Thoughts on Neutral and negative feedback on Ebay?

[philby]

thanks for all the comments. it wasn't the smoothest auction, i'm wondering if it was the seller's first time shipping internationally. i didn't click the fine print or details regarding the ebay global shipping thing and i'm not sure if the seller did either. after i paid he sent me a message saying 'i thought you were in australia, paypal is showing a uk address', then i checked my account and my payment split into 2 amounts which didn't match the item/shipping price and only 1 was for the seller so we both freaked out a little haha.

the book in hardcover at least does seem to be fairly expensive and not readily available to international people on amazon and ebay. i ended up winning the auction at 2.75 pounds. i asked him if there were different options for postage as the ebay global shipping option was relatively expensive for the item. he went to the post office and the quote was 8 pounds which was half ebay's price, so i paid 10.75 pounds. the money isn't the issue, if i was to ask for a refund it would basically be compensation for being misled.

he didn't mention the tear or stamps or anything even after i specifically enquired about the wear and condition, just added a couple of photos of the closed book. so aside from the original listing there was a second opportunity to mention the damage and he didn't say anything.

i know it's not much and flicking through the book the rest of it seems fine it's both the principle and also the collector/ocd aspect of every time i look at it i would feel dirty and ripped off haha. there is definitely a part of me that wants to get rid of it and try my luck finding another one. how stupid is that... :/

i think i will send him a message first with a photo and tell him i'm pretty disappointed. i'm not sure if i will ask about the possibility of a refund or wait for him to respond and see if he offers.

[DarkHyren]

I'd definitely contact him and say hey what's up, this has pages missing which while not major (since you say it's just publishers info) I wasn't informed about this.
Generally a decent seller will apologize and offer some compensation for the oversight, but if you're not happy with the reply you can take it a step further through ebay/paypal.
If it gets to that point I would be likely to leave a negative, because while it's not a major damage it's still significantly not as described and if you need to go through the claims system then that's a paddlin'... I mean strike.

[UltraMarginal]

I'd definitely send pictures of the damage and stamps. tell him you feel misled and see what he says.

In response to your actual thread title, which I never actually commented on earlier

If he tries to make amends and sounds genuinely apologetic for not mentioning the stamps and other damage, then in the end I'd probably give a Neutral.

Negatives tend to sting on eBay, especially if it's not an actual business and doesn't have high turnover. He has already done a lot for you by investigating prices at the post office etc. so he has put some effort into being a good seller.

[BigTransformerTrev]

I always give'em a chance to give me a full or partial refund or replace the item before I leave negative feedback. If they don't do any of the above then negative feedback is what they get and deserve

[Megatran]

One of my pet hates with feedback is when the Seller waits to leave feedback only after you do. They basically holding the Buyer 'hostage'. There is no valid reason to behave like this.

[BruiseLee]

One of my pet hates with feedback is when the Seller waits to leave feedback only after you do. They basically holding the Buyer 'hostage'. There is no valid reason to behave like this.

Very much agree with this. As a buyer, once you've paid up then your end of the transaction is done so the seller should leave feedback first. I've seen numerous excuses like waiting for the buyer to post feedback so they know the item has been delivered.