Delete this post

[Deleted User]

Delete this post

soolin

This is a difficult one to answer without appearing judgemental, but getting 'abusive buyer' warnings is almost unheard of on ebay- a buyer really needs to push the boundaries to get a warning and once you get one all further reports or issues will be looked at very carefully. In particular you admit the second warning you got was justified, and it could be argued that any abuse should see someone suspended from a site for a period of time, which does not appear to have happened. 

Just reading your post and looking back at some of your other questions suggests you do seem to have a high number of issues, perhaps it is a case that you rush into cases too early, or perhaps you choose your sellers badly. You mention for instance a high number of INR cases- this would be flagged as either you continually buy from scam sellers- or perhaps you open cases very early or chance your arm a bit with untracked items - only you know which it is. I have reported buyers in the past for opening INR that raise my suspicions, yes we all get lost parcels, I have it happen to me, but sometimes the claims just don't ring true. I have for instance reported a few buyers, in the past admittedly, who claimed an INR, and when I pointed out the RM delivery confirmation suddenly find the parcel and drop the case. I've also reported buyers for opening frivolous SNAD cases, especially where it is obvious they haven't read the listing or don't understand what they are buying . I have also reported buyers who open early INR cases and when item is delivered then try and claim SNAD that sounds dodgy- when it seems more likely they just have buyers remorse. having said that- I am finding buyers much more professional now and don't think I've reported anyone for well over a year.

Incidentally, for a good feedback  seller it is relatively easy to get negative feedback removed where a buyer has not opened any case and just gone for a neg. A seller just needs to report it as malicious feedback and point out that buyer made no attempt to resolve the issue.

I would be extremely careful going forward, only buy what you are absolutely sure you can see is exactly what you want and from a good seller. For example, your wiper blade, a seller that regularly sent out used/dirty wiper blades instead of new sealed ones isn't going to have good feedback - so check the feedback , it seems unlikely that they singled you out so there must have been something in their feedback suggesting they weren't honest about the condition. Look for stock photos- was your wiper blade shown as new and sealed in a manufacturers photo and not a photo of the actual blade? Don't be quick opening INRs on the first day you can, ebay estimates are very optimistic, give seller an extra few days.

zackary71

I concur with soolin's comprehensive comments above. Reading about what's happened, I get the impression you have unrealistic expectations of eBay buying. If I'm buying, and something goes wrong, I would always approach the Seller in the first instance, rather than using the Negative Feedback route as a retaliatory weapon. Awhile back, I had two SNADs in 2 days from the same buyer. They'd low-balled offers at 40% of list price in the past, so I already had concerns.They made no attempt to resolve first via a message. On the first one they got to keep the item AND got a full refund. The second one came back to me and was in the exact same condition as the description. Full refund given, a £3.30 loss and the phrase 'once bitten, twice shy'. I reported the Buyer for abusing the returns policy and blocked them. 

There will always be instances when Negative feedback is warranted. No offence meant however, but opening disputes, especially so many in under 6 months, suggests to me a less combative approach to eBay buying would reap benefits.

soolin

[Deleted User] said:

zackary71 said:

I concur with soolin's comprehensive comments above. Reading about what's happened, I get the impression you have unrealistic expectations of eBay buying. If I'm buying, and something goes wrong, I would always approach the Seller in the first instance, rather than using the Negative Feedback route as a retaliatory weapon. Awhile back, I had two SNADs in 2 days from the same buyer. They'd low-balled offers at 40% of list price in the past, so I already had concerns.They made no attempt to resolve first via a message. On the first one they got to keep the item AND got a full refund. The second one came back to me and was in the exact same condition as the description. Full refund given, a £3.30 loss and the phrase 'once bitten, twice shy'. I reported the Buyer for abusing the returns policy and blocked them. 

There will always be instances when Negative feedback is warranted. No offence meant however, but opening disputes, especially so many in under 6 months, suggests to me a less combative approach to eBay buying would reap benefits.

What do you think my expectations should be when buying on ebay. All I ask for is a seller to list there items correctly.

You can mitigate issues though, just remembering some of your threads you do have a slightly high expectation of your rights. Your car mats for instance, you can’t really expect to buy and return if you’ve got it wrong through no fault of the seller. Also  you do admit yourself in your OP that one of your warnings was deserved. 

