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Help. Customer from hell.......
 

Hey everyone. Having a little trouble with a customer, just wanted to know where I stand?? What my rights are etc.
Sold a sofa on Sunday for £500 on auction format. nice one, good old ish condition. Lady turns up to collect on Tuesday, pays cash, is very happy, inspects the item sits on it etc.
decides she is going to load it onto a fooking sheep trailer covered in faeces and foul smelling liquid :S
Obviously I didn't want to be rude, she strapped it down with one strap and didn't cover it over (open topped trailer).
Contacts me 2 hours later saying she loves it, but it doesn't match with her decor.... (I hate women)
And would like to use my returns policy.

My returns policy states we do not accept misused items for return, which I feel this item really really has been, I won't be able to sell it again, it will stink of god knows what, and the leather will be terrible being exposed to fumes, bugs, rain, brambles etc etc etc.

She's turning up tomorrow at my workplace to return it....... Help. :'(

Re: Help. Customer from hell.......
 

We'll you can let her know you want it in the same condition you sold it as.
And you can tell her to get it cleaned etc.. Because of the way you saw her transporting it.

But remember Because of the method of payment you used you have no seller protection.

Re: Help. Customer from hell.......
 

No seller protection? She paid cash and it's not the OP's responsibility to match someone's decor. I'd love to see someone pull this sh!t with me on Crai.gsL.ist.

Also, how does this person know where you work? If you told them that, that was one huge mistake. This is one of those people who are too stupid for their own good. Pull the listing down and tell them to fvck off.

No one can prove you sold it to her just like when I sell something to someone on CL. If they want to play games like that, they should've bought from a store with a return policy. Even then, a store would tell them to fvck off if they brought the product back damaged. Don't back down to this person if they truly damaged the product.

Re: Help. Customer from hell.......
 

Never give out any personal details or meet at your home or work for a sale

This is a tough one, I think if I knew an angry. Customer was coming for a dre fund at my place of work and this could potentially get me in trouble or make me look bad I would just give the refund and get rid of the person

OP is this buyer in your opinion very angry and unreasonable?

Do you think they are showing up at your work no matter what you tell them?

I would make it clear to them they can not come to my place of work and if they in anyway ,

If the buyer is nutts and shows up and is disruptive I'd pay them to get them out and move on

Re: Help. Customer from hell.......
 

So basically they are blackmailing you by going to your work.

I would say I will have a professional upholstery cleaning company to meet you at my work who will inspect and clean the item and professional removals company to transport it back to my home. All of this expense I am afraid will come off your refund due to your method of transport.
Then leave them out in the carpark to get on with it.

Re: Help. Customer from hell.......
 

Haha some of these replies are gold. Essentially I run a furniture business so I have to allow collection of items. I've moved so my official address is on eBay and I have a returns policy as I'm a business seller. It's all as professional as possible you see. I'm just desperately afraid of negative feedback :(

Re: Help. Customer from hell.......
 

I don't think there are many here that couldn't get a negative removed if a buyer couldn't prove they completed the payment. ;)

Re: Help. Customer from hell.......
 

There is the rub.

You have to allow for the chance of this.

Yes, we try to to avoid them. But it happens.

How well defined is your returns policy?

Does it say all those extras that got mentioned in post 5?

If so, you have that as a basis to work from with this buyer.

If not, redo the returns policy. In your business you need so much in black and white to maintain the upper hand over idiots.

Good Luck

Re: Help. Customer from hell.......
 

Cant stress this enough

Re: Help. Customer from hell.......
 

Have you not just considered inspecting the item and coming to some arrangement for the cleaning. I'm assuming you had photographs of the item to sell it so all you would have to do is find one mark that is not in the photographs and you have an argument you can win. Or as you say if there is an odour then again you win, as they would not have taking it if it stunk.

Negative feedback is just something you have to live with on ebay you can try and be reasonable and still get it in the neck as you only said thank you once or in your case delivery was late as they were stuck in traffic when they came to pick it up.

You can argue the point and just plain refuse to accept it if the damage is beyond repair, as someone pointed out above they have to prove firstly they paid for the item and secondly that they received the item and then thirdly that they returned it.

I am sure you are already adding something into your terms for the next idiot and their inappropriate transport, so may be it all just ends up as an expensive lesson that saves you a lot more money in the future.

Also if you NPB them then they can't leave any feedback at all.

Re: Help. Customer from hell.......
 

If you have a registered business that sells FURNITURE, how is a buyer going to either pick up OR return an item
Meet in the town square or on the football field?
:doh:

Re: Help. Customer from hell.......
 

Oh sh*t I completely forgot about non paying bidder. There's lots of communication between us on messages on eBay that talks about when she collected the item tho?

