Communication Before Leaving Feedback

[price31collector]

I don't understand why some buyers never communicate before the leave a damaging (neutral/negative) feedback.

Today I receive 3 neutrals from a buyer who stated "never responded to emails", "--- customer service," and called me a "poor seller" in his respective comments.

Curious, I looked through my message history and my email notification history; this buyer has NEVER contacted me about a problem with his order. 

I shipped his package to him 24 hours after receiving payment. He took 7 days to pay.

I'm really at a loss trying to understand this buyer's rationale here. He's making false statements against me and has made no communication to try to rectify the situation. I've sent him a message asking for an explanation with no response as yet. Will hopefully be able to work this out but I just don't understand why people are so quick to nail a seller's account without making any effort to communicate.

[mr.elmwood]

Could have the wrong seller. Plus, I just had a buyer getting angry for my not replying. I had no email from them. ebay mail does not always work.

Respond, if you like, saying "No emails received to respond to".

[rose-dee]

'Mr. E.'  is right about eBay messages not always getting through.  I've had this happen to me.  I was able to receive the buyer's messages but he wasn't getting any of mine.  It was upsetting for both, but fortunately he happened to be a small business person and realized the best thing to do was to send me his phone # to sort things out.  

It's also possible that, as 'Mr. E." says, your buyer may be getting mad at the wrong seller.  If you're fairly sure he's got the wrong seller, would it be worth trying to call him to ask if he'll revise his FB if you make the formal request?    

Also, if there is enough information on his FB page since eBay changed the display, you might be able to see what kind of FB he's been leaving for others.  If it's there's a pattern of nasty or inappropriate FB, eBay might do something about it.  

In fact, now that I think of it, since he's already done the damage to your FB (and probably DSRs), you could try the "report a buyer" feature and state that the buyer has posted FB that is erroneous because it is not applicable to that particular transaction, or to you as seller - might be worth a try. 

[price31collector]

A fast, and pleasant, solution to all of this. I called eBay's customer support about the feedback and the comments that were left. I explained that the buyer has never made any communication with me, and I was happy to hear that they were able to remove the three feedback comments based off of doing their research and validating my statement. The buyer still hasn't responded to my message, so who knows what his intentions were but I must give eBay CS some props on this one as I really wasn't expecting them to be able to remove it.

[mr.elmwood]

Good for you, You had a valid complaint that you could prove.

[cumos55]

Sometimes  a buyer will forget they are blocking certain emails.

What they have to understand is that nothing should be blocked  if sent through eBay.

There is also the concept of invalid contact information....

There are times that I have sent an email using the buyer's email address......  and it comes back as non-deliverable.

I then forward a message through eBay Messages... and it gets through.

eBay messages should always get through... and if not there is a problem.....

As a seller  one cannot block any messages coming in ... especially if they are legitimate messages coming  through eBay.

There are also ways to verify an email address through the internet.....not always perfect... but it is worth a look and see.

[rose-dee]

To the OP:  I'm very happy to hear you got this resolved by eBay so effectively and quickly.  This gives me some hope that they can be there for sellers if the circumstances warrant it and the proof is available. 

'cumos' - My bad experience with eBay messages was a real eye-opener, and a worry.  You're right -- it is a serious problem, especially if continues to occur.  In that instance I was fortunate that the other party was a businessperson and fairly experienced on eBay, so he thought of sending me his phone #.  He didn't jump to the conclusion that I was deliberately avoiding his messages, but some might, and if it had been a new buyer, I could have been in a lot of difficulty.  

I put this incident down to a particularly bad "glitch" week -- eBay seemed to have had problems all over its site during a 2 or 3 week period around that time.  It hasn't occurred since then, but this may be something I should ask the "Pinks" about, since eBay may not even be aware of it.