eBay

007steveb16 · ‎10-26-2013

Anyone have any experiance getting a negative removed in a case of a buyer very obviously leaving negative feedback in response to a UID being opened against them?

rose-dee · ‎10-27-2013

@i*m-still-here wrote:
Some buyers (and I am one of them) get annoyed when cases are opened against them.
It's threatening, nasty and intimidating and often for no valid reason.

Sorry, this makes no sense to me in situations where buyers do not communicate.

As a buyer, I too would probably get annoyed if I emailed a seller and asked for a few days to pay, then got a prompt UIC at Day4. But a buyer who purchases an item, then vanishes for 5 days, and gets annoyed at being asked to do what he/she has contractually agreed to do, is beyond my comprehension.

Doing so (disappearing without paying) is unfair to the seller, whose item is now unavailable for sale, and it's just plain bad form and bad manners. There certainly is a very good and valid reason for a seller to open a UIC in such instances, if only to be able to re-list his/her item.

There is nothing threatening, nasty or intimidating about it. Without communication from a buyer, the seller has no way of knowing whether the buyer ever intends to pay, or has completely disappeared off eBay -- a UIC is the recourse eBay has made available to determine exactly that.

EBay has always been very clear to buyers that hitting that "Commit to Buy" button is a contract. The only reason buyers on eBay have had some grace to pay is because eBay hasn't yet instituted a system to oblige them to pay for their purchases immediately. That is eBay's shortcoming, not the sellers'.

The fact that some sellers are in a position to offer what is essentially "layaway" purchasing doesn't mean everyone can, or that it's even appropriate in every situation. Personally, although I really can't afford to have a valuable and attractive item sitting in limbo for a week or more awaiting payment, I do it gracefully in most cases, as long as the buyer contacts me.

Why should -- why would! -- a person buy an item on eBay and then vanish for days, short of a critical personal emergency? That I do not understand. And then to turn on a seller who has asked politely for payment, got no response, then opens a UIC. That is beyond my ken entirely.

The 4-day UIC was a nod by eBay to sellers on the problem of slow or non-paying buyers, but as I said, eBay failed to fix the other end of the transaction, thus leaving sellers who legitimately and fairly use the UIC open to negative FB.

As for buyers thinking they are accomplishing something with retaliatory FB, I think 'dipmicro' has a good point. Sophisticated employers are able to access all kinds of personal data these days. If they can check Facebook activity, they can check eBay.

i*m-still-here · ‎10-27-2013

Steve wasn't asking if he should file a case or not. For him that's a done deal.

He was asking if he could have FB removed if his buyer who eventually paid trashes his FB.

My comments were in response to that.

I have no idea how other sellers should handle this issue. Whatever works for you in fine by me.

All I can say is that I'm at a loss to understand why it is such an issue, but that's because all I have to compare to is my own experience, and for me non-paying bidders are very rare and not an issue.

That said.......... and more interesting (at least to me): I know that employers might check out facebook for potential employees.......

........ but the idea that they'd get into a candidates eBay id and check out FB just seems beyond bizarre to me.

Do they really do that?

Do they really ask for someone's eBay id during an interview?

rose-dee · ‎10-27-2013

@i*m-still-here wrote:
Steve wasn't asking if he should file a case or not. For him that's a done deal.
He was asking if he could have FB removed if his buyer who eventually paid trashes his FB.
My comments were in response to that.

........ but the idea that they'd get into a candidates eBay id and check out FB just seems beyond bizarre to me.
Do they really do that?
Do they really ask for someone's eBay id during an interview?

And I was responding to your comment that you found UIC cases threatening, nasty and intimidating. It sounds as if you haven't really spent a great deal of time selling to have formed this opinion. In my view, the OP took appropriate steps in the circumstances, using a reasonable recourse made available by eBay, and the buyer responded completely inappropriately in retaliating through FB (and I assume also DSRs).

I see no reason why an employer who had the resources to fully vet an employee (and the reason to do it), wouldn't be able to access that person's online history. I doubt they would even need the eBay ID to do it, especially if a tech company were doing the interviewing. Maybe 'dipmicro' knows specifics.

It has been reported that people are being openly asked for their Facebook IDs, Twitter IDs, etc. in job interviews -- why not ask if they have an eBay ID too? Those activities and posts can tell an employer a great deal about the personal qualities, integrity, and social behaviour of a candidate. Whether such inquiries fall beyond the boundaries of what is permissible by law remains to be tested by the courts I imagine .

bb_cool_stuff · ‎10-27-2013

Whatever works for you is fine by me.

