Giving eBay Negative Feedback

A couple of weeks ago I gave an eBay user negative feedback. It was a little harsh, but I felt fair. The member in question has nearly 600 positive feedbacks, and with my single negative still has 99.8% positive and is still rated as a "Top Seller". Be this as it may, he wasn't pleased. At first he pleaded with me to remove the negative feedback, and I replied with my reasons of giving him the negative feedback. Then he made a small threat, and then he started trying to bribe me, offering me £10 to remove the negative feedback, none of which I responded to. Then, using a different account, he bought something I was selling. At this point I contacted eBay by phone, which was a fairly pleasant and reassuring experience. Having blocked him, and after a week of silence I thought that the situation had been resolved, but no, last night he sent me another email offering me £20. So this morning I called eBay again, mainly to query how a blocked user was able to message me. The man I spoke to said that members who you were already in a transaction with would always be able to message you, but assured me that he took the situation very seriously and that it would be looked into. After putting the phone down I received a transcript of the call. Unfortunately it bore very little resemblance to the conversation that I'd just had. I've no idea why his name is Sandra, and the time is out by at least ten minutes. The seller and item details are correct, so I think it's the right call.

jamiekitson 09:44:02
Hi

Sandra Long 09:45:24
Thank you for contacting eBay Live Help, my name is Sandra. How may I help you today?

jamiekitson 09:46:30
Hi i would like to report a seller for forcing me to remove the feedback that i left

That much is true, and fairly close to what I actually remember of the conversation, but from here it gets further and further from the truth and what I actually said.

jamiekitson 09:46:37
can you please help me

Sandra Long 09:47:31
Hello, Jamie.

jamiekitson 09:47:45
yes

Sandra Long 09:48:02
I understand you want to report your seller as they are forcing you to remove the feedback you left. I'll be happy to look into this for you. While I'm reviewing your account, are there any additional concerns you would like me to address for you today?

jamiekitson 09:48:25
that's it

jamiekitson 09:48:32
here;s the info that you need

jamiekitson 09:48:42
Seller: ***********

jamiekitson 09:48:49
Item number: **********

Sandra Long 09:49:42
Don't worry, I will do my best to help you resolve this matter. Please bear with me for a few moments while I investigate this for you.

jamiekitson 09:50:11
thankyou12

jamiekitson 09:50:19
thankyou!

Sandra Long 09:54:20
Thanks for waiting.

jamiekitson 09:54:30
ok

Sandra Long 09:54:36
We want to assure you that we'll take appropriate action if necessary based on our site rules.

Sandra Long 09:54:49
The action we take may include formal warnings, temporary account restrictions and indefinite suspension, depending on the severity of the policy breach. Members who receive a warning or a temporary suspension will be able to continue to trade on eBay.

Sandra Long 09:54:53
As I'm sure you'll understand, member privacy is one of our top priorities, so we won't be able to update you about the results of this investigation

Sandra Long 09:55:13
It will still be your own discretion if you will remove the feedback, Jamie.

jamiekitson 09:55:24
ok

jamiekitson 09:56:07
but this seller is already warn that it is not allowed to harrass an ebayer nor threat them if you cant get what you want right?

I didn't know that, so it's quite unlikely that I would have said it. Especially like that.

jamiekitson 09:56:24
Definitely i wont remove the feedback

Nope, didn't say that.

jamiekitson 09:56:35
so the other buyers will know how bad he is

Didn't say that either.

Sandra Long 09:57:41
Yes, it is your right to leave the appropriate feedback.

jamiekitson 09:57:57
good

jamiekitson 09:58:22
but what i am trying to say is what kind of warning that you will be sending to this seller?]

Didn't ask that.

jamiekitson 09:58:46
it should be a serious issue because he is trying to tell me that he can come here and break my neck

I definitely didn't say that, and he has never threatened me with violence.

jamiekitson 09:58:53
i already reported this member to local police

Also completely untrue.

Sandra Long 09:59:44
I assure you that we will be taking the appropriate action.

jamiekitson 09:59:49
246

jamiekitson 09:59:59
Thank you

jamiekitson 10:00:10
that's it

jamiekitson 10:00:11
cheers

jamiekitson 10:00:15
have a great day

Sandra Long 10:01:28
It's my pleasure to assist you, will there be anything else I can help you with?

jamiekitson 10:02:46
none so far

jamiekitson 10:02:47
thanks

System10:02:55
The chat session is being wrapped up.

