I can't believe we are having a discussion about whether it is "moral" for a seller to protect himself from the occassional a-holes that frequent ebay.

I don't think asking a buyer to drop an email through ebay verifying that they have received their item is too damn much to ask before leaving positive feedback.

I have had at least three jerks try and hold me as the seller hostage after I had left positive feedback. And guess what? None were newbays. One tried the old "item got mangled in mail...I'll send it back...and you refund or send a better copy..." OK, I'll help you out. Item comes back and it sure in the hell wasn't the one I sent! But shit, I already left pos. feedback...

Should sellers hold off leaving pos. feedback until buyer does? No, but blindly leaving feedback sucks.

Blackmoor has it right when he illustrates that potential buyers with sort through hundreds of positives to find those few negs. So they do count.

One more point, and I'll get off the soap box. Payment is not a guarantee of actually getting payment. I have also had the payment withdrawn fiasco. The bastard even went so far as to leave me a negative feedback saying they never got the item, when I had a delivery confirmation via USPS saying they did. It was all a scam to beat me down on the sales price. Never got paid, shipped items and even left the jerk positive feedback because I used to do it automatically when payment arrived. Once burned, twice shy!

That is why have adopted my "let me know if you are happy" policy.

red_dawn wrote:Move on, worry about your selling, & rise above the masses of yard-salers on eBay.

Oh, so that's how to be a good eBay seller. What do I need seven years of experience and 2,000-plus sales for? I can just come to you for advice! Thank you, thank you, thank you — a thousand times thank you — for explaining to me what I was doing wrong.

Okay, dude, I'm cool with you taking a few shots at me, mostly because it's funny that you're so convinced you've got it all figured out. However, I tried to get this thread back on-topic — *^*points to second-to-last post on previous page*^* — and I'm not going to debate this with you any longer. If you feel the need to remind me some more about how right you are, PM me ...

Xaxaxe wrote:

red_dawn wrote:Move on, worry about your selling, & rise above the masses of yard-salers on eBay.

Oh, so that's how to be a good eBay seller. What do I need seven years of experience and 2,000-plus sales for? I can just come to you for advice! Thank you, thank you, thank you — a thousand times thank you — for explaining to me what I was doing wrong.

Okay, dude, I'm cool with you taking a few shots at me, mostly because it's funny that you're so convinced you've got it all figured out. However, I tried to get this thread back on-topic — *^*points to second-to-last post on previous page*^* — and I'm not going to debate this with you any longer. If you feel the need to remind me some more about how right you are, PM me ...

Wow...I missed the last page when it rolled over it seems.  *Ducking crossfire*.  But seriously gentlemen, we all see through your little plot to distract us from the RJK auctions.  :D

To start this thread back on topic, and to respond to the original question, check out this earlier thread, there's some good points in there:

http://www.acaeum.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=2144

fwiw (and i dont really care if anyone agrees with me or not ) i do leave feedback right away. basically if i dont, i will just forget. i have plenty going on in my life and if you think i am gonna sit here combing thru every single thing, sod that for a game of soldiers!!

i noticed the other day that ppl who buy from me, i get left feedback appx 3 times out of 5. i dont harrass the hell out of the remainder, although i do feel somewhat dissappointed that they havent even let me know a. that the item was ok, or b. that they actually received it!

i think the feedback system is too inflexible and leaves you open to abuse by ppl who dont /cant use it properly - meybe its just not a good system at all?

anyone who has sense can read between the lines anyway.....

Al

As a buyer, I leave FB as the item arrives. It's the way I keep track of my incoming purchases, which can be quite a few at one time (2 or 3 pages of the My Ebay FB screen if I've been particularly ambitious in the prior weeks). I'd never remember them all, so the FB helps as a checklist.

The vast majority arrive as expected, though you get the occasional dope shipping a Greyhawk box set in brown paper, who is then surprised when the item arrives damaged.  :(

How do people handle refunds/returns as ebay sellers? If a buyer requests a refund, what exactly do you refund? Just the item sell price? Sell price + shipping one way? Sell price + original shipping + return shipping?