All categories have different & sometimes difficult buyers.

Do whatever has resulted in positive results in the past.

but that's because all i have to compare it to is my own experience, and for me non-paying bidders are very rare and not an issue.

Same at this end though It was horrible in the time period right after we lost the ability to leave NFB for buyers.

007steveb16 · ‎10-27-2013

@rose-dee wrote:
@i*m-still-here wrote:
Steve wasn't asking if he should file a case or not. For him that's a done deal.
He was asking if he could have FB removed if his buyer who eventually paid trashes his FB.
My comments were in response to that.

........ but the idea that they'd get into a candidates eBay id and check out FB just seems beyond bizarre to me.
Do they really do that?
Do they really ask for someone's eBay id during an interview?

And I was responding to your comment that you found UIC cases threatening, nasty and intimidating. It sounds as if you haven't really spent a great deal of time selling to have formed this opinion. In my view, the OP took appropriate steps in the circumstances, using a reasonable recourse made available by eBay, and the buyer responded completely inappropriately in retaliating through FB (and I assume also DSRs).

I see no reason why an employer who had the resources to fully vet an employee (and the reason to do it), wouldn't be able to access that person's online history. I doubt they would even need the eBay ID to do it, especially if a tech company were doing the interviewing. Maybe 'dipmicro' knows specifics.

It has been reported that people are being openly asked for their Facebook IDs, Twitter IDs, etc. in job interviews -- why not ask if they have an eBay ID too? Those activities and posts can tell an employer a great deal about the personal qualities, integrity, and social behaviour of a candidate. Whether such inquiries fall beyond the boundaries of what is permissible by law remains to be tested by the courts I imagine .

To be clear, no feedback has been left yet.

i*m-still-here · ‎10-27-2013

Rose I find UICs very annoying, but I wasn't talking about myself per se. I get them when sellers won't plug in a shipping cost so I can pay ......... stuff like that.

I use my own experiences buying as a way to better understand my buyers.

Steve's buyer seems annoyed, but I understand that some buyers won't mind so much.

Rose, I sell on several sites, several eBay ids, and I have my own shop.

The reason employers check out facebook is because they're looking for someone behaving badly in public,.................. you know the drunk flashing the crowd or peeing in a bucket in the kitchen ............. but does that really extend to eBay FB?

Have you ever actually heard of an employer ask for an eBay id on a resume?

007steveb16 · ‎10-27-2013

@i*m-still-here wrote:
Rose I find UICs very annoying, but I wasn't talking about myself per se. I get them when sellers won't plug in a shipping cost so I can pay ......... stuff like that.
I use my own experiences buying as a way to better understand my buyers.

Steve's buyer seems annoyed, but I understand that some buyers won't mind so much.

Rose, I sell on several sites, several eBay ids, and I have my own shop.

The reason employers check out facebook is because they're looking for someone behaving badly in public,.................. you know the drunk flashing the crowd or peeing in a bucket in the kitchen ............. but does that really extend to eBay FB?
Have you ever actually heard of an employer ask for an eBay id on a resume?

What right does this buyer have to be annoyed though?

Her getting annoyed and taking it personally by me opening a UID is such a displaced sense of thought process. It's her fault...

How can it not cross her mind that in no way did she tell me she was "away" and then comes back 8 days later and just thinks everything is falala lovely?

I had nothing from her, no clue what was going on and I even gave her an extra day from when I could have opened the case.

I'm sorry but if a buyer takes 8 days to pay and does not communicate in anyway I don't see any justification. I see a selfish, do what I want type of person. The fact she decided to take a few pot shots at me about the price and to basically laugh at me in her message just really goes to show what type of person she is. You're essentially defending an indecent person.

rose-dee · ‎10-27-2013

Actually, if I can quote, your comment was:

Some buyers (and I am one of them) get annoyed when cases are opened against them.

It's threatening, nasty and intimidating and often for no valid reason.

You didn't say "They think it's threatening... etc." This was expressed as your own opinion. Perhaps you've now reconsidered that position, which is understandable, given what others here have said. But I don't know how else that remark could have been read.

