Advice please

ankles4242

Hi all,
Firstly I would like to say many thanks to the people who post on here as I have learnt a lot from reading the advice given to people.
Secondly I would just like some advice on what I should do regarding 3 seperate incidents on Ebay.

1)I won a 2nd chance offer for 15 polo shirts costing £13.50 with P&P at £9.99.A parcel was delivered with just 5 shirts in it(P&P being £4.74 for that parcel) so I sent a message to the seller asking him where the other 10 were.
In the meantime I decided I would get his contact details and give him a phone call,however his phone number was false as there was no such number.
I reported him to Ebay for this as I was slightly worried that I had been ripped off.
He eventually replied and said that there were a total of 4 parcels and that he had sent them all out together.
I kept him upto date about them still not coming and he said that he would refund me by the Saturday if they hadn't turned up by then.

To cut a long story short he had been NARU before the Saturday due to the false phone number and another incident that had occured.
I sent him a message and email stating that I was now going to claim against him or make a small claims against him.
I stated my case to Paypal and he replied that he would refund me if I sent the shirts back and provided a tracking reference but I have to send them back at my own cost.
He also sent me an email stating that he would refund me in full for return of the shirts or I could keep what I had and he would also refund me.
I asked what kind of refund he had in mind.
He replied with this:
"hi there i was thinking i would refund your winning bid of 13.50 only, by doing this i would still be leaving myself out of pocket as it cost me £14 odds to post the parcels. let me know what u think"
He had previously said he had proof of postage and had contacted RM who weren't very helpful.

What would you advise me to do?
I don't want to be sending the other shirts back and I don't mind keeping them as I wanted them in the first place as it would still leave me out of pocket and incase they went mysteriously missing.
However I also don't want to be out of pocket with his refund offer as can't he claim everything back anyway?
Any advice on how I should proceed with this would be much appreciated

2)I won a football shirt before for £2.00 with P&P of £1.50
I hadn't got around to paying for it yet before I had received an email from the seller saying that they had to change postage to £3 as they were undercharging and added " hope this is ok, thanx "
I replied with this:
"Hi,
I'm sorry but I'm not very happy about this being changed after I have won the item as I bidded on your item with the stated P&P listing being at £1.50.
I know football shirts can be sent out for less than this as I received one this morning which was sent 1st class at 0.68p so I'm afraid that I cannot accept this new postage charge after I have already won the item.
Kind Regards
xxxxxxx"

I haven't had a reply upto now but if they refuse to sell me it do I file a NPS even though I haven't paid for it yet,they have even changed the invoice now to accommodate the new P&P.
Any advice on this as well please

3)Since writing this long post lol,it looks like it is going to be resolved

Many thanks in advance for reading this and for your advice

bleugh

1

charge back for the full amount, he can't prove delivery, so, in theory, you've never received anything

then, when you get all the money back, either post the shirts back to him, OR, pay him the relevant percentage back for the number of shirts you have received (i.e. give him 1/3 of the payment as you have 1/3 of the goods)

2 - ebay allows a reasonable change in the postage value at the end of the auction, it's up to you how far you take that one. note, even though it may cost 68p to post a single, cheaply made, poorly packed shirt, thicker fabrics, well packed, sent recorded delivery WILL cost more

personally i'd offer a compromise, half way - ish between the two amounts (i.e. £2.25), if the seller refuses, then file a non performing seller, and also, expect bed feedback to be left. if you stick to your guns and refuse outright to compromise, then, please, let me know your ebay ID, i'll block you as an unreasonable bidder

at the end of the day, if this is some small time seller, then BE NICE, they're trying to make money like everyone else. turn the tables, the last thing you'd want as a seller is making a loss on an item and having some @rse being grumpy about £1.50 worth of postage

ankles4242

bleugh wrote:

1

charge back for the full amount, he can't prove delivery, so, in theory, you've never received anything

then, when you get all the money back, either post the shirts back to him, OR, pay him the relevant percentage back for the number of shirts you have received (i.e. give him 1/3 of the payment as you have 1/3 of the goods)

2 - ebay allows a reasonable change in the postage value at the end of the auction, it's up to you how far you take that one. note, even though it may cost 68p to post a single, cheaply made, poorly packed shirt, thicker fabrics, well packed, sent recorded delivery WILL cost more

personally i'd offer a compromise, half way - ish between the two amounts (i.e. £2.25), if the seller refuses, then file a non performing seller, and also, expect bed feedback to be left. if you stick to your guns and refuse outright to compromise, then, please, let me know your ebay ID, i'll block you as an unreasonable bidder

at the end of the day, if this is some small time seller, then BE NICE, they're trying to make money like everyone else. turn the tables, the last thing you'd want as a seller is making a loss on an item and having some @rse being grumpy about £1.50 worth of postage

Hi,
I did claim for a full refund with Paypal.
He says he has proof of posting and I have already informed him and Paypal that I have received 5 of them.
This is what Paypal said to me:
"We have determined that you may be eligible for a refund on this PayPal
transaction. To qualify for a refund, just return the item to the seller in
its original condition. (You are responsible for postage and packing costs
for the returned merchandise.) The amount you will be eligible to receive
is determined by the terms of our buyer protection policies, and we may be
unable to make a full recovery of your payment from the seller. Please
review the buyer protection policies in our User Agreement before returning
the item to the seller."

