What do you guys think of this? (feedback issue)

[Jibbajaba]

So I win this auction on eBay:

http://cgi2.ebay.com/aw-cgi/eBayISAP...=STRK:MEWN:SID

I recieve the item, wrapped in a single piece of paper and adressed. Now I've never seen that before, and to be honest it made me mad. So I left him this feedback, which I put in as NEUTRAL (not neg):

Dude that's the worst packaging job I've ever seen.

So of course he leaves me a neutral in return.

Item arrived well, so it doesn't matter, hope you enjoy

I respond on my feedback page to his neutral with the following:

Reply by c.alaimo: This guy left me a neutral only because I left him one. Grow up, man!

So this was all like 3 weeks ago. Tonight I get this e-mail:

Dear c.alaimo,

thats right, i did leave you a neutral because you left me a neutral feedback that was unnecessary because you received the game just like it left my hands, it got to you and i have never had problems with packaging, so please do both of us a favor and learn to email the seller to resolve any problems before leaving unnecessary feedback, have a good one sir. Jorge Contreras (astroboyme)


Thank you,
astroboyme

So I respond with this:

When did I ever say that the game arrived here fine? I’m not saying it didn’t, but you are being presumptuous. I left a neutral because I am accustomed to a higher standard when it comes to packaging. A bubble mailer is the standard for sending games, and yours was the first time I ever got one wrapped like a Christmas present in brown paper. I responded to your neutral feedback on my feedback page because I want prospective buyers to know why I got a neutral and not shy away from my auctions. I’m really not sure what e-mailing you to “resolve the problem” was going to accomplish. What were you going to do? Nothing. You were going to tell me that if the game got here OK then I have nothing to complain about, which I disagree with. What did I pay $2.50 shipping for? It cost a dollar to send the game first class. Was that $1.50 worth of brown paper? The point of feedback is to give the buyer and seller a means of expressing their satisfaction with an auction. I can honestly say that in all the things I have purchased on eBay, yours was the most cheaply and haphazardly packaged, so I left you a neutral. You say left me a neutral for not contacting you before I left mine, but all that would have happened is that you would have told me that my item got here fine and that I have nothing to complain about, and then I would have still left you a neutral.

Ultimately, what was the point of you e-mailing me? Did it really bother you that much that you got a friggin neutral??? You’ve received six negs in the past year so I can’t imagine that one neutral is that big of a deal.

I wasn’t pissed that the game got here the way it did, nor was I pissed that you left me revenge feedback, nor am I pissed at you now for sending me this e-mail. But you certainly didn’t do anything in my eyes to earn a positive. You never contacted me when the auction ended, you never contacted me when you received payment, and you never contacted me when you shipped my item. In fact this is the first e-mail I have ever received from you because I, God forbid, left you a neutral feedback. You haven’t exactly done anything to make me feel like I did something wrong by giving you the feedback that I did. Seeing as how you have 5 negative feedbacks resulting from winning bidders never receiving their item, I guess I should feel lucky that I got the game at all.

Sorry this was so long but you opened the door so I stepped through it.

I'm sure Ill get an email tommorow full of insults and foul language. Do you all think I am being unreasonable, or was I rude, or was I justified?

[-hellvin-]

Honestly I do not even bother with this kind of bs on ebay. I think you were justified, you gave him a clear reasoning in that response email but I personally would not have even typed that up. Someone overcharged the hell out of me on shipping and wouldn't combine purchases (Yet they arrived together in a package envelope that cost him 4 bucks...HMMM!) and when I get pissed cause of things like that I just don't leave feedback. I will not put up with retalitory feedback. Fuck that. I let him steal my money and did everything correct then I'm going to receive bad feedback for calling him out? Don't think so, I just let it go and learn to thouroughly read auctions before binning now.

[Tanooki Kuriibo]

Jeez, its only bad packaging why get all fussy. you got your item.

