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Ebay Seller Problem

Too late. He tried to change the price after the fact, and he was kinda.. a **** about it. And then there's the fact that he sold me counterfeits. If he doesn't deserve negative feedback, I'm not really sure who does. Also, I believe per ebays rules, if they rule something counterfeit they ask you to destroy it and refund the money since you're legally not supposed to ship counterfeit goods. So, yes, you can get money or sunglasses, or both. At least, that's what happened last time I was ripped off with counterfeit Warhammer models.

sorry slightly off topic

they make counterfeit Warhammer? with what games workshop charges i am not suprised but WOW
 
Haha, no doubt. Yeah, resin isn't exactly expensive, and neither is the rubber to make the molds. I can neither confirm or deny that I have been using resin to reproduce various parts on my own accord for a few years now.
 
I hope you guys don't mind if I ask a question / share a concern I have with an eBay "technicality" on forum member Hando's original thread rather than starting a new one - it's an eBay seller concern anyway so it still might be on-topic here.

A month ago, I won a pair of Oakleys from a seller who didn't disclose everything in the description (i.e. lenses were not oem) but the entire description does not put doubt in the reader's mind to think otherwise, hence, I never thought of asking if the lenses were original Oakley lenses. After I had paid, the seller mentions that the lenses were not oem in a sort of an "oh by the way" kind of way. Of course, I wouldn't pay that much for Oakleys that didn't have all original parts so I asked that we just cancel the transaction, get my refund, and have the seller send out a cancellation request that I would accept so the final value fees can be refunded too. We both agreed to this.

Long story short, the seller sat on the funds for two weeks before sending out the refund, keeping the communication to a bare minimum, while still keeping a constant stream of buying transactions on a daily basis (based on her buying feedback history). I spent hours on the phone with eBay explaining the situation as well, filed a case, but still had to wait for the seller action.

Normally, I just don't leave a feedback when something goes bad with a transaction, but I just had to leave one in this instance. In hindsight, I'm beginning to think I shouldn't have because now I open myself up to a retaliatory negative from the seller if he/she decides to purchase anything I'm currently selling. I've placed the seller's name on my buyer blocked list but I have reason to believe that this seller has a "dummy account" he/she uses to pad bids on his/her items. At the time I won the Oakleys, there were 3-4 simultaneous listings from the same seller, that ended with the same highest bidder. If I hadn't bid high enough, the item I won would've gone to the same bidder who won the other 3-4 items as well. Even if eBay hides the actual username of the bidder, it uses the same pattern of characters if it was the same user across all listings.

I'm wondering if there is a way to find out what the username of that other bidder is so I can add it to my block list as well. The seller had 0 selling feedback before I gave him/her his/her first negative. If the seller does indeed have a dummy account he/she uses to pad bids, I'm pretty sure he/she can use that to leave a retaliatory negative for me as well.
 
I hope you guys don't mind if I ask a question / share a concern I have with an eBay "technicality" on forum member Hando's original thread rather than starting a new one - it's an eBay seller concern anyway so it still might be on-topic here.

A month ago, I won a pair of Oakleys from a seller who didn't disclose everything in the description (i.e. lenses were not oem) but the entire description does not put doubt in the reader's mind to think otherwise, hence, I never thought of asking if the lenses were original Oakley lenses. After I had paid, the seller mentions that the lenses were not oem in a sort of an "oh by the way" kind of way. Of course, I wouldn't pay that much for Oakleys that didn't have all original parts so I asked that we just cancel the transaction, get my refund, and have the seller send out a cancellation request that I would accept so the final value fees can be refunded too. We both agreed to this.

Long story short, the seller sat on the funds for two weeks before sending out the refund, keeping the communication to a bare minimum, while still keeping a constant stream of buying transactions on a daily basis (based on her buying feedback history). I spent hours on the phone with eBay explaining the situation as well, filed a case, but still had to wait for the seller action.

Normally, I just don't leave a feedback when something goes bad with a transaction, but I just had to leave one in this instance. In hindsight, I'm beginning to think I shouldn't have because now I open myself up to a retaliatory negative from the seller if he/she decides to purchase anything I'm currently selling. I've placed the seller's name on my buyer blocked list but I have reason to believe that this seller has a "dummy account" he/she uses to pad bids on his/her items. At the time I won the Oakleys, there were 3-4 simultaneous listings from the same seller, that ended with the same highest bidder. If I hadn't bid high enough, the item I won would've gone to the same bidder who won the other 3-4 items as well. Even if eBay hides the actual username of the bidder, it uses the same pattern of characters if it was the same user across all listings.

