Very frustrating story(I'm sure you can relate)

[crosseyedcarls]

I sell presage digital items. About a month and a half ago, a guy buys 3 of these items off of me. Immediately sends me a message asking me what a presale digital item is. I respond immediately explaining everything in about two big paragraphs. The next morning I wake up to another message from him. He is **bleep**. Says he's waiting to hear from me and that I need to respond to him ASAP. He leaves his email. I politely respond to his message on eBay stating that I already responded to him the night before. I also email him stating the same thing.
Fast forward two weeks from the time of sale. Haven't heard back from him at all since the message/email I sent. He finally messages me back on eBay. He's infuriated now. Says it's been two weeks and you still haven't answered my questions. Leaves his email again. I once again politely respond to him by eBay message and by email. No response.
One week later, presale items have now been released. I send him the codes to redeem them to eBay message. No response left/no feedback. End up forgetting about him.
Fast forward to a couple days ago. I check my feedback score and I'm hit with a neutral. Says seller does not respond to messages. Don't understand what I'm purchasing. Not a big deal because it's a neutral, but still not happy as it affects potential buyers possibly purchasing from me.
I call eBay to have it removed. After explaining everything about 15-20 times(eBay rep was clueless and kept mixing the story up) she tells me that she won't remove the feedback because that's his opinion of the transaction. I repeatedly argued that it doesn't matter what his opinion is because he is leaving feedback about something that isn't true. He stated I don't respond to messages when I've clearly responded to all of them and also emailed him. She continued to argue with me for what must have been about 10-15 minutes. I finally requested a supervisor, she continually refused to let me speak to anyone else. I said ok I'll call back and get someone else to pass me on to your supervisor. Then her tone changed. She was now very apologetic over my situation and said can I put you on hold for one second while I check one more thing.
After about two minutes she came back on. She now informed me she decided to remove the neutral feedback. I asked why and she said after looking at the buyers messages from his account it appears that he only opened the message that contained the codes to redeem his product. He caused the problem himself.
This is what I assume happened. The buyer read each message I sent him through his email. Being fully aware that eBay would look into his messages on their system and see he never opened the messages(on eBay) explaining how everything works. He was setting this up to get his money back. Fully expect him to be opening a case soon. Lol.

[amcdc79]

1-You got very lucky.

2-Gambling on ebay?

3-Please correct me if I'm wrong.

[crosseyedcarls]

Yes you are wrong lol. Completely legal and eBay supports it. Probably because they pocket big time from it.

[amcdc79]

Please forgive me, game of chance?

If I may ask, how does the ebay MBG or SNAD work for your items?

[crosseyedcarls]

To be honest, I've never had to go down that route. So I couldn't answer correctly. Yes I've had cases opened, but I've never lost one. Usually what happens is someone opens a case stating they haven't received their item. I respond that this is a presell and it hasn't been released yet, they close the case. 99% of the time the people buying these items know exactly what they are and have been joining into "breaks" regularly.
And the game of chance thing has been ruled to not apply. Awhile back, before I started doing this, their was some traction on having breaks removed from eBay as they were considered gambling. The manufacturers who had authorized "breakers" argued back. Their argument was that it is no different than splitting the box with a few friends and each person claiming certain teams/players etc. It's also not considered gambling to purchase a box for yourself when there is no telling what you will get inside. Could be good, could be bad. I don't know all the details, but it's allowed and eBay has confirmed it.
Does not matter to me anymore though. Sales have steadily decreased to where I can no longer continue doing it. Not just for this particular item, but just on eBay in general. My other eBay account(I am a flipper) has been stale too. Now focusing more of my time on Amazon. Seems to be doing a lot better for me.

[amcdc79]

You are correct, in that you never know what you'll get, when you buy a sealed box of collector cards. Even more so now with all the fancy shmansy cards they throw in these days.

Upper Deck was way too greedy when they entered into the market, and overproduced every set they made. I would guess this does breath a little life into the market.

Sorry to hear about your lack of sales, good luck on the river.