ebay advice (non pony)

[xeevee]

G'day all,

Just want a bit of advice/info regarding ebay.

At the start of this month I decided to bid on something on ebay that is extremely common.  I did a price + shipping lowest first search and bid on the cheapest one with no bids.  There were many others available that were within a $1 of what I bid (which was the lowest bid) and none had bids.  Within a day of bidding I was outbid, which I thought was weird considering like I said, there were lots more available at a similar price, many ending much sooner.  Things in my life weren't going so well at the start of this month, so I never got around to bidding on another of the same item.  2 days after the item ended I received a second chance offer.  Which I accepted.

Like I said, things weren't going so well for me, and I kind of forgot about it.   I then realised it was 10 days past when I was supposed to have received the item.  I checked the tracking number and it wasn't even listed as accepted by USPS.  I sent them this message:

This has not arrived yet.  The tracking number is showing nothing at all.  Can you check into that for me please.

No big demands, just wanting to know what's up.  After 3 days of not hearing anything, I decided to go to paypal, as sometimes when you get a dispute, people actually answer them.  Within a day I had my money back, but still no actual message.

So I go to ebay again, and leave a negative feedback. I figure no communication, no item, even with a refund that's negative. 

They are now upset, asking me to revoke the neg, and wanting to cancel the whole transaction.  I am not sure I should do anything of the above.  What happens if I agree to cancel? Will my feedback be taken off them?  I think it was deserved.  I am not opposed to them getting their ebay fees refunded exactly.  They claim they did message me several times.  I don't see how the only message I would have received was the one where they want something though.    Do you also think the neg was too harsh?  Should I change it to neutral? 

[babylofty]

Personally, I wouldn't do squat.  They didn't contact you, they didn't send the item, nothing.

They can threaten all they want. They can give buyers negatives. Forward all their correspondence to Ebay and let them deal with their terrible seller. You didn't get your item, you got your refund. I'd ignore them and move on.

[Baby Sugarberry]

I'm pretty sure demanding feedback to be changed is against Ebay's policies.  To me it sounded perfectly justified.  No item, no communication, you had to go through all that hassle to get your refund.

[STLGusty]

First off, that sounds a little sketchy.  In my twisted mind, I would think that the seller bidded on their own item (or had someone bid on their behalf) to see if you'd bid a bit higher on their item (isn't that called shrill bidding or something)?  I don't know if they did, obviously...just seems strange, as you said.

Anyway - I don't know enough about the ins and outs of ebay, but just from my personal perspective, I would definitely keep everything as you have.  They were a horrible seller with no communication, and clearly they didn't hold them their end.  That's a negative.

[xeevee]

First off, that sounds a little sketchy.  In my twisted mind, I would think that the seller bidded on their own item (or had someone bid on their behalf) to see if you'd bid a bit higher on their item (isn't that called shrill bidding or something)?  I don't know if they did, obviously...just seems strange, as you said.

I agree, and in fact, when I was first outbid, I thought it was really fishy and even said to my hubby "I bet I get a second chance offer on that."  because it just seemed so unlikely that I'd be outbid on it. However, I don't have proof, and the seller has a lot of feedback, and apart from mine, there is only one other neg.  They have rating of over 9500.  So even though it feels suspicious, and I think the neg is still justified because they never contacted me until I left them negative feedback, I am inclined to give them the benefit of the doubt on the whole 'shill bidding' thing.  It probably was just a mix up, but mix up or not, you have to tell your customer what is going on.

[ponylady]

I think your feedback is very well justified. And I would not change it or cancel the transaction.  They had ample time to return your message, ship your item or do whatever they needed to do to complete the transaction in a positive manner.

And normally I do not immediately think shill bidding when I am contacted for a second chance offer.  But in this case it seems really rather odd, especially if you had a gut feeling about it.  And then no communication, no item and the weird request to change the feedback and mutually cancel the transaction. 

[Stormness_1]

No way. They didn't do anything good in this transaction. What's even worse is that they sent you a tracking number knowing it was fake. That's definitely neg territory, and people need to know it happened. In fact I'd add revised feedback, letting others know that they wanted to cancel the transaction, so that they'd look better after treating you so badly! People need to be aware of this bad seller, before they do it again with something more important or time sensitive, like a gift for someone. You did the right thing. Oh and for the record, I've never heard of not receiving ebay messages, unless they were intercepted by ebay, and then ebay messages you, letting you know.

[cobalte]

They can threaten all they want. They can give buyers negatives. Forward all their correspondence to Ebay and let them deal with their terrible seller. You didn't get your item, you got your refund. I'd ignore them and move on.

Pretty sure sellers can no longer give buyers negatives... this was eBay's idea of fixing retaliatory feedback (not the brightest one either)

[babylofty]

Sorry, that was a typo on my part - I meant to say they CANNOT give negatives!

[xeevee]

Thanks for the advice everyone.  I haven't done anything regarding the cancelling the transaction except reply to the seller to why I think I shouldn't.  I'm going to give them a bit to try and defend themselves, but I'll probably still refuse to cancel it.

Post Merge: March 30, 2013, 11:42:19 AM

new update.  I declined to cancel the transaction today as I received a new message with nothing in it from them.  I feel kind of bad, because although this totally felt scammy, maybe it was an honest mix up.