False Neutral Feedback recourse?

[coretek1]

Someone gave me Neutral Feedback for some coins I sold them.  They were mad about the dates of the coins I sold them. Bascially saying the Item was Not As Described when in fact the dates for the coins were all in the scans I posted in the ad.  I also stated the date range of the coins in the Ad Title.  All the information was there for them to see the dates of the coins.

Basically I think they were peeved becaue I didn't list the dates in TEXT for the coins.   Clearly the dates could be seen from the photos.

This person blamed me for their poor insight.

Do I have any recourse here?

Can I call eBay about this?  Its a small matter but it wasn't right to do that.

[coretek1]

Oh and I also ate the shipping charges.  So basically they left neutral feedback over $1.50.  Sad.

[mr.elmwood]

Title and description both say 53-62 yet you did not inlude all of those years? Why did you not include the entire range you stated?

If you only had some years, you should only have listed those years.

Buyer probably wanted to leave a neg but decided it was only a buck and a half.

[femmefan1946]

While you can leave a Response to any feedback, your own or your customer's, I would advise against it. A neutral makes no difference to your feedback numbers and adding the Response would draw attention to the complaint.

I would worry about how the buyer treated your Detailed Seller Responses. If he left low marks for Description only, be unhappy, but if he left low marks across the board, you may find a problem.

In the second case, you might want to raise your prices a little and offer Free Shipping until your DSR average goes up. You get an automatic Five Star Rating in Shipping Cost for Free Shipping. Customers like Free Shipping enough that the slightly higher asking prices are offset.

But I agree with Mr. Elmwood. Pictures are not enough, text is not enough. The mantra should always be

DESCRIBE AS IF YOU HAVE NO PICTURES; PICTURE AS IF YOU HAVE NO DESCRIPTION.

[mr.elmwood]

Correct me if I am wrong Femme, but, folks that collect tend to be a tad persnickedy? They want what they want, look for what they want, then buy. As it is for a collection, they have specific requirements?

Wanna bet that the buyer about had a fit when they did not get what theythought they were getting? Now, they have to go looking to fill in the missing years?

I think the OP dodged one here.

[rose-dee · Accepted solution]

Your buyer may have been a bit lazy in viewing the photos, but as an eBay seller, you are responsible for clearly and fully describing your items.  It wouldn't take long to list the exact year of each coin in your description, and would have saved you from this issue, even if the buyer had filed an Item Not As Described ("INAD") claim, which he might well have done successfully in this situation.  

Consider this a learning experience and work on making your photos and descriptions more complete.   Fortunately the buyer didn't leave you negative FB, but as the others have said, it's really the DSRs you need to be concerned about. This is particularly true when you're just starting to establish a presence on eBay as a seller.  A couple of mistakes like this (and/or a couple of INAD claims against you) could have a disastrous effect on your ability to sell for some time. 

You mention on your "Me" page that you bought the "eBay for Dummies" book.  It's worth reviewing the section on preparing listings, however, be aware that things have changed radically on eBay in the past year especially, so almost all of those "Dummies" books will be hopelessly out of date when it comes to specific eBay policies.  

Review the "best practices" and "selling" pages on the eBay site itself (which is a lot more up to date, although not entirely so).  And scan through these discussion boards from time to time -- you may get information on how to avoid issues that others have had to deal with that you may not have even been aware of. 

[femmefan1946]

Oh I agree. There is a huge difference between :"from 1959 to 1971" and "From 1959 through 1971" . But it would have been much much better to spell out what years were there.
On the whole, I tend to agree with the buyer.

[ricarmic]

For stuff like this, to save words, because despite how long the titles are now I still run out of space, I use things like "50s-60s era", - I probably wouldn't put non-rounded numbers like "53-62 era" as "era" doesn't make sense with a specific dates like 53 & 62.....

[coretek1]

Thanks troops.   I guess the title was a bit incorrect now that I look at it closely.  I would have thought the buyer would have look at the pics to see the dates being into coins like that.  I msged him and told him it wasn't intentional, yet he refused to change feedback.  Oh well live n learn.  THanks for the help!