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Bad experience has put me off being a seller
 

I decided to sell some unwanted items on ebay for the first time. As a friendly gesture, my friend offered to put the first one up for auction on his site to show me the ropes.

The item was sold and dispatched. In unwapping it, the buyer damaged the item, emailed my friend and demanded a full refund plus p+p and 50% of return postage. As neighbour has thus far 100% positive feedback, he felt compelled to comply in fear of negative feedback.

I had no control over this as was a mere bystander in this case. Now I cannot resell the item as it is damaged. Friend not prepared to upset buyer by reporting them to ebay and I have unsaleable goods and am out of pocket for two lots of bulky postage. Do I want to become a regular ebay seller?....What do you think??

If one problematic situation has put you off selling on eBay then I think it is not for you.

All sellers on eBay face problems on a daily basis and it is challenging marketplace to work. It is understandable that your friend did not want to damage his reputation by reporting the buyer.

On ebay like in life, you will be exposed to complete morons from time to time. Unfortunately, in the ebay world sometimes it is sooner rather then later. Don't let this one bad experience deter you as it is representative of the vast minority of ebay customers. If this was such a frequent occurrence, ebay would not be a viable source of business.

When you are exposed to a moron, you have to mitigate your aggravation and damage to your ebay reputation by any means necessary like how your friend conducted himself/herself. As for your loss, you just need to chalk it up as a cost of doing business and if you frequently sell on ebay this loss will be ending up being negligible.

Incidents like this happen on a regular basis. Damaged items in transit, returns, compensating buyers for return postage are all part of doing business.

If you cant put it down to experience and move on, then ebay, or any online selling, is not for you.

Ur friend was right to play the safe formula and percentage game with the buyer .. basically resistance by seller spells trouble whether buyer was in the wrong or not.

Some buyers do take the mickey, and many more still will exploit other situations if any loose matters are not dealt with swiftly and descisively. The majority are fine .. its all a question of accepting the hazards that will occur.

I'm very new to this forum whilst experienced at eb btw .. making post contributions has just relieved some of the hard work needed to go through all the stealth facts .. which is doing my head in, but i'll get there :pound:

I think that 1) your friend should come to this site 2) you both have to decide if one negative feedback is worth tarnishing the account? 3) you or he must research if this is the policy of pp : "demanded a full refund plus p+p and 50% of return postage" 4) even if you do comply with customer, how do you know he wont leave negative feedback?

As a regular seller, you will see these kind of cases - rare but happen - if you can deal with it rarely, then welcome to the seller world. If you can't...perhaps something else is best for you?

Welcome to the forums - all the best.

when you 1st start out... things like this hit you on a more personal level, you gota suck it up and move on.. once you are rolling pretty good stuff like this won't even make you raise an eyebrow, you just say yep yep yep and keep rolling.

the more your vol, the higher chance of hitting a werido.

You will always get dumb and fraudulent customers on eBay. Its just part of it. It is rare but it is just how it is. I would just be careful with what you sell and weigh the risk. If it is only one item, very valuable, and popular enough I would consider craigslist

I would also like to add, this is NOT just an eb4y problem.

This will happen in any business. You have good and bad customers in anything you are doing.

If you are doing business no matter what it is you will run into jerks, you just gota move past and not give them a second thought, for every bad customer you have 100+ good ones waiting.

Did you quit liking girls/guys after your first experience. Come on now, these seems to be like a you issue. eBay doesnt need you, you need them.

how do you know it was damaged while it was being unwrapped? if your friend knew the business and the item had any value, why did you not have insurance on it? your friend DID do the right thing in giving the refund because it is not worth for them to risk their account because of your sale.

I knew the item was damaged whilst being unwrapped because the buyer emailed my friend and complained that it had been so 'tightly wrapped' that they 'accidentally clipped it' whilst using scissors to cut through the wrapping. Hence their demand for a refund etc.

ok that's fine then. your friend still did the right thing. they should not risk their account for one of your sales or anyone's sales. that is just the way of the game