Unethical practice by seller: bringonthegirlies on item no.390089220695

[philatelicden]

I have full faith on ebay and its policies and bidding and buying and selling regularly on ebay with full confidence but in my openion the policy of unpaid strike given by sellers has to be reviewed by ebay. The whole correspondance between buyer & seller has to be viewed by ebay and than decide case on merits, the seller can only iniciate the unpaid strike but final decision can be taken by ebay.
In instant case: GREAT BRITAIN #209 ST GEORGE SLAYING THE DRAGON CAT$625
Item #: 390089220695
End time: Wednesday, 09 Sep, 2009 07:45:49 IST
Sale price: US $249.99
Seller: bringonthegirlies
Case opened: Thursday, 17 Sep, 2009 10:11:35 IST
Case closed: Monday, 21 Sep, 2009 10:04:45 IST

I started bidding on above item, the seller has put its description and photograph, very cleaverly by trick photography. Before close of bid I suddenly realized that item is highly dammaged from two places and immidiately I asked the to send me a high resolution scan of front and back of the stamp, but he didn't respond and bidding closed. I again asked the seller to provide me the desired scans as I doubt that stamp is dammaged from two places and upper left dammage is big one and if it is so requested him to cancel my bids on the item because I don't want dammaged item that too such an expensive item. After one or two days of close seller responded (without providing me the desired scans)and told me that that my doubt is correct and the stamp is dammaged from two places but as a policy I am the winning bidder I will have to pay and he raised the invoice. I requested him that I can not accept a dammaged item I can pay if he promise me to supply stamp without any dammage or otherwise cancel my bids. He stopped communication and I thaught that beeing a genuine person he has cancelled the bids and matter. I left a positive feedback for the seller appriciating his genuinety. Suddenly he opened case against me and started threatining of unpaid strike otherwise make payment for his dammaged stamp. I wrote so many comments in the case but he did not respond and one day he asked me to pay USD$ 200.00 insted of USD$ 249.99 and in reply I asked him that I have no problem in making full payment provided he supplies undammaged item but he never responded to that and finally gave me unpaid strike.
Now tell me where I am wrong in this episode. Actually seller is wrong for unethical practice he has adopted to display and describe his item trickely on ebay and when buyer could judge before payment that there is a trap start threatining buyer to make payment for dammaged goods.
I appeal ebay to remove unpaid strike given by above seller to me in above case and ban such seller from ebay, wheather he is big or small and change the procedure for unpaid strike.
Such unethical practices will ruin the ebay reputation in long run. Previously there was a great discussion about all these practices adopted on eBay by sellers in a Philatelic club and had a long discussion and most of the people were of view to avoid buying on eBay This is not my version so please don’t mind it.

I hereby once again request you to remove unpaid strike and ban such sellers.

Thank you,
Sincerely yours,
Deepak K Gupta
(Deepak8884)

[dsparklezz]

Dear Deepak,

This is very true from your side and I dont see a point in why the seller behaved like that when he himself agreed that the item was damaged. He should have actually sent you an undamaged piece or cancelled the transaction.Did you contact eBay customer support regarding this?

But now let me tell you my experience, many times I get unpaid item buyers,most of them are usually fresh buyers or people who have done few transactions on ebay.I contact them politely and wait for 7-10 days and then raise the unpaid item reminder ,regularly send them mails ,sometimes even call them and help them to understand the process(some buyers understand and agree to pay) .Most of them would say they will make payment and never turn up to do so.Some people may not even bother to respond and finally might need to give them unpaid item strikes.But i dont think even thats an issue for those buyers who oome n bid for time pass.

I have a buyer ( I am not giving the id as I do not want to spoil her reputation) who regulary bids and retracts , without any reason always saying that entered wrong amount.I told the buyer ,kindly contact us before starting to bid if you have any issues.But still continuing the same.Also I had one instance from another buyer who after winning the item ,reached a conclusion of himself that the item was damaged and he wanted to cancel the transaction when there were no issues with the product.The item was perfect.But even then he threatened me that even if he buy the item he would leave a negative feedback.:-).It actually looked funny to me! I knew this buyer would never pay and unnecessary tension and wastage of time for me.I cancelled the transaction as per his request and sold the item to the next highest bidder and i did got appreciation for my product from her.

So my point is that ,you cant always generalise the procedure of unpaid item strikes like that.But I do feel that eBay should come up with a more transparent and srict way of looking at the unpaid items.

Regards
Laya.

[ufo_big]

In my view you have made few mistakes in this transaction:

1. You have not read the item description properly before purchasing. The seller has mentioned in the listing clearly that there are two small tears in the top. I am copying from the item description:

"A BEAUTIFUL AND RARE LARGE STAMP FROM 1929! SCOTT # 209, VALUED AT $625. HAS 2 SMALL CLOSED TEARS AT TOP. THESE HIGH VALUES WERE USED ON LARGE PACKAGES AND ARE SO OFTEN MUCH WORSE OFF THAN THIS ONE. A MAGNIFICENT LARGE STAMP!"

2. You should not have left positive feedback so early without getting intimation from the seller that he is cancelling the transaction.

[dsparklezz]

Well, if the seller has specified the damage in the listing,then you cant blame him alone! Also after your discussion,he was ready to give you a discount also.May be you could have been a lil more careful while reading the listing.