I have to return them at my own cost before I will get a refund so that leaves me out of pocket anyway.
I have already stated in my Paypal dispute about how much refund I think I am entitled to if I were to keep the other shirts so the seller knows what I would like back.
I based the refund on like you yourself suggested on a 1/3 basis which I calculate it to be £15.66.
I shall put this to him again as I think I am being reasonable about this.


2)You quoted "then, please, let me know your ebay ID, i'll block you as an unreasonable bidder

at the end of the day, if this is some small time seller, then BE NICE, they're trying to make money like everyone else. turn the tables, the last thing you'd want as a seller is making a loss on an item and having some @rse being grumpy about £1.50 worth of postage"

I take offence at the above statement as I am not at all an unreasonable bidder.I pay straight away and even when I could have complained about things,haven't.
I also hope that you weren't referring to my being an @rse and that it was a statement in general.
I know people have costs and are trying to make money but I think you missed the principle of what I was saying.
It is upto the seller to make sure when listing something to make sure that they have got their P&P costs correct before listing an item.
It had occured to me that the seller may have added this new amount to the P&P because the shirt hadn't gone for more than they would have liked.
Surely this is misrepresentation and not fair to those bidders who are faced with a NPB action if they choose not to proceed with the transaction because the seller changes his mind about P&P AFTER the item has been won.
At the end of the day would you like it if you had purchased something at the said P&P be it one of the big stores or a small store then all of a sudden you find you're being charged more than what you had expected?
I don't think you would like it would you and that is the point I'm making.
Maybe you would like to give me your ID and I'll make a point of not buying off an unreasonable seller

bs7

ankles4242 wrote:

2)You quoted "then, please, let me know your ebay ID, i'll block you as an unreasonable bidder

at the end of the day, if this is some small time seller, then BE NICE, they're trying to make money like everyone else. turn the tables, the last thing you'd want as a seller is making a loss on an item and having some @rse being grumpy about £1.50 worth of postage"

I take offence at the above statement as I am not at all an unreasonable bidder.I pay straight away and even when I could have complained about things,haven't.

I totally agree with you on this point. If bleugh thinks it's fair for a seller to change the postage amount after the auction - then the inverse must also be true and a buyer would be acting fairly in refusing to pay until the postage is reduced to a 'reasonable' level. And i know that very few people would suggest that would be 'fair'.
They made the mistake - so i would simply reitterate that you are unhappy about it.
I don't see how it's in any sense 'fair' or 'reasonable' to increase the final price from £3.50 to £5. An increase of £1.50 on a £2 item may seem reasonable to bleugh but it does seem to suggest upping the price rather than genuinely covering costs. Besides the buyer should only be concerned with their own motives for using the auctions - they shouldn't be considering if the seller has made a bad bargain or not. If their auction didn't reach as high a price as they expected and they missed calculated the postage cost, then i'm afraid they'll have to take a loss (i'm sure quite a few of us have messed up postage costs at some point and would never dream of asking the buyer for more money to cover it - that truly is being a "@rse").


With regards to the first 'problem'. It's odd that he sent them in 4 packages - surely the postage cost would have been a lot cheaper to send them as one (although £4.74 looks as if that was First Class and weighed 1.1kg - so maybe it was because of the weight for some bizarre reason) - so that does make me think there's something odd going on.
If he does have proof of posting he'll not be out of pocket as will have ample cover as has 3 lost packages and so i see no reason why he wouldn't give you a partial refund of £15.66.

ankles4242

Thanks for your comments bs7,you have clarified the points I was trying to make in the first place,nice to know someone is on the same wavelength

I have sent another email to the 2nd incident seller askin if they had received my previous one about my not being happy over the change in postage after the auction ended,upto now no reply.
I noticed on all 16 of their other auctions that they had had listings with P&P set at £1.50 for shoes,dungarees at £2.00 which are a lot heavier than a football shirt may I add ;)skirt at £1.50 which ended the same time as my bid and so forth.
This is now definitely looking like they have bumped the P&P price up because they haven't received what they had hoped to get for the shirt.
The way I see this is that they are trying it on and I am peeved at this.