You say you "get UICs when a seller won't plug in a shipping cost so I can pay". This is really perplexing. Surely this is an extremely unusual occurrence. Without a shipping cost an invoice doesn't get processed on eBay to begin with, at least not these days. Why would an experienced buyer purchase an item without knowing the shipping cost in advance in any case (or without emailing the seller to inquire beforehand, or at the very least, during the invoicing process)? Why would a seller refuse to "plug in a shipping cost" knowing it would mean a sale if he did? And why would a seller open a UIC case knowing the buyer was having difficulty paying an incomplete invoice? It would be nonsensical and self-defeating, probably guaranteed to get negative FB.

If this is what you mean by using your own experiences buying as a way to better understand your buyers, you may not be applying the right conclusions to your selling, or at least not from the right sellers.

It seems to me again that communicating in a courteous manner with the seller is the easiest and simplest way to avoid misunderstandings and problems in almost every situation. Naturally this applies to sellers as well.

i*m-still-here · ‎10-27-2013

Rose....... I'm completely at a loss to understand what you're trying to convey with that post.

I posted that I get annoyed when cases are opened against me. It's true. I do get annoyed by that and I don't understand what you'd like me to reconsider???

In addition, I have posted to this board many many times about the way cases are opened and strikes are given out by eBay these days.

It's nothing like it was a year ago.

If I have time and if you'd like me to I could search out one or more of those threads for you and post the links here.

Are you interested?

Let me know.

rose-dee · ‎10-27-2013

Well, once again, after years of buying and selling on eBay, including a fair amount of recent buying, and never having had a UIC strike opened against me, I'm of the opinion that if people simply communicated more, and more quickly, many of these issues would disappear.

I don't need to see examples of UIC cases reported on these boards to know that sellers are probably opening more cases because eBay has told them they may do so and that those cases are becoming more frequent because buyers are becoming less willing to communicate. My suspicion is that the attention-deficit effect of mobile phone use may be behind a lot of it.

We should also keep in mind that these boards will never be a very representative sampling of the majority of activity on eBay. They attract a number of people who have had (or created for themselves) bad experiences and come to rant or generalize. Any "trends" on the discussion boards are necessarily reports from a relatively small cross-section of all eBay users. To really get meaningful data, you would have to access eBay's own statistics. Maybe someone here knows how to do that?

Even if reports of increased UICs were accurate, I'm not too concerned about them -- in the end I know how to avoid them as a buyer, and I avoid using them unless there is no other solution as a seller. I think that's likely what eBay intended.

As a seller I've only ever had to open two UIC cases. I do so extremely reluctantly, only after many days and after sending one, and often two, friendly personal reminders to my buyer by email, asking for contact. I never assume my buyer is not going to pay. But the UIC is there if needed.

In one instance, my buyer literally forgot she had purchased something from me, apparently not going back to eBay for over a week (thus missing my messages). She apologized profusely, and paid once I'd opened the case. EBay would consider that a positive outcome, and so did I. In the other instance, the buyer simply vanished, the case was closed and the FVFs refunded - another positive outcome from a negative experience.

I imagine there are sellers out there who use the 4-day UIC limit in a hair-trigger manner, but as Pierre says, eBay has given sellers these tools and it's up to the individual seller to determine what a reasonable payment period is. I'm certain that some form of obligatory immediate payment will soon become the norm anyway.

i*m-still-here · ‎10-27-2013

OK........ but let me know if you'd like me to post the links for some of the threads here that might interest you.

There have been many recent changes here.

There is good reason to believe that these issues will become more and more common in the very near future.

That's why I point these things out most of the time, but true enough: Sometimes it's just to vent.

EBay is a lonely experience and sometimes one just has to let off steam between posts.

There are a lot of glitches in the system and one unfair and/or wonky experience really matters and effects that way a buyer views the entire site.

What the good Dr. says: It takes a thousand positive experiences to make up for one negative one.

There's a lot of truth in that.

rose-dee · ‎10-27-2013

Well, I tend to be a "cup half full", accentuate the positive, type of person. I think you need to either be that way, or else grow a bit of a thick skin to maintain balance on eBay. I love making my customers happy, which probably helps too.

Overall, in several years I don't think I can recall ever having had a bad experience buying on eBay (or at least one that couldn't be remedied with courtesy and communication), and only a handful of minor less-than-positive experiences selling. I don't dwell on the latter, but just move on to the next day.

Far too many sellers and buyers who come to these boards seem to get focused on the few negative experiences that happen to them (or as I say, that they sometimes create for themselves), and extrapolate from that one personal experience to assume there are legions of nasty people just waiting to pounce on them; in other words they expect potential problems in every corner. I think this creates an adversarial outlook that becomes self-fulfilling and self-feeding. In reality, I suspect the truly ugly experiences (and truly bad buyers and sellers) are relative rarities on eBay.

