What would you do or not done?

[dandfmarinesalvage]

So here’s the details of a transaction today. What would you have done or what should I have done differently in your opinion?

We receive a message yesterday about a listing that contains several questions. All of which were clearly answered in the description. The message was very oddly written and seemed peculiar. Not the typical “hey I just wanted to ask if…….” That we generally get.  I look at the buyer and discover that over 75 percent of the feedback they leave (which is a couple hundred feedbacks) are negative. Deciding that this buyer should just be blocked rather than answer obvious questions was at the top of the list or so I thought.

We run a very busy brick and mortar shop as well and in the midst of this I get sidetracked and don’t block the buyer. Today said buyer buys the item and immediately begins to bombard us with messages and then requests that we ship the item with the flammable fluid left inside. Obviously we aren’t going to do that and made that clear both in the listing and in the message. Buyer doesn’t seem to understand that as he says it’s fine to do because he’s done it in the past and is unhappy that we won’t do it. We decide that rather than argue or escalate we are going to immediately cancel, refund, block the buyer and relist.

All is well for about 10 minutes. Then I start to receive phone calls, text messages, emails and a google review from this buyer who at this point is absolutely unhinged and irate. Calling us all sorts of obscenities, saying we’ve committed fraud, he’s calling the law, he’s going to sue us, we stole his money, etc.

Keep in mind this is all in the course of about an hour or so from beginning until it escalated to this point. So with that being said. If you were in my position. Would you have simply sent the item anyway without fluid inside knowing that the buyer was already unhappy and wanted the fluid in it? Would you have cancelled or cancelled and blocked? How would you have handled it differently? 

I feel like these strange situations are starting to come up more frequently. It used to be maybe once every year or two we just had a completely unsatisfiable buyer regardless of what we tried to do. Now it seems like there’s a least a couple a year out of a few thousand. Anyone else feel like it’s picking up as well? Or have I hit a run of bad luck or had a really long streak of good luck and now I’m paying my dues?

[gurlcat]

Well I'll be danged.  I came thissss close to crying fake news because this story seemed too over the top.  Like first of all why would anybody prefer their item shipped with the flammable liquids in it?  I looked at the listing and sure enough it says bigger n' doo-doo that all parts will be drained of fluids before shipping.  So then I thought maybe this was a competing seller or a bitter previous buyer using a different account, purposely trying to yank your chain in the most ridiculous way possible.  But that hypothesis falls apart if it's true that the account has a record of majority negatives left for others .... because then why wouldn't they have left a neg for THIS purchase?  

But then I realized the clearest 'gotcha' would be if you didn't really have a recent bad Google review.  Well dang, apologies for doubting you!  




But now I'm curious, does choosing "Buyer requested" as the reason for cancelling remove the buyer's ability to leave feedback?  If so, I get the motivation, but I think it's also a bigger eBay no-no than the 'address' reason, because 'buyer requested' actually gives the buyer a strike against future sellers' preference settings.  So you're not just cancelling the sale against their will; you're doing them extra, lasting harm.  

So if that buyer knows how to report you for it, yikes.  Other than that, you're lucky he lives several hundred miles away.  

[dandfmarinesalvage]

Believe me it IS over the top! Given the limited options I had to cancel the order. I felt that Out Of Stock or Damaged certainly didn’t apply. It was just a matter of whether to use buyer requested to cancel or address issue. In hindsight I probably should have used the address as the reason but in that moment it felt like extortion and very combative so I choose buyer requested as that’s honestly what it felt like (some sort of buyers remorse and paving the way to file INAD and then mail be a rock or similar back in the package).

As soon as it began unfolding I reported it to eBay but it’s unlikely it’ll be seen by a living person or acted on. 

It just seems wild to me the mannerisms of this buyer exhibited immediately upon sale and how quickly he became unhinged and escalated himself. Hopefully this is a one off and very isolated incident and isn’t indicative of a broader decline. 

[luckythewinner]

We receive a message yesterday about a listing that contains several questions. {snip}  Deciding that this buyer should just be blocked rather than answer obvious questions was at the top of the list or so I thought.

