I have been selling stuff on ebay for about four years now. I have been a member of the
community for five. Initially I signed up just out of curiosity but then slow times hit the
car business & I needed cash so I decided to give it a try. At first it did not work out for
me. Everything I listed either got no bids or sold way cheap. NOT what I was expecting.
As a result my membership stay idle for a couple of years.
As they always do in this feast or famine career of mine; slow times set in once again and
I decided to give it another try. That time I was so desperate, I was wiling to take
whatever I could get for the items I listed. To my surprise, every one of them rang the
bell. I sold my motorcycle, my extra car, stereos, saddles, speakers, and even a few
other things I did not expect to get much for but did. They all did more than I had
expected. Some brought more than I had paid new. I was shocked. Being the addictive
personality that I am, I was hooked. It was like hitting the big jackpot on the slots at the
casino. I kept listing waiting for that next big hit. Since then I have been on an all out
press to find that one thing that breaks the bank. Sometimes I win, sometimes I lose but
I almost always have fun. I think it is great. I am constantly meeting new people,
chatting on line and turning my old stuff into new money. The profit margins are often
slim but I still enjoy myself the majority of the time. The crazy thing is an old cliché we
use in the car business, “There is a butt for every seat.” People will buy anything. My
wife found a magazine from 1943 that we almost threw away. Just for kicks and giggles
we listed it and it turned into three hundred bucs cash. Sweet!
Unfortunately, things do not always work out that way. We have purchased a few things
almost certain that they were a good deal only to lose money. Like I said; win, lose, or
draw the majority of the time I have fun. Key word, majority. I say majority because
even though ebay is an Internet based, there are still people involved. Where there are
people, there will be differences of opinion. Some of those people take all the fun out of
the game whining about the darndest of things. It is just a few, but they are a few too
many. Here is a question. Why is it that the minority can have an overbearing negative
impact on the majority? Eighty percent believe in God yet the twenty percent who don’t
tell the believers where they can & cannot worship. The non believers dictate what the
believers can say & do spiritually in public. That is another story for another day but you
can relate right? Think of it this way. You get dressed to go to work and on the way to
you stop for coffee. Someone in the coffee shop compliments you on your outfit. You feel
good, right? A few miles down the road, you stop for gas and get yet another
compliment. You feel even better now. You arrive at work and as you do what you do,
you get another compliment still. By now you are on cloud nine feeling real good about
yourself. This goes on all day. Five o’clock rolls around and you are clocking out to go
home as a co worker that you don’t even care for walks up and says, “Where did you get
that outfit, the Goodwill?” Now your whole day is shot along with all the compliments
you got all the day long. When you get home you don’t tell whoever is waiting there for
you about the nine compliments you got, you tell them about the one Jag off that
insulted you on your way out of the door. What’s up with that? This story is very much
the same. It occurred about the time when I had sold about thirty-five hundred items on
ebay. At the time, my customer satisfaction rating was 100.0% & a 100% of my
customers were happy with me, many of which repeated on a regular basis and then
came along that one person who in this story we will call John Doe. John tried hard to
spoil my day. Mr. Doe left me a battery of negative feedbacks which at first made me
want to pull the plug and close up shop. Why is it that this complainer stood out more
than the other 1600 or 1700 other satisfied customers? Why is it that the squeaky wheel
gets the grease? Why is it; the minority over power the majority? If you think I have the
answer, I don’t! It is just a thought provoking question I am throwing out there because
I know I am not the only one that this has happened to. Look, I am not complaining
because I know that it is impossible to please every body all of the time. I understand
people & I understand that the ebay community is made up of people. I also understand
that where there are people there will be differences of opinion. I am not talking about
that. I am talking about the miserable creature that is only happy when he is miserable
and he is even happier when he is making other people miserable. I quit a six digit job
to avoid dealing with the likes of those people. Check this! Over all I think the ebay
program itself is the best thing since sliced bread. It has been an outlet allowing me to
liquidate stuff lying around my house that I will probably never use again. Instead of
having to dust it all the time, I get to turn it into cash. That allows me to buy new stuff
so I can repeat the cycle. In general, I have been in business long enough to know that
if you stay in any business long enough; you are bound to run into somebody that you
cannot please no matter what you do. If they don’t turn you off and you stay, you will
sooner or later run into another one just like him. Some are just plain ol' miserable and
others are pure predator. I would like to vent a little about both hoping it will make me
feel better about the situation I am about to share with you. I am not talking about the
person with a legitimate concern. Those ordeals with a little give on both sides can
usually be resolved win / win so everybody goes home happy. I am talking about those
people that want the whole cake and to eat it too.
