So maybe the ‘sour grapes’ section isn’t the right section for this because nothing bad has happened yet. Still, I have a pretty bad feeling about this transaction and I’m curious what others would do in this situation. So a $120 booster pack I had listed on eBay sold – cool. Just out of curiosity, I usually check the buyer’s feedback (and the feedback they’ve left for other sellers) before sending the item. I’ve sold to thousands of people and have never cancelled a transaction on this basis, but I like to look anyway. So I check the buyer’s eBay feedback and I’m alarmed by what I see. Here’s the second most recent feedback, from within the past month:
And another one:
And another one (this one from within the past 6 months):
Needless to say, I’m thinking I should cancel the transaction lol. The only thing is that I really don’t want to get negative feedback. I have a nearly 1600 feedback score with 100% positive feedback (no neutral feedback either) and I would be pretty annoyed if that got screwed up. So do I just go ahead with the transaction and accept that I’ll likely be screwed out of the money? It’s not that much money, but I would still be pretty annoyed to be scammed out of it. Or is there a way that I could go about cancelling the transaction that would be less likely to result in negative feedback? I’m curious what others would do in this situation.
And this post is also just a friendly reminder to check your buyer’s feedback – sometimes sellers leave feedback as a warning to people who might sell to that buyer in the future.
And sure enough, I search the buyer’s name on this forum to see if he’s on the blacklist or anything. His eBay username isn’t, but his PayPal/address name is! Fun stuff lol. So this makes me want to cancel even more…ugh, not sure how to go about this without getting a neg.
Hahahaha shit. Should I just tell him tomorrow that I can’t find the pack or something? Damn, I hope he doesn’t read this forum because then he’ll catch wind of my scheme
Edit: alts are against ToS if evading a ban or other restrictions. I certainly would not send the item. Can you also share the new account name so we can blacklist?
Yeah, I have no clue – I don’t see a way to report that. He’s not even using an alias or something lol. This is the name (and probably address?) that’s been associated with probably a gazillion reports of fraud. You’d think they’d prevent that address from being registered on eBay.
Thanks. I corrected my original post (obviously not all alts are banned, many of us have business and personal accounts split etc).
I’d like to hear other people make suggestions before doing anything, but I think you risk getting a negative you can’t have removed by lying (you lost the item or it’s damaged etc). I might be inclined to issue a refund, and tell him he is evading your blocklist by buying on another account and cite his previous usernames. He might feel less emboldened to leave negative feedback or complain to eBay if he is evading a ban.
I’m not sure that I want to confront the guy. I just want to get out of the transaction in the smoothest way possible. One potential option is cancelling the transaction and selecting the reason that ‘buyer asked to cancel.’ If I’m not mistaken, buyers can’t leave negative feedback when that option is chosen. But I’d also be curious on hearing what others think, too.
I had this problem 2 months ago when the winner of an auction I had for a pack ended. I check the guys feedback and I see 3 people saying he opened heavy packs and sent them back. So I contacted the buyer and told him I would have to cancel due to his feedback and I did. I selected buyer asked to cancel and I did.
Hmm, I just don’t really care to say to the guy “hey, your feedback makes me suspicious of you, therefore I’m cancelling.” I feel like that might result in a negative feedback. I believe that the ‘buyer asked to cancel’ option makes you immune from getting negative feedback but I’m not 100% sure. Maybe I should just call up eBay and tell them the situation and see if they can cancel it for me and block the buyer from leaving feedback?
Buyer asked me to cancel does indeed prevent negative feedback as far as I know. I asked someone to cancel an order and looking at my purchase history I don’t even see the option to leave feedback
What is worse… the high percentage chance that you lose the 120?
Or… the one negative feedback that won’t likely hurt your sales? You could probably get it removed anyway. It’s not a guarantee he leaves negative feedback either
I agree that the negative feedback would be preferable to losing $120. But I’m going to try to see if I can get out of this situation without losing $120 and without getting negative feedback. I feel like I can…
I’ve cancelled several sales due to suspicious buyer activity, always use the same BS excuse of ‘item lost from inventory’ or ‘previously sold and not realised’, always offering profuse apologies. I never mention it’s because I’m suspicious of them, if you do it’s an attack on their integrity and they’re more likely to leave you the neg. I’ve not received a neg to date doing this, but even if you do you can contest it with eBay & even if it sticks it’s super unlikely to affect your sales. Dunno about most other people, but I like to look at multiple feedback messages on a seller’s profile and take everything into consideration if they’ve had 1 or 2 negs.
This is a good suggestion and something I’m considering. My concern is that if he does decide to leave negative feedback, I’ll have no recourse. If a seller cancels because he’s out of stock (or claims to be), eBay views that as a legitimate reason for leaving negative feedback and so almost certainly won’t remove it.
And yeah, one negative probably won’t impact my sales much. But it’s more out of principle that I’d be bothered by it. Like, I don’t think I deserve it in this context. I have very good reason to believe that he’s a scammer, and so I think that it’s reasonable to cancel on that basis. And getting negative feedback as a result would be pretty annoying.
I’m leaning toward chosing ‘buyer asked to cancel’ and hoping that he doesn’t care enough to call up eBay and get the block on leaving feedback lifted (because there is no trail of communication showing that he actually asked to cancel).
@zorloth I know where you’re coming from about the principle of not receiving one, it’s like you put all the effort in to provide a decent experience for your customers then one single ill-intentioned twat comes along just to aggravate your profile. Another thing to consider if you’re still anxious about it is that you should be able to respond to a neg on your feedback profile, if so it’d be an opportunity to explain to anyone reading your feedback profile that the neg was left by a disingenuous scammer. Again I can’t talk for anyone else but myself here, but when I’m the buyer I genuinely don’t hold negs against a seller if it’s obvious that the majority of their transactions are good, *especially* if I can see well-reasoned public responses to any negs left on their feedback profile. I honestly believe most other buyers are reasonable enough to see it the same way.