I'm wondering if there is a way to find out what the username of that other bidder is so I can add it to my block list as well. The seller had 0 selling feedback before I gave him/her his/her first negative. If the seller does indeed have a dummy account he/she uses to pad bids, I'm pretty sure he/she can use that to leave a retaliatory negative for me as well.

From what you describe it sounds like you're pretty educated on the nuances of using ebay. In the old days they didn't hide bidders' actual usernames and that was quite nice. I don't know of any formal way now to find out actual usernames of bidders for auctions you aren't running.

If you think it's worth your effort you could try a "bait" auction(s) - list something to draw his bids, use your own dummy account to see the masked bidder name and your own account to see the real bidder, then put two and two together once you can match the known masked ID to his real one. Once he bites you can cancel the bait auction before it ends. If you haven't previously ended an bidded auction before it ends then there's no penalty. If you have, then for repeat occurrences you only pay the ebay fee for the high bid when you end it, up to some max tolerance level.

That said, a few things:

1 - There's definitely room to be suspicious of a pad account, but not enough to be 100%. Were the items you suspect were won by a pad bidder relisted? If so and they are fairly unique, that supports your suspicions, but otherwise, remember Occam's razor; maybe it was a real bidder bidding on all items, that's actually the simplest explanation. Regardless, pad bidders are against the rules and if you think that's the case you should report it to ebay, if you haven't already. They should have enough extra data to catch him if true (IP addresses, full transaction history of both accounts).

2 - Could you be being overly paranoid on this guy's vindictiveness? It sounds like he does a lot of transactions; maybe he's moved on from you, focused on his continued buying transactions or whatever. The distraction of his other business could also explain the delay in your refund, instead of being deliberately about you. If it's that big of a worry you could lay low and not list things for a period of time and give him a chance to forget about you.

3 - If it isn't already obvious, this is a lesson of caveat emptor - always ask questions before bidding about any detail not specifically described one way or the other, especially for high dollar items; I won't repeat the corny saying about assumptions... Documentation of deceptive advertising (including answers to questions via the ebay system) can allow you to get your money back even if you've already received the item, in most cases. I wish that policy existed when I got screwed on a few purchases in the early days...

4 - Worst case, a single bad feedback won't screw you too much - there's always some number of screwballs out there, and savvy practice is to discard some percentage of the best and worst reviews/scores/etc when averaging / evaluating. It feels good to have a 100% rating but it takes a trend of transaction problems to be branded as a greater risk.

5 - Don't be afraid to leave a bad feedback when it's earned! It's wise not to abuse the system and/or be petty, but the system wouldn't work if nobody ever left negative feedback out of fear of retaliation. That's the whole reason why they banned sellers from leaving negative feedback in the first place...

Hope it works out for you. If you try the bait auction idea and it works, I'd be interested in hearing so; it's not something I've tried but just an idea that struck me while reading your post. Also realize that uncovering his dummy account (or even getting his main account shut down) doesn't necessarily prevent him from creating another and getting you from there. In fact, it'd just give him more reason to go after you...
 
From what you describe it sounds like you're pretty educated on the nuances of using ebay. In the old days they didn't hide bidders' actual usernames and that was quite nice. I don't know of any formal way now to find out actual usernames of bidders for auctions you aren't running.

If you think it's worth your effort you could try a "bait" auction(s) - list something to draw his bids, use your own dummy account to see the masked bidder name and your own account to see the real bidder, then put two and two together once you can match the known masked ID to his real one. Once he bites you can cancel the bait auction before it ends. If you haven't previously ended an bidded auction before it ends then there's no penalty. If you have, then for repeat occurrences you only pay the ebay fee for the high bid when you end it, up to some max tolerance level.

That said, a few things:

1 - There's definitely room to be suspicious of a pad account, but not enough to be 100%. Were the items you suspect were won by a pad bidder relisted? If so and they are fairly unique, that supports your suspicions, but otherwise, remember Occam's razor; maybe it was a real bidder bidding on all items, that's actually the simplest explanation. Regardless, pad bidders are against the rules and if you think that's the case you should report it to ebay, if you haven't already. They should have enough extra data to catch him if true (IP addresses, full transaction history of both accounts).

2 - Could you be being overly paranoid on this guy's vindictiveness? It sounds like he does a lot of transactions; maybe he's moved on from you, focused on his continued buying transactions or whatever. The distraction of his other business could also explain the delay in your refund, instead of being deliberately about you. If it's that big of a worry you could lay low and not list things for a period of time and give him a chance to forget about you.

3 - If it isn't already obvious, this is a lesson of caveat emptor - always ask questions before bidding about any detail not specifically described one way or the other, especially for high dollar items; I won't repeat the corny saying about assumptions... Documentation of deceptive advertising (including answers to questions via the ebay system) can allow you to get your money back even if you've already received the item, in most cases. I wish that policy existed when I got screwed on a few purchases in the early days...

