Helping a Buyer Backfires for eBay Seller

by: Priyansh Jain

Stories like this are one reason I've become careful about going beyond the original terms of a sale. Most sellers want to help customers, but sometimes extra effort doesn't necessarily lead to a better outcome.

I've sold on eBay for years and have run into situations where buyers overlooked details that were clearly stated in the listing. In cases like this, it sounds like the seller actually did more than required. Driving an hour to help with shipping after listing an item as pickup only is well beyond what many sellers would do.

One thing I've learned from selling across multiple platforms, including TrueGether.com, is that setting expectations early is important. On TrueGether.com and other marketplaces, I try to keep pickup, shipping, and handling terms extremely clear because misunderstandings can quickly turn into disputes.

Of course, no platform is perfect. I've had smooth transactions on eBay and TrueGether.com, and I've had difficult ones on both. But situations like this make me think feedback systems should take documented listing terms into account more often when evaluating buyer complaints.

by: etectra

If the buyer wants shipping on an item that was pickup only then there are two options for the listing:

1. You can sue the buyer to enforce the contract they agreed to, which of course is unlikely due to the cost, jurisdiction, enforcement.

2. The transaction is null and void due to the buyer violating your terms.

A. You relist the item as a pickup only item again.

B. You relist the item with shipping and adjust your costs accordingly, thus creating a new contract with the details all spelled out.

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I had a similar situation for a bulky primitive wood and metal item. The buyer wanted shipping. I informed them there was no shipping, but I could relist it with shipping added at  additional cost. I told buyer there would also be a increase of $25 in the price of the item for packaging as this would require a inner and outer custom cardboard box to be made. They agreed.

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For eBay pickup items only the "Local Pickup" is selected under shipping and the  "Cash on Pickup" option is selected under Payments.

The first lines of the description in BOLD text are:

"Local Pickup Only - No Shipping

Payment Upon Pickup Only - Contact Seller Prior to Purchase for Details"

You can also insert the above text within the short description area below the title.

A further special section in the TOS below the item description for Pickups might read:

Pickups are not allowed unless specified in the listing.

Contact the seller for pickup payment method prior to purchase.

Pickup date and time by appointment only (very important as you do want the buyer to think they can just show up at your door on any date at any time.

All the above is contained within a pickup template within GarageSale so all I need to do is simply duplicate a existing template. The main TOS is automatically inserted at the end of each description via a Text Snippet within GarageSale.

by: Rexford

First red flag--buyer did stick with the terms of the sale.   After 25+ years of selling, I'm still learning as it relates to shady buyers.  OP just taught me something else.  If I list "pick-up" on a listing and the buyer fails to follow through with that and asks me to ship I will cancel the order and choose "problem with the address".  If eBay leaves me with a metrics "ding" I will view it as a badge of honor.

Here's the good news for the OP.  They can reply to the negative feedback and let everyone know what this shady buyer did.  That is as powerful as the feedback that they left for OP....maybe more so.

by: etectra

"Here's the good news for the OP.  They can reply to the negative feedback and let everyone know what this shady buyer did.  That is as powerful as the feedback that they left for OP....maybe more so."

I go one step further and previously setup a free Blogger site for bad buyers under my seller account name. I can't include the specific link in any reply I would leave, but I have stated further details available on my blog.

I also include details of attempted scams which don't involve negative feedback or feedback that was removed by eBay. A typical case involves a international buyer leaving negative feedback for cancelling their order, but the feedback is always removed as they have violated multiple terms of my TOS simply by ordering.

Depending on how severe the case is, I have no problem including the buyer's full contact information, eBay i.d., and any proof such as photos.

I also report such buyers to BadBuyerList.Org to warn others.

Its good idea to keep a backup your banned buyers on eBay as eBay has on more than one occasion claimed to have lost this data (yeah right). eBay also routinely deleted user i.d.'s from the list as the accounts become invalid OR they replace the original account name with a random text.

by: etectra

"TrueGether.com"

That site has no seller protections at all.

PayPal

Amazon Payments

Direct Credit Card Payment

Bulk listing appears to be done with a text file such as a comma separated value file, which makes it way too slow to list verses desktop software.

I dislike eBay, but there are reasons why that site is free.