Re: Help. Customer from hell.......
 

I don't know if it is still so or always so but every time I have been in a case with a buyer, that has said everything that ebay would need to find in my favour, ebays response has always been that they are unable to read the ebay messages.

But I have always been there as the seller and not the buyer so maybe the ebay rep would give a buyer a different response. So would I risk my account on it? I doubt it, if the loss is acceptable to my business and i did not have a dozen or so stealth accounts ready to take over.

bad feedback is not the end of the world. Just make your response to it show that you did no wrong and answers anything they can say in reply

Re: Help. Customer from hell.......
 

Well, she brought her mother and her husband along in their little pikey van. Mother was short and fat and threatened to ruin my business and will be using other accounts to shut my eBay account down.....

Oh the irony.

Re: Help. Customer from hell.......
 

Things like this help you tune you business savoy for the future.

Best to put it behind you and move on.

Considering your situation: You definitely did the right thing. :)

Re: Help. Customer from hell.......
 

I tried very hard to be nice, but I think it just happens every now and again.

And now to rewrite my entire returns policy haha!

Re: Help. Customer from hell.......
 

And a big glass of wine. I'm all for equality for women, but we really don't make it easy for ourselves sometimes!
Doesn't help they used my stealth name throughout the entire convo..... Forgot they were talking to me half the time :L

Re: Help. Customer from hell.......
 

FFS now she has opened an item not a described case on eBay....... :L

Re: Help. Customer from hell.......
 

Did you mark it as payment received on eBay? I'm sure eBay can't be bothered to troll through your messages and someone that stupid wouldn't think to give eBay quotes, they'd likely start typing in capital letters and using !!!!!!!! every sentence.

I'm sure someone this aggressive and stupid has tried to do this to other sellers too. Do they have many feedback on eBay for buying?(since this is all eBay care about - the buyers)

Re: Help. Customer from hell.......
 

See if you can NPB them what have you got to loose at this point. As that claim is more damaging than feedback as it lasts a lot longer.

Other than spite what are they actually hoping to get out of it?

Re: Help. Customer from hell.......
 

If I open an npb won't I get in trouble? I've spoken to eBay on the phone and said they've paid in cash already :( I'm a twat I know. And yeah I marked it as paid. Not good :(

Re: Help. Customer from hell.......
 

Oh yes they can be bothered to read your messages.
I had a negative and an INR case removed yesterday even though the item had not been received by the buyer, the customer support rep read through the correspondance I had had with the buyer and that was the deciding factor.

Re: Help. Customer from hell.......
 

In dire situations like this I would perhaps suggest a gift of a roundhouse kick to the face be delivered to the Buyer in order to calm the situation...

Just watch a few Chuck Norris scenes while rewriting your T&C's, this in no doubt will have you better prepared next time.

Re: Help. Customer from hell.......
 

I have had the same thing. Lady keeps a teapot she bought for a month, then tells me it does not meet the description. When I asked why not she said the colors did not match her kitchen decor and therefore it is item not as described because my pictures were off color.

Total idiots.

Re: Help. Customer from hell.......
 

Really? That's insane. You would know from day one if it matched or not, plus surely that's not our responsibility as sellers to be dealing with that crap. I know by law I'm not required to refund her, however to be left a negative because I'm just expressing my rights is a bit bolluuux :(

Re: Help. Customer from hell.......
 

had that before so had to add to the listings that item colours can vary on different monitors.

I did not mind the idiots before ebay started messing around, as sometimes you knew they were taking the urine but it did not seem to matter too much. And the messages between us were often funny rather than threatening as they are now.

Re: Help. Customer from hell.......
 

This is 100% true and no one thinks about this. I have a handful of cheap monitors and high-end monitors. Colors can look vastly different, especially if contrast, brightness and backlit have never been set properly.

But, in Sandy D's case, holding an item for a month and then realizing it's not the color you want is just being a cheap a$$hole.

But, hey, I still get chargebacks for $20-$30 items 2-3 months after people paid with absolutely no contact from the customers, even when I attempt to make contact with them. What cheap worthless piece of crap of a human being decides they need a measely $20 back after months of having the item?

Re: Help. Customer from hell.......
 

Oh, do you know my sister-in-law???????????????

Can you imagine my HORROR when that girl dog made a BIN on an item of mine.

That item was out of stock so darn quickly.

She had asked me once about how to return an item which failed her litmus test. Luckily I educated her.
:croc:

Re: Help. Customer from hell.......
 

I'm lost GB.

Re: Help. Customer from hell.......
 

The relative tries to get refunds long after any expiry date

:boink:

Re: Help. Customer from hell.......
 

