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Problem with other seller
 

First post here and although its nothing to do with suspensions or stealths you do seem a knowledgeable bunch so thought I'd post up with my 'issue'.

Basically at the start of the year I changed my account to sell a different product, ebay member since 04, 1500+ FB all positive. Never had a problem or issue.

What I changed too was much more competitive but I felt I could add my own touch on the product (its something that's designed so easily changed from seller to seller). I noticed another seller had copied some of my items or maybe not copied but used a lot of inspiration from them so rather stupidly I guess I did the same thing and we did this back and forth for a while so we both knew full well what we doing and checking each others products. I guess he felt he owned the market or he was scared of losing custom.

A week later I've got a negative feedback for what I felt was unfair but so does everybody, I know the order was dispatched the following day and the feedback was within 3 days of ordering. I messaged the buyer and asked would they change it if I refunded as the items are quite low value it isn't worth the hassle and got no reply. I had no communication from the buyer apart from negative feedback.

Checked the address of the buyer and I'm certain its a second account or friends account of the other seller, 15 minutes away from his address.

Today the same thing has happened again, negative feedback and buyer not responding and never sent me a message at any point.

I've just looked into maybe blocking buyers with 0 feedback but found out you can't do that so how can I combat this, I'm certain its the seller as we was going at it a little but other than stooping to the same level is there anything I can do to stop it or minimize the effect? one more and I'll lose the powerseller and TRS and tbh just can't be bothered with arguing and fighting over sales but I'm not going to quit ebay either.

How would you proceed?

Re: Problem with other seller
 

In a practical sense there's very little you can do about it. You can try calling EB and see if they agree with you and will do anything to help.

I've heard of people having success with calling about this, it's called something like 'malicious buying'.

You can block anyone who gives you a neg, but I don't think you can block by state or ZIP code or region, he could create a dozen accounts and put you out of business pretty fast.

Re: Problem with other seller
 

There is a rule to this, but the person that is purchasing from him would also have to deal with the same products or has some type of relation to the other person.

Re: Problem with other seller
 

If you block/blocked him and he opens up another account just to purchase and leave a neg, and they can confirm it's probably the same person, ( which they will probably be able to do ) they may close him down.

Re: Problem with other seller
 

It is called "Disruptive business practices" and is very easy to prove sometimes but anyone can create an unlimited amount of guest accounts and wreck a seller pretty quickly.