Etiquette for mis-described items?

Make-it-3

Some thoughts and opinions please. I don't know if its just a coincidence, but I have lately had a lot of problems with stuff being advertised as "new" and turning out to be re-boxed, seconds, flawed etc

Now the power of ebay to beat sellers with a stick means they have all refunded without question and told me to keep the item anyway.

But I wondered what the etiquette for feedback should be in this instance. Obviously, I'm not out of pocket but its a hassle and I hate getting stuff that isn't what it says it should be, especially if I needed it urgently and its just plain dishonest selling.

What would/do you do. So far I haven't left feedback at all for these sellers.

theonlywayisup

If the problem is resolved in so much as I am not out of pocket, then I don't leave feedback unless the item has been replaced and put me in the position I thought I was going to be in (when I bought it). Then I would leave a glowing positive.

You can usually judge a business by it's reaction to you when things go wrong.

ballisticbrian

Here is part of the problem with eBay.

The competition is so aggressive that it is starting to be bad for consumers.

The fact that you can sort every search by price (and most people do) means it is tempting for sellers to shave pennies off their sales.

The competition is so fierce, I have seen fakes, seconds, wrong region DVDs, even chemicals passed off as food grade goods, hundreds of times electricals supplied with two pin plugs, and the list goes on and on and on.

Factory returns. Sometimes bought by the pallet, sometimes electricals. No-one knows why item X was returned, maybe smoke was coming out of it. Hmmm, lets leave that electric blanket to warm up the bed and see how it goes. It wouldn't be for sale on eBay if it was dangerous, would it? :eek:

As long as people get their refunds, and even what once was bad feedback gets revised and the sellers continues.

Make-it-3

You've hit on the crux of the problem there BallisticBrian, I kind of feel like I am perpetuating the problem if I keep shumm because the seller has put it right for me, but what about all the other customers that come after me ....

Taadaa

E Bay is beyond a joke these days. I stopped buying second hand items for this reason a long time ago because of them being mis-described, and I only ever buy low value items from business sellers now assuming I can't get them from anywhere else (things like fabric for example). I have had two crappy experiences with business sellers in the past few months and e bay haven't helped at all.

porto_bello

I think it rather depends on the nature of the goods and the seller and essentially whether deception was the intent:

For instance, if I bought an inexpensive teddy bear, clearly advertised as second-hand, from a private seller and it turned out that some of the stitching was coming away under the arm or similar, I don't think I'd be too bothered.

However, if I bought the same thing from an experienced business seller, who writes extensively about their 'professionalism' all over the listing and advertised the item as brand new, I would certainly be far from impressed!

ballisticbrian

I was talking almost exclusively about business sellers where, in a way, it's the sellers who are doing the "bidding" on how cheap they can supply your item.

Make-it-3

Yep me too, I'm talking about business sellers who are supposedly selling "new" items.

A private seller or a used item I would give more leeway to.

TAG

theonlywayisup wrote: »

If the problem is resolved in so much as I am not out of pocket, then I don't leave feedback unless the item has been replaced and put me in the position I thought I was going to be in (when I bought it). Then I would leave a glowing positive.

You can usually judge a business by it's reaction to you when things go wrong.

Wish one of my buyers was like you when I messed up last week

I sold two bundles last week to two buyers and managed to mix them up somehow whilst packing them up for posting.

Buyer 1 messaged me to say they'd got the wrong bundle, mistakes happen etc. But they really liked them and would like to keep them if possible, if not would return them.

Buyer 2 opened a case and wanted a refund.

So, I refunded buyer 2 in full within 24 hrs, told them there was no need to return the items and that I was very sorry for my error etc. Result a netural that said 'Thanks'. You can't really respond to a 'thanks' can you? Plus trashed stars for IAD. Which is what I expected.

Buyer 1 left a positive with great stars even though the items they got were 'originally sold' for less than they actually paid and not what they ordered.

porto_bello

On the plus side of TAG's situation, instead of one, it could have ended up with 2 lots of trashed DSRs and 2 negatives, which would have been twice as damaging.

And at least the 'bad one' was a neutral, rather than a negative.

By the way, with just the word 'thanks' against a neutral, it looks like the buyer simply doesn't understand feedback, so most buyers will probably ignore it - I certainly would. I certainly wouldn't respond to it, as it'll do more harm than good, essentially confirming that there was a problem, rather than the buyer being a bit misguided.

TAG

porto_bello wrote: »

On the plus side of TAG's situation, instead of one, it could have ended up with 2 lots of trashed DSRs and 2 negatives, which would have been twice as damaging.

And at least the 'bad one' was a neutral, rather than a negative.

By the way, with just the word 'thanks' against a neutral, it looks like the buyer simply doesn't understand feedback, so most buyers will probably ignore it - I certainly would. I certainly wouldn't respond to it, as it'll do more harm than good, essentially confirming that there was a problem, rather than the buyer being a bit misguided.

Yes, it wasn't as bad as it could of been and I have come out of it relatively unscathed. I haven't responded to the netural as I came to the same conclusion as you have.

Just goes to show though how damaging a silly mistake like that could be.