I would have left you negitive feedback just to get one up on you....and cause Iam a cunt.

[Jibbajaba]

Well I didnt really think I got all fussy. They guy was a real mediocre seller, and as a collector I would expect better packaging of my game when it gets sent. I am very lucky that it didnt get cracked. It just sucks because When I saw that he was only charging $2.50 for shipping I was thinking "Here's a refreshing change; someone who doesnt overcharge on shipping and is only asking for what it actually costs." So that increased my dissapointment when the item showed up.

I just cant believe he e-mailed me complaining about the neutral feedback like it was the first non-positive he has ever got.

[Griking]

A little while back I bid on and won a Sega Master System auction with some games. When it arrived is was as if the guy just threw all the contents and a few pieces of paper in a box and called it packaged. I don't know how it made its way to me undamaged but it did. In my feedback to him I left him a positive because I did receive it undamaged but I mentioned that it was packaged pretty poorly. The seller eventually wrote to me complaining about the feedback (he complained about a positive) and I told him that he was lucky that I gave him the positive. But truthfully as bad as I thought the packaging was, It did make its way to me undamaged and in a decent time so I felt that anything less than a positive would be excessive.

[video_game_addict]

Jibbajaba, I'm guessing you didn't email the seller prior to bidding to inquire into his methods for shipping? You bid blindly assuming it would arrive in a bubble mailer. You took the risk in assuming, then were pissed, because it was less than then cost you paid, and a cheap method that was used with a possible higher risk of damage. Sounds like you are mainly pissed because it cost less than what you paid..

I know I get into a habit of emailing sellers to inquire before hand how things will be shipped, I want to know that it will arrive the same as it left. Sometimes I still hit a snag, I typically ask for priority mail shipping, and since boxes are Free I assume Priority mail boxes will be used. I often still ask the question, if it's a boxed game, I make sure ahead of time.

But recently I had a problem with a seller, I bid on 3 empty boxes, shipping weight in a priority mail box, was 12 oz, I checked before hand myself on digital scale, the estimated shipping weight from the auction seller had was 1 lb, I finally get an invoice some 10 days after the auction ends, had to wait on seller, and it's $9.50 shipping!

I ask why so high and the seller tells me it was double boxed for my protection, sometimes I think people can go too far, I wanted boxed, but didn't need a double boxed, shoe boxes actually the seller said. But then after waiting another full week and seller said they could do single box, I get another invoice that was higher WTF! First time around they were actually charging me on a 3 lb package plus handling charges, then the second time around they were charging me on a 4 lb package plus handling. They then told me it would be too much trouble to pack into a free priority mail box, this after a week goes by, and they had previously told me that they would refigure in a single box. So needless to say I now have a shiny new negative feedback on my profile, only one on this account out off 120 total, a shame, this is a buying account thou, doesn't really matter to me, hurts the seller more having negs on profile. I didn't leave the neg first I let the seller do that.so they asked for a neg in return.

Anyways, that's the one thing about ebay it's such a pain sometimes, alot of it has to do with simple misunderstandings. People not being clear as to how they are sending, buyers not inquiring into how they need it shiped. Both parties are to blame. I can't entirely blame the seller in your case because they DID ship the game, and the auction didn't claim to offer bubble mailers as a standard shipping method, you just wanted it that way. So seller shipped cheap, but did not really do any wrong. You just bought from someone who was not a collector, and did not think much abotu shipping, just someone who uses wahtever shipping supplies they can find around the house.

You bid without finding out, and got mad upon arrival to the point that you wanted to post neutral comments, to express your displease. That's your right as buyer, but at the same time you should expect something similar in return. You are lucky it wasn't a Neg in return! Very well could have been.

I think this is good in way helps you to remember next time you're thinking of bidding on auction, you might check into the shipping method up front. Before just bidding & paying & complaining about it after the fact. Not much can be done about it then.