Leaving negative feedback without attempting to resolve for instance shows that for some reason you were unwilling to use the eBay buyer protection, that usually suggests that a buyer knows they can’t win a claim if they open one so leave a neg in retaliation instead. 

soolin

[Deleted User] said:

soolin said:

[Deleted User] said:

zackary71 said:

I concur with soolin's comprehensive comments above. Reading about what's happened, I get the impression you have unrealistic expectations of eBay buying. If I'm buying, and something goes wrong, I would always approach the Seller in the first instance, rather than using the Negative Feedback route as a retaliatory weapon. Awhile back, I had two SNADs in 2 days from the same buyer. They'd low-balled offers at 40% of list price in the past, so I already had concerns.They made no attempt to resolve first via a message. On the first one they got to keep the item AND got a full refund. The second one came back to me and was in the exact same condition as the description. Full refund given, a £3.30 loss and the phrase 'once bitten, twice shy'. I reported the Buyer for abusing the returns policy and blocked them. 

There will always be instances when Negative feedback is warranted. No offence meant however, but opening disputes, especially so many in under 6 months, suggests to me a less combative approach to eBay buying would reap benefits.

What do you think my expectations should be when buying on ebay. All I ask for is a seller to list there items correctly.

You can mitigate issues though, just remembering some of your threads you do have a slightly high expectation of your rights. Your car mats for instance, you can’t really expect to buy and return if you’ve got it wrong through no fault of the seller. Also  you do admit yourself in your OP that one of your warnings was deserved. 

Leaving negative feedback without attempting to resolve for instance shows that for some reason you were unwilling to use the eBay buyer protection, that usually suggests that a buyer knows they can’t win a claim if they open one so leave a neg in retaliation instead. 

With the car mats forget what I said about returning at the sellers expense and let me put it another way. When the seller listed the car mats they said they were removed from a 2023 car but will fit cars from 2017 so if I purchased the mats for my 2021 car and they didn't fit can I open a dispute for SNAD.

I’m not sure that helps your argument as you had to change the scenario a few times to make your point that you were entitled to a free return .Obviously others may disagree, but I think you need to be clear when buying what you are buying , and not make assumptions or have unrealistic ideas about consumer rights. 

Regardless of my views, you are in a fairly unique situation of having an abuse warning, they are very rare and eBay take a lot to hand them out, and it certainly won’t be because a seller made a silly complaint against you. You need to be extremely careful going forward , you can’t risk another warning as you will already be on eBay’s radar and another warning might see you banned. If buying avoid sellers using stock photos, look at feedback carefully and be very clear what you are buying. 

zackary71

[Deleted User] said:

zackary71 said:

I concur with soolin's comprehensive comments above. Reading about what's happened, I get the impression you have unrealistic expectations of eBay buying. If I'm buying, and something goes wrong, I would always approach the Seller in the first instance, rather than using the Negative Feedback route as a retaliatory weapon. Awhile back, I had two SNADs in 2 days from the same buyer. They'd low-balled offers at 40% of list price in the past, so I already had concerns.They made no attempt to resolve first via a message. On the first one they got to keep the item AND got a full refund. The second one came back to me and was in the exact same condition as the description. Full refund given, a £3.30 loss and the phrase 'once bitten, twice shy'. I reported the Buyer for abusing the returns policy and blocked them. 

There will always be instances when Negative feedback is warranted. No offence meant however, but opening disputes, especially so many in under 6 months, suggests to me a less combative approach to eBay buying would reap benefits.

What do you think my expectations should be when buying on ebay. All I ask for is a seller to list there items correctly.

Your expectations should absolutely be a smooth seamless process. No-one would dispute that.  But mistakes do get made and human error is a factor. The pool of scammer Sellers is small on eBay, as they get weeded out pretty sharp with the checks and balances. In contrast, there are Sellers for whom eBay is their livelihood, and a Negative Feedback can have huge ramifications for their business. Maybe look from the other side and ask if you were a Seller, would you go out of your to do a Buyer over for the cost of a wiper blade, knowing if it goes pear-shaped, your eBay Feedback rating would be impacted ? Enjoy eBay by all means, but I honestly think you may benefit from a more gentler approach to using it...as I suspect if you continue down the same path, this particular shopping avenue won't be accessible to you in the future.

Two examples of my point.
1) I sold some Ladybird vintage children's books. I'd listed them as the year stamped on the book, say 1964. A very kind eBayer messaged to advise they were made much later mid 1970s, and gave me a link to find how to accurately place a date on them. I was very grateful as it avoided comebacks if someone who bought and added a SNAD.

2) I was selling an expensive Figurine, the manufacturer rhymed with 'Sshadro'. Another competing seller had the identical piece but was selling it for 25% my price as they'd inherited it, and thought it was the vastly inferior version of the sculpture.  I messaged them, and saved them losing maybe £75 on the Sale, as an expert 'hawk' would have spotted it and taken advantage. 

