posted on November 1, 2003 04:08:16 PM new
Someone bought my item using Buy It Now. The bad news is that their registered email address is no good, so I have no way to contact them to send a WBN or invoice or anything.
Now what?? Do I have to just wait & hope that the buyer submits their payment, or wait through the normal Ebay NBP process ?
posted on November 1, 2003 06:24:23 PM new
Pull their contact info and call them. I had to do that 2x this week and both said they had tried to correct their e-mail address and after a few tries, just gave up.
BTW, they were both very thankful that I called to let them know they won. One paid immediately and the other confirmed that she was sending a check.
Both were pretty nice and thought the extra effort on my part was very unique of their experiences on eBay.
You can get their contact info from the "Search" page -- using the transaction # they've bid on and their user id.
Wayne
Trying to Make a Difference - One Satisfied Customer at a Time....
posted on November 1, 2003 07:37:55 PM new
And both are probably now bidding or BINing away on ebay thinking the sellers will call them and everything is perfect with a bad email address on ebay.
-------------- sig file ----------- *There is no conclusive evidence that life is serious*
posted on November 1, 2003 07:52:35 PM new
Well, here's the thing, guys.
It is as easy as can be to change your email address with eBay. You do NOT have to have access to the old account, only the new.
Having gone through this quick little process recently for a couple of my IDs, I tend to disbelieve people who've "tried and tried and it just won't take."
They're not reading the instructions. Or they haven't even tried.
--
Making the world a more decorative place, one eBay bidder at a time.
posted on November 1, 2003 08:26:23 PM new
What if the ebayers with bad emails bid or BIN a bunch of auctions, either accidently or intentionally?
Playing the Devils Advocate a bit what if a disgruntled buyer decided to BIN a bunch of auctions with a dummy account to get even with a seller? The seller has a huge hassle on his hands and possibly loses the listing fees.
-------------- sig file ----------- *There is no conclusive evidence that life is serious*
posted on November 1, 2003 09:20:49 PM new
Sorry -- AA -- I'll continue to consider most of my bidders as "wanting" to do the right thing. The irony was that each had been dormant for a few months and had bid on my auctions. While I think it's great to teach 'em a lesson for the good of the community, I didn't want to have to relist and lose the fees - as well as get the neg that would come from it.
This came on the heels of some very nasty interaction with a buyer from llama country in northern CA. She bid on a Beyer & Bock cup & saucer set from E. Germany/Prussia that was approaching 80-90 years old. It really was a sweet one with a lot of delicate gilding. She even e-mailed me in advance to say that she was collecting things with links to her heritage so that her grandchildren would have things to remember her by.
Well, she paid promptly with PayPal, and it shipped the very next day via USPS Priority Mail. 3 days and it arrives and the nastiness starts.
She uses the "Ask a Seller" feature to tell me that it had a chip and a large through and through crack in it. She said she would accept a 50% refund and she would keep the item.
I replied immediately and told her that would be okay - even though there wasn't any sort of crack or chip in this piece before it left. I had paid 50-cents for it, so even a 50% refund would still leave me in profit and would probably keep her happy.
E-mail bounced.
She writes back the next day and now DEMANDS a full refund and will keep the item "for my trouble." In her e-mail (still using the "Ask" feature and not from her own e-mail, she threatens negative feedback if I don't give her all her money back and allow her to keep the cup & saucer. E-Mail back to her bounces again!
Do a bit of searching and find she's an educated individual and an RN and also has her JD (according to her llama site listed in her AboutMe page.
I so wanted to neg her and report her for the threat.
After consulting with a few people to get other opinions, I decided to refund her money and take the loss (of about $1.10 + shipping) just to get rid of her. Since she paid with PayPal (and my luck it would have been with a credit card) she could have done a charge-back and still kept the item and, probably hit me with an undeserved negative feedback.
She posted the following feedback for us:
Praise: Fast delivery;excellent wrapping;pleasant business-like manner. Thanks!
And, she posted the following for another seller just a few days following mine:
Praise : Item was sent quickly ;very well wrapped;seller business-like-Thanks!!