[hydr0x]

sorry jibba but i think you're just pissed and not being honest to yourself

first thing:
you didn't ask how he packs the item and he didn't say he would use bubble envelopes or whatever

2nd:
you received the item in good shape SO WHY THE **** did you leave him a neutral, that's not fair of you and in fact you can be happy he did not give you a negative feedback in return, you have NO RIGHT to give a neutral if you reveived the item in the shape it was sold...

[Jibbajaba]

Well first of all I want to respond to Hydrox's comment about me not having the right to leave him a neutral. I have every right to leave any comment that I want. If you look at the feedback I have left for others, I always leave a positive, except I left one guy a neg because he was a non-paying bidder.

Second of all, I wasnt pissed at all. You guys are all under the assumption that I was, or am, mad. That isnt true. I just looked at the totality of the circumstances surrounding the auction and decided that the guy didnt deserve positive feedback. I only bring this up now because I was surprised last night that the guy all of a sudden e-mails me acting like a crying-baby. I'm not upset that I got a neutral from the guy, evidenced by the fact that I didnt e-mail him complaining about it.

Honestly, $2.50 shipping for a game is really good considering what most people charge. I simply pointed it out to him that he overcharged me after he emailed me complaining about his feedback. I wasnt pissed about paying that much, I was just surprised at how crappy the packaging job was.

I think that things are pretty dim when it is expected that I leave someone positive feedback for an auction as long as the item got here OK. When you write:

GREAT EBAYER A++++++ WOW THANKS

to me that is like a reccomendation to other buyers that they should buy from this guy. Well I sure wouldnt recommend this guy to anyone who is looking for games, so why would I leave him a positive feedback? Like I said, I dont think he did anything to deserve it. Complete lack of contact + shoddy packaging = neutral feedback. What would you guys leave a neutral for? If I hadnt got the item or the item had been damaged in shipping, well thats the worst thing that can happen, so that would have meant a negative. Is there no grey area in between?

[number6]

Jibbajaba,

I agree that the seller did not deserve positive feedback. I think neutral feedback is such a gray area ( no pun intended) that it is best to leave no feedback at all in cases where you feel neither negative towards the transaction nor totally happy. I have gotten into the habbit of leaving no feedback when I am not totally happy with the transaction. I have only once been truly upset enough with a transaction to leave a negative feedback and the seller receiving that neg is no longer registered. To me not receiving what I paid for is the only reason to be truly upset. I commend you for looking out for other buyers, but at the end of the day it is not truly worth the aggravation to be totally honest with your feelings on ebay. I find it is best to choose your battles.

[charitycasegreg]

I say if the item came in same condtion as stated in auction, it didnt take too long to ship, and he didnt rip you off with shipping then they deserve a positive. If they dont send item or steal your money, leave a negative. If its in between, then a nutreal.

[ogurty]

Seems like the people telling you that you got what you deserved for posting a neutral are the types who regularly wait for their buyer's feedback before posting themselves...so juvenile. Ebay needs some rules about retaliatory feedback, because it's just unfair.

I had a case where a buyer emailed me saying he bid on the wrong item and wasn't going to pay me. I replied saying that was fine, and left neutral feedback stating something like "bid on wrong item, i'm out fees, pls be more careful next time." And of course, for my kindness in not filing a non-paying bidder report and negative feedback, I get neutral back stating "very understanding thanks."

In your case, you probably should have emailed him first telling him his packaging was crap. If he's apologetic, lay off the feedback. If not, go for it. And you should absolutely have gotten positive for fast payment.

[Jibbajaba]

Ebay needs some rules about retaliatory feedback, because it's just unfair.

I was thinking about that myself, and I was thinking that a good thing for ebay to do would be to not allow people to see the feedback left for them concerning a particular auction until they posted feedback for it. That way their feedback cannot be influenced by the feedback they got. But there is probably something about that that wouldnt be good that I havent thought of.

