I found a flaw in eBay's rating option - time to rate is too limited for certain items

[yllenne]

Hello all,

(I hope I selected the most appropriate forum)

My first purchase in a few years has turned out to be possibly fraudulent. 😞 

Back in March, I purchased Lantana seeds for my mom (a horticulturist)  because her regular supplier went out of business. The eBay seller seemed legitimate and seemed to have a good rating, but what my mom received was non-viable seeds. 😞 

The main reason for posting this message is because it is impossible to determine the quality of this kind of purchase for three months and sometimes longer. Some seeds have very long germination times; lantana seeds require about two months to germinate. But now that I know the seeds are non-viable, it's too late to post a vendor rating. 😞 

I've already asked the vendor for a refund (b/f I go to Paypal), but the vendor has no incentive to refund me.

Curious to hear from others. I wonder if there are other kinds of purchases where the quality cannot be immediately determined. 

Thanks for reading.

[yllenne]

BTW, I am not terribly concerned about the ~$25 I lost... my intention is to point out a shortcoming in limiting the time a buyer has to rate a purchase. This limited time period assumes that quality should be easy to determine immediately upon receiving one's purchase. That's especially untrue with seeds.

[reallynicestamps]

Feedback may be useful for other buyers, but eBay does not use it to assess seller accounts.

You do have 30 days from delivery to Dispute through eBay.

The first suggestion is to contact the seller.

, but the vendor has no incentive to refund me.

Except for future sales... but he may not care about that.

BTW-- you can leave a Response to any FB, your own or the seller's, for an indeterminate period.

asked the vendor for a refund (b/f I go to Paypal),

This is the saving grace.

You have 180 days from payment to Dispute with Paypal.

This is a concern with the new Managed Payments program sellers are being moved to.

With PP, our buyers had six months for dispute.

With MP? We are not sure, although if the buyer uses PP she still has that six months, probably.

And of course, while card policies differ, many cards often have a 180 day chargeback period.

[yllenne]

Thanks for your response, reallynicestamps.

Before posting this message, I asked the eBay vendor for a refund (very politely and without any threat of going to Paypal). The vendor just refunded me in full. 🙂 

The main point of my posting was that I noticed that I no longer had the option to provide feedback on the transaction. eBay limits feedback to 60 days only, but that isn't useful for purchases that take longer than 60 days to determine the quality of the sale. 

I doubt I can effect a policy change... I just wanted to point out this edge case.

[yllenne]

I would still like to give the vendor feedback because, despite the non-viable seeds (maybe not their fault), the outcome was positive after all. 

[reallynicestamps]

If the seller left you feedback, you can Respond to that.

It will show on his FB page.