Since it was very close to what she provided us, I asked that seller if this buyer complained about a flaw.
To my SURPRISE - she did! (sarcasm thick now)
So, the feedback she received from us:
Neutral : WOW! Buyer threatened NEG. until we refunded ALL money - and she KEPT item!
That was her FIRST neutral. She replied on her feedback board:
Response by xxxxxxxx - Incorrect statement.;item chipped \ cracked(old);no timely response to emails.
I have been quietly agreeing with everyone who has said the feedback system at eBay is whacked... I just hope anyone clicking on the item link for that transaction will see how stupid her comment is. DOH! Old - duh! No response - because her e-mail kept bouncing!
Wow! That was a rant - sorry 'bout that. Just having fun - took about 450 pics today for listing this weekend. Eyes are a bit glazed over now...
Wayne
Trying to Make a Difference - One Satisfied Customer at a Time....
posted on November 1, 2003 09:56:15 PM new
We must be on the wrong page here.
A bidder buys an item and has a bad email address. Your solution is to try to call the buyer and have them mail the payment. That way they can still be on ebay and BIN some more and leave feedbacks. My solution is to force the bidder to correct the bad email by having ebay temporarily suspend them. No feedbacks can be left. Everybody is protected from the bad email bidder, even the bad email bidder gets help from ebay as to how to reinstate their account. No other sellers are hurt by the bidder.
-------------- sig file ----------- *There is no conclusive evidence that life is serious*
posted on November 2, 2003 06:02:26 AM new
Don't assume that eBay will actually suspend the invalid email buyers account. I had an incident recently where I reported the invalid address 7 times, it never was suspended, and I got a neg. from the buyer (later got it removed), I have lost confidence in that system!
posted on November 2, 2003 06:17:52 AM new
amber: It seems to be true that they no longer suspend invalid users.
Wayne: I surely must have misread what you typed. You don't mean to say that at the first tiny push from your buyer you caved? It doesn't matter that she never got your email, it sounds like you were ready to hand over the keys to the store? For a defect on an item you presumably had photographs of?
No, you couldn't have meant that, because you then complain about the feedback system. I know you know that no system in the world is going to protect you from evil if you don't protect yourself first. And you didn't even report her feedback extortion.
I just don't understand why people give away their power.
--
CLUELESSNESS: There are no stupid questions, but there are a LOT of inquisitive idiots.
[ edited by fluffythewondercat on Nov 2, 2003 06:19 AM ]
posted on November 2, 2003 07:52:56 AM new
About a year ago if you reported a bad email address the ebayer was NARUed within 48 hours unless you reported it on the weekend which usually added another day to the process. Now when you report the bad email ebay it can take up to a week for ebay to process. Somewhere in the fine print it says if the bad email buyer leaves you a negative feedback that ebay will remove it for free.
My take on this slowdown in processing bad email users is that ebay is truly overwhelmed by the sheer number of listings and the labyrinth of rules that they have created. The manpower costs to process requests must be extremely high. ( shouldn't bad email addresses be a high priority? )
On the plus side -- if your a frequent ebay rule violator then your in little danger of get caught even after being reported.
-------------- sig file ----------- *There is no conclusive evidence that life is serious*
posted on November 2, 2003 03:47:29 PM newThe manpower costs to process requests must be extremely high.
And I intend to make them higher, in my own small way, by reporting every violation.
It would be nothing for eBay's programmers to put up a Web form where you report a dead email address just like you do now...and the program fires off an email to that address and logs it to a file. When the bounce message comes back, it executes a suspend-user action. Then it triggers the auto-dialer, which calls the phone number in the miscreant's registration information and states a message to the effect that:
"eBay member <your id here> has been suspended from eBay for an invalid email address. We require that all members have valid addresses. Please go to http://iscrewedup.ebay.com and enter your eBay userid to revalidate your account. A confirmation note will be sent to your new email address. Thank you."
If no bounce message is received, no action is taken.
--
GET TO WORK: You aren't being paid to believe in the power of your dreams.
