Okay, so you bought something from eBay that was described as used, the photographs were a little fuzzy and you paid a bit too much for it.
When you try it, it doesn’t exactly turn you into Miss World like you thought it was going to. Then, shock-horror, you spot a snag that the seller failed to mention. You begin to fill with venom. There is only one way to take revenge against this personal vendetta: leave a negative feedback. That will teach the conniving little fraudster.
I can almost feel the fumes radiating from the computer screen when I see them- no contact has been made, no attempt to get a refund or a replacement has been tried, and the sheer number of exclamation marks and typos spells out a message written by a hand that is shaking with rage.
Well let me tell you a secret- if you keep thinking the world is out to get you then it will. If you want good service and you wish to avoid being screwed over altogether then you’ve got to learn some eBay manners. The golden rule is: never leave a negative feedback.
Let’s start with some ground rules: DSRs. This stands for Detailed Seller Ratings; this is the part where you can mark sellers out of five stars for accuracy of item description, communication, delivery time and postage and packaging charges. These directly affect seller performance, and therefore the strength of their listings in search results. Low DSR ratings effectively push seller’s products to the back of the queue, so potential buyers will never even see them. A seller who makes living selling two-pound items relies on selling hundreds of them. So unless the service was absolutely appalling and the seller called you up and threatened you, put dog poo through your letterbox or insulted your mother, think very carefully before you leave a casual four stars.
Postage charges is one area of DSRs where sellers typically lose out- if it wasn’t free it doesn’t deserve five stars right? Wrong. Take a trip to your local courier, find out the postage price per item and then order a thousand plastic pouches, address labels and Jiffy bags. You never thought they were that expensive did you?
Feedback works in a similar way to DSRs- sellers with poor feedback percentages will lose potential sales through search results. Even worse, the feedback scores are displayed on all their listings which can put some buyers off altogether. One click and anyone can read what useless waste of space you think they are, because they ruined your dinner plans with a faulty potato masher they sent you six months ago.
Next rule of thumb: use the messaging service- sparingly. eBay has a distinct advantage over an impersonal company because the seller is instantly reachable. That does not mean that it is acceptable to harass them via their inbox like a manic stalker. It however does mean that if you’re not happy, for any reason, you can just drop them a message and request a resolution. You’re 100% more likely to get your money back by doing this than by leaving a negative feedback.
Sellers take pride in their feedback and customer reputation. Thousands of ordinary people are making a living from their businesses on e-commerce sites such as eBay- by that I mean mums, dads and people just like you. If they make a mistake, or something goes wrong in transit give them a chance to solve it. They are the ones who will ultimately lose money, so it is just as frustrating for the seller to lose his goods in the post as it is for you. It may be hard to believe when you unwrap your leather belt to discover it has an extra scratch on it that wasn’t photographed with an 8X superzoom lens, but 99.9% of sellers are not setting out to defraud you. Taking transaction glitches personally is just frankly setting yourself up for high blood pressure and an early grave.
Be reasonable towards your fellow eBay community and they will be reasonable towards you. A polite message will nine times out of ten receive a polite and helpful response. Going at the seller like your next move is chemical warfare isn’t going to win you any favours. If anything, you might just blow your chance of getting the result you want. Yes their business is important to them but everyone draws the line somewhere, and there is only so much grovelling any one person can do to a bunch of faceless idiots. If you’re the fifth hysterical nutcase they’ve encountered that week, it might just backfire.
Lastly, decide what you want out of the deal and stick to it. Choose whether you want a replacement or a refund before you contact the seller- and for Gods’ sake don’t demand a partial refund. That’s not how business works. You wouldn’t go to the supermarket, buy a joint of lamb for a tenner then call up and say “On second thoughts I don’t think this lamb was worth a tenner, I’d like five pounds back” – so don’t do it on eBay. If it’s not up to scratch, it’s not up to scratch, so be prepared to kiss goodbye to it and get your money back.
Sure, there is the odd scammer out there taking advantage of the wonders of free trade. It’s a bummer when you can’t get a response and you have to get a refund from eBay- but the very least you can do is try. That egg poacher may have caused you a little disappointment at the time- but get over it and think twice before you destroy someone’s hard-earned reputation and potentially, their livelihood.
Geogger 