaction is closed as long as the item has a delivery scan and no open return request, and if that's the case then this buyer wasn't exactly lying. I blocked her, not to refuse help or avoid her, just to reject any future business from her. Had I known I also blocked her messaging me, I might have waited a bit longer to add her to my list, could have just IGNORED her subsequent emails until she gave up. That wouldn't guarantee the outcome would have been any different, but considering she mentioned the block in her claim to Paypal, it apparently was an important factor to her.

What really bugs me is, MESSAGING IS NOT MENTIONED ONCE IN THE HELP ARTICLE ABOUT BLOCKING BUYERS. That is a HUGE oversight.

sin-n-dex · ‎09-15-2021

What I find gets blocked is the ability of the potential buyer to see offers I'm sending out. I've found some of my most annoying customers (and I can think of three easily enough) have bought because they watched an item and got an offer. Once they were blocked, I couldn't send them offers any longer (when trying to do it on my phone once a while ago I actually got an error that you can't send an offer to someone on the BBL).

So while it's possible they won't buy again, as the offers are what's luring them in, I put them on the BBL to stop them from receiving said offers.

So that's one thing I found the BBL to be good for.

C.

nobody*s_perfect · ‎09-15-2021

TL;DR

"As for messaging, she confirmed that YES, blocking them DOES block messaging, but not while a transaction is "open.""

Putting a member on your BBL just blocks them from bidding/buying.

If you choose the site preferences option to block communications from your blocked bidders, that will not affect members with whom you are already in a transaction or if you have already communicated with them. IIRC, the block goes into effect after 30 days with no transaction or communication. Also, it's part of the site preferences section on buyer requirements; I'm not sure it even affects members on your BBL.

Also, a past thread reported an experiment in which a blocked member could not contact a seller through the "Contact seller" link in one of their listings, BUT could still send a message by using the "Contact member" link on the seller's feedback page.

chevy_327 · ‎09-15-2021

@gurlcat

There should be a check box here about allowing blocked buyers from contacting you.

https://www.ebay.com/bmgt/buyerrequirements

I turn mine off so they can still send messages.

gurlcat · ‎09-15-2021

Ah! Fascinating, that would explain a wee mystery I've had. See I work entirely on my laptop via the website, not the phone app, and IDK if you knew but there are a gazillion little differences. Whenever I decide to send out a bunch of offers, I filter my (Hub version) Active Listings by 'Send offer eligible' and go from there. On occasion I will have an offer bounce back as prohibited, even though there IS at least one watcher (and yes I know offers don't go to watchers who've already received offers for an item). But the website rejection pop-up doesn't give any reason WHY I can't offer to this person/people. I always thought, 'Then why the heck are they in the 'eligible' list?' But it's rare enough that I haven't asked about it before. So, you're saying those are people I've BLOCKED, just watching my stuff that they can't buy? Well now I'm not sure if I'm glad to know that or not, LOL! Kinda 'stalk'-y, you know? I don't know why they don't just make blocking absolute, like why even let them SEE stuff they can't get, see the seller's profile or anything like that?

gurlcat · ‎09-15-2021

Well poo, I do NOT have it set to block contacts. So do you think this buyer's phrase about "she block me to avoid hepl" was just another lie? It sure would be a coincidence, since it was after her 3rd email that I blocked her, and didn't receive any more from her. Also I don't believe I've ever received an email from any of the names on my LONG list.

chevy_327 · ‎09-15-2021

I let them still message me because they won't see I blocked their messages. You can just ignore them instead. When you block someone and they go to pay for an item, it doesn't say you blocked them, just says can't buy or something. I forget the message now.

fern*wood · ‎09-15-2021

@gurlcat wrote:
Well poo, I do NOT have it set to block contacts. So do you think this buyer's phrase about "she block me to avoid hepl" was just another lie? It sure would be a coincidence, since it was after her 3rd email that I blocked her, and didn't receive any more from her. Also I don't believe I've ever received an email from any of the names on my LONG list.

If your block stopped her from communicating, then she couldn't have sent the message with that phrase about being blocked either.

gurlcat · ‎09-15-2021

Also, a past thread reported an experiment in which a blocked member could not contact a seller through the "Contact seller" link in one of their listings, BUT could still send a message by using the "Contact member" link on the seller's feedback page.

Ha, my training is in science so I lovvvvve experiments. And the "findings" of this one are very interesting.

Semi-related, I've been having issues for a couple months or so with replying to (buyer or seller) emails, like if I just shoot them a few-words reply it goes through just fine, but a lengthier one bounces back. I can't remember the wording of the rejection popup, but it's kind of harsh, like "you are not permitted to contact this member" or something like that. Luckily my typed message is still there, copy/pastable, and I just go to their member page, contact from there, with the paste. It's not a huge deal, presumably a glitch they're working on, but I wonder if it's a glitch infecting from the 'blocked' thing, because like I say the wording of the rejection is a tad "personal" ha.