4 - Worst case, a single bad feedback won't screw you too much - there's always some number of screwballs out there, and savvy practice is to discard some percentage of the best and worst reviews/scores/etc when averaging / evaluating. It feels good to have a 100% rating but it takes a trend of transaction problems to be branded as a greater risk.

5 - Don't be afraid to leave a bad feedback when it's earned! It's wise not to abuse the system and/or be petty, but the system wouldn't work if nobody ever left negative feedback out of fear of retaliation. That's the whole reason why they banned sellers from leaving negative feedback in the first place...

Hope it works out for you. If you try the bait auction idea and it works, I'd be interested in hearing so; it's not something I've tried but just an idea that struck me while reading your post. Also realize that uncovering his dummy account (or even getting his main account shut down) doesn't necessarily prevent him from creating another and getting you from there. In fact, it'd just give him more reason to go after you...

Hi kronin323,

Thank you so much for the very detailed and informative response to my concern. Yes, I try to know my way around eBay so I don't get into trouble in transactions I engage in. I wouldn't say I know a lot about it, but I try to learn as much as I can as I go along. I started using it to buy stuff, then eventually used it to dispose things I don't need anymore. I'm fairly new, barely a few years, but my feedback history (of 130+) is a perfect 100% evenly split between buying and selling.

I don't have a dummy account though, so I don't think I can do what you suggested about setting up bait auctions. As far as I know, I'm a straight shooter in every sense of the work when it comes to my eBay activities. I don't even know how to go about canceling an auction during its last few seconds like how I've seen other people do it when the bid amount isn't close to what they want it to be. I don't even use "reserve price" - I just let the auction run its course, absorbing the loss if there's no demand for what I'm listing, or set up an auction with a but-it-now price.

Here are my responses to the points you made:

1 - My suspicions about the seller having a dummy account were reinforced by the fact that, yes, the items all 3-4 of them were relisted almost immediately after those auctions ended. I kept them in my watch list so I can see if the highest bidder would leave feedback for that seller, but it's been a month now and no feedback for those listings were made. I don't know how to go about reporting the seller's duplicate accounts to eBay, and it seems weird doing so in a none-of-my-business kind of way. I would like to though. I think it's not right to pad bids using a dummy account.

2 - Haha, yes, that did occur to me. My wife actually said the exact same thing as you did. I actually almost heard her voice while I was reading that part of your response. And yes, that's what I'm doing now - laying low. I plan to keep away from selling for a couple of months at least. But if that seller really wanted to leave a retaliatory negative feedback, I'm sure my username is already included in his/her favorite sellers list and would receive notification as soon as I create a listing. That's why I added the seller's primary account to my block list and would like to find a way to know the seller ID of the dummy account as well, so I can do the same thing for that.

3 - Yes, I totally agree. Lesson learned. That's what I'm doing now, even if the description already states it, I make the seller confirm details about the item in the private messages between buyer and seller.

4 - I know what you mean, and I hope that all eBay buyers are as open minded and rational as you are. It's just that, I really strive to get a 5-star positive feedback all the time and so far, I'm there. If I were to get a negative, I'd like it to be because I actually deserved it rather than getting hit by a retaliatory one. I actually had one feedback from an item I sold that praised me through and through, and even explicitly mentioned that I ship "super fast". But when I looked at the DSR for it, I found that the buyer gave me 1 star for shipping speed. I know this because it's really easy to keep track of all feedback activity when I only have 130+ to monitor, only half of those are from selling, and I just sell a couple of items each time. Anyway, I guess this explains why I'm worked up about a potential retaliatory negative... I even nitpick the DSR ratings I get.

5 - I've had bad experiences in my buying transactions but I've avoided leaving a negative feedback call this time. Most of them are SNAD's but have found that sellers (who are in good faith) are willing to work it out with me. I always keep away from my computer when I'm still emotional about a transaction because I might say or do something that will be difficult to reverse. I also try and put myself in the seller's shoes in those instances and ask the question "would I want a buyer to leave me a negative in this case?" and I always get over the initial reflex to leave a negative.

I guess I just have to wait it out and see. Last I checked, the dummy account had zero feedback. I could always cancel the bids of people with zero feedback in my listings (I still have to figure out a way to do that, but I've seen sellers include that in their listing descriptions).

Thanks for taking the time to engage me in this conversation, kronin323. It was very informative. Oh and I saw your other post about the clogged toilet mishap experience you just had. I found it humorous - not your misfortune! there's nothing funny about all that hassle at all - but the way you narrated the story. My wife drops those cloggers sometimes and I have to go in with a plunger to solve the problem. :)
 
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