I have a few friends online doing business on eBay and one thing keep popping is buyer giving negative feedback, or threaten to give negative feedback. Most of the time the item does have some defects and most of the time the sellers doing their best to have it fix, however there are not so patient buyers or buyers that pretend to be angry in order to get what they want, meaning if the buyer want the item for free then chances are the buyer will get it for free by threatening seller with negative feedback or giving them a hard time. Sadly eBay support will not help seller much in this case, chances are the buyer will win, the only thing seller can do is report the buyer, but chances are if the buyer being reported don’t have any other seller reporting that buyer then eBay support will not look into it.
The latest incident I’ve come across with from a friend online selling retro electronics online and came across a buyer from Kentucky Sherman Mount Zion Rd dry ridge KY 41035-8431 with the label address name spelling not in Capital letter and city not capital letter either, a little suspicious but not much. After communicating back and forth on the item the buyer was going to buy, the buyer made offer cheap and seller accepted. Sold and shipped immediately. The next thing the seller knew was a message saying one of the item don’t work and seller immediately trying to help and doing research to help buyer, but buyer kept saying the same thing, it does not work and want to return it and get a refund. The seller sent a label through first class mail, and this was a mistake.
The seller shouldn’t print the label and enclosed in the first class mail, instead the seller should have use the return process, follow eBay guidance, the buyer can request a return because it’s defective for one of the item and ebay will generate the label for buyer to print and return, now some buyer may say they don’t have a printer or package or the time to return it, and can threaten seller with negative feedback again, at this point seller only the option to refund the buyer then and hopefully the item isn’t too expensive, if it is then seller might need to contact eBay support to do a thorough investigation. The seller can report the buyer, but chances are eBay will not look into it if only buyer only have 1 report as suspicious buyer.
Now looking at the eBay buyer, the seller instantly will see the feedback of this buyer had on other sellers. It wasn’t too friendly. The buyer didn’t give much feedback to seller, if there was a feedback then it was negative feedback. This was an indication of a really not so nice buyer, the only feedback the seller gave is negative feedback. This is a good indication for the seller to think about doing business with this type of buyers.
Seller can prevent buyer that gave seller feedback too many times probably possible in the settings. However a better way is to follow eBay policy, seller protection, and report the buyer if the buyer gave seller negative feedback that is not true or the seller doing their best to resolve by still negative feedback. Chances are eBay is gear toward the buyer more than the seller. Just follow ebay process for returning items and so on, it’s better. Try not to work it out with a really bad buyer because chances are you will get threaten with negative feedback and wasting lots of time and stress.