In my case, I paid for my item in a timely manner and still got a neutral feedback simply because I was displeased with the auction as a whole. What people here seem to not be understanding is that it wasnt just the fact that the packaging sucked. If he had communicated with me even once, I wouldnt have felt good about leaving him a neutral. He never sent me an invoice or anything. He has enough feeback that I would have thought that he would know how selling stuff works, but I guess not. I don't really care that he left me a neutral in return. I just chalk it up to an immature seller and move on. It isn't like it affects my feedback rating. The only thing about this is that annoyed me is that he e-mailed me complaining about my feedback. He wasnt even polite about it, instead acting indignant, which only reinforced what I did in my own opinion. I thought it was really funny that he said that I need to learn to e-mail people when I have problems. He needs to learn to e-mail his winning bidders when he sells shit, and he needs to learn how to package stuff. I don't give a crap if it got here OK; you cant send something through the mail like that and have a reasonable expectation that it will get where it needs to go in the same shape that it left in. It had absolutely ZERO protection. People said that I should have e-mailed him and asked about shipping methods, but as far as I am concerned, bubble mailers or normal envelopes with some sort of protecting medium are the standard for packaging games on eBay. I have never been sent a game before that wasnt protected SOMEHOW, even if it was just in a cardboard box with some extra space. At least the cardboard itself provides a modicum of padded protection. If he was going to ship his item in such a non-standard fashion, then it was his responsibility to write something like this in his auction:

YOUR ITEM WILL BE PACKAGED IN THE CHEAPEST, JANKIEST, MOST GHETTO-LIKE FASHION THAT I CAN THINK OF. I WILL RIFLE THROUGH MY TRASH LOOKING FOR THE THINNEST MATERIAL I CAN POSSIBLE WRAP YOUR GAME IN. I WILL WRAP IT WITH ONLY ONE LAYER OF THIS MATERIAL, PUT A FEW PIECES OF TAPE ON IT, WRITE THE ADDRESS DIRECTLY ON IT (AS A LABEL MIGHT ACCIDENTALLY PROVIDE AN ADDED LAYER OF PROTECTION), AND SEND IT. THANK YOU FOR LOOKING AT MY AUCTION AND GOOD LUCK GETTING YOUR ITEM IN GOOD CONDITION, IF AT ALL.

[Achika]

I had the same issues, but with a seller of a few 1000 feedbacks under her belt. I won a Q-Bert board game and she wrapped it in Kraft paper. When it got here, the back of the box was smashed in with a gash that ripped open the whole back of the box, so now it just flops over. I emailed and asked her why I was overcharged by $5.00 and sent parcel post instead of priority (as per auction). "I just use the quotes that USPS.com provides me for the services and don't actually go to the post office. What do you want me to do?" I told her next time get it correct for her buyers, and if she's going to overcharge, then atleast put the extra $ that she's ripping people off into packing materials.

[Daria]

I'm with Jibbajabba on this one.

Feedback, is just that feedback. Comments left regarding the experience had when dealing with a seller or buyer. In Jibba's case the experience was far less then steller and he responded accordingly.

Giving a seller a positive just because your item arrived in good condition by the grace of god doesn't help anyone else who bids on this guy's auctions. When I'm sifting though someone's feedback, I'd like to see whether or not he has crappy shipping methods. To me that's a red flag that I should either walk away or email the seller prior to bidding.

If the item arrived in good condition it certainly wasn't because this guy wraped it in durable brown paper, it was luck and your respnse shouldn't praise the guy for your own good fortune.

[sisko]

Shipping only was $2.50? I would imagine thats pretty close to what it cost. Had he charged $6, your point would have been more valid.

You got your item, and in a timely manner, and undamaged. What's the big deal? IMHO, the seller is right, it doesn't matter. If it was that big of a deal, then you should have contacted the seller first before leaving feedback.

And your comment at the end "Grow up man!".....sorry, it makes you look petty and childish.

Did he need to respond with an email 3 weeks later? No, that just makes him look petty and childish.

