I recently purchased a playstation game from a seller on ebay. The listing for the item had a very specific description including pictures. When I received the item it was not the same item as per the description or pictures and the condition of the item I did receive was beat up on top of that, certainly not in “very good” condition.
I immediately contacted the seller outlining the above issue(s) and as per ebay's guidelines I mentioned that I would prefer to resolve the issue between the two of us rather than involve ebay or getting into a nasty feedback war. The seller replied that I could ship the item back and he would refund my money however that wasn’t sufficient for me as for me to ship it back to him would have cost more than the item was worth in terms of a refund, which didn’t make any sense… me shelling out $17 to ship an item back that I would get a $16 dollar refund back. I countered back and said look I just want the item that I paid for. Please just ship it to me.
At that point he got nasty and started accusing me of trying to get an item for free and stealing from him. I then said look I will pay you more shipping costs, I just want the specific item I paid you good money for. He of course declined so I filed a report for item not received as described of which ebay / paypal decided in my favor and fully refunded my money. I then went back and bought the original item from another seller I intended to previously buy.
About a week after that I left feedback based on the transaction that I had with the seller on the item and I thought that was the end of that. It was nothing but the truth that I didn’t receive the item I purchased and it’s condition was poor.
I go for lunch today and when I get back there is a nice email from ebay’s customer service warning me that my account has been flagged for “Feedback Extortion” and the opening sentence in the email reads “Buyers aren't allowed to threaten sellers with negative Feedback, neutral Feedback, or low Detailed Seller Ratings to obtain goods or services not included in the original listing.”
This is highly upsetting to me. Right off the bat your basis for this claim is inaccurate. I did not once, nor ever attempt to procure something not in the original listing. The item in the description and pictures is all I ever asked for. It is not I who didn’t hold up their end of the ebay user agreement. The seller was the individual who went against the terms of use. Further than that, not only did ebay pin this issue on me just for leaving feedback, they also eradicated any trace of the feedback that I did leave leaving the seller with a squeaky clean feedback score… ???
If buyers aren’t allowed to leave negative feedback to sellers who deserve it what recourse do we have? Are we just expected to take it when a seller steals our hard earned money and then knowing that the seller has no leg to stand on they he proceeds to tell me to buzz off when called out on it? So if I am a seller and someone leaves me negative feedback, albeit whether I was threatened with getting negative feedback or not, all I have to do is contact ebay customer service and they retract the feedback so no future buyers ever can take that information into account?
I called ebay customer service via telephone and had a nice chat with a CSR however she said the decision still stands and the feedback will remain revoked. This is very unfortunate and I highly disagree with this approach. This seller deserves to be known on how they deal with their buyers and what kind of business they are doing.
I also don’t appreciate to be the one made out to be the bad guy in the situation. This outcome needs some serious reevaluation. I have saved all the messages and discussion back and forth between myself and the buyer as well as the email warning me that my account has been flagged and can reproduce them if need be.
Rob D
