Advice needed (Ebay)

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gzeiger
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Advice needed (Ebay)

Post by gzeiger » Mon Jun 21, 2004 6:15 am

In February I won this auction on Ebay: http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?Vi ... 3176628272

When I received the card it had been badly inked to cover wear much worse than what the auction picture showed. I contacted the seller, who initially denied that it had been inked and asked for a detailed scan to prove my claim. When I was able to provide a good scan, I didn't hear from him for about a week. Habitually slow replies led the whole negotiation process to take about two months.

I thought at the time I had the same 90 days to make a fraud report that I had to leave feedback. Bad mistake (it's 60 days). After receiving the scan, he told me he would be selling some stuff on Ebay to get money to settle with me. That sounded reasonable, and he did in fact post some things. Then I didn't hear from him for a while more. When we got to about 75 days or so and discussions with the seller weren't really going anywhere, I told him he had until day 80 to decide if he wanted to buy the card back, so that I had time to be sure the mail would arrive, or day 89 to provide a reasonable partial refund. He replied within the hour that he would "consider my request."

I didn't hear from him again, so on the last day I left my feedback and went to discover that the fraud deadline had passed. Two days later I got a note from Paypal offering a partial refund of about half what I had asked for. I decided to cut my losses, accepted the offer and didn't think any more about it.

A month later, June 14, I logged into Ebay and found that he had left me negative feedback, commenting "No one who held the card said anything about inking; Card was merely played."

Ebay won't do anything, as retaliatory feedback does not violate their policy. The only options I have through them are to go through Safe Harbor mediation, apparently at my expense, or to offer mutual withdrawal of feedback.

Please answer the following questions for me:
1) Are there any options I may have overlooked?

2) Is Safe Harbor as much of a joke as it sounds like? Is there any reason to spend money on a mediator?

3) How was he able to leave feedback after more than 90 days had passed?

4) How seriously would you consider mutually withdrawn feedback in a seller's profile?

5) Does it seem unethical to remove negative feedback from this guy's profile? (He has a very good record otherwise)

hammr7
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Re: Advice needed (Ebay)

Post by hammr7 » Mon Jun 21, 2004 6:28 am

It might be too late now, but you can usually do a follow up to any feedback that is left (I think it is for up to 30 days after feedback is left).  Nothing you can do will be worthwhile to take away the negative.  My follow up would be to call him out for the fraud that he is, and to ask interested individuals to e-mail you for "further" information.  Then prepare a little message laying out the details of his deception, both in selling you the card, and in what followed.

If the guy wants to continue selling on eBay, he might eventually agree to resolve the situation to get rid of your comments (and offers to tell others about him).   If you just throw the $30 or $40 that safe harbor costs, its worthless unless he agrees to get involved.  And without the weight of a pending Paypal or eBay fraud complaint, theres little chance he'll want to get involved.
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normalbrains
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Re: Advice needed (Ebay)

Post by normalbrains » Mon Jun 21, 2004 6:42 am

whenever someone bids on his auctions, email them a link to this thread or have a pre-written story of what happened ready to send to them. theres a lot of unethical people on ebay, many with great feedback. you have every right to inform other bidders of his post-auction actions and affect his business until he retracts his negative and/or refunds your money. while he did state the cards were in g-vg condition, inking should definitely be stated also. id buy g card, but not an inked one.

ebay=buyer beware.

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Re: Advice needed (Ebay)

Post by dry cereal » Mon Jun 21, 2004 6:44 am

why not post a webpage that shows the advertised pic he had, and the scan of the obviously crummy card.  Then put a link to it as followup to his feedback.  That would be sufficient for me.
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gzeiger
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Re: Advice needed (Ebay)

Post by gzeiger » Mon Jun 21, 2004 12:04 pm

Good ideas, but Ebay explicitly forbids posting contact information or links to websites like that. As I've looked into the case, it looks like feedback will be removed on request if he notifies Ebay that I did that.

WHat about questions 4 & 5?

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Re: Advice needed (Ebay)

Post by Thrond » Mon Jun 21, 2004 3:38 pm

When I have to buy an expensive card on ebay, I always save the card scan(s) on my computer, then look at it closer with photoshop or ACDSee, increasing the brightness of the picture.
Sellers usually provide very dark scans that actually "hide" major wears...