I had this one buyer that blamed me for something I had no control over. I had no
control over the fact that his box looked like it had been run over by a truck. Even still I
was willing to work with him except he wanted a refund and to be able to keep my
product. NO!!! Refund = return. He felt he should be refunded, retain the merchandice
and be compensated for his troubles to boot. What is that? Essentially I break my
problem children down into two categories. He is either Mr. Miserable or Mr. Predator.
Mr. Miserable goes into the deal hoping for a problem so he can feel entitled to
compensation above and beyond what a normal person might expect. Mr Predator, he is
all about getting something for nothing and that is a way of life for him. Both Mr.
Miserable & Mr. Predator belong to the human race. They are not specific to any
particular sex, age group or creed. Though different, both are in many respects very
much the same. One spends his time trying to contaminate you with what he’s got and
the other spends his time trying to take from you what you have got. Mr. Miserable feels
entitled to everything and Mr. Predator has an angle to try to take everything from you.
Dealing with them is extremely energy consuming.
Let me start with Mr. Predator. He really tries my peace. He spends all of his time
looking for the shortcut. Instead of doing things the right way, he spends his time
looking for the angle. This guy will work an angle when the right way will work better.
The good news is, in over three thousand transactions, I have only run across him less
than a hand full of times. The funny thing is; he has basically the same approach
whether he lives in the north or the south or even on opposite sides of the world. For
example, there is the guy I call “No-pay”. This is the guy that buys something and means
to pay, but never does. Then when you file a dispute against him he tries to turn it
around and make it out to be your fault he did not pay in the first place. He is the most
common element I encounter. I meet him at least once a week. Typically when I file a
dispute, he complains that it is my fault he did not pay, either I did not give him enough
information, time or I did not send the correct invoice to the correct place. Whatever; he
is one out of ten and the other nine don't seem to have a problem. Either way, those
guys are pretty easy to diffuse since I don’t ship until after payment is made. Since I
don’t, the most I stand to lose is a little time? Yeah they might cost me a few minutes
filing the dispute and a few more re-listing the item I thought I already sold but in the
end he is pretty easy to forget.
The next guy on the list is “Nogots”. Mr. Nogots is the guy that will write and say he did
not receive his item. He is the reason I offer tracking and insurance. The sad news is, he
never opts to buy it and then one of two things happens. He gets the merchandise and
pretends he did not get it or he legitimately did not get it and now wants somebody else
to be responsible even though he chose not to pay for tracking or insurance. Speaking
of which, out of three thousand items shipped, only one has been lost and never
recovered. The packages always end up in one of two places; here or there because I
affix my return address label to every parcel. Speaking of which, I have only had four or
five come back. Contrary to what many say, the U.S.P.S. is on point. In my case, most of
the items I sell are only a dollar or two so to insure or track them often cost as much as
the item itself. Most people decline this option until an items goes MIA then they wish
they had purchased it. Occasionally, if an order is big enough, I will insure it on my own
just to play it safe. Ironically, those ones never go missing. NEVER! Even still I offer the
option to everyone. Mr. Miserable’s closest relative is “Notapy”. He is a very small
percentage of the community I encounter but when I do, WHATCH OUT because he will
make himself known. He is the guy that really inspired this piece. As not to give up his
true identity, we will call him John Doe.
John buys a bunch of items during which time there was a contest. The contest was a
pretty big one too. It was Christmas time and I was feeling the spirit so I gave away
over a hundred items during the month of December in the spirit of the season. Now, I
list everything I sell to be shipped parcel post which generally takes two to nine days.
