What would you do then?

TrickyWicky

Hi all!

Righty I bought a tool for about a fiver on ebay. To put it mildly the quality was **** and it was also defective as a part was clearly mismanufactured.

So I opened a dispute. Seller says send it back using prepaid label but they will take £X back for restocking if they decide that the thing is not defective. The original auction mentions nothing of this term which makes it legally an unfair contractual term. Their excuse is that they're covering themselves telling me this - even though its too late to spring it on the customer.

Anyway after juicing up the car and heading to the PO I'd be at a loss if they decide to be difficult. So I escalated to ebay. Ebay bless them, decided in my favour and decided to refund me the entire thing saying not to worry about sending it back. Fair enough although admittedly if i was the seller i'd be a bit miffed at that but then they (IMO) diddled me in the first place. I left them an honest negative feedback for it all.

Anyway a few days ago they sent a feedback revision request asking me to contact them to sort it out and would I modify the feedback. Gut instinct says stuff it, they can have the neg but I do feel a bit mean considering ebay have now refunded the item.

What would you do?

Irn-Bru-Kid

Forget it and move on. By the sounds of things, eBay have given a no fault refund, so you get your money back and the seller isn't out of pocket.

It you felt the negative was justified, let it stand.

Just ignore all further messages

soolin

Ignore the feedback revision, and don't bother responding to seller at all.

flashnazia

Irn-Bru-Kid wrote: »

Forget it and move on. By the sounds of things, eBay have given a no fault refund, so you get your money back and the seller isn't out of pocket.

It you felt the negative was justified, let it stand.

Just ignore all further messages

Why do you think it's a no fault refund? Ebay seem to be automatically refunding buyers - at sellers loss - when cases are escalated, instantaneously in fact. They don't even read the seller's side of the story.

flashnazia

TrickyWicky wrote: »

Hi all!

Righty I bought a tool for about a fiver on ebay. To put it mildly the quality was **** and it was also defective as a part was clearly mismanufactured.

So I opened a dispute. Seller says send it back using prepaid label but they will take £X back for restocking if they decide that the thing is not defective. The original auction mentions nothing of this term which makes it legally an unfair contractual term. Their excuse is that they're covering themselves telling me this - even though its too late to spring it on the customer.

Anyway after juicing up the car and heading to the PO I'd be at a loss if they decide to be difficult. So I escalated to ebay. Ebay bless them, decided in my favour and decided to refund me the entire thing saying not to worry about sending it back. Fair enough although admittedly if i was the seller i'd be a bit miffed at that but then they (IMO) diddled me in the first place. I left them an honest negative feedback for it all.

Anyway a few days ago they sent a feedback revision request asking me to contact them to sort it out and would I modify the feedback. Gut instinct says stuff it, they can have the neg but I do feel a bit mean considering ebay have now refunded the item.

What would you do?

It sounds as though they acknowledge their mistake. Feedback can make or break a seller so I would give them a chance to put it right.

Irn-Bru-Kid

flashnazia wrote: »

It sounds as though they acknowledge their mistake. Feedback can make or break a seller so I would give them a chance to put it right.

Nonsense.

They should have just accepted the return and covered the postage from the get-go.

Instead, they threaten 'restocking fee's', which eBay don't allow anyway, this pee'd off the OP, so the neg is justified

flashnazia

Irn-Bru-Kid wrote: »

Nonsense.

They should have just accepted the return and covered the postage from the get-go.

Instead, they threaten 'restocking fee's', which eBay don't allow anyway, this pee'd off the OP, so the neg is justified

Aren't people allowed to put right their mistakes?

The person who replied to the email and mentioned the restocking fee might be some hapless staff member or something.

soolin

flashnazia wrote: »

Aren't people allowed to put right their mistakes?

The person who replied to the email and mentioned the restocking fee might be some hapless staff member or something.

I don't see it as putting right their mistake. I see it that a poor seller took a gamble that a buyer wouldn't know their rights- and the gamble didn't pay off.

As for employees, they would be working for the seller and if they were not trained properly then seller can only blame the,selves, not the buyer.

Irn-Bru-Kid

flashnazia wrote: »

Aren't people allowed to put right their mistakes?

The person who replied to the email and mentioned the restocking fee might be some hapless staff member or something.

On eBay, buyer is king.

If you mess up as a seller, to protect your feedback and reputation, you put right any mistake you make immediately.

You apologise profusely and offer a full refund with return postage. Or if it were me, I would just refund and allow the buyer to keep the item.

You do NOT mention restocking fee's or anything else that is going to leave the buyer out of pocket. This will put the buyer's back up and negative feedback is inevitable.

Two mistakes have been made here. Firstly, the seller sent a faulty product. Secondly, and most importantly, they messed the buyer around when trying to arrange a return.

It is now too late for the seller to 'put right' their mistakes.

The feedback should remain

Flyonthewall

I'd be wondering how they plan to put it right. Send you another item free, pay you compensation? All they're doing is basically paying you to change the feedback.

In the end they still sent out a useless item, tried to break the rules, didn't offer a full refund or replacment when they originally should have etc. So the negative is deserved.

It's not good business to treat buyers that way and they had a chance to make things right. Maybe in future they'll learn to do things the right way.

mrcol1000

You opened a case for a not as described item and they tried to stop you from seeing the case through by threatening you with a restocking fee. How many other buyers and have just let it go after being threatened with the restock fee and lost out?

Feedback is pointless if people aren't honest about their experience. The seller probably knows they can't charge a restocking fee and their items are poor quality. Yet they are doing business on the basis that buyers will just not bother to take it any further.

The OP gave the seller an opportunity to fix this and they didn't. The seller has an opportunity to respond to the feedback with their side and ask Ebay to remove it if they think it is unfair.