Ebay question: What would you do?

I bought some batteries from an Ebay seller over a month ago, and never received them. The seller kept giving me the “please wait patiently” response.

So, I opened a case with Ebay resolution center earlier this week, and the seller and I exchanged emails.

I asked them to resend the batteries, then they said they were out-of-stock, but the item is still up on Ebay, saying they have 29 of them left.

We went back-and-forth, and I gave them a negative feedback.

Ok, so I then got a message from Ebay saying that the seller did a refund (even though I told them I wanted the batteries re-sent).

I still haven’t seen the refund hit my PP account, and I get another email from the seller, asking me to change my feedback.

I am not inclined to do that, even if I eventually get the refund in my PP account. To me, this seller lied (their current sale says they have 29 in stock, and yet they’re telling me that they can’t ship the ones I bought over a month ago, because they’re out-of-stick. If anything, hopefully my neg feedback will keep another Ebayer from getting stuck with the same situation.

I’m interested in any thoughts on this. Should I change my feedback? It almost seems like a bribe :(!!

I think you are completely justified in giving negative feedback…especially since the seller has done nothing to solve the problem.

Perhaps you can try to call Ebay again. It’s not really good for business to displease customers for it means loss of confidence. They should know that. I’m not sure if there’s a law that protects you from such online transaction. It would have been a life saver.

I’d wait to see if the refund actually comes through before deciding the next move.

Don’t change your feedback. As a fellow eBay shopper, I want/need other people’s honest accounts dealing with sellers. The seller has not lived up to their end of the bargain.

Definitely will wait, but as I said, I’m not inclined to change feedback for a seller that lied to me :(.

I just did speak with Ebay, and the fellow that I spoke to said that it can take up to 3 business days for the PP refund to show up and he sees it in their (Ebay’s) records, so it must be just processing lag. Funny (in an ironic way) thing is that the message I got from Ebay’s Resolution Center said to go check my PP account and that the refund should be there (it’s not) :).

No!!! The seller earned the negative and you’d be doing other buyers a disservice by changing it. And sending the seller a message that he can get away with that crap.

Thanks, and I definitely agree. I wonder how many times this happened with this seller, and they got buyers to change their feedback? I definitely would’ve been a lot more hesitant buying from them if I saw some feedback saying this seller doesn’t deliver and lies outright to their customers!

Your feedback was based on your actual experience with that seller. Being refunded does not change what you experienced. Its just like being robbed by someone and you sue him on court. The sanctions meted to the person you sue does not change the fact that he robbed you. :slight_smile:

Its also good that you shared you experience through your honest feedback because by doing so, other prospective ‘victims’ will be warned. Your actually doing all or us a favor by telling the truth and I salute you for that. 8)

I believe it's also against ebay policy to put requirements like that on feedback, they can and should have their account disabled for it.

Ebays feedback system is fataly flawed ...it is there to make ebay look like they care .

In the end it won't matter what you do. you probably won't save someone some headache..but it might make you feel better . people live in fear of giving and getting negative feedback ..

just silly games ..why would anyone care ..

I thought so too. But it turns out that a seller can request a feedback revision IF they resolve things with the buyer.

http://pages.ebay.com/help/feedback/revision-request.html

Of course, the buyer is free to turn down the request.

I just went through this myself. They will always ask you to change negative feedback because it costs them money. My partner just obtained Power Seller status and it gives her a small reduction in the % that eBay takes from the seller. There are also other benefits for sellers who maintain a high positive feedback rate. Bottom line: If you felt justified in giving them negative feedback to begin with, don’t change it. Negative feedback is the only real hammer that buyers have with sellers. They won’t change their behaviour if they can get you to remove your negative feedback.

Many people think the negative ratings help other buyers to avoid poor sellers. This may be true to a small degree. But the real benefit to buyers posting negative feedback is that it actually punishes sellers directly because eBay charges higher fees to sellers who do not maintain high positive feedback.

Hi,

Thanks. I didn’t know that about their rate potentially changing if they get bad feedback(s)… I’m definitely leaving mine as-is!

I’m surprised the refund hasn’t showed - sounds fishy … If the seller says they sent the item and it was lost in the mail, I’d probably upgrade to neutral with explanation and list my reason for concern. If the refund is a hassle it would never get to neutral and I’d try to make sure all concerns are posted.

Refunds don’t show up by default in my view of recent transactions. I have to select ALL Transactions and then choose a date range to get refunds to show.

I always wait untill i either recieve my items or get a refund for bad purchases, then leave feed back. The open feed-back tends to leverage the seller to make sure your happy. i have had to make claims before against bad sellers and always got a refund, i never would ask sketchy ebay sellers to resend-items, i just get a refund and buy elsewhere.

You got your money back. The seller does not HAVE to give you a replacement product. The only person who has lost out here is the seller, he is down 1 unit of stock. Now you stick the boot in with a negative feedback.

In my opinion (as someone who has been using ebay for +10 years) you should have at the most given him a neutral.

From the sellers perspective I can understand why they may not want to sent out a replacement (what if it also is lost?) and gave you a refund instead.

I do read negative and neutral feedback, but it is funny how many positive feedback I have read that actually tell the truth of a poor experience because of the fears of getting negative feedback back.

Funny how the seller is only worried about the negative now that it's all gone pear-shaped...

The seller stonewalled as long as possible until the dispute was escalated, and then still tried to finagle a positive rating? That alone should earn them a big ol' fat negative, even if it's ultimately resolved.