System10:02:55
The chat session has ended.

System10:02:55
This chat was on 08/16/2012. All times in the above transcript are in the following time zone: (GMT) Greenwich Mean Time : Dublin, Edinburgh, Lisbon, London

So now I am left feeling like I want to contact the eBay member to tell him that I didn't accuse him of these things and take his side against eBay.

UPDATE: After emailing eBay with a couple of my comments above, I received the following reply:

Thanks for emailing us back about this seller. I understand your concern that they are still selling on eBay...

Sigh.

eBay Rule 1: Don't be a fucking idiot

I recently put a laptop up for sale on the ever more expensive eBay. A few days after the listing had started I received notification from eBay that my listing had been cancelled by them. The reason? I had specified that I would accept cash, but had not specified that buyers should not send cash through the post. What fucking idiots send cash through the post? Apart from it being absolutely bleeding obvious, it is also completely within eBay's power to warn buyers not to post cash themselves, they could put a big warning in bold red type right next to the option. I have now relisted my item with the following warning:

Please note: ebay cancelled my previous auction because I did not specify that cash should not be sent by post, so please remember not to send cash by post. Also, do not play with sharp knives, use matches/lighters near petrol, or jump off cliffs.

eBay Dicks

hi there would you accept 260 cash? bearing in mind i can pay cash on collection you wouldnt have to pay ebay and paypal fees(ebay 10% final value fee, paypal 4% service charge). put that ontop of my offer comes to over £300 on ebay which obviously if you look at completed listing they dont get. let me know

- morne1514

> put that ontop of my offer comes to over £300

No it doesn't*, and I'm hoping to get £330 for it, but I'll keep your offer in mind, thanks.

- jamiekitson

hi there no problem, i cant do more then 270 am afraid, if you look online you will see they are new 330 nowadays. as for what they go for on here, i have added you some links to completed listings so you can see for yourself, most of them are brand new and minues the ebay and paypal fees they dont even clear 250 so the choice is yours, let me know otherwise going the other route and buying a samsung galaxy note

- morne1514

Mine comes with a cradle and receipt.

Please go away.

- jamiekitson

no need to be rude, i was offering you a valid offer which in theory should have been good for you and me. you send me links for the ones going for most they go on ebay, thats just retarded as the average NEW ones still sell for under 300 as i showed this to you, as for the amazon link lol even xxx online sells them for 340 new so please you are embarrassing yourself. sorry i ever contacted you i can assure you i wont again

- morne1514

He lied.

lolz i would have actually been the highest bidder if you didnt block me from bidding. gutted

- morne1514

Well thank god I did.

* Yes I did embarrass myself with that maths.

eBay Annoyances

It's been a bit love-hate-hate between me and eBay recently. First eBay managed to set me up with a very nice guy who was very grateful to get a pair of tickets for Daniel Johnston and Laura Marling. He was due to be taking a young lady and had forgotten to get tickets, so he was very pleased to be able to buy a pair from me at face value. Then eBay refused to let me cancel the auction, which was still running, as they have some stupid there must be at least 12 hours remaining to cancel a sale rule. I mean, I didn't have a genuine reason, but what if you were selling a hamster and it died? Or a cigar that got wet? So having gone through the rigmarole of cancelling every single bid by hand, giving the reason as "Item no longer available." and quickly selling them to my girlfriend at £5 I thought that was the end of the matter. But no, this morning I get an arsey email from "flying giraffe" demanding to know why he didn't win the tickets for his £10 bid when they sold for £5, despite the fact that they were at £26 when I cancelled the bids. Here is my reply to him, all the text of his second email is contained within.

> I'm sorry,

Are you really?

> but why have they become unavailable?

They were tragically lost in a terrible tickets-left-in-pocket washing machine accident.

> When you put something up for auction you are
> legally obliged to go through with the sale.

No you are not, there is no contract at that point, otherwise eBay would not let a seller cancel an auction at all. If what you say were true then everybody who cancels an auction would be breaking the law. The only reason eBay stop a seller cancelling an auction 12 hours from the end is that they want to make as much money as possible.

Perhaps I should have just replied "So sue me." Serously, do not email a stranger with some bullshit story about how they've just commited a crime. eBay buyers are quickly becoming my second favourite group of people, just behind pedestrians who jump out in front of me from between (not parked) cars.
Meanwhile my other eBay saga continues.

