Negative feedback for nondelivery of item even after returning buyers money

[solartroniksonline]

Dear Community members,
I put this query to Sapana and Kashyap of eBay, and I am not convinced by their answer,hence I have come to all of you, especially the seller community for your comments on my query. I am a seller of books ( long tail books costing around Rs. 100/- to 300/-) of a publisher. I had listed almost 240 books of his. But since his collection is large and his operations too is very large, it is difficult for him to give priority to retail customers, as in eBay whose customers are retail. so if i get an order on eBay for my book, I go to my publisher, and if he has it, I can buy it and ship it to my buyer, but sometimes he does not have it. In that case, I am promising to return the money of my buyer, since anyway my buyer pays by paisa pay and if i do not enter courier details, then automatically after 7 days the money is returned to the buyer. This is absolutely fair, but my issue is that the buyer should not be given an opportunity to give negative feedback if his money is returned, since the control of publisher having stock of book is not in my hand. Incidently till today I have 100% positive feedback and I have earned it through sheer hardwork and even facing loss of money sometimes. But I feel that it is not fair on me to receive negative feedback, incase I have communicated to eBay and buyer and informed them that I cannot deliver the book, and so eBay should return buyers money. Sapana and Kashyap say that it is eBay policy and they cannot stop a buyer giving me negative feedback, but I do not agree to receive a negative feedback for this typical case mentioned above. Request your comments on this topic. Thanking you all in advance.

[bhushan.mehta]

As a buyer, i myself feel that the -ve feedback was extreme. I would have (and have) given neutral feedback in such a case. But i also want to make a few points from buyer point of view.

1. If i see an active listing, i assume it is available. That is the way ebay works and it is the right way. There are some sellers who clearly mention in their listing that item is subject to availability (or that item sent may vary from what is shown in picture but features remain same). In such cases, i always send a message to seller to confirm item is available (or to send pic of currently available item) before ordering. Otherwise, i have to assume that it is available and as shown in listing.

2. Lets say buyer placed order and after that seller finds out that item is not available (your case). In this case, i would see how much effort the seller gives in prompt communication and how much effort HE puts in refunding my money. If the seller is just sitting around waiting for 7 days to complete and refund to happen automatically then it is ebay's system, not the seller, that has given me a refund. Also, for buyer, it is not just 7 days. After 7 days, ebay initiates refund and then waits for another 5 days for authorising refund (in case seller ships), and then another 2 to 3 days for it to be credited. So buyer waits 7+5+3 = 15 days for his refund. In such case, seller cannot claim that HE gave the refund. He did not do anything.

However, as per ebay procedure, the seller can send a mail to ebay asking it to refund the amount immediately. In this case, ebay will immediately authorise refund and buyer will have to wait only 2/3 days for it to be credited back into his account. In this case, seller can claim he had given refund because he put an effort, however small into the refund. But so far, no seller i have had such situations with even knows about this let alone implement it. One has to wonder how long it takes to write a small email!!? Heck, mark the buyer in the same mail and you have shot two birds with one stone!

3. I think ebay policies are correct in this matter. It has created facilities to make buyer-seller communication as effective as possible. It is upto sellers to know and use them. Also, ebay cannot restrict buyers because it is against the basic freedom of opinion.

You can contest the -ve feedback in community court, i guess. -- Signature: I am Jack's complete lack of surprise.

[solartroniksonline]

Dear Bhushan, Thank you very much for taking the efforts to respond to this thread. Noted your comments here in detail. The point, I want to emphasise, is that if I take all efforts suggested by you by mentioning the one liner below "Subject to availability", and also taking the effort to initiate a message to INCS of eBay to cancel the deal and refund the money to the buyer, does the option of negative feedback still have to be given to the buyer, against the seller?? At this point, I would like to mention that as a seller, even right now, I have some bills of mine to be paid by paisapay, because the buyer has not bothered to acknowledge receipt of the goods. This has happened before too, and eventually I get my money in about 1 months time, if the buyer has not raised any issue. But in such a case, I do not have the option to give negative rating to the buyer, since option of negative rating is given only to a buyer and not to a seller. Is this fair?

Secondly, if a buyer has already made a payment, then there is no button option available on the panel of the seller to select " We buyer and seller have decided not to go ahead with this deal" hence the only option left is to write to INCS online to refund the buyers money. This does not give any communication record to the buyer that the seller has initiated refund of his money, thus the buyer tends to lose trust in the seller for delay of this refund.

Also note another point of interest. I was surfing www.consumercourt.in and seraching for complaints regarding eBay. Obviously most of the complaints were from buyers. One of the comments from the complainant buyer is

"This is in respect to Ebay.in . I transacted a 8 gb pen drive with id ( PaisaPay Id - 23294817297 ) I paid an amout of 1,020 via Citibank online transfer ( Online transfer ref # 835419544200 ) on 19th Dec 2008. The seller pen_1261.123 alias Anand from Hyderabad turned out to be fake , did not respond nor shipped the item which was paid for . Ebay approved my refund on 12th Jan and mentioned in the wesite within 3-4 working days the refund would reflect in my bank . Today is the 21st Jan and still I dont have any refund . Have tried contacting the customer care via chat & email - they just mention to get back to me after 48 hrs . I have been contacting them from 12th Jan 2008 for which they are not mentioning any reasons . Its been one month and my money is till with Ebay for no reason which the specify nor they are able to refund."