In short, kindness breeds kindness. I hope you'll take the advice from soolin and myself in the spirit it was given. Personally, I've been selling regularly on eBay for 20+ years. My actual job is dealing with complaints for a living, so I feel I'm well placed to share my thoughts on this thread. Again, No hard feelings.

prettyandfluffy

I've been buying and selling on EBay for 20 years, I've always has 100% feedback. Communication is key.  If there's any kind of an issue I always start by sending the other party a polite and friendly message flagging up my concern.  99.9% of EBayers will find a solution that both parties are happy with.  This means that on the rare occasions I have had to escalate things, EBay have found in my favour because I am reasonable to deal with.

soolin

[Deleted User] said:

zackary71 said:

[Deleted User] said:

zackary71 said:

I concur with soolin's comprehensive comments above. Reading about what's happened, I get the impression you have unrealistic expectations of eBay buying. If I'm buying, and something goes wrong, I would always approach the Seller in the first instance, rather than using the Negative Feedback route as a retaliatory weapon. Awhile back, I had two SNADs in 2 days from the same buyer. They'd low-balled offers at 40% of list price in the past, so I already had concerns.They made no attempt to resolve first via a message. On the first one they got to keep the item AND got a full refund. The second one came back to me and was in the exact same condition as the description. Full refund given, a £3.30 loss and the phrase 'once bitten, twice shy'. I reported the Buyer for abusing the returns policy and blocked them. 

There will always be instances when Negative feedback is warranted. No offence meant however, but opening disputes, especially so many in under 6 months, suggests to me a less combative approach to eBay buying would reap benefits.

What do you think my expectations should be when buying on ebay. All I ask for is a seller to list there items correctly.

Your expectations should absolutely be a smooth seamless process. No-one would dispute that.  But mistakes do get made and human error is a factor. The pool of scammer Sellers is small on eBay, as they get weeded out pretty sharp with the checks and balances. In contrast, there are Sellers for whom eBay is their livelihood, and a Negative Feedback can have huge ramifications for their business. Maybe look from the other side and ask if you were a Seller, would you go out of your to do a Buyer over for the cost of a wiper blade, knowing if it goes pear-shaped, your eBay Feedback rating would be impacted ? Enjoy eBay by all means, but I honestly think you may benefit from a more gentler approach to using it...as I suspect if you continue down the same path, this particular shopping avenue won't be accessible to you in the future.

Selling a wiper blade knowing it's been used and listing it as new is not human error. If I were the seller and I sent a letter with the parcel asking for 5 star feedback and I had lied about the condition hoping someone wouldn't notice then I would expect negative feedback and I wouldn't go running to ebay to have it removed.

The thing is though that it seems to keep happening to you as an isolated buyer, if these sellers were doing everyone over then they wouldn't survive. I cannot stress enough just how very unusual it is to get an abuse warning, to the point of virtually being unknown.

I would also read the message from ebay carefully, usually any one abusing returns , and this may or may not be mentioned as a point in your warning, would have buyer protection withdrawn .

zackary71

prettyandfluffy said:

I've been buying and selling on EBay for 20 years, I've always has 100% feedback. Communication is key.  If there's any kind of an issue I always start by sending the other party a polite and friendly message flagging up my concern.  99.9% of EBayers will find a solution that both parties are happy with.  This means that on the rare occasions I have had to escalate things, EBay have found in my favour because I am reasonable to deal with.

You've hit the nail right on the head prettyandfluffy - a combative adversarial approach is never going to work in the long term. I'm unsure if the OP's original post was seeking support/justification for their actions...but it hasn't been forthcoming. Ultimately though, this is a Forum, and with opinions comes differences in points of view. 

soolin

[Deleted User] said:

soolin said:

[Deleted User] said:

soolin said:

[Deleted User] said:

zackary71 said:

I concur with soolin's comprehensive comments above. Reading about what's happened, I get the impression you have unrealistic expectations of eBay buying. If I'm buying, and something goes wrong, I would always approach the Seller in the first instance, rather than using the Negative Feedback route as a retaliatory weapon. Awhile back, I had two SNADs in 2 days from the same buyer. They'd low-balled offers at 40% of list price in the past, so I already had concerns.They made no attempt to resolve first via a message. On the first one they got to keep the item AND got a full refund. The second one came back to me and was in the exact same condition as the description. Full refund given, a £3.30 loss and the phrase 'once bitten, twice shy'. I reported the Buyer for abusing the returns policy and blocked them. 

There will always be instances when Negative feedback is warranted. No offence meant however, but opening disputes, especially so many in under 6 months, suggests to me a less combative approach to eBay buying would reap benefits.