Suspicious eBayer Minds

I recently sold some small bits and pieces on eBay. I wasn't really interested in the small amount of money that they'd generate, I just didn't want to consign them to landfill. The winning bidder of an incomplete set of bicycle skewers, which sold for £3, eventually emailed me to say that he had a cheque for me, "printed by Nationwide". I replied that he could donate the money to charity and I'd send him the skewers. to quote my new favourite blog ACTUAL QUOTE TIME!

Dear Jamie Kitson

Thank you for your e-mail. Whilst I have every intention of paying you, I shall now also donate to charity by purchasing one of those magazines from poor young people on the 'high' street.

The cheque will have to go back to the branch which issued it, for shredding and, hopefully, a credit. There can't be that many people with your name where you live and you must have a bank account so I am curious about your response, HOWEVER, I AM keenly aware this is none of my business. If it is a question of security though, as with some eBayers, it would make sense not to use your own name. I am myself concerned about security, which helps to explain my unfortunate delay as I was reluctant to link savings account and card, (which I have done some time ago). Also I am learning while buying, not having been a seller yet. I am wondering whether to have a different ID for sales. Ebay suggests using different eBay and e-mail IDs for security reasons but I think that anyone who encounters Virgin/NTL and tries to do anything with it's e-mail system, is surely doomed. Well I'm sure that's quite enough from me for now, too much probably, so I will leave you with my profuse apologies and regrets.

As soon as I get Paypal I will certainly reimburse you.

Yours Sincerely Andrew

Hi Andrew,

you may have received the skewers by now, if so you will see that I've put a return address on the envelope. I am not overly paranoid about security and my address is publicly available, it just didn't seem worth the effort of going to the bank, queuing, etc. for £3*. In fact I have a two year old cheque from TFL for £2 that I haven't paid in yet.

I don't think your bank will need to credit you as, as I understand it, the money for cheques does not leave your account until the cheque is paid in to the receiver's account.

Cheers, Jamie

* Let's say I get paid £10 an hour, that would make £3 of my time about twenty minutes, roughly the time all that would take.

UPDATE: Oh dear God, will this ever end? I wish I'd just thrown the damn things away.

So far all that has arrived is a "TO PAY" card. It may be nothing to do with you but I have to wonder.
Did you get the packet weighed and proper postage paid? Thanks and sorry to bother you with such a trifling matter but I remembered you saying you don't like going to the bank for small things and it occurred to me that the same could apply to the Post Office. Again I apologise if I'm imagining something absurd and suspect you unfairly, just that you said you posted the set remains weeks ago!
Regards
Andrew

I'm beginning to think that it's me that's being ridiculed.

Dear Jamie

The excess was only 37 pence, plus a fee of £1 and I had to pay with stamps on the card, (at the Post Office which I had to visit anyway). So I shall be refunding you, if indeed it is the skewers and that is just a guess on my part, bearing in mind that I am expecting 15-20 items or so. If it's not the skewers then I shall write you a grovelling apology! Shall let you know when item arrives.

Regards

Andrew

The Mess That Is The Mobile Web

I wanted to check an ebay auction on my mobile the other day. I typed in m.ebay.co.uk as the m subdomain seems to be the common mobile web shortcut (see m.google.co.uk and m.flickr.com). But that didn't work. Next I tried ebay.co.uk/mobile (I think I might have googled for that) which linked to pages.ebay.co.uk/mobile/web/ which in turn promised me that the address I was after was ebaymobile.co.uk. But that didn't work either! Eventually, I think through googling some more I found it at wap.ebay.co.uk. eBay isn't the first company to use the wap subdomain, see also wap.tfl.gov.uk. I think the most rediculous mobile subdomain I know of is nationalrail's pda.ojp.nationalrail.co.uk. Kai is against the .mobi TLD as he believes that it will fragment the web, but as all these subdomains suggest, we do need separate pages for devices with small screens, as good as CSS is, it cannot do it alone, and once you admit that we need different pages for mobiles wouldn't it be easier if we all knew that we could use the .mobi address? I really do prefer the m subdomain over all of this though, purely because it's fewer letters to type on a tiny keyboard. Incidentally wap.ebay.co.uk is pretty good and ebay.mobi forwards to ebay.com.

UPDATE: Another thing that annoys me is browser detection. If I go to a mobile site I do not want to be redirected to the desktop site just because the site in question doesn't know about the browser I am using.

UPDATE: I emailed ebay about their issue, and surprisingly they responded. In their email was this gem: "We do have carrier-specific mobile sites." WTF?