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Re: Advice needed (Ebay)

Post by misterpid » Mon Jun 21, 2004 3:43 pm

1)  If you paid wit a credit card, try contacting your cc company.

2)  Safe harbor is a joke, they have no authority to force anybody to do anything.

3)  Feedback can be left after 90 days if you can still get to the auction page (the link is right next to the feedback you left him).  The reply that you left is pretty good - calm and factual is the best way to go.

4) Personally, I don't worry tto much about withdrawn feedback in a profile - I see it more as fixing a miscommunication between the 2 parties.

5)  It doesn't seem unethical to remove the feedback from him, but I would only do it if he actually gives the refund.
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mintcollector
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Re: Advice needed (Ebay)

Post by mintcollector » Tue Jun 22, 2004 1:09 am

eBay won't do much for you at all, believe me I know I have tried.  I ran into a situation where I won a DCI Crusade (when they were new at the time) from a seller.  He had emailed me a payment form, so this was pre-PayPal days, so I sent him a personal check.  Well after 30 days nothing (but I saw he cashed the check), so I decided to start emailing him.    I was very polite (in the beginning) just asking what was going on.  The seller had over 100+ perfect feedback, so I thought maybe something was out of the ordinary wrong.  After 1-2 emails/week, with never one reply, I eventually sent him a final email (at just below 60 days) stating he had left me no choice but to leave him negative feedback.  Later that same day this a$$hole decides to respond by posting negative feedback of non-payment for me!  Oh was I pissed.  I was glad that eBay had the feedback response feature in place.  So I just stated he cashed my check, the number of the check, and he was a liar.

After that I finally got a hold of eBay customer service to complain about the situation (my first and only ever negative feedback). I stated I had records of all emails sent with dates on them (11 in all), the cashed check with his signature in hand!, and all other applicable auction info.  They would not even listen to me at all only stating once feedback is left there is nothing they can do.  Even though I had blatant proff of no wrongdoing on my part and that payment was indeed made and cashed they would not lift a finger to help.  

At least you got some of your money back.  Other than that, the only way to rescind the feedback is to have both parties agree to retract the feedback.  This newer feature is stupid, because it usually allows some slime bucket to get off the hook as someone who is actually honest wants to keep a clean feedback record.  As a result, I actually take the time to research a seller to see what the history of negative feedback was if any, as some of the time is was due to having an encounter with some a$$hole on eBay.

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Re: Advice needed (Ebay)

Post by Tenacious_Dyl » Tue Jun 22, 2004 1:42 am

Does using eBay prevent anyone from going to Small-Claims Court, or possibly Claims Court?

If someone took you for a lot of money, or something was very unfair, take them to court. In such a case you could represent yourself and not have to worry about lawyer fees and such. Just an option for higher end scams, bad ebay deals and people.

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Re: Advice needed (Ebay)

Post by mintcollector » Tue Jun 22, 2004 2:02 am

Does using eBay prevent anyone from going to Small-Claims Court, or possibly Claims Court?

If someone took you for a lot of money, or something was very unfair, take them to court. In such a case you could represent yourself and not have to worry about lawyer fees and such. Just an option for higher end scams, bad ebay deals and people.
Good luck across state lines.  Good luck even getting some low life scumbag like that to show.

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dry cereal
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Re: Advice needed (Ebay)

Post by dry cereal » Tue Jun 22, 2004 3:30 am

with the increased prices of P9, you can probably sell the mox and make a profit anyway.
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Re: Advice needed (Ebay)

Post by Tenacious_Dyl » Tue Jun 22, 2004 3:52 am

mintcollector: I do not know law very well I am afraid :( if they skip... is there a penalty to them? Also.. most emails have the names (first and last) in headers... sometimes I get emails from (Last Name, First) that I do not know, but I recognise the nick-name in the actual email.

An attempt to get them in court would at least give them an ugly background?

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dry cereal
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Re: Advice needed (Ebay)

Post by dry cereal » Tue Jun 22, 2004 3:58 am

sign up their email account at as many porn sites as possible.  >:(
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psrex
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Re: Advice needed (Ebay)

Post by psrex » Wed Jun 23, 2004 1:38 am

I don't see any reason why you couldn't file a mail fraud complaint with the postal service.  It's not like using Ebay limits your rights to go through other channels.  As long as you have the person's address you should be good to go.

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