posted on September 16, 2002 10:17:59 PM new
Hi, all: I'm pasting my first message in here, since the title didn't "take."
This is a new one for me. Notified high bidder last night, EOA message. Bounced. Sent twice again,
bounced (each time "full mailbox, can't be delivered".
I went to ebay's NPB page, filled out the contact information. It may well have bounced, because tonight I
get a "question to seller" from my buyer asking how much she owes, preferred payment method
(duhhhh), etc.
I write a reply, thanking her for contacting me, re-send my original message in this e-mail, and. . . it
bounced (mailbox full).
What would you do next? Evidently she can send but I can't reply to her. Lives six states away, so that
means a $$ long-distance call. What is ebay's next answer to this problem????
tomwiii
posted on September 16, 2002 10:05:12 PM new
Use the:
"Send This Auction to a Friend"
link on the auction page to reply to her & yack at her to clean out her box
posted on September 16, 2002 10:20:07 PM new
Okay, I did that! And of course it bounced because The Mailbox Is Still Full. (Why didn't I think of that?!)
This just fries my grits.
I'm going to mess around on the NPB page again and see if there are anymore great ideas.
posted on September 16, 2002 10:22:28 PM new
I would let Safeharbor investigate, then she would be forced to answer or be NARU'd and then I bet she would contact you.
Of course you could pull her info and pay for the phone call.
Ain't Life Grand...
posted on September 16, 2002 10:49:14 PM new
Use the contact ebay forms and tell them what is happening. They will NARU the buyer and protect you from getting an unwarranted negative or neutral feedback. The buyer will then have to contact ebay to get reinstated and will have to resolve her full mailbox situation. Being NARUed is not always a bad thing. It is sometimes a tool used by ebay to educate an unaware ebay user.
posted on September 16, 2002 11:23:02 PM new
Okay, I've reported the problem to Safe Harbor. Hope it does some good. Honestly, why would someone bid high on something and have a full mailbox? Oh well.
posted on September 16, 2002 11:29:01 PM new
You can always use the place where you put her feedback. You can say in there "Please, unable to contact you because of full mailbox. Of course you won't be able to leave her a feedback but that is her fault not yours.
posted on September 17, 2002 12:10:23 AM new
She probably doesn't realize it's possible for a mailbox to be full--don't laugh, I recently had to talk my mother through emptying her Yahoo-mail trash folder--she kept getting a "weird message" that she was using 99% of her space and had no clue what that meant.
You should call her. Safeharbor is going to, yes, send her an e-mail, and it will bounce because her mailbox is still full. She won't receive a NARU notice; and, because she's NARU'd she won't be able to sign in to eBay to check on her account so leaving her an message in her feedback isn't likely to work. If the cost of a 5-minute phone call is going to break you, perhaps you could add it to whatever you charge for s/h.
posted on September 17, 2002 04:44:20 AM new
i just had one of those this morning. mailbox full. i pulled the contact info to give them a call and well of course the # is disconnected. so i filed with safe harbor.
posted on September 17, 2002 05:19:33 AM newYou can always use the place where you put her feedback. You can say in there "Please, unable to contact you because of full mailbox. Of course you won't be able to leave her a feedback but that is her fault not yours.
I'm a little confused, how would that work? Don't you have to either leave some sort of feedbaack to get the bidder to see it?
posted on September 17, 2002 06:16:50 AM new
In a mailbox-full situation, I handle it like any other non-paying or non-responding bidder: put 'em on a fast track to that FVF.
posted on September 17, 2002 06:19:22 AM new
i think she is saying you can leave her feedback even tho she has not paid and you have not shipped.
hopefully she will read her feedback file and found your message,but if you leave her a neutral and her overrall rating does not go up,she may not read her file.
how about using her phone number and do a reverse lookup to find her mailing addr and send her a post card.
posted on September 17, 2002 06:58:11 AM new
Leaving a neutral to tell her that her mailbox is full may be a foolish way to get a confused and retailatory neutral or even negative feedback. ( they may be confused as to why you didn't contact ebay instead of marring their feedback )
Although on Yahoo Auctions that is the way to do it because users can change their own feedbacks but not on ebay. The FVF route or contacting ebay about the problem seem like the better bet.
[ edited by robertsmithson on Sep 17, 2002 07:00 AM ]
posted on September 17, 2002 08:30:09 AM new
I agree with the earlier poster who mentioned giving this person a call. If the phone call would be prohibitive, you can mail them a snailmail letter. Don't do the NPB route until all avenues of contact have been handled.
posted on September 17, 2002 08:44:00 AM new
Oh for pete's sake. Pull the contact info and pick up the telephone. What's a two minute phone call going to cost, maybe 75 cents?
posted on September 17, 2002 11:30:54 AM new
What I do in this case is to send several e-mails over 7-10 days. In most cases, the buyer contacts me after realizing the problem, but sometimes one of my e-mails will finally go through.
I sell very low-dollar things ($1 - $3), so making a long distance phone call isn't feasible.
Every once in awhile a buyer fills out the Check-Out information (even though I don't use Check-Out), and there's a way for the seller to leave a message for the buyer on the Check-Out form. So maybe that's an option here? One buyer included her street address on the Check-Out page, so I sent a letter via snail mail and included copies of her bounced e-mails so she could see for herself. She fixed it, and we concluded the transaction.
Anyway, after 10-ish days, if I've been unable to contact the bidder and they haven't contacted me, I let eBay know that the bidder's address doesn't work. eBay does require that everyone have a good e-mail address, and although I (as a seller) do prefer to initiate the communication, technically the buyer is equally responsible for contacting ME. After I've done everything feasible on my end, I feel like the non-working address is between eBay and the bidder. Let them sort it out. eBay will reinstate a bidder once the non-working e-mail is fixed.
And besides, I don't want to get negged for (supposedly) not contacting someone.
After 21-ish days, I file the NPB, and 10 days later, the FVF. The bidder has a good 30+ days to correct the problem.