Just wondering if you make the Buyer pay the shipping costs involved in returns or if you refund all costs associated with the transaction.

I refund whatever they paid me; shipping included. If my item description was wrong, then I take responsibility.

But, I have only had to do that twice and one was a scam.

grodog wrote:Thanks for all of your thoughts, folks. Given our looming move timeline, I may not bother listing stuff, and may well go for some sort of "dump the stuff all at once" option and/or just list stuff here. I should know soon, as our moving schedule firms up.

(And just to reiterate, I'm not selling everything by any means, just stuff that I don't want/need anymore and stuff I've bought at a good price with the intention to sell all along, but haven't gotten around to selling yet...).

Looks like I'll be selling off stuff after our move rather than before:  our worldly goods will be heading off to Wichita, Kansas, on Friday, and I'll be remaining here with the stuff to be sold.  So, I'll be pretty slow to respond to emails and PMs for the rest of the week, but I will get back to folks who've written to me about geomorphs, the Pagan Publishing manuscriptions, etc., once things have stopped being quite so chaotic.

Hasta!

GraysonAC wrote:Hope it all survives the trip Grodog!

My 3 cents on the feedback issue (I'm Canadian, damn exchange rate) - I honestly don't even manually leave feedback as a seller anymore. Once a buyer leaves me a positive, he gets one automatically in return, thanks to eBay automation. I sell too much stuff to handle it individually. And follow-up emails? God, I wish I had the time for something like that, heh. Since yesterday morning, I've had 150+ emails. About half of that is automated eBay stuff I can make a note of and ignore, the other half is questions from buyers/sellers, offers, etc. Email already takes up waaay too much of my day. I don't even want to know what the big stores, like Badmike, go through .

The same....although most of the stuff can be quickly answered.  Someone inquiring about a package sent, a confirmation number, a shipping cost, these are typical.  Sometimes a buyer wants to monopolize a lot of your time, and actually most of the time I might give it to them if I think I'm helping a potential customer. For example today a buyer wanted to know which Dungeon magazines had Dark Sun adventures. Typically this would take a lot of time, but I was somewhat caught up this morning, a few minutes of clicking through my listings (which the buyer could have done, I grant) came up with the answer, which I emailed to them.  Now, I've had people ask for stuff like all the Dragon mags with Top Secret articles, or all the Dungeon magazines with 1st level adventures, or the like.  I just can't take the time to research these questions, and of course the way it usually happens is when I do spend the time, they don't buy anything anyway!!!
    Like Grayson, I have just recently went to a system of "Leaving feedback after getting feedback" as a seller.  This is 180 degree turn from where I used to be, but as pointed out pretty much all the power is in the Buyer's hands anyway, and more and more I was being subjected to types of subtle feedback blackmail.  I agree with a the thought that a lot of buyers are newbies and just not knowledgable to the ways of Ebay, but that's no reason why I should have to waste time spending an inordinate amount of support on an order for a $9 D&D module because if the buyer doesn't see the item in the next 48 hours they are going to leave a negative, contact ebay, file with Paypal, etc etc (Yawn).  
   I used to leave feedback first because the buyer had done their part, i.e. pay for the item. However, as has been seen, this is NOT the case with paypal orders made by credit card.  The Buyer hasn't actually paid for anything...it's as if the payment is attached to an invisible rubber band they can yank back out of your wallet at any moment for any reason at all.  Since this has become a problem, I recently went to leaving feedback only when I get it.  Guess what?  Things are better than they have been in a long time...no feedback blackmail threats for one thing, also no "Where is my item it better get here soon or you're going to get a neg" notes I typically get from a newbie about two days after they have paid....  I only leave feedback first when it's the case of an Acaeum member or someone I have dealt with before.  When someone leaves feedback, I know they are happy with the order and respind accordingly (I always leave feedback as soon as I receive an item from a seller, myself).

Mike B.