For the rest of the eBay users, I've always found that communicating early in a positive way, being reasonable about expectations, and not making assumptions about buyers' (or sellers') intentions has avoided much misunderstanding and probably many negative outcomes too.

There isn't anything wrong with generally letting off steam amongst 'colleagues', but I don't think it's good to judge the whole of eBay by what is displayed on the discussion boards, and I try to keep that perspective.

i*m-still-here · ‎10-27-2013

Ok..... I can't relate to most of what you said on a personal level........................ but I'm sure some do the things you've described.

captivatemedia · ‎10-28-2013

The category of item sales is important in this discussion. For example, selling video games to teenagers is quite a different experience to selling stamps to mature collectors.

Those who wish to be patient and wait weeks for payments that may never come, that is great, glad it works for you. However, myself, and many others on this board do not wish to work this way and expect payment as soon as an item is purchased. (While still allowing the customer to purchase multiple items and have the option to negotiate shipping charges)

I am not offering a layaway service.

Besides, I have experienced around 20 UIDs so far, and only one of them ever got back to me after a case was opened. All the rest just continued to ignore me through the whole process. (I generally let a week pass before I open a case) The one that got back to me apologized for the delay and paid for the item, then left a positive FB when item was received. So, for me, I generally accept that if a buyer has not paid in this amount of time, they never will, and so my goal is to get the item back on the shelf as soon as I possibly can so that someone else can buy it.

I had heard rumors a while back about Ebay coming out with a new way of doing things in that if someone buys something, it stays available for someone else to purchase until payment is received. I like this, I do think there are some minor downsides to it, but I think this would be a positive thing overall. Perhaps it works better in certain problematic categories though.

amiyake03 · ‎10-28-2013

Yes that is ridiculous, when I buy items on ebay I pay immediately after the purchase.

i*m-still-here · ‎10-28-2013

@captivatemedia wrote:

I had heard rumors a while back about Ebay coming out with a new way of doing things in that if someone buys something, it stays available for someone else to purchase until payment is received. I like this, I do think there are some minor downsides to it, but I think this would be a positive thing overall. Perhaps it works better in certain problematic categories though.

Yes, so what happened to that?

I'm not sure how this thread turned to a debate on when to file UIDs.

Some sellers file them quickly because that works for them.

I wait for a month or more and I've made a lot of money doing things that way.

Whatever works for that seller should be fine, and you're right. Stamps etc. are very different.

However........... back to the question from the OPer.

The question was was from a seller who filed and UID and now is worried that his angry buyer who paid will leave N/FB.

It's really question about FB......... Isn't it?

Should buyers who pay after having disputes opened and then pay be allowed to leave FB for the seller?

IMO.......... Probably not...............

That would solve the problem for everyone and end the debate.

i*m-still-here · ‎10-28-2013

I just want to add............ Since eBay has so many rules and constantly changes them, there a lot of things involving cases and strikes etc. which no longer make sense for anyone.

This results in way too much time wasted with CS solving nonsensical situations.

That is......... Whenever eBay changes one thing, several other glitches surface.

Nothing is ever straightforward any more.

pierrelebel · ‎10-28-2013

"Should buyers who pay after having dispute opened and pay be allowed to leave FB for the seller?

IMO.......... Probably not...............

That would solve the problem for everyone and end the debate."

Everyone is entitled to an opinion.

As far as I am concerned, I see no logical reason for a buyer to lose the right to leave feedback (positive or negative) because a seller was impatient to receive payment and filed a dispute early.

There may be many valid reasons for a buyer to pay a day after a complaint has been filed. Does that automatically give the seller a "free pass" knowing no feedback can be left? I think not.

i*m-still-here · ‎10-28-2013

I don't disagree with that either, but since it's such an issue for some people it might work.

It's not an issue for me and I'm a little surprised at the passionate response.

Thing is............. as posted above.......... Since any change results in new glitches and often more problems than it solves, maybe best to leave things as they are.

It's all just talk and meaningless speculation anyway.

mr.elmwood · ‎10-28-2013

This whole discussion is pretty much moot. With the survey I did Sunday, FB is pretty much dead. Sellers will be moved to a rating system encompassing many factors, the least of which will be FB.

Kinda moving to an overall seller score as opposed to "look at the red donut".

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