All in all, there is no significant harm done...no damaged goods, no negatives.....just drop it before you both get riled up. Its not worth it

[Jibbajaba]

Shipping only was $2.50? I would imagine thats pretty close to what it cost. Had he charged $6, your point would have been more valid.

Actually the actual shipping was about $1. But that isnt what I am complaining about.

You got your item, and in a timely manner, and undamaged. What's the big deal? IMHO, the seller is right, it doesn't matter. If it was that big of a deal, then you should have contacted the seller first before leaving feedback.

It wasnt that big of a deal. If it had been that big of a deal, then I would have negged him. And what could have been accomplished by contacting the seller? What was he going to do? Ship me a new one that didnt look like it was packaged by a 4 year old?

And your comment at the end "Grow up man!".....sorry, it makes you look petty and childish.

I'm going to have to respectfully disagree with you here. Telling someone to grow up because they left me feedack based solely on the fact that I left them a neutral does not make me childish. I didnt insult him, I basically told him that he needs to act like a fucking adult and not leave "revenge" feedback when someone has the balls to leave him feedback commensurate with his shitty service. My feedback was based on the fact that his packaging method sucked coupled with the fact that I got ZERO communication out of him. I paid him within three days via paypal. I did my job.

Look, Daria put it best I think. The fact that the item got here OK isn't because of anything that the seller did. It's because I got lucky and because the USPS managed not to damage it even though it was completely unprotected. The USPS deserves the positive feedback, not this ass-clown.

Ultimately, if I conducted myself as a seller on eBay the way this guy does, I wouldnt be expecting a lot of positive feedback. And I think the fact that I never leave neutrals or negatives shows a pattern of behavior consistent with the fact that I am not simply being petty here, but that I really think that this guy didnt deserve positive feedback.

Maybe I shouldnt have left him feedback at all, but then doesnt that take away from the purpose of feedback? I think if more people were honest about the feedback that they left, people wouldnt get screwed so much by sellers who have misleadingly positive feedback ratings. "Revenge" feedback and peoples fear of it has completely neutralized any effect that the feedback system ever had.

[Griking]

Seems like the people telling you that you got what you deserved for posting a neutral are the types who regularly wait for their buyer's feedback before posting themselves...so juvenile.

Don't you absolutely hate that?

In my case, I paid for my item in a timely manner and still got a neutral feedback simply because I was displeased with the auction as a whole.

And he shipped your product to you in a timely manner which you received in the condition promised yet he got a neutral because the item could have been (but wasn't) damaged in shipping.

Honestly, I don't need for sellers to email me telling me that I made a purchase from them. I already know if I made a purchase or not. I also don't need an email telling me that my product has been shipped. I expect that it's being shipped. The only email I'd expect is if shipping was going to be delayed for some reason.

[Daria]

And he shipped your product to you in a timely manner which you received in the condition promised yet he got a neutral because the item could have been (but wasn't) damaged in shipping.

Could have been and was practically a miracle it wasn't. :P

I'm sorry it's the buy's responsibilty to pay in a timely manner, and the sellers to not only ship in a timely manner but to also asure that their package gets to the buyer safe and sound.

Just because it DID arrive safe and sound dosen't mean the seller did his part to make sure it would. That was an accident, and he shouldn't be praised for it.

[jonjandran]

This is a useless thread now.

Everything is just being repeated over and over again.

[captain nintendo]

I bought a boxed NES sports set off ebay a while back and when it arrived it was just wrapped in a thick brown wrapping paper. Needless to say I wasnt to happy . Luckily it wasnt damaged I sent the seller an e-mail stating the way I felt , but told them I would leave a positive. They actually sent me a partial refund Would anyone think that leaving a positive in this or Jibbajaba's situation with a harsh comment about the "bad" packaging to be enough ? I am not saying Jibbajaba was wrong , but I left my seller a positive (thanks to a partial refund) .......


Food for though.