Fair enough, but I mean't unless the buyer specifically asked them too, and someone that stupid surely wouldn't think rationally. Those kind of people just resort to threats and shouting. Perhaps they always look without being told, i'm not sure. I just wrote that based on eBay and Paypal siding with the buyers 99.99% of the time, but perhaps sometimes they actually do their job.

I think you can either take the negative (not 100% you'll get it, but very likely. I once had a buyer who was shouting in caps lock and spamming !! and threatening to do all sorts of things, and then never even left me feedback). One negative isn't going to effect you too much for buyers, or for eBay, unless you have a low feedback score. If you have 100s or 1000s, one negative won't make much of a difference.

You could contact the buyer outside of eBay, and take a loss and agree to give a refund provided you get it back, then get it cleaned and resell for a lower price. It depends how bad getting a negative is for you. On eBay you just never know. I once had someone leave a negative because they never got the item (lost in the post I guess). They never contacted me to say this, and never opened any cases. I even contacted them after the negative to offer a refund, but they never replied. It didn't look like a competitor either as they had 80+ feedback.

Re: Help. Customer from hell.......
 

Depends on what you sell on how much the feedback hurts you in most cases.

For the penny profit items it probably will not make a difference as they sell so many but when the person sells higher end items then each sale makes the profit so they do not need to sell as much and do not sell enough for DSR's then the one neg can hurt.
If the op is in this situation then I hope they have other accounts to allow this one to cool off

When this all started with the FB changes, the only person I know of that could not work out a way around it sold things like boats, muscle cars and even sold an aircraft (And yes I seen the listing.)

The problem is each buyer can hit you so many times just for one item.

Case against you (defence) Bend over and take it
Negative Feedback (defence)(Response) Does not help with ebay but eases other buyers (Move on to new account and let it cool off)
Any or all of your DSR's (defence)(???) You do not even know who hit them (if it is not possible to fix problem when they drop move onto another account)

But back to topic for the Op and the case they opened against them has me puzzled, as what resolution can there be if they have already been refunded?
I would be wording my response carefully to that one

Re: Help. Customer from hell.......
 

people give negs anyway even when refunded, happens all the time...

it has to be delivered back to you in cleaned condition, or you knock off an amount for cleaning it.

work address is never to be given out.

people like this can intimidate you in to refunding, this is the issue with pick up items, your addresses are sacred, they are worth more than business is, you are possibly better having it delivered and adding it to price. Then if they want a refund, you can go and inspect it or ask for detailed photos of it, and send a van over to pick it up...and remove that from the refund.

...keep yourself, your family and work right out of the picture.....

Re: Help. Customer from hell.......
 

There's regulations stating a business has to show their address. Can't recall how it is worded but I know it has to be an address you operate out of so some sellers will have no choice.

Adding the price of delivery would possibly price them out of the market place.

For some people trading on ebay, expansion out of ebay is often the better direction.

Re: Help. Customer from hell.......
 

Just as an update, she's now using the fire safety regulations as an unfit for purpose claim. The sofa had a certificate on it when it left, and what's worse, is we buy from auction houses that have to sell items that are fire safety tested to comply by law. She's threatening trading standards and the works. F****ing b****

Re: Help. Customer from hell.......
 

Ok, she has definitely done this before then. She d@mn well knows she is fvcking with you. Who knows how many people she has taken advantage of.

Re: Help. Customer from hell.......
 

It makes me so angry I've wasted 5 days over this bull. She hasn't escalated the case yet, has told me to await further correspondence.
Thing is. The sofa is 1939, no regs needed. It's had a couple of cushions redone, but it's still damn old. She should know it doesn't apply. *bashes head on the wall*

Re: Help. Customer from hell.......
 

I remember a few years ago we were selling some vintage goods as we got a line on a whole heap of stock and had to add in the listings that these items may not be fit for purpose, as they did not fit modern standards so she probably knew this but she is using the fact that most people don't.
They still sold.

But what is she expecting to happen if she has been refunded and no one was actually hurt using the item?

Have you asked them what they actually expect or want out of this?

I just don't see what else you are expected to do after they have been refunded.

But if the auction will not supply items that do not meet regulations, which is a new one on me, as most auctions will sell anything. Maybe you should have a word with them and ask them how they assess the product.

Re: Help. Customer from hell.......
 

She hasn't been refunded, I don't intend to refund her at all. The auction house is an antiques dealer during the week and they throw out things that don't meet the regs. I know this because I nearly screamed once seeing all of this stunning 60's furniture being thrown in the skip, took a piece and put it in my house lol

Re: Help. Customer from hell.......
 

Our local auctions would just sell it, with the buyer beware mentality.

But interesting to see how that one goes, as being right is not enough where ebay are concerned.

What condition was the thing in when it was returned?
have you mentioned it was returned in the case, as i am sure they have?