Warning about dishonest seller

[iamthescarecrow]

This vendor goes by the ID of . Item was purchased but it took 35 days to arrive and was missing a part. Vendor promised to send replacement part, necessitating another 35 day wait. The part never arrived. After several weeks of emailing back and forth and many, many lame excuses, a refund was finally requested, and though a refund was promised, it never arrived either. All of this seems to have just been deliberate stalling to get beyond the 60 day window to leave feedback. This vendor has a high feedback rating, but with underhanded tactics like this, one must wonder just how artificially inflated it is. Warning; avoid this vendor. Buy from someone else. (and keep and eye on the calendar... don't let that 60 day window go by, because eBay won't do anything to help you. they simply don't care).  

Cheers

[esclyons]

you have 180 days to go through paypal, file a dispute with them.

[iamthescarecrow]

Yeah... I did that. Paypal fixed the refund problem in a matter of minutes. This post is about the feedback problem. Spent an hour on the phone with eBay and they refused to do anything about it. So basically, this con-artist jackass gets away with ripping people off because all he has to is stall a few weeks and we can't post negative feedback to warn other buyers.

This is pathetic, why even bother with a feedback system? Useless...

[reallynicestamps]

You got your money back and learned a life lesson. Keep an eye on the calendar in cases of disputes.

Not just on eBay, that goes for warranties from any retailer or manufacturer.

Since you don't mention being told to return the unwanted item to the seller, Paypal was actually treating you better than most complainants.

While eBay will tell the seller to send you a Return Shipping Label*, Paypal's policy is normally that the complainant must return the unwanted item on his own dime***.  So you did well.

But your basic advice is good.

Don't let the 30 days past delivery pass.

Don't allow the seller to promise a replacement**, because it won't arrive.

Don't forget the 60 day deadline on feedback.

I'm not sure if eBay and PP still work closely enough together, but when they were the same company, a lost PP dispute had a strong effect on a seller's account.

There is a Defect program in place which does what most buyers think that feedback does-- kicks the real scammers off the site.

Feedback is just opinion. Read it, not just the numbers, but the words.

* which is not possible internationally, but that's another story.

** Mostly Chinese scammers, but not exclusively.

*** When buying cheap goods from overseas, allow for the very high cost of returning useless junk if you want a refund.

[iamthescarecrow]

Well, my point is that I think the 60 day limit on feedback is needless and does a disservice to the buying community. I could ask "why have the limit?" and I'm sure eBay has their reasons, (though they refused to share them with me), but even then I don't see why there can be exceptions made.

And just to be clear, I was 'watching the calendar'. When the item arrived, missing a part, I made a choice in good faith, based partly on the response of the vendor promising to send a replacement part and partly because of the vendor's high feedback rating. Once the 60 days passed though, things changed. No replacement part. No refund. Just lies and lame excuses. And thanks to these policies, I can't let the community know how deceitful this vendor is via feedback or on this forum. It seems like eBay doesn't really care about the buyers here.

I won't be giving any more vendors the benefit of the doubt. From now on, timely feedback will be filed on all transactions regardless. If there is an issue and they end up correcting it, I'll revise the feedback.

I still believe the vendor feedback ratings are artificially inflated because of this policy. I believe if eBay allowed feedback to be entered after 60 days, (if warranted), then we would have a much more accurate rating for these vendors.   

[i.am.vivian]

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iamthescarecrow wrote:

Well, my point is that I think the 60 day limit on feedback is needless and does a disservice to the buying community. I could ask "why have the limit?" and I'm sure eBay has their reasons

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If there was no time limit on FB there would be people who would use an item for 6 or 8 months, or should I say ABuse an item, and then when it is shrunken or broken to bits, they would return and leave a negative for their 99 cent item.

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iamthescarecrow wrote:

just to be clear, I was 'watching the calendar'. When the item arrived, missing a part, I made a choice in good faith, based partly on the response of the vendor promising to send a replacement part and partly because of the vendor's high feedback rating.

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You mean the seller had 100%?  That would be unusual in these days of perpetual dissatisfaction.  You made a choice in good faith but it was your choice and you must never assume an equal amount of "good faith" from a stranger, especially not if that stranger will lose money that way. 

You learned a lesson the hard way.  When you are spending your money you have a right to get what you pay for.  If this is not happening,  file a claim.  

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iamthescarecrow wrote:

I still believe the vendor feedback ratings are artificially inflated because of this policy. I believe if eBay allowed feedback to be entered after 60 days, (if warranted), then we would have a much more accurate rating for these vendors.   

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You are entitled to your opinion.  But have you thought about this:  If that vendor does not have 100%, then obviously not everyone is happy.  People seem more likely to leave FB if they want to complain.  These days it seems less than half the buyers leave it at all.  If every buyer did leave it then for that seller the FB percentage would appear even higher.  Call that more deceitful if you want.