burned on eBay
I have been burned on eBay twice in the past few months. The first time, the winner of my old cell phone wouldn’t pay me. I finally filed a complaint, and NOTHING HAPPENED. Eventually, I ended up donating the phone to one of those charities that gives them to service people.
Then, last week, I was trying to sell my brother’s old camera for him. The day the sale closed, I sent an invoice to the winner. Two days later, she said not to worry, the money would be sent in three days. I waited. Then, she e-mailed me again to say she had changed her mind and didn’t want the camera anymore. She asked if I could do a second chance offer and she’d pay the difference. The second chance offer didn’t pan out either, and now the original buyer won’t respond to my e-mails. so annoying, I can’t even tell you. I will file another complaint, but apparently eBay doesn’t take this stuff too seriously. Where is the incentive for a buyer not to just bid away and change his or her mind?
November 9th, 2008 at 10:35 am
You might think about going to PayPal– it costs something, but it protects honest buyers from ripoffs (ie they can stop the charges on their credit card) and helps you avoid this delay/renegotiate behavior and gets the money to you faster.
If you want to be nasty, I think there’s a way to report a buyer who tries to re-haggle the deal once it’s done. eBay takes that seriously because on very big purchases, once you and the buyer have eachother’s email addresses, you could agree to cancel the sale and split the substantial sum that would have gone to eBay.
November 9th, 2008 at 5:09 pm
Good luck with the ebay thing. Please post about how the process works. I’ve only had a problem with one buyer, but it was pretty minor. I sold the item a week later.
November 10th, 2008 at 12:33 pm
It’s tough. Especially as a seller there is no guarantee someone will still actually pay you. I think there may be settings where you can set a minimum score a buyer can have to bid.
Craig
http://www.budgetpulse.com
November 10th, 2008 at 4:06 pm
That’s horrible! I hope you get some money out of this situation. I’d call Ebay to see if they can escalate it.
November 10th, 2008 at 9:12 pm
Thanks, guys. At least I know YOU get it.
The latest is she says she will pay in another week (after I did put through a complaint). I’ll let you know what happens.
November 11th, 2008 at 12:15 pm
Ugh–that sucks! I’ve been kind of wary of selling on eBay ever since they decided to disallow sellers from leaving negative feedback for buyers. I’ve also had a bad experience with PayPal as a seller. It just seems like all those services are geared toward buyers, which is a bit unfair.
November 11th, 2008 at 8:01 pm
MFA: Yeah, what IS that about? I mean, I get not wanting to allow bashing of honest buyers by obnoxious sellers (if that’s really an issue), but there must be a better way.
November 11th, 2008 at 9:14 pm
This is why I gave up on eBay. They’ve made it TOTALLY unfair for sellers.
November 16th, 2008 at 8:29 pm
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