I’m mainly a buyer on eBay. However, I have sold a few items here and there. I’ve run into a couple of sellers that are really angering me. My partner and I are debating what I should do in these situations. We were trying to find the answer on the internet when we found you. We are wondering how you would handle this.

 

I was notified yesterday that a juicer I bought from a seller in Atlanta, Georgia, was damaged in a flood in the woman’s basement. After the seller notified me, she refunded my money. I’m not happy about this. So her basement flooded! Can’t she send me another one? Go to the store and get one? I don’t understand why her problem is becoming mine. I want my item! I really feel like I should leave negative feedback, because I didn’t get it.

 

 

1.     Two weeks ago I received a box that had been “opened during mailing”. I contacted my post office, and the seller. The post office told me that some how the package was opened during its trek between Oregon and Massachusetts. Insurance was not purchased on the package, and the post office will not refund my money even though one of their machines opened my package. The seller told me they were sorry, and refunded my money but not the shipping. They asked me to cancel the transaction through eBay. 

 

Why would I cancel the transaction? How is this my fault? It seems to me this is a postal and seller issue. To me, this is one example of where I might as well leave negative feedback, regardless of the underlying reason for failure to complete the transaction.  

 

Is negative feedback appropriate in these situations? What do you think?

 

Simon & David

 

 

 

I understand your frustration. I would say that both of these sellers have done exactly what they are supposed to do. They gave you a refund immediately when they realized they could not provide the product, or it did not arrive.

 

In these types of situations I try to remember the Golden Rule Do unto others as you would want them to do to you. To help understand how the seller is feeling, try to put yourself in the sellers’ position. Would your eBay sales be the first thing on your mind if your basement was flooded and you lost your inventory? How would you feel if on top of all that you’ve lost (inventory, personal effects, etc); your buyer gave you a negative? This same thinking should apply to the second question also. It’s not the seller’s fault that a post office machine opened the packaging and your item was lost.

 

I believe negative feedback should only be used when a seller’s actions are out of line. In both of these cases, the seller did the right thing and tried to make a bad situation right again. If these were my transactions, I would leave glowing positive feedback for both sellers because they did their best to take a bad situation, and make it right again.

 

 

I have a problem, and I am not sure what to do. I’ve looked in eBay Help but couldn’t find the answer to this. I have several college textbooks as a fixed price listing. One of them sold last night. Normally with these types of sales I received payment instantly because the buyer needed it yesterday. I didn’t receive payment and two days later I receive an email from buyer saying his instructor had changed the book, and he doesn’t want to purchase it. How do I (or buyer) cancel this transaction? The best I could figure is to just ignore this, and relist the book. Thanks for your help.

 

Steven J.

 

In order to cancel the transaction, you’ll need to file a non-paying bidder. Go to: http://resolutioncenter.ebay.com/ . Choose “I want to cancel a transaction.” Follow the instructions eBay has for you. eBay will send the buyer an email to see if they want to cancel. Once the buyer cancels the transaction, your final value fees will be refunded.  You will not receive a refund for the listing fees. For more information on how to cancelation process works go here: http://pages.ebay.com/help/sell/cancel-transaction-process.html