I tend to be pretty tolerant with ebay sellers. The vast majority I have bought from have been great. Once in a while you get one who is a bad apple or maybe could have shipped a product better. Then another time, you get a complete jerk like the one I dealt with yesterday.
A few days ago, I found a Ty Hensley card I needed that doesn't pop up often - a 2012 Bowman Chrome Gold Refractor. Shipping was $3.50, which I hate, but I knew the bidding wouldn't be high, and I really wanted this card, as it's not common to come across.
I won the auction for $1.37 + the $3.50 shipping. You'd think that would mean a bubble mailer and tracking, right? Right? Nope. Here's how the card arrived:
I sent the seller the following note, word for word:
Hello-
I'm very disappointed in the shipping of this item. $3.50 for shipping and it was sent in a plain white envelope? The card was halfway out of the top loader as well.
For $3.50, this should have been in a bubble mailer with tracking.
The seller responded with the following, again, word for word:
send it back ill give your $back
about you dont buy any of my cards refracters for 1.37
if thats how you feel give me bad feed back
joke
Really? So basically, the card didn't sell for what he hoped, so he decided to make a little extra on shipping. Shady.
I knew this wasn't going to go far, but I followed up once more:
Gladly left negative feedback for your rude response. It's not hard to be courteous. Enjoy making money off shipping.
Best of luck.
He sent two more emails after that:
luck this
bite me $1.37
I don't know if I'm dealing with a child or what, but I let it go. No sense in clearly getting into a juvenile back and forth. I need the card, so I'm not sending it back. It's not worth the time. However, this guy is clearly making money off of shipping, and justifies it by what the card sells for. Unreal.
So, my advice, don't buy from: dlcarpets09.
What a douche. Thanks for putting his user name out there.
ReplyDeleteThat's an unfortunate situation. I hope the card wasn't damaged. Thanks for the heads up on that seller.
ReplyDeleteyou hate $3.50
ReplyDeletetry living in Canada where the Yanks charge anywhere from $12 to $35 to ship one card.
there's a reason eBay's sales and profits have plummeted over the last two years.
I have the same mindset as you. I'm almost to the point that if you send a card via Pwe on eBay it should be listed in the description. Not your fault the card sold for cheap.
ReplyDeleteI've read some things about chasing after sellers like this through the eBay system for charging exorbitant shipping. Whether it's worth going through it would be up to you, of course. Unfortunately, my situation doesn't permit me to really monitor things like this with my eBay purchases but I'd say that's unethical at the least, and definitely against eBay policy. Buyers expect a certain "level" of shipping for certain prices and making a $2 profit off shipping is, well, wrong.
ReplyDeleteAnd I second Captain Canuck's comments. If I *can* get something shipped to Japan, it's not cheap. Thankfully I don't need that ability.
I saw you post this on Twitter yesterday and I couldn't believe my eyes. IMO, after the rude response he deserves another negative feedback on top of the one you already gave him.
ReplyDeleteIt can be really disappointing when a card doesn't sell for the price you wanted. I've been there and I hate sending a card out at a loss. But taking it out on the customer rarely works out in a positive way. When it happens to me as a seller I just chalk it up to karma evening out a good deal I got on something in the past. I certainly don't treat the item or the buyer any differently. It's not their fault that the other bidders didn't come through.
ReplyDeleteIf he wants a guaranteed minimum price he needs to set a reserve price or make it a Buy It Now listing. And there's no need to be rude in response to a question / comment from the customer. Most customers have a certain expectation based on the amount you are charging for shipping. Under a dollar, you're probably getting a PWE. Between one and two dollars it could go either way. Anything over two dollars is getting into bubble mailer territory.
Once and only once I was razzed enough S&H gouging that I tried taking it to eBay. Never again. There is nothing that can be done unless you are willing to send the item back to the seller. I paid $11 for shipping to this guy who paid $3.55 and did nothing to protect the cards inside. I was lucky they arrived without damage, but seeing actual price paid for shipping infuriated me. The guy made 7 bucks off of my desire to have the cards shipped properly. Ebay basically told me to send the cards back for a refund or shut the hell up. Ridiculous. Negative feedback is all you can do.
ReplyDeleteI just nail them for their shipping service and give them a negative rating. It's all you have at that point. Yeah - he was pissed he lost money on it.
ReplyDeleteCreate a bunch of fake ebay acct, bid up his crap through the roof, then retract seconds before the auction ends.
Terrible seller. Very rude and (at least on the internet) has terrible grammar and spelling. He signed it "joke"? He thinks it's a joke? Or he was joking about not buying from him? Not sure.
ReplyDeleteAs for if he thought the dollar and some change was TOO low for his card, he should have either BINed it for the amount he wants or started the auction at his minimum he wants. I'd avoid the whole reserve price thing most buyers avoid them anyway because the sellers usually ask way too much to begin with and will not come down any.
Sorry to hear about your bad experience. I suppose that immature POSes like that are eBay made it so sellers can only leave positive feedback (if a deal when through and eBay got their fees that is). You know they'd leave behind a negative with some grammatically incorrect gibberish attached to it.
ReplyDeleteHe is an ass, if he doesn't want to sell a card for $1.37 then don't list it that low. He has options for setting a reserve or BIN/OBO price point. He has cards with price points in the hundreds where he still charges $2.94 and up, I wonder if he sends those in a PWE too.
ReplyDeleteIf he sells cards just to make money on shipping he will end up getting negatives.
Truly... an idiot. It's almost like a little kid borrowed his father's account to sell a few cards. If that's the case, the dad is going to be pissed when he finds out that he no longer has 100% positive feedback. Thanks for sharing the guy's user id. I'll be avoiding this seller.
ReplyDeleteDid you forward the emails to ebay? I got someone booted off a few years ago for telling me to "suck it" when I complained about sending a card without a top loader in a #2 envelope.
ReplyDeleteLooking at that seller's feedback, you're not the only one to have experienced this problem. Sketchy. The seller ought to set a reserve, if a buck or two is that important.
ReplyDeleteAt least the card looks like it survived the ordeal pretty well.