EBay Seller - Problem

GadgetGuru

I don't get why you even set off without the full address in the first instance? Especially considering you do not have a mobile phone, so had no way of obtaining any further details after leaving!
Many sellers only provide their door number when the buyer is actually there or almost there (I'm one of them), and your seller wasn't to know you haven't a phone in the first instance....

subjecttocontract

I think you have misunderstood. The seller did provide me with the address & postcode. With a house number, finding a property has never been a problem with the thousands of items I have collected. Without a number it's a little more difficult. The buyer did make some effort to help with extra info, after I asked...telling me the postcode should take me to the property, it didnt. Telling me there was a white car on the drive.....every other property has a white car. Telling me there was a low wall & wooden gates.......every third property has this. Anyway, I've given up on this one, definitely the most difficult pick up in many years.

cymruchris

subjecttocontract said:

I think you have misunderstood. The seller did provide me with the address & postcode. With a house number, finding a property has never been a problem with the thousands of items I have collected. Without a number it's a little more difficult. The buyer did make some effort to help with extra info, after I asked...telling me the postcode should take me to the property, it didnt. Telling me there was a white car on the drive.....every other property has a white car. Telling me there was a low wall & wooden gates.......every third property has this. Anyway, I've given up on this one, definitely the most difficult pick up in many years.

It could be time to get the most basic pay as you go non-smart mobile phone to keep in the glovebox for times like this. Not something you use every day - or carry around like a slave - or whatever reason you don't like them - but for last ditch attempts to help yourself when you get into difficulty. (If you break down in the middle of nowhere in the late evening with a downpour outside - you'd rather walk to find help rather than have the ability to contact the breakdown services from where you're standing?)

jeffuk

When you leave feedback be sure to mark the seller with what you might deem the appropriate star rating for communication.
That's exactly what it is for.

soolin

jeffuk said:

When you leave feedback be sure to mark the seller with what you might deem the appropriate star rating for communication.
That's exactly what it is for.

If buyer hasn't collected then I'm sure seller will cancel the sale and feedback becomes difficult, but not impossible. I would also wonder what that feedback would look like ' I went to collect without a full address and with no means to contact seller for help and couldn't find the place?'

vacheron

In over 22 years of eBay selling I have never had a buyer win a collection item and not message me after the sale to confirm the collection address.

Anyone contacting me in the last 10 years or so will receive a data pack containing my address, phone number, a large scale and small scale google maps screenshots, and both a what3words location and a google maps link that puts them right over the house.

All of these can be accessed and printed from a PC before leaving the house if the buyer is in 2% of the population who don't own a mobile phone.

If they are, why even set off without requesting this (IMHO) absoultely essential information? 

subjecttocontract

I don't have a printer either. Owning a printer &/or a mobile phone are not a requirement for using Ebay. I will need to make more effort when the next pick up from a house with no number happens.

soolin

subjecttocontract said:

I don't have a printer either. Owning a printer &/or a mobile phone are not a requirement for using Ebay. I will need to make more effort when the next pick up from a house with no number happens.

Before we had fancy phones we used to look places up on Google maps on the PC before we left home as you can get a street view. I worked freelance and often had to go to random offices and buildings and it was a nightmare sometimes, but if I knew what sort of building I was looking for, what was next to it etc it was much easier. I did a lot of my navigation with an A-Z and a handwritten note to myself to turn onto the street with the sweet shop on the corner and the building I wanted would be tucked away behind the one with the big red doors. 

vacheron

subjecttocontract said:

I don't have a printer either. Owning a printer &/or a mobile phone are not a requirement for using Ebay. I will need to make more effort when the next pick up from a house with no number happens.

I don’t think the issue is that you you choose to be in a very small minority of eBay users who don’t own either of these items. The issue is that every eBay seller will naturally assume that you do.

So as you said, you need to be the one to proactively explain this to the seller so they can be sure to send you very clear and detailed instructions.

vacheron

soolin said:

subjecttocontract said:

I don't have a printer either. Owning a printer &/or a mobile phone are not a requirement for using Ebay. I will need to make more effort when the next pick up from a house with no number happens.

Before we had fancy phones we used to look places up on Google maps on the PC before we left home as you can get a street view. I worked freelance and often had to go to random offices and buildings and it was a nightmare sometimes, but if I knew what sort of building I was looking for, what was next to it etc it was much easier. I did a lot of my navigation with an A-Z and a handwritten note to myself to turn onto the street with the sweet shop on the corner and the building I wanted would be tucked away behind the one with the big red doors. 

When I look back at how I used to travel the length and breadth of the country in the early 1990s with an AA atlas from the petrol station and a printout from the company I was visiting to guide me when I got close (and no mobile phone for if I got lost or broke down), it feels like I was living in another dimension! 🤪

Sometimes I would drive off and be away for a week and not call home once until I arrived back home again, so nobody knew if I’d even arrived.

now if you don’t pick up or message back every 10 or 15 minutes, people are panicing and sending out search parties! 🤪