John writes me after taking three days to pay and tells me that he needs his order in a
hurry. At that point he insists he needs his order to be there in four days for a charity
event he was attending which involved his order. Not a problem, I already had him
packed to go out the very next day. Trying to be accommodating I shipped his order first
class and insured it at my expense. Six days later I get an email (early Monday)
informing me that he did not get his order in time for the event and he had to spend
another fifty dollars on similar merchandise. John insisted I absorb the cost of it and
refund him for damaged merchandise. Hmmm, which is it, was it late or damaged? Even
though I never knew anything about his event or him needing his order in a hurry for the
event until the night before shipping it, it was not late. You see there is no mail on
Sunday, I got the email early Monday which means he must have had his order on
Saturday; the day he claimed he needed it. Bing! Caught in a lie! So I confronted him
with this & he shifts his story. He moves from not getting the order on time to it being
severely damaged. Almost a week later he sends me pictures of a smashed box and a
couple damaged items one of which he did not even purchase from me. No problem I
informed him, "I insured your parcel". He retaliates that his mailman informed him that it
was not worth a claim. "Okay, makes no sense to me but how about you let me replace
the damaged cars?" He says, "No, I wants fifty dollars of the seventy dollar I spent
refunded to me or else I am going to contact your boss where you work and leave
negative feedback for each item. Well at this point I knew John Doe was not going to be
happy no matter what I did but still I wanted to try to satisfy him even though my boss
at my real job should have nothing to do with my ebay transactions. I might have
considered negotiating further except he began insulting me personally. I told him we
were done and dared him to leave the negative feedback. He did. 46 red marks he
splashed on my rep. It was a small price to pay to get rid of him especially since this
buyer had called me four or five times from the time we commenced doing business on
the telephone. HELLO! Ebay is an Internet business, there is no reason to call the seller
unless there is a problem and all of his calls came in before he was even done buying.
One at Thanksgiving. Now don't get me wrong, I will take a call to answer a question,
but I will not listen to you insult me on my dime just because you don't like the skin you
live in.
Anyway a few weeks later I was loading stuff to my ebay store and I watched the
negative feedback come on like a rash. Wow. How do some folks live with themselves. I
actually thought the guy was bluffing, but in the end he was serious. At first I was upset
about the negatives, but then I go to thinking - he did me a favor. I have gone over and
beyond over the years trying to satisfy some unreasonable requests in an attempt to
maintain a perfect rating. Now I don’t have to worry about that anymore. John Doe
erased my hundred percent and essentially set me free. Oh don't get me wrong, I still
chase a good rating, I just no longer allow myself to be extorted.
John Doe also inspired me to list in details everything I do and don't do with each listing.
I am sure in spite of all the clarification disclaimed in my store that someone will sooner
or later whine about something that could have been avoided if only they took the time
to read the disclaimer. Time will tell. CONTINUED
community for five. Initially I signed up just out of curiosity but then slow times hit the
car business & I needed cash so I decided to give it a try. At first it did not work out for
me. Everything I listed either got no bids or sold way cheap. NOT what I was expecting.
As a result my membership stay idle for a couple of years.
As they always do in this feast or famine career of mine; slow times set in once again and
I decided to give it another try. That time I was so desperate, I was wiling to take
whatever I could get for the items I listed. To my surprise, every one of them rang the
bell. I sold my motorcycle, my extra car, stereos, saddles, speakers, and even a few
other things I did not expect to get much for but did. They all did more than I had
expected. Some brought more than I had paid new. I was shocked. Being the addictive
personality that I am, I was hooked. It was like hitting the big jackpot on the slots at the
casino. I kept listing waiting for that next big hit. Since then I have been on an all out
press to find that one thing that breaks the bank. Sometimes I win, sometimes I lose but
I almost always have fun. I think it is great. I am constantly meeting new people,
chatting on line and turning my old stuff into new money. The profit margins are often
slim but I still enjoy myself the majority of the time. The crazy thing is an old cliché we
use in the car business, “There is a butt for every seat.” People will buy anything. My
wife found a magazine from 1943 that we almost threw away. Just for kicks and giggles
we listed it and it turned into three hundred bucs cash. Sweet!