Ebay reminds me of some post-apocalyptic industrial scene where some of the stuff still works, some doesn't, and there are zombie pages you can still access despite having (at best) no relevance to current reality, or (at worst) previously true but now FALSE information.

gurlcat · ‎09-15-2021

@fern*wood wrote:
@gurlcat wrote:
Well poo, I do NOT have it set to block contacts. So do you think this buyer's phrase about "she block me to avoid hepl" was just another lie? It sure would be a coincidence, since it was after her 3rd email that I blocked her, and didn't receive any more from her. Also I don't believe I've ever received an email from any of the names on my LONG list.
If your block stopped her from communicating, then she couldn't have sent the message with that phrase about being blocked either.

The phrase about being blocked wasn't a PM; it was in her claim to Paypal. When someone opens a payment dispute, you can see what they said to their bank/CC.

eleanor*rigby · ‎09-15-2021

@nobody*s_perfect wrote:
Also, a past thread reported an experiment in which a blocked member could not contact a seller through the "Contact seller" link in one of their listings, BUT could still send a message by using the "Contact member" link on the seller's feedback page.

Correct. The communications block prohibits the member from messaging via an item listing only. Members can still contact through the seller's My eBay (profile) page or via the seller's feedback page.

Here's the thread (beginning with page 2) concerning the experiment to which you referred:

Sellers who cheat buyers by sending one item when buyer paid for multiple items.

It's hard to say how many buyers are actually aware of that "work around," though.

axiombody · ‎09-15-2021

Trying to understand what someone was saying when they are writing with cryptic sentences is a lost cause. She may indeed used blocked like stopped and meant you would not help beyond offering for return. Who knows. I have feedback from buyers often who expected partial refunds when saying something wrong with the item. They say I was not flexible or I wouldn't work with them. I tell them directly unless the item has damage that you can show me I would need a return of the item(being most people asking for a partial refund want to keep a shirt that doesn't fit and get some money back too). By not giving them a refund I am inflexible and I guess that is right but also my policy.

gurlcat · ‎09-15-2021

Thanks for sharing that; I read the whole thing, OP to final reply.
The part I found most interesting was when someone said the block feature needs some functionality work done to it. --They were talking specifically about the Profile page workaround a BB can use to reach the seller. The ebay employee who was participating in the conversation (very courteously up to this point), addressed the 'functionality' remark by saying "this is working as we would like it to" (we as in ebay). He elaborated that without any way for a blocked buyer to reach the seller, how could they request to be placed on the seller's exemption list, therefore what would be the point of there being an exemption list?

I can't believe nobody replied about that. Um, yeah exactly what IS the purpose of the exemption list? I mean I'm not one of these diehard cynics who thinks that ebay is out to screw over sellers at every turn, but I HAVE noticed they will nudge nonstop for sellers to do anything, ANYTHING, to make a sale, like the constant suggestions to make offers (and then give offer acceptors ...what is it now?..... 4, 5 days to pay, because why should ebay care? it's not THEIR shelf space). And this exemption list seems like just another "Come on honey, give 'em a chance" thing, except here they mean ANOTHER chance, regardless of how awful the buyer was before.

I can't imagine what circumstances would incentivize sellers to utilize this exemption thing; you can already remove a name from the list any time you want, and there's even a setting to bulk-remove names according to elapsed time if you want. But okay, even if ebay thinks it's only fair to allow a BB to contact via seller profile for the sake of making this request, it doesn't narrow their ability to contact ONLY for this request, nor (apparently) limit how many times the BB can contact that way, like no cutoff feature for the seller to respond 'decline;' it's just a wide open inbox. LOL, imagine if restraining orders only prohibited abusive ex's or stalker or whatever from being X number of feet in FRONT of you, but breathing directly on the back of your neck? No prob.

gurlcat · ‎09-15-2021

You're probably right. She either used the word 'block' without knowing it has as very specific meaning in ebay, OR she did know that but decided it would be worth flat out lying about it to Paypal, to bolster her claim of victimhood by this "savage" (now I wish that was my username). Oh by the way, this person didn't just 'hint' at wanting a partial; she flat out stated her expected refund amount of $25 (out of $58, and remember that's what she BID at auction, and that was a fairly disappointing winning bid for me; she got a huge deal already!).

chevy_327 · ‎09-15-2021

The exemption list is not just for people on your block list. I have a 2 item limit on certain items so people are blocked after they buy 2. But only on that item. Once in a while I'll get buyers asking me if they can buy more then 2 so I put them on the exemption list.