What to do about neg. Fdbk that is undeserved

[babse_47]

hi, new to selling. Buyer said 2 of the 5 bottles he bought arrived broken,but would not return or send pics. He paid 99 cents for 5 bottles. I offered to refund him 40 cents for the 2 broken ones but heard nothing back from him. Left me a negative.  Arghh. 

[ponepartn_0]

Leave a reply to the negative like this:

I am so very sorry, please you can return the items for a full refund!

[m60driver]

For some customers a refund is not sufficient and leaving a neg compensates for whatever their their tortured inner soul demands.  On the other hand you will need to improve your packaging skills.

[silverstatetreasureboxes]

Yes, that's too bad buyer wouldn't work with you but the neg fb is going to remain unfortunately and your to early in the game to be dealt anymore. I see you have a lot of glassware for sale, pack this stuff like it contains Uncle Joe's ashes. Protect the rims, peanuts inside of bowls, jars, protect handles and feet, bubble it to no end, if you can place glass item in another box inside main one. I would have just issued his money back in full considering it was a small amount but it's done now, move on and be very careful with S/H forevermore!

[Anonymous]

Sounds like an auction that bit you in the rear in the first place. The sale was just about a complete loss anyway, at that point I would have given them a full refund of 0.99 and let them keep it.

Haggling over pennies on a sale that was a loss anyway is what got you the neg.

You will suffer much greater losses in your selling career here, this one should have been easy.

Chalk it up to a lesson learned and drive on.

[bonjourami]

Buyers dont have to send pics, and you have to double box glassware...always.

[iart]

That negative will probably cost you a heck of a lot more than a buck. An old mentor of mine often said: "If you get greedy, you get nothing." It looks like you got even less.

Packaging glass takes some experience. You shouldn't have started out with glass. There might have been insurance on it tho surely not worth the hassle.

The buyer has a legitimate complaint. Yet, leaving a negative on a low priced item is pretty tacky - especially when obvious you're kind of new.

But here is the good news. You have hardly any feedback. So, open another account and start over. There is no ebay rule against doing this. You'll have zero feedback but run out there and buy a bunch of low cost items that you need. Pay fast and the sellers should give you good feedback. Yes, it will be buyer feedback but that's better than a zero.

And then, stay away from glass for awhile. Start with simple stuff.

[Anonymous]

Yes, glass and ceramic are risky anyway.

I sold a coffee mug once, wrapped it thick with crumpled brown paper, put it in a box, put that box in a bigger box surrounded with styro peanuts. The buyer received a flattened box with ceramic chunks and ceramic dust inside.

USPS absolutely crushed and destroyed it in transit.

That happens often.

It may have fallen 10 feet to the ground from a conveyor, crushed in the carrier's truck door, who knows ?

The buyer sent me an angry message and pictures talking about "inadequate packaging", which was not the case at all.

You do not want to deal with this stuff as a new seller, save it for later when you have more experience.

[luckythewinner]

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@babse_47 wrote:

hi, new to selling. Buyer said 2 of the 5 bottles he bought arrived broken,but would not return or send pics. He paid 99 cents for 5 bottles. I offered to refund him 40 cents for the 2 broken ones but heard nothing back from him. Left me a negative.  Arghh. 

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Buyers are not required to consider a "return for refund" or a "partial refund" to be a positive experience. 

[chapeau-noir]

I know you're new and the neg is a bummer, but honestly, this "He paid 99 cents for 5 bottles. I offered to refund him 40 cents for the 2 broken ones but heard nothing back from him"  Just boggles me.  I wouldn't be surprised if the buyer thought you were being rude and pranking him and just left the neg from annoyance. 

Over and above packing, I think it's a good idea to read up a bit on customer service best practices in various situations.  Giving a little can get you a lot.

IAC, you've got some positive stacked up over that neg so just keep going.

[mam98031]

How we package is a great deal of our job.  It needs to be done well and with care.  

With what the buyer said, there are no grounds for you to get the FB removed.  I know on your young account this really hurts.  So lets look at this a couple different ways to see if there is anything that can help you.

First, go to the buyer FB page.  Click on the tab for FB left for Others.  See if the buyer has any history of doing this to other sellers.  If they do, have a history of negs and neutrals, come back and tell us what you see or you are always welcome to send me a private message and tell me their ID and I can look.

So if we find they abuse the FB system that is a reason for getting your FB removed.

I would not suggest responding to the FB.  It just makes it stand out more and there isn't much you can say.  But if you do decide to respond to it, make sure it is polite and professional.  You leave comments so that other buyers will feel comfortable with you.  Venting will only chase them away.

Second, you might send the buyer a message and say you are sorry for any problems they had with the shipment.  Had they of brought it to your attention before leaving FB, you would have offered a refund.  You are not talking about a large amount of money here.  You should offer them a full refund.

If that accept that and ONLY after they accept that, you would then send them another email and ask them if they would consider revising the FB they left for you.  If they say yes, then let them know they will receive an email shortly from Ebay.  Inside that email is a quick link on how they can easily change the FB they left for you.  Then go and send them the revision form.  We can help you with that if you don't know where it is when the time comes.

But do NOT bring up revising the FB until AFTER they say they will accept the refund.  And don't send a revision form to a buyer unless you have an agreement in place with them that they will revise their FB.  That is because you only get a certain amount of these forms per year and they have a shelf life.  So if the buyer doesn't know it is coming, they won't be looking for it.  And once the time lapses, you can't send another on the same transaction.

[*madison]

For those bottles, you've left feedback for the right buyer, and then you left feedback again mentioning the bottles for a buyer who bought a skirt.  You might want to contact the skirt buyer and apologize.  You could contact ebay and ask if they will remove the wrong feedback, but ebay doesn't usually remove positive ratings. Although, ebay might remove the feedback if they think the comments are negative..

[fern*wood]

Oh my, Madison is correct.  Your feedback for another buyer not associated with your negative, isn't the proper thing to do.  It also makes it sound like the cost of the item being low negates the buyer the right to be dissatisfied.  I've received negs I didn't think I deserved, but some I deserved and it's important to know the difference so I could learn from them. 

[bigyellowdog2012]

there are so many difficult lessons to be learned on eBay.

If you look at my feedback I sold a $27 miniature chair for 99cents.

( it was my fault ---I listed it as a buy it now instead of auction)

I shipped it anyway. The buyers feedback made me LOL!!