Unfortunately, things do not always work out that way. We have purchased a few things
almost certain that they were a good deal only to lose money. Like I said; win, lose, or
draw the majority of the time I have fun. Key word, majority. I say majority because
even though ebay is an Internet based, there are still people involved. Where there are
people, there will be differences of opinion. Some of those people take all the fun out of
the game whining about the darndest of things. It is just a few, but they are a few too
many. Here is a question. Why is it that the minority can have an overbearing negative
impact on the majority? Eighty percent believe in God yet the twenty percent who don’t
tell the believers where they can & cannot worship. The non believers dictate what the
believers can say & do spiritually in public. That is another story for another day but you
can relate right? Think of it this way. You get dressed to go to work and on the way to
you stop for coffee. Someone in the coffee shop compliments you on your outfit. You feel
good, right? A few miles down the road, you stop for gas and get yet another
compliment. You feel even better now. You arrive at work and as you do what you do,
you get another compliment still. By now you are on cloud nine feeling real good about
yourself. This goes on all day. Five o’clock rolls around and you are clocking out to go
home as a co worker that you don’t even care for walks up and says, “Where did you get
that outfit, the Goodwill?” Now your whole day is shot along with all the compliments
you got all the day long. When you get home you don’t tell whoever is waiting there for
you about the nine compliments you got, you tell them about the one Jag off that
insulted you on your way out of the door. What’s up with that? This story is very much
the same. It occurred about the time when I had sold about thirty-five hundred items on
ebay. At the time, my customer satisfaction rating was 100.0% & a 100% of my
customers were happy with me, many of which repeated on a regular basis and then
came along that one person who in this story we will call John Doe. John tried hard to
spoil my day. Mr. Doe left me a battery of negative feedbacks which at first made me
want to pull the plug and close up shop. Why is it that this complainer stood out more
than the other 1600 or 1700 other satisfied customers? Why is it that the squeaky wheel
gets the grease? Why is it; the minority over power the majority? If you think I have the
answer, I don’t! It is just a thought provoking question I am throwing out there because
I know I am not the only one that this has happened to. Look, I am not complaining
because I know that it is impossible to please every body all of the time. I understand
people & I understand that the ebay community is made up of people. I also understand
that where there are people there will be differences of opinion. I am not talking about
that. I am talking about the miserable creature that is only happy when he is miserable
and he is even happier when he is making other people miserable. I quit a six digit job
to avoid dealing with the likes of those people. Check this! Over all I think the ebay
program itself is the best thing since sliced bread. It has been an outlet allowing me to
liquidate stuff lying around my house that I will probably never use again. Instead of
having to dust it all the time, I get to turn it into cash. That allows me to buy new stuff
so I can repeat the cycle. In general, I have been in business long enough to know that
if you stay in any business long enough; you are bound to run into somebody that you
cannot please no matter what you do. If they don’t turn you off and you stay, you will
sooner or later run into another one just like him. Some are just plain ol' miserable and
others are pure predator. I would like to vent a little about both hoping it will make me
feel better about the situation I am about to share with you. I am not talking about the
person with a legitimate concern. Those ordeals with a little give on both sides can
usually be resolved win / win so everybody goes home happy. I am talking about those
people that want the whole cake and to eat it too.
I had this one buyer that blamed me for something I had no control over. I had no
control over the fact that his box looked like it had been run over by a truck. Even still I
was willing to work with him except he wanted a refund and to be able to keep my
product. NO!!! Refund = return. He felt he should be refunded, retain the merchandice
and be compensated for his troubles to boot. What is that? Essentially I break my
problem children down into two categories. He is either Mr. Miserable or Mr. Predator.
Mr. Miserable goes into the deal hoping for a problem so he can feel entitled to
compensation above and beyond what a normal person might expect. Mr Predator, he is
all about getting something for nothing and that is a way of life for him. Both Mr.
Miserable & Mr. Predator belong to the human race. They are not specific to any
particular sex, age group or creed. Though different, both are in many respects very
much the same. One spends his time trying to contaminate you with what he’s got and
the other spends his time trying to take from you what you have got. Mr. Miserable feels
entitled to everything and Mr. Predator has an angle to try to take everything from you.
Dealing with them is extremely energy consuming.
Let me start with Mr. Predator. He really tries my peace. He spends all of his time
looking for the shortcut. Instead of doing things the right way, he spends his time
looking for the angle. This guy will work an angle when the right way will work better.
The good news is, in over three thousand transactions, I have only run across him less
than a hand full of times. The funny thing is; he has basically the same approach
whether he lives in the north or the south or even on opposite sides of the world. For
example, there is the guy I call “No-pay”. This is the guy that buys something and means
to pay, but never does. Then when you file a dispute against him he tries to turn it
around and make it out to be your fault he did not pay in the first place. He is the most
common element I encounter. I meet him at least once a week. Typically when I file a
dispute, he complains that it is my fault he did not pay, either I did not give him enough
information, time or I did not send the correct invoice to the correct place. Whatever; he
is one out of ten and the other nine don't seem to have a problem. Either way, those
guys are pretty easy to diffuse since I don’t ship until after payment is made. Since I
don’t, the most I stand to lose is a little time? Yeah they might cost me a few minutes
filing the dispute and a few more re-listing the item I thought I already sold but in the
end he is pretty easy to forget.
The next guy on the list is “Nogots”. Mr. Nogots is the guy that will write and say he did
not receive his item. He is the reason I offer tracking and insurance. The sad news is, he
never opts to buy it and then one of two things happens. He gets the merchandise and
pretends he did not get it or he legitimately did not get it and now wants somebody else
to be responsible even though he chose not to pay for tracking or insurance. Speaking
of which, out of three thousand items shipped, only one has been lost and never
recovered. The packages always end up in one of two places; here or there