Forum

Bribery?
 

Any merchants ever try to bribe a buyer or perhaps entice them with another item all for the sake of removing a negative feedback?

Negative feedback hurts sales therefore I feel a minor monetary loss for the removal is a small loss.

Thoughts?

Definitely

I offered to refund plus send them something else. I hated it but it's still cheaper than paying rent and business rates for a bricks & mortar store

The price of doing business I'm afraid

YUP! But never without 1st talking to them on the phone.

I want to know or at least feel that I'm not being scammed. :)

Correct

:ranger:

I have tried many times and it's always a 50/50 shot. Never full proof unfortunately.

Hmmm - I've never failed Unknown

Then there are the deadbeats who say they will comply until they receive what was agreed upon then decide no to. :mad2:

^^^ Exactly as jayyjam said.

Also, GTran, my issue is that my quick responses to discuss avoiding negative feedback will actually make customers think you might be some sort of scammer. Then they take full enjoyment of destroying your DSR. It's a lot to explain, but someone else here has to know what I am talking about or has experienced it. It's those people that think all items should be 100% flawless and when it isn't, they lose their sh!t and will not listen to anything you have to say. Then they want to make sure no one else gets "screwed" like them and so they slam you with a negative and run away, even after I have given a full refund some times.

After that happened so many times, unless it is a really expensive item, I just apologize and issue a refund. My products are all under $60 these days and I sell a lot, so I just absorb the loss and move on. I will still always try to avoid negatives any way I can, but since online trading is not face to face and buyers have realized they can do whatever they want on EB, I just don't have the time to deal with the nonsense of returns and whatever else to please some d-bag who is just going to screw me over anyways.

I cannot disagree with anything you have said

All I can do is say what works for me

i've never dealt with this situation but if they agree to revise the feedback if you send a refund, this can be seen as extortion and ebay MIGHT reverse it. they are entering into contracts even if it through ebay messages.
i've moved to selling higher end products and i have notice A LOT less scammers. sounds weird but that's just what i've come across.

Excellent reply.

It simply depends.

Your next post was a valuable insight to the mind set of buyers too.

We're doing business.

Time is money.

We needs choose the quicker way to not stop that flow.

Honey-talk groveling or a dash of vinegar by way of refund.

:juggle:

And then we have ebay/paypal to play the same way

:pound:

Ha, I'd say super lucky maybe. I moved into higher end products years ago after I had saved up some money to invest. Eventually, I got slammed with some serious scamming activity and I left that upper echelon market forever unfortunately.

yes that is possible. i had a very solid feedback rating with the products (i did not sell any cheap products on that account) so i think that also sent away some of the scammers because i think my rating would have given me a little clout should a case come up. i did have some people try and get a few bucks out of me but that i will give up with no problem. i have good customer service skills so the few that actually tried something never got away with more than $50

I do it all of the time. If they were really rude, I'll offer them a crazy offer like a new item, refund, and $15 or something... the people who are the most rude seem to always believe in crazy offers... I of course don't send them anything. This probably paints me in a pretty negative light, but I don't do this with honest negative feedback where an item took an extra week to ship for some reason. I do this with people who demand a refund 2 days after buying it and then leaves a bad negative feedback such as "Item came broken" or "not as described, buyer beware."

I also do whatever it takes to either avoid or get a neg removed if it does happen.

Most of the time you can tell from the very first "problem" mail what it's going to be.
I do, however, draw the line when i am sure that i am about to be scammed.

That's when the friendliness stops and the big guns are brought out of the closet.

Really pisses me off sometimes but I've also resent or refunded items without having seller return the item. The power seller discount & listing boost absorbs these minor costs. Just can't afford to be dinged.

seller or buyer?

:spy:

Seems like he is indicating the buyer returning the item - he is trying to preserve his powerseller status

Wow, a re boot of a thread from last September.

Bit ambiguous.

Ruehl can explain .



:juggle:

If he comes back :s

i would not do it don't want to risk my account. but you can if you want to