As a matter of fact I have just sent a message to the winning bidder of the skirt to ask if the same thing has happened to them,if not I can only presume that my new postal charge was to bump the winning value up after all.

Re the first problem,I thought it odd too that I only got 5 shirts in the 1 parcel,hence why I decided to pull his contact details and give him a call.
My suspicions arose even more after calling a none existent number.
I have sent him another mail with the suggestion of a partial refund of £15.66 and also mentioned to him that he won't be out of pocket if he has proof of posting.

To be honest I'm beginning to think if there were 15 shirts to sell to me as I've been doing a bit of research but it's a weird situation.
He has also been NARU due to possible shill bidding on his own auctions which led to my being offered the 2nd chance offer in the first place.
With my being worried about being scammed I sent a message to the winner of the original auction to ask if they had received all of their shirts.
Now the funny thing is, is that the buyer never replied to my message,the reply came from the seller ?
He said "yes got them all no problems"
That was the icing on the cake and I reported him for having false contact details and for possible shill bidding.
Both the other buyer and him are now NARU.

I am not an unreasonable bidder,I treat sellers with respect but when it comes down to people trying to con me it gets my back up and I won't let people get away with it,if the situation was reversed they would be the first to cry blue murder.
I have had a lot of brilliant buying experiences where I cannot fault the seller at all and I have always been left excellent feedback and also given it.
It's sad that there are a few individuals that spoil this though.

Like I said previously I have learnt a lot off here reading the posts and how to resolve situations etc and I thank people for their words of wisdom.

Many thanks again bs7 for taking the time and trouble to read and reply
Also thanks to you too Bleugh,still think I'm being unreasonable now eh :P

bleugh

ebay thinks its fair to alter the post by a reasonable amount, and i've posted shirts before, I can assure you that it SHOULD cost a lot more than 68p, around £2 (before packaging materials are added, jiffy bags aren't free you know) is more like it when it's sent recorded delivery


can someone point me to the page, i can't find it now!!



sorry to say you were an @rse, i do tend to let my emotions of the day run through to the posts on the forum



I always believe everything is about compromise, and knowing that a heavy, well packed shirt does cost a chunk more than £1.50 to send correctly by first class recorded delivery (as paypal requests), i can appreciciate that this is a genuine mistake on the sellers part

don't forget, postage isn't just about weight, it's about packaging materials, and also a small element of time

thats why I suggest to meet half way.

I've had sellers make mistakes on postage amounts before, as have I, I always ask, or offer to meet half way between both amounts, almost always the buyer or seller agrees , though more often than not, i'll take the small loss rather than bother the buyer as, at the end of the day, with everything i post, i break even :-)

the way I see it, it's less than a couple of quid, and what goes around, comes around, you get very vindictive buyers out there :-(, and i've had my main ebay account wrecked more than once when i've refused to give in to a buyers unreasonable demands

one example (of two) of a narked byter

"why is post £5, it only costs £2.50, i know, i work with the post office......well, there's the big box, and the polystyrene packaging 'maggots', and, oh, special delivery as the item's expensive, AND you have an unverified paypal account and 0 feedback, so, cheque / bank transfer only please)"

my auctions all got wrecked by a newly registered user bidding silly amounts

so, the compromise suggestion is as much to protect your account as help the seller!

bs7

bleugh wrote:

the way I see it, it's less than a couple of quid, and what goes around, comes around, you get very vindictive buyers out there :-(, and i've had my main ebay account wrecked more than once when i've refused to give in to a buyers unreasonable demands

one example (of two) of a narked byter

"why is post £5, it only costs £2.50, i know, i work with the post office......well, there's the big box, and the polystyrene packaging 'maggots', and, oh, special delivery as the item's expensive, AND you have an unverified paypal account and 0 feedback, so, cheque / bank transfer only please)"

Can you not recognise the problem with your logic though. If that's unreasonable for a buyer to do, why isn't the exact opposite by a seller also unreasonable.

If there is an ebay 'rule' regarding changing the price of postage afterwards then it's an extremely foolish rule indeed. Afterall there's a contract, and whilst not impossible, generally contracts usually have the price settled prior to the conclusion of contract.

I do agree that there may be some cases when it's not unreasonable to see if the buyer will compromise and pay something extra towards unexpectedly expensive postage - although i don't think a seller should expect the buyer to agree. And so any problems resulting in a buyer refusing to renegotiate the final price after the auction are the seller's fault entirely.