Doh!

In my previous post about overseas ebay prices now being in-line with retailer prices I failed to mention the most obvious candidate: the devaluation of the pound. I can only assume that the lack of comments to this effect means that no one reads my blog.

eBay Prices

A few years ago by buying goods on eBay from places like Hong Kong you could make pretty big savings, less if you ended up having to pay tax. Now though that doesn't seem to be the case, I don't know whether the sellers have realised that eBay buyers will pay stupid money for stuff, traditional retailers have realised that they need to reduce their prices or the taxation laws and enforcement has been tightened up. For example, back when I bought my D70s, 18-200mm and SB-600 I think I made about 20% saving by buying from overseas (although at the time I don't think you could get the 18-200mm anywhere else). Now I am looking at getting a D90, SB-400 and 20mm lens there seems to be practically zero saving by buying overseas.

This is turning into a bit of an ebay blog :-/

I still have 7 posts to go to keep up with previous years. That's one post every three days.

Beware The 070 Number

Having received the following in reply to my bike ad and exchanging a couple more emails I eventually called the number, what harm can it do I thought?

My Name is Mr Frank Moore am an Australian based in Hawthorn Terrace DURHAM UNITED KINGDOM.I saw your advert that you have a bike for sale am interested in buying the bike from you i will like to know the mechanical history bike.I can't download the pictures from the site kindly furnish me with more picture's of the bike so that i can have a view and make up my mind on it.Am buying the bike for my Son as a birthday gift and my Son his presently in South Africa practicing as a Medical Doctor.you can ring me on 07031856882 or email:moore.fm@gmail.com. Regards Frank

Well it turns out that 070 numbers are not mobile numbers, they're "personal" numbers, that can cost up to 50p a minute. I wish I'd googled for that particular number earlier, having found this, which sounds strangely familiar:

My Name is Mr Dennis Wilson am an Swedish based in DURHAM UNITED KINGDOM.I saw your advert on internet that you have a pup for sale am interested in buying the pup from you i will like to know the health condition of the pup,Is the pet KC registered?furnish me with more picture's of the pup so that i can make up my mind on it as am buying the pup for my Son as a birthday gift and my Son his presently in South Africa practicing as a Medical Doctor.you can ring me on 07031856882 or email:dw.wilson007@gmail.com. Regards Dennis

Updates

After calling Virgin Media again about the junk mail and listening to somebody verbally lead me through the process of removing our multiple addresses from their database I really thought I'd got through to them, but unfortunately it seems not. I rang them again today, our address was not in their database apparently, so now it is, with a note for them not to mail us. She recommended the Mail Preference Service to me, which we have been members of for sometime now.

The latest FStream update that allows it continue playing when the iPhone sleeps has stopped the even flaky functioning on the 3G network :( It still works for some of my friends so double :((

Following a suggestion on the ADSL Guide forums I filed a complaint with ISPA on behalf of my girlfriend. Virgin Media contacted her before she'd even seen my email informing her that I'd done anything, so she was a bit confused. They have since given her a migration code and promised her that they won't charge her a cancellation fee.

My ebay scammer address seemed to work, my iPhone has now successfully sold. Unfortunately I am now getting dodgy emails about my bike ad, one from "DURHAM UNITED KINGDOM" who wants to buy it as a gift for his son who is a medical doctor in South Africa, surely there must be closer basket cases to Durham, and South Africa for that matter.

I continued to receive replies from paypal even after my final thank you and good night. I guess they have to reply to every email. The latest was a request for feedback. My answers included: "Your representatives largely do not seem to speak English. That would be a good start. There is also way too much insincere waffle about how they are so pleased to be able to help me that it almost sounds sarcastic." and "It's a rip off for sellers but very convenient."

Something I've been meaning to mention for a while: 02 seem to have quietly dropped their fair usage limit, yay!

ebay Etiquette

With my iPhone at £185 with 7 hours to go I received this:

Dear jamie,

Jamie can I buy it off you now for £200 incl p p
via paypal

Justin

Dear justin,

Don't be ridiculous.

jamie

Dear jamie,

thanks for the rude reply good luck with ur sale
a polite no would be nice . anyone would think ur selling the only i
phone on here th e way u responded . v offputting to bid now

justin

The phone eventually sold for £290. Unfortunately to someone registered in Germany, on business in the US and buying it for their business partner's daughter in Lagos. You can read my response at the bottom of my new listing.