eBay Frustration

I just purchased an iPod 80gb on ebay for £165! The seller was clearly surprised at how low the final price was (as was I) as he's just contacted me, informing me the (supposedly unopened) item is "faulty" and that I'll get a full refund. This sucks! He has several other 80Gb iPods for sale on there still, so it's clearly an issue with the price (the idiot should've set a reserve). I'm obviously not going to get the iPod now and my refund is apparently on its way. What can I do?

Negative feedback? What a waste of time. That's like simply giving him a "slap on the wrist" and telling him to not do it again. I thought auctions were legally binding? eBay should suspend his account for such activity, but what are the chances of that happening!?

Has anyone been in a similar situation before? How forceful are ebay? I've a feeling I'm wasting my time... My cancelling my account is clearly not going to shock ebay in action. Man, this is frustrating...

It happend to my Mum, but she is really good at "Complaining", so she complained to Ebay, And they told the person that he had to send the product or the account would be suspended.

Ebay is a snide magnet...but then Ebay themselves don't lose any sleep over it. I'd definitely fire off a few angry emails to them about it.

Ebay should be on your side on this one, contact them and see. good luck.

Thanks all - I've raised this with ebay, although I wonder how quickly they'll act. I'm a little more optimistic having read your replies though. The guy has just added two more iPod 80gb auctions, so I know he has them. I've recorded the item numbers, should they prove useful.

Fingers crossed...

Should I leave negative feedback immediately, or should I wait to see what ebay has to say? Negative feedback could cause problems for his other iPod auctions, which sounds good to me right now ;)

Don't leave negative feedback yet. It's more useful if you use it to leverage what you actually want.

I would report to Ebay and ask for thier account to be removed, someone thought they would stiff me on a game I bought so I left negative feedback after a few emails without replies I ask ebay to close thier account which they did. I got the money back via Paypal tho.

As has already been said, complain to eBay about that. They really don't like people who play the "its broken" game because they didn't get the proce they wanted.

A lot of people try that because a fixed price auction costs extra to list.

I received a pirated CD via Ebay (believed I was getting an original), so I sent it back to the seller with the agreement I would get a refund. I never got a refund, so I complained via ebay/Paypal. They found in my favour but I never got a penny back because they said the sellers Paypal account was empty.

If the item is faulty, say you'll take it anyway and get it fixed for free on the warranty. It's still unopened, right?

the feedback thing on ebay gets a lot of criticism, mainly because it sucks. i say get on with buying another one.

Ebay is for risk takers... Don't ever use eBay unless your willing to take a huge risk!

Granted, you can come accross a good deal here and there (rarely), however you pay for it in the end (the average is clearly against you).

Paypal doesn't have to lift a finger in your direction unless the item was of $250 or more value, and in most cases they will judge in favor of the seller (unless the seller has less than 40 feedback).



Precisley! Protection? Protection from what? What sort of protectin is paypal or ebay offering when they rely on the funds of those involved? They dont want to get their hands dirty so they will play off any excuse they can to do as little work for the largest reward.

Bottom line is, it's the scam artists that make eBay look the most attractive. "What, an 80gb for 165, thats crazy, I should get on this eBay wagon!". This sort of thing makes them look good as a market place. Rock bottom deals!

I ordered a few paintball markers (a lot of 4) about 2 years ago off of ebay. I sniped the auction so I got all 4 for $40 bucks! Great deal! Seller wouldn't ship, said they were on back order?!? Back order?!? Why the hell would you list something that you dont have? Turns out the price was way lower then they expected to get and wanted to wait on some refurbished shitty guns to come in and give those to me.

I complained. Told them I would leave negative feedback if they didn't ship me my purchase within a week. No response (this is 7 weeks after auction ending, 6 weeks 5 days since I payed for them). So after no responses for 2 more weeks, I finally threatened to reverse the charge on paypal. They gave me a tracking number at that point. After crossrefferencing the number, I found out that the product was delivered to my door step 2 days prior to that final email. I never recieved it, but it said it was delivered. I called UPS where they told me that the package wasn't checked to be signed for (which is free mind you, all you do is check a little box that says 'require signature on delivery') so they said they probably left it on the front door step...

Front door step?!? Now my neighbor hood isn't a bad area, however we do have some crooked people living a block or two down... Who in their right mind leaves a huge box on their front door step (all day) expecting it to be there when someone arrives home....

Oh well. Paypal said since they had proof of tracking, and only require signature delivery on $250 or more, their hands were tied and that any further appeals would be denied as their word is final...

Since then, that seller opened another account and closed their others. I know this because I still see their 'lots of 4 markers' for sale, by a different seller name, but same company logo on their pages... Their old account grew too much neg feedback (it went below 94%)....

/book

So yeah, I will still use eBay, but I dont expect much from it. Unless the deal is just amazing by a seller of 100% rating (more than 300 feedback), I will pass it up.

http://pages.ebay.com/securitycenter/?ssPageName=home:f:f:US

Yeah, complain to Ebay and give the guy bad feedback. It's fun :)

Personally though, I believe ebay should be used to find the more rarer harder to find items, usually of the second hand variety that are now no longer in print.

There are plenty of other distributors that are better (such as amazon) for brand new items than looking on Ebay.

Just depends on what your buying and how much of a deal your looking for. I spent $140 for 80 Large and 90 Regular greenies with free 3 day shipping for my dog last week. Just the large greenies alone would have cost me $120 normaly.

But this was from a wholesale pet supplier, not quite the same thing I guess :)