I spoke to 6 representatives as of today, February the 6th, 2013 and all of them agreed that I have a point, but they couldn't help me remove a negative feedback due to eBay's policy.
Here is the story:
In the past 4 years I had zero negative feedback, until not long ago a buyer who doesn't speak English bought 4 battery cases for iPhone appeared.
The listing was listed in Accessory -> Case, Cover & Skin section, and throughout the listing we made clear list of items that is included, with detailed pictures and description. Everything says the battery really is a battery but this buyer thought the battery is a phone.
Buyer panicked and ask for full refund. (wrote in terrible grammar with misspelled words and fragmental sentences) Though it was against our return policy, we accepted his request anyway and instructed him with return instruction and explained there might be restocking fee if the returned items are damaged.
Buyer panicked again. Kept saying "full refund" non-stop and filed a PayPal claim against us, which got us confused because we already offered what he asked for and as long as the return stuff is in good shape he will get his full refund.
We explained and tried to comfort him again but this time buyer left negative feedback.
So we did little research on the eBay policy and the buyer broke the followings:
1. Claiming an item is significantly not as described when the item condition is consistent with the description in the listing - item was exactly identical to the listing, just that buyer couldn't read English
2. Not following the terms of the seller's return policy - Didn't use the return authorization number we provided, didn't agree following restocking fee policy, asked for money back while only qualified for merchant credit.
3. Claiming an item is not as described in order to circumvent a seller's return policy - claiming a battery should be a phone as a reason for refund.
What eBay needs to reconsider about the feedback policy:
1. May I mention again, all 6 representatives heard my story and agreed that this is inappropriate, but they just cannot break the eBay's guideline of feedback removal.
There has to be an additional guideline for special case like this. We accepted buyers every request (against our own policy) but buyer still panicked and we had no way to communicate with someone who cannot understand English.
2. There has to be a monitored resolution record between seller and buyer, which has direct influence on qualification of feedback removal.
When buyer filed the PayPal claim he actually lost it. PayPal resolved the issue in our favour, yet eBay still wouldn't remove the feedback.
3. eBay needs to restrict new member's rights until they reach certain rating.
This specific buyer has only 10 feedbacks, so he is quite new to this environment. Registering number membership takes very little time and newbies can have the power to sabotage well established reputation in a snap, especially ones who cannot communicate and refused to resolve issue in a peaceful manner.
Please advice
