Advice on tricky ebay buyers greatly appreciated

FuzzyDuck

Hi. This is my first time so please be nice, even if you think I'm silly/paranoid or stupid!

My situation is that I sold an item on E-Bay mid June, unfortunately had to chase buyer to pay (which I hate doing). Eventually received payment, but no communication. Checked buyers feedback and they seemed to have a history of complaining about items not being received, so to protect myself I decided to take the hit and paid for the recorded option and posted item in early July. Been checking everyday via reference number and item still not delivered. Sought advice and as I had already suspected it's likely that item had attempted to be delivered but was unsuccessful so lkely to be waiting at local sorting office for buyer to collect etc.

I e-mailed buyer to enquire if they had received their item, as if not I believed their item may be in the local sorting office and suggested they contact them to arrange collection. No reply, yet I could see that this buyer was active on e-bay as I could see them continuing to post mostly negative feedback for other sellers. Several e-mails later asking them to please acknowledge me as I was concerned to see the item had still not been signed for, but nothing. Yet again even today the buyer is actively leaving negative feedback for sellers stating in majority of cases "item not received". Not exaggerating they have left 6 negative messages in last hour alone.

I have even contacted the online help team and they couldn't give me any advice, and were not concerened about buyer leaving so many negative feedbacks either, told to sit and wait really. Hopefully as sender details are on package it may find it's way back to me if they don't colect it in the next day or two. I am just concerened about the potential negative feedback and low stars that are likely to come my way about the buyer never receiving the item, when I have done all I can think of to prevent that being the case.

Would anyone recommend any further action or just let events take their course and then challenge any negative feedback via E-Bay team.

Not having a good week as another buyer has complained that I took took long to post an item which was posted the day after they paid and so I should write a letter to them and their split personalities to explain myself!

chemical.galaxy

FuzzyDuck wrote: »

Hi. This is my first time so please be nice, even if you think I'm silly/paranoid or stupid!

My situation is that I sold an item on E-Bay mid June, unfortunately had to chase buyer to pay (which I hate doing). Eventually received payment, but no communication. Checked buyers feedback and they seemed to have a history of complaining about items not being received, so to protect myself I decided to take the hit and paid for the recorded option and posted item in early July. Been checking everyday via reference number and item still not delivered. Sought advice and as I had already suspected it's likely that item had attempted to be delivered but was unsuccessful so lkely to be waiting at local sorting office for buyer to collect etc.

I e-mailed buyer to enquire if they had received their item, as if not I believed their item may be in the local sorting office and suggested they contact them to arrange collection. No reply, yet I could see that this buyer was active on e-bay as I could see them continuing to post mostly negative feedback for other sellers. Several e-mails later asking them to please acknowledge me as I was concerned to see the item had still not been signed for, but nothing. Yet again even today the buyer is actively leaving negative feedback for sellers stating in majority of cases "item not received". Not exaggerating they have left 6 negative messages in last hour alone.

I have even contacted the online help team and they couldn't give me any advice, and were not concerened about buyer leaving so many negative feedbacks either, told to sit and wait really. Hopefully as sender details are on package it may find it's way back to me if they don't colect it in the next day or two. I am just concerened about the potential negative feedback and low stars that are likely to come my way about the buyer never receiving the item, when I have done all I can think of to prevent that being the case.

Would anyone recommend any further action or just let events take their course and then challenge any negative feedback via E-Bay team.

Not having a good week as another buyer has complained that I took took long to post an item which was posted the day after they paid and so I should write a letter to them and their split personalities to explain myself!

Personally I would not contact the buyer again, you may just end up annoying them.
It sounds like your buyer knows what they are doing and I am sure they will be contacting you for a refund if the item does not arrive.
The deadline for opening a case in Ebay or Paypal is 45 days, and to leave feedback it's 60 days.

techspec

chemical.galaxy wrote: »

Personally I would not contact the buyer again, you may just end up annoying them.
It sounds like your buyer knows what they are doing and I am sure they will be contacting you for a refund if the item does not arrive.
The deadline for opening a case in Ebay or Paypal is 45 days, and to leave feedback it's 60 days.

Never a good idea to point out to a buyer you have no idea if the item as arrived.

When you say its not been delivered - do you mean its still showing as being in the royal mail system? Any attempted delivery would be stated. If its just saying "in the system" - there is a good chance that royal mail delivered it without bothering with a signature - especially if it fits through the letterbox.

I was in a similar position and was eventually claimed against buy the buyer. She was very rude - so i pointed out she needed to be rude to royal mail - who were losing all her parcels. She replied "what do you mean - this is the first item to be lost". I pointed out that she had left 20 negatives for 'item not received'. Daft cow didn't realise we could see her feedback left for others.

She got her free item from me - but didn't leave me a neg - as she now realised this was leaving a trail of her deceit.

Taadaa

Make sure you add them to your blocked buyers list!

soolin

My advice would be to STOP hassling buyer, why on earth are you continuing t email them about delivery. If they are that eager to leave negs I am sure they would have started to complain by now.

In many areas recorded never does update- so assume it has been received and stop worrying.

If buyer does contact you later saying item has not delivered deal with it then. Buyers are under no oblligation to tell us sellers when their items have arrived.