So just to be clear - you got a message from a buyer with questions, and chose to ignore it for a full day without responding in any way? Maybe that could have headed the whole thing off. 

I don't use the eBay app, but I read a lot of reports that the link to read the entire description is not always obvious to buyers. 

[albertabrightalberta]

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@luckythewinner wrote:

We receive a message yesterday about a listing that contains several questions. {snip}  Deciding that this buyer should just be blocked rather than answer obvious questions was at the top of the list or so I thought.

So just to be clear - you got a message from a buyer with questions, and chose to ignore it for a full day without responding in any way? Maybe that could have headed the whole thing off. 

I don't use the eBay app, but I read a lot of reports that the link to read the entire description is not always obvious to buyers. 

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In the OP's defense, I tend to do the same -- ignore potential problem buyers.  

I've commented many times that one of the best reasons I use a best offer option is that it gives me the opportunity to check a buyer's history/feedback left before countering or accepting an offer. I've dodged dozens (if not hundreds) of bullets by heading trouble off at the pass by blocking. 

And in cases in which I choose to block the wannabe buyer, I don't respond to offers nor do I decline. (If you wonder why I don't decline, I don't want the buyer to try to make another offer and receive a message along the lines of "this seller doesn't want to sell to you" so I find it better to simply ignore.)

If a buyer ASQs me, I do usually answer questions if the question is reasonable. But often, problem buyers' questions are indicative of a future problem. 

[dandfmarinesalvage]

That’s correct. The initial message from the buyer contained many questions (all of which had been clear in the description) and was worded oddly, that led me to quickly check their feedback. After seeing the first page of mostly all negatives I thought to myself “I’m going to stroll into my office and block this buyer rather than wait until we’re headed down a rough road with them”. Unfortunately for me, I got sidetracked. Had I been diligent and made sure to get the buyer blocked immediately I could’ve avoided this mess.

So there’s no doubt that it’s my fault this whole mess got started but aside from immediately blocking (which I didn’t do). I’m not sure how else I could’ve or should’ve handled it other than the way I did. I feel like I was absolutely reasonable but just don’t want to have tunnel vision and actually be 100 percent in the wrong while thinking I’m right.

[reallynicestamps]

@luckythewinner 

you got a message from a buyer with questions, and chose to ignore it for a full day

Oddly some people are human and make mistakes. 

[gurlcat]

No it's definitely good that you reported his abusive buyer behavior.  You rarely get to see if it "does any good" (although it did appear I got a scammer's account shut down with my report, maybe because they'd had previous ones and mine was the last straw).   Even if there aren't any humans tasked with reading every report that comes in, I'm pretty sure they have an automated system that tallies them against members (buyers and sellers).  

But direct consequences is just one possible outcome; the other major reason to do it is to protect yourself from whatever the buyer may do next.  You know how if someone breaks into your property and steals items, you file a police report even though you know they're not going to go hunting for the thief, but you need that report for your insurance claim?  It's like that, except eBay is the cops AND the insurance company.  I've had numerous agents tell me that, and seen it proven true over and over.  

By the way in case you didn't know, asking for a full or partial refund (or even hinting at it) rather than returning the item counts as abusive buyer behavior; it's literally on the menu as "requesting something not in the listing."  And it's probably the #1 most common abuses you should report immediately, because you know what's likely to happen if you refuse the request -negative feedback.  Having that report on file is your best bet to getting the neg removed.  

* One note: eBay has changed the wording and/or removed some of the menu choices for reporting buyers over the years, in fact they've removed some that are still clearly cited as policy violations in the Help pages, which I have no idea why, I guess just typical eBay left-hand-right-hand bad communication between departments.  But if ever you're having trouble deciding which reason to pick, the important thing is you'll get a text box at the very end, to describe what happened, so just pick the "closest" reason and proceed to get to that text box.  

And if you're unsure about anything at all, of course come here and simply ask!  

[meme6253]

It sounds like You handled the situation perfectly, I would have done the same, Cancel,Refund & Block.

[legalbeagle52]

I would have done the exact same as you, cancel, refund & block.  I wouldn't even give that a second thought if I were you.  Of course it would have been best if you blocked immediately, but sounds like life got in the way and that happens.

