EBAY BUYER SCAMMER

If you have actual email messages or eBay messages of this conversation I would send it to eBay to see if they can intervene and possibly remove the neg. feedback themselves since he ADMITTED to it being retaliatory. I hope everything turns out for the best for you.

You said in your auction the winner if paying by Paypal had to remit payment within 3 days, and this guy was deserving of neg rep because he didn't, but people are often really lazy and you should have given him more time if you wanted to avoid all this headache of him retaliating, purely as a practical matter.

I had a buyer who waited 2 weeks before paying even though I'd tried to contact him multiple times with no success, and as I was just about to hit the negative button he Paypal'd me. So although it sucked that he was so inconsiderate in his form of paying, I think I'd rather wait a week or so than have to deal with retaliatory feedback removal.

In all fairness to him I could have waited a bit longer and that is the plain truth and I even told the guy that, I may have hastened the situation. But in all fairness to me and to be honest with this person I don't know who is going or not going to pay for an auction, if we knew then it would really be simple. Some times you let some bid in an auction that has a decent or good feedback only to see that he fails to pay or do something among that lines, makes you wait months just to not pay in the end, you catch my drift. I have been on that boat before, that is why I have very little tolerance for those things, but I am not to blame for that and I shouldn't be penalized either. Fix the problem not who is being troubled.


That is just it, people that follow the rules get screwed because they follow and do what it is expected, people that don't we have to play by their rules and we have to accommodate them in order to get what is expected. It doesn't sound right anyway that you cut it unless you don't follow the rules, if we were to adopt that kind of behavior why have rules in the first place they would be worthless and pointless. To me it is a matter of principle, it is pretty simple I have my rules for the auction for 2 basic reasons;

1) To protect myself and so people to know what I expect from them.

2) To protect my sellers and so people know what to expect from me.

If those 2 things are not met the end result is what it is conflict. True I could have sat down on my butt and waited for this guy to show his face when he finally decided to do so but that is not for him to decide. The way I see it is that if you bid on an auction you are agreeing to the terms of the seller even when it comes to the feedback process if that is posted in the auction, if it's posted that you will get negative feedback because of something that you fail to do you have already agreed to it. To me Ebay fails all it's customers (sellers and buyers alike) by not fixing the problem, they say they want to do something about the feedback problem especially retaliatory negative feedback because that in a sense is abusing the feedback system. So what do they do they set up this stupid system that leaves the conflicting parties duke it out and fix the problem that they couldn't work out to begin with until they have to agree that the guilty party benefits from not doing it's part because it's the only way both will benefit they assure. This system only benefits 2 parties, Ebay and the ones that don't follow the rules.

Of course Ebay wants to fix this problem but without getting it's hands dirty because they loose money every time a transaction is not completed and claimed as fraudulent and so forth. They want to see things finished because it has to produce money, money they can keep one way or another and what better way to do that than to force it's members to settle because it is the best supposedly both parties. Ebay doesn't want the expense or trouble of having to figuring out who is the guilty party. It's pretty much like when you were having a fight with a sibling of yours and your parent came in and didn't want to find out who started the fight or what happened they just wanted it stopped with no regard to the root of the problem. Ebay wants a part of your sale from putting the item for sale all the way until you make the final amount and even if you don't sell they still their chunk, but they want no part of dealing with their customers disputes. If they really wanted to fix the problem they could, they are in charge of creating policies for their members to abide by to avoid and resolve issues that may arise. We may create the messes but in the end if there are policies for those issues Ebay has to enforce them and watch that they are being followed. If Ebay doesn't force it's members that break the rules to stick to them that is precisely what you get in the end, people that have to comfort and accommodate the people who don't follow them. So I ask you again, why have rules? If they don't mean anything and those who follow them get penalized and those who don't get the benefit of not doing so.

It's all a balancing act, but even those acts have their rules which they can't escape from.


Good comments everyone, enjoy the discussion, the input, the support, the different points of view and of course the tips....

Thanks to all....

I know exactly how you feel about deadbeat bidders! In your case due to his location (HK) I would not be remotely surprised if his elementary English skills contributed as well. In any event your rules while strict -three days is short most sellers allow seven days- were clearly posted it in your auction. If he didn't know or didn't agree he should've have bid. It would be a totally different thing if you were overcharging on the shipping like some sellers do and he was trying to communicate with you to get the actual shipping instead of getting ripped off.

In any event, sorry you had to deal with this idiotic deadbeat. Times like this really make me wish ebay would just autocharge the winning buyer on the eigth day using their active credit card. Think about it, it is a great idea the seller gets their monies from the winning buyer AND ebay gets to charge a fine and make some monies off of this irresponsible buyer as well. Pity this will not become a reality.

Hang in there and let us know how it goes. :)

The 3 days payment is not set in stone, I have had people asked me ahead of time for more time and if I can wait sure there is no problem. The thing is that arrangements have to be done in order to have more time that is why I always add in my auctions the part of "problems with payments or questions do get in touch with me" because I like to work with people if it is possible. I have waited for payments in excess of 6 months, so it's clearly not set in stone, but like I said proper arrangements have to be in place for that to happen.

You are totally correct about the English skills of this person and I know that it might play a part in all of this, but English isn't my native language either. I also, have an account in Yahoo Japan and I don't know squat of Japanese, I rely on a deputy service which is something that I think some of this Chinese buyers do as well because living in China and having all the restrictions they have regarding the Internet. When he was trying to figure out the reason I gave him negative feedback he told me he bid through a friendly site, now I don't know what that really means but it is not for me to figure that out the only thing I know is that he bid and failed utterly in following all the rules of my auction. He only needed to follow one and that would have avoided all this mess, if he only would have let me know ahead of time that he was going to be late a few days that would have worked or at least gotten in touch with me after the auction or within the time frame that would have worked as well.

In retrospect I acted hastily but it is like I said before, I don't know who is going to pay or not going to do it because if I knew that it would have saved me this incident. That is why I ask for some cooperation from buyers because I know that they can have mine as well, it is a 2 way street.

Also, I would not give negative feedback to someone that doesn't deserve it. As a matter of fact every time I get paid I leave the buyer his positive feedback if it is done quickly or in a timely manner. I don't wait to post feedback after buyers post mine, that is just not the way it is suppose to be. I may get a deserving negative but if the buyer did his part the right way he won't be penalized from my end. I think that is the way Ebay intended it to work, so I try to follow it that way, at least I know that I can live with that and if I deserve the negative I won't argue about it and move on....

Again thanks for all the comments and I do hope that this situation doesn't stop me from dealing with other International buyers that I don't know, but I have to be honest it has not helped them. I think that from now on I will only deal with people I have and that is it as far as International buyer goes.