What do you think my expectations should be when buying on ebay. All I ask for is a seller to list there items correctly.

You can mitigate issues though, just remembering some of your threads you do have a slightly high expectation of your rights. Your car mats for instance, you can’t really expect to buy and return if you’ve got it wrong through no fault of the seller. Also  you do admit yourself in your OP that one of your warnings was deserved. 

Leaving negative feedback without attempting to resolve for instance shows that for some reason you were unwilling to use the eBay buyer protection, that usually suggests that a buyer knows they can’t win a claim if they open one so leave a neg in retaliation instead. 

With the car mats forget what I said about returning at the sellers expense and let me put it another way. When the seller listed the car mats they said they were removed from a 2023 car but will fit cars from 2017 so if I purchased the mats for my 2021 car and they didn't fit can I open a dispute for SNAD.

I’m not sure that helps your argument as you had to change the scenario a few times to make your point that you were entitled to a free return .Obviously others may disagree, but I think you need to be clear when buying what you are buying , and not make assumptions or have unrealistic ideas about consumer rights. 

Regardless of my views, you are in a fairly unique situation of having an abuse warning, they are very rare and eBay take a lot to hand them out, and it certainly won’t be because a seller made a silly complaint against you. You need to be extremely careful going forward , you can’t risk another warning as you will already be on eBay’s radar and another warning might see you banned. If buying avoid sellers using stock photos, look at feedback carefully and be very clear what you are buying. 

Can you tell me what you mean by be very clear what you are buying and what should I be looking for when checking feedback.

Since posting on here I've received two items that I ordered from two different sellers on ebay and one item is not new like the seller listed so I've contacted the seller on friday but I haven't received a reply yet so how long should I give a private seller to reply before opening a SNAD. After I messaged the seller I went on live chat and told them about the problem with the item I received and that I'm thinking of closing my account as I'm fed up of buying items and when they arrive they are nothing like the seller listed and they asked me if I wanted to report the seller and do I want to open a SNAD so I asked about getting another warning and they said I wouldn't so I told them I will give the seller time to reply and they said I had 4 days to make a claim.

I would not believe a word that CS tell you, the 4 days to make a SNAD claim is nonsense. I would be extremely wary of opening another SNAD, and the fact that you have another item that is not as described suggests you really aren’t checking your sellers well enough. 

GDB2222

[Deleted User] said:

zackary71 said:

[Deleted User] said:

zackary71 said:

I concur with soolin's comprehensive comments above. Reading about what's happened, I get the impression you have unrealistic expectations of eBay buying. If I'm buying, and something goes wrong, I would always approach the Seller in the first instance, rather than using the Negative Feedback route as a retaliatory weapon. Awhile back, I had two SNADs in 2 days from the same buyer. They'd low-balled offers at 40% of list price in the past, so I already had concerns.They made no attempt to resolve first via a message. On the first one they got to keep the item AND got a full refund. The second one came back to me and was in the exact same condition as the description. Full refund given, a £3.30 loss and the phrase 'once bitten, twice shy'. I reported the Buyer for abusing the returns policy and blocked them. 

There will always be instances when Negative feedback is warranted. No offence meant however, but opening disputes, especially so many in under 6 months, suggests to me a less combative approach to eBay buying would reap benefits.

What do you think my expectations should be when buying on ebay. All I ask for is a seller to list there items correctly.

Your expectations should absolutely be a smooth seamless process. No-one would dispute that.  But mistakes do get made and human error is a factor. The pool of scammer Sellers is small on eBay, as they get weeded out pretty sharp with the checks and balances. In contrast, there are Sellers for whom eBay is their livelihood, and a Negative Feedback can have huge ramifications for their business. Maybe look from the other side and ask if you were a Seller, would you go out of your to do a Buyer over for the cost of a wiper blade, knowing if it goes pear-shaped, your eBay Feedback rating would be impacted ? Enjoy eBay by all means, but I honestly think you may benefit from a more gentler approach to using it...as I suspect if you continue down the same path, this particular shopping avenue won't be accessible to you in the future.

Selling a wiper blade knowing it's been used and listing it as new is not human error. If I were the seller and I sent a letter with the parcel asking for 5 star feedback and I had lied about the condition hoping someone wouldn't notice then I would expect negative feedback and I wouldn't go running to ebay to have it removed.

There’s a category 'new - other' which satisfactorily covers an item that has been unwrapped and found not to fit. Obviously, that depends on it not being fitted, rather than it being used and then falling off into the mud. 

Generally, when buying from private sellers, selling their own tat rather than as a business, you don’t have consumer protection under the law, as both of you are consumers. 

Anyway, you asked for advice, and it’s up to you what you do with it.