I do answer questions even if they're in the listing.   There are several reasons why potential buyers might ask.  Maybe the description didn't show up completely, maybe the buyer has had some previous bad experiences on eBay and wants some contact with the seller.    But it sounds like you already had a bad feeling from the way the questions were asked.  But the thing that definitely would have scared me off are all the negatives and the fluid issue as well... that was bad, very bad.

I would  have cancelled as fast as I could, defect or not.     Who needs a headache like that?   Hopefully this will be the end.  I've had some 'less than desirable' buyers but none this bad.   I don't think buyers like this one are all that common.   At least they haven't been for me.    But I sell books (20 + years) and so far that doesn't seem to trigger the nut jobs.   Good Luck!

[gurlcat]

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@legalbeagle52 wrote:

I would  have cancelled as fast as I could, defect or not.     Who needs a headache like that?   Hopefully this will be the end.  I've had some 'less than desirable' buyers but none this bad.  

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The guy clearly has an inflated sense of entitlement and problems controlling anger.  
This is in a reply by another parts company, to the 1-star Google review he gave them:

[sin-n-dex]

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@stainlessenginecovers wrote:

I would have done exactly what you did; cancel/refund/block. 

How they got your 'phone number' or 'email' etc. to 'bombard' you is a bit baffling to me, but doesn't matter. Buyer can 'threaten' all they want. They are a spastic problem child that most businesses (or personal sellers) want to and/or have time to deal with. 

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OP runs a brick and mortar store. If the eBay store name is the same, or there's some information that identifies them in their profile/listings, buyer can get the info from there. I've had some stalker types figure out stuff about me (through means I'm not aware of how they did it).

C.

[sin-n-dex]

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@dandfmarinesalvage wrote:

The eBay username brings up all sorts of our info when typed into google. In hindsight I may choose to completely change the eBay store name to keep eBay segregated a bit so it can be limited to on platform communications only and we don’t have to worry about being contacted outside the platform. 

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If you want your B&M store people to find you online and buy stuff you don't have out in the store, there's nothing wrong with make it easy for them to find out.

I have two stores and do some similar things between them so  my customers on one store can buy from the other store (and know they're buying from me). Unfortunately if I get a really bad buyer I could be harassed in both stores. Generally if I block on one store, I block immediately on the other store. I've rarely blocked someone BEFORE they purchased, just the one guy who won't go away (every time he buys with a new account I refund, cancel and block, and of course report him to eBay. He keeps getting kicked off eBay and creating new accounts and buying from me again).

I think this sort of stuff might be normal (to have a whacked buyer).

C.

[sin-n-dex]

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@luckythewinner wrote:

We receive a message yesterday about a listing that contains several questions. {snip}  Deciding that this buyer should just be blocked rather than answer obvious questions was at the top of the list or so I thought.

So just to be clear - you got a message from a buyer with questions, and chose to ignore it for a full day without responding in any way? Maybe that could have headed the whole thing off. 

I don't use the eBay app, but I read a lot of reports that the link to read the entire description is not always obvious to buyers. 

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I got messages during the night while I slept (which I read and reply to right before I start work). Left my phone at home today... certainly sellers shouldn't be in fear of being separated by their phone in case an unhinged buyer is waiting for a response?

FWIW, I do generally tell buyers I was at work during the day (which is why I couldn't reply), but I do try to get the night time messages first thing in the morning, at least to let them know I'll reply when I finish work.

C.

[dandfmarinesalvage]

Wow, I hadn’t even seen that! Thanks for pointing that out. Sheesh, some people just can’t be decent to others or be reasoned with!

[gloryglorygifts]

I would do exactly as you are going to do. Cancel, refund, block, relist. I haven't seen an uptick in crazy like you have though.

You can find a lot about people online now, as they found you. In my case, we use the same name on marketplace and our website, so they can even find directions through mapquest.  Used to be on Google maps too, but that seems to have disappeared. I've literally only had one ebay customer call, in 9 years, so at least that's good. I'm guessing you have the same situation (being on maps that is).