There must come a point where the buyer can rely upon the price on the auction - if the seller can't be bothered to accurately weigh the item and calculate the packaging costs - why should the buyer be penalised later. (I know i only make a rough guess and usually under-estimate but that's my fault and i take that loss).
I would not expect the buyer to have to second-guess my postage pricing when they bid in case i change it later. I am in a better position (since i have the goods) to work out how much it's going to cost. Also many sellers use the postage costs to encourage buyers - i only take into account the postage costs and bear the costs of the packaging from the 'profit' rather than postage.

Also a jump from £3.50 to £5 is over a 40% increase in the final value. The seller wants to increase the price paid by the buyer by 40% and thats meant to be fair!

In my opinion - if things were 'fair' - the seller's options would effectively be the choice between: taking the loss; or informing the buyer that they are unwilling to sell the item (as they messed up the postage costs) and they will willingly take negative feedback (and they have no right to leave negative feedback themselves) but can offer the chance to sell the item if the buyer paid more postage (although i would still maintain that if things were totally 'fair' that should also result in some comment about changing the postage cost in the feedback left for them).


It seems that you want to have your cake and eat it. You want to be able to change the postage costs and charge your buyers more, but yet you complain when they attempt to do the same to you. You've also admitted that it usually averages out. But by your logic each of those buyers that are subsidising your mistakes should be able to re-negotiate the postage price with you - since they are paying too much that is presumably just as 'unfair' as you getting paid too little.

Kay

It is the seller's responsibility to ensure that the price they advertise for the postage is correct - if they couldn't be bothered to weigh it before they put the postage online, then they should bear the cost. I have done this before, estimated a postage cost, and have had to take the cost out of the profit for the item. Conversely, I've also reduced postage for the same reason.

Yes, it may be reasonable to expect a well packed shirt to cost £3 to post, but shouldn't they have thought of that before they stated it was £1.50? Sounds to me like they're trying it on - if you want the shirts, pay the extra £1.50, but reflect the problems in the feedback.

bleugh

it's not about black and white, right and wrong,

it's about compromise and being nice

ultimatley, YES, the seller is wrong to bump the price up by so much

BUT, does it make the buyer right to not attempt a compromise, in this case, the seller wants £1.50 more, the buyer clearly has a desire to own the item, so offer 75p more for postage, it's a gesture of goodwill on both yours and the sellers behalf


at the end of the day, communication is needed between buyer and seller
if either party isn't willing to communicate then it's a bad transaction. if either party refuses to budge, it's not good


as for your last statement, you're re-wording my sentence

if i've put an obviously wrong postage charge on an auction, i'll ask the buyer if they can meet me half way (only ever needed that a couple of times when i've put pence instead of pounds in the postage amount)

if I buy an item thats obviously got wrong postage, and I get asked to pay the full correct amount, i'll offer to meet the buyer half way (unless they're obviously scamming)


so, we're back to square 1, ebay says communicate, thats what these two should do, if that communication results in buyer saying 'get lost, i'm not paying that' and the seller says 'tough luck, i'm not selling that' , then clearly no-one's happy, and everyone will probably get bad feedback (the buyer shouldn't get it as it's NOT really his fault, unless he refuses a reasonable compromise ). a compromise will result in either good feedbacks all round, or neutrals, thats not a good transaction

bs7

bleugh wrote:

it's not about black and white, right and wrong,

it's about compromise and being nice

I agree to some extent. But i still believe that sellers should seriously think twice before asking for more money. In theory, there's a contract - the buyer therefore has a price in mind for the item and this "compromise" changes the amount they were prepared to pay and i don't see how asking them to do that can be viewed as "nice".

I'm not sure what sort of value of item was being sold when you "put pence instead of pounds in the postage amount" - but, again in theory, the buyer will have taken the lower postage into account when bidding - and as a result will have bid more than they would otherwise have bid. Your "compromise" is, therefore, anything but "nice". They could equally ask you to reduce the final bid by exactly the same amount - so they therefore pay exactly what they bid.

It's difficult to maintain there's a contract and complain when buyers simply refuse to pay when there are people treating ebay as a introductory tool to find buyers and then haggling over the price afterwards. And using the fear of negative feedback to force them to pay more than they originally wanted to.

Strictly speaking, since there is a contract, and the error is unilateral, the seller is in breach of contract if they don't supply the goods at the final price. "Nice" or not - i'm not buying or selling things to be "nice" - at the end of the day i'm either interested in getting the best price or making the highest profit, and don't see why i should have to consider the other party's interests.

jenniferpa

Bleugh, I think the page you're thinking about is here http://pages.ebay.co.uk/help/policies/listing-surcharges.html (expand the "some examples" section). However, I totally disagree with your apparent reading of the specific section! To me, it reads that a reasonable amount can be added for post and packaging after the auction if post and packaging hasn't been agreed in advance, but the latter part is not explicity stated. If an item lists postage and packing upfront this must form part of the terms and conditions of sale, surely?