From the above, it is evident that there are cases that the refund has been stuck at eBay end. So is that why eBay to safeguard their interests has given the buyer an option to blame the seller? In this case paisapay department responded to the buyer for refund of his money, just because they could investigate to find out that the seller did not exist.

Thus, my anxiety that if I have no intentions to steal anybody money, then why should I tarnish my image from that of a serious eBay seller to that of a "Fly-by-night" operator. I know the efforts, I had taken to maintain by 100% positive feedback.
Lastly, all must also understand that a serious seller like me has no reason to initiate any order cancellation, because each order constitutes my Daily bread. So if I have to initiate any cancellation of order, it should only be construed by all, that there were some factors beyond my control for which I take responsibility and agree to initiate dialogue with INCS to refund the buyer's money. Beyond that no action should be taken on serious sellers like me

[rajelectroniks]

@vgabraham...

vgabraham, Mr. Mehta has at least taken the effort to reply to your post but I feel that your post merits no reply at all. from your wording of the post it looks you are doing a favour selling on ebay, no its not.

You have 40 positive rating for 1 year period, there are sellers who have 2500 listing on sale right now with monthly positives of more than 1000 and make less noise.

Are sellers fools to maintain an inventory of thousands of rupees and then sell on ebay. Yes it is bread to all of us on ebay and we all work hard to keep it going. See my reply for other similar post with the same issue of getting negative for refunding buyer payment in 2hrs.

The new sellers on ebay have only one notion that they are right and all others are wrong. I would request you to first acquaint your self, familiarize yourself with all the sales aspects and selling ethics of ebay and only then come online to sell. Mr Mehta is 100% right in what he has said. I will add to that and say as a sellers you have the moral duty to set client expectations and then see to it that you follow it to the T. You cannot be complacent and say book not available so I refunded and so the buyer cannot give me negative. Yes the buyer has every right to give you negative because you have let him down and fooled him into believing that you can deliver where as you did not.

Please see some good quality listing of good sellers and take all the good points that you can gather from it and give a VERY VERY clear picture to your buyer as to what he is getting into only then you will be successful on ebay.

You have mentioned a case where PP did not refund on time and the buyers blame the seller for it, no problems even for that there are ways of handling a client and converting him from an IRATE buyer to a positive giving buyer but first please learn the method of doing good ethical online sales. Money will come later but first put yourself in buyers shoes and see how it feels and I am sure you will agree with me.

Last you have mentioned that there is no refund button, let me tell you that we have struggled hard and fought with ebay to get the refund button available on PP page. Yes there is refund button on PP page where you yourself can initiate a refund to the buyer with your remarks.

You payment getting stuck to 1 month, well we all have been through that and have now qualified for express remittance. You can also grow your businees and when ebay deems fit you will also qualify for express remittance, till then you will have to wait for getting paid.

All the best......
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Regards.
Raj Electroniks.

[solartroniksonline]

rajelectroniks. I salute you as my senior and for your convincing words. I am keen to watch the opinion of others too here in this forum and other social media websites too. It will definitely help me build my knowledge. Incidently, yesterday initially my publisher came to me say that a book ordered by me for a eBay buyer is not available, I was struggling to search the refund button, but could not find it. Fortunately, I did not have to do it, because I got a message from my publisher that the book was available, and hence did not have to refund the money to the buyer.
Regarding investing in stocks, I am not shy to admit that at present, I do not have the funds and cannot risk doing that at present.

[rajelectroniks]

Location of REFUND BUTTON on My Paisapay Page

*************************
Regards.
Raj Electroniks.

[solartroniksonline]

Thanks. That was informative.

[bhushan.mehta]

@rajelectroniks: thanks! -- Signature: I am Jack's complete lack of surprise.

[adit999]

Hello Everyone,
I have received a negative feedback by a buyer who has received the item in 2-3 working days with online trackable docket number.
Would you like to know what he has mentioned in -VE feedback " he has not recd. the item till date" and eBay will not remove the feedback even though it is a fraud and unrealistic!!!

All they say is this :

The eBay Feedback Forum is a member-to-member tool that gives people a place to speak freely without worrying about being censored.

Members are solely responsible for the comments they post, and we can remove a member's comments only under certain conditions. After a review, we've determined that this comment doesn't qualify for removal.

Even if a member leaves Feedback that is unfair, untruthful, or harmful to a member's reputation, we can't remove it without a court order describing the comments as libelous, defamatory, or illegal.

[rajelectroniks]

@adit999...

Please quote such buyers name so that other sellers can blacklist him or her immediately. We have told 100 times that please quote such matters with full details still sellers quote half matter.

If ebay cannot do or will not do anything in this matter, we sellers will do something about it, give the buyer +ve FB but in remarks say what you really want to say about the buyer. At least others will come to know the truth.

I have posted elsewhere in this form that new buyers should be allowed to leave FB only after they have received a min of 10 FB from sellers but ebay does not brother at all. *************************
Regards.
Raj Electroniks.