eBay

rose-dee · ‎08-14-2013

Here's a message I received from a buyer (incidentally also a seller!) who obviously clicked first and asked questions later:

"I did a mistake before this one es more long than mydress I would measures before click I did against.
please can you cancel ?"

OK --- I think I got the mistake and the cancel part. Oh dear.

This is the reason I wish eBay would discontinue permitting buyers to leave FB/DSRs in a case where a transaction is cancelled.

I'd prefer to oblige this hapless buyer and process the cancellation request, but then the door is left open for 60 days. If I try to keep her to her commitment to buy, she will be unhappy at the least and furious at best, which may or may not be reflected in her FB. Either way a risk. I wish eBay would throw us sellers a bone on this issue.

Meanwhile, it's off I go to cancel.

pierrelebel · ‎08-15-2013

"I wish eBay would throw us sellers a bone on this issue. "

A bone?

Are you suggesting a "bone" would be the inability of buyers and sellers to leave feedback and DSRs when a transaction is cancelled?

What happens when a seller asks a buyer to cancel a transaction and the buyer refuses?

It is a complex problem with no easy "fair" solution to all parties in all instances.

lady.stark · ‎08-15-2013

@pierrelebel wrote:
It is a complex problem with no easy "fair" solution to all parties in all instances.

True. Not as simple as it may seems.

However, when the cancellation is initiated by the buyer, I do agree that he/she shouldn't be able to leave feedback. In these circumstances, I wish there was a way for buyers to request a cancellation too. If they do = no possibility to leave feedback.

Concerning the actual message you received rose, I had difficulty to read what the buyer really meant. I get the cancellation part, but was she talking about the size of the dress?

pierrelebel · ‎08-15-2013

"when the cancellation is initiated by the buyer"

eBay's system does not work that way. Only the seller can request a cancellation and it must be agreed to by the buyer. There is no way to determine if the buyer initiated a request through eBay or directly.

eBay - rightfully - does not want to make decisions based on "he said, she said". The last thing sellers need are higher fees as a result of a bureaucracy created to make decisions as to who is right and who is wrong in a dispute.

We - buyers and sellers - all have to live with the same rules. Sellers who do not wish to risk negative feedback and low DSRs should simply file for non-payment and be protected against neutral/negative feedback. If they are willing to risk, and trust the buyer, that is their choice.

rose-dee · ‎08-15-2013

@pierrelebel wrote:
"when the cancellation is initiated by the buyer"

eBay's system does not work that way. Only the seller can request a cancellation and it must be agreed to by the buyer. There is no way to determine if the buyer initiated a request through eBay or directly.

You are quite right, but I understand from a question to the "Pinks" a while ago that a change vis-a-vis cancellations is in the works. That is, buyers will not be able to leave DSRs/FB if a cancellation was made by mutual agreement of the parties.

I think there is probably a way eBay can confirm whether a buyer made a request to a seller for cancellation through eBay's message system, as they likely do in other cases, but I don't know what the mechanics would be. Possibly they are planning to make the "mutual" part more visible and recordable.

I wasn't given a timeframe aside from "soon". So perhaps it is something that eBay is rethinking. The Pink who made the statement seemed pretty certain about it, there was none of the usual equivocation.

rose-dee · ‎08-15-2013

I agree with your comments, that when the cancellation request is initiated by a buyer, there should be no possibility of leaving FB/DSRs. As I mentioned, I've been informed that eBay is working on this issue - we'll see. I don't know whether they meant only if buyer-initiated, or whether initiated by both parties, but I would expect the former.

As for the garbled request I received, the details didn't matter too much in the end. I explained to the buyer that this particular pattern was in fact easy to alter for length, but offered to cancel if she really preferred to. She seemed a nice lady, just a lot of trouble with English, so I cancelled, she accepted, and we parted amicably.

This is how it should work, but I've had a couple of cancellations that I felt a bit nervous about (i.e. am I going to find out after the fact that this person has strafed through the DSRs and left negative FB for some completely undeserved or unexplained reason?). I remember one buyer from Australia, who after 5 days post-purchase still hadn't contacted me or paid, and who finally sent an email indicating her daughter had bought the item without her knowledge, and would I please cancel. Well I obliged, but held my breath a bit until that transaction dropped off the 60-day radar.

It would just be really, very, nice if we sellers could happily cancel a transaction at a buyer's request and move on, fini, closed, without further concern. Which is what I meant Pierre by throwing us a bone.

pjcdn2005 · ‎08-15-2013

I think that it is very rare for a buyer to leave any type of feedback after a transaction has been cancelled at their request. I don't remember reading about that happening to anyone on the board for a long time..if ever. Regardless, I think that if you were to report the buyer in a situation like that, ebay would now delete the feedback.

rose-dee · ‎08-15-2013

@pjcdn2005 wrote:

Regardless, I think that if you were to report the buyer in a situation like that, ebay would now delete the feedback.

Yes, I have to give credit where credit is due - eBay does seem to have become a little more sensitive lately to situations where FB should be removed, and has actually followed through.

lady.stark · ‎08-16-2013

@pierrelebel wrote:
"when the cancellation is initiated by the buyer"

eBay's system does not work that way. Only the seller can request a cancellation and it must be agreed to by the buyer. There is no way to determine if the buyer initiated a request through eBay or directly.

I never said that the system worked that way. I said it would be a good solution to give the buyer the choice to initiate the cancellation request himself instead of the seller doing it (especially if the buyer request that in an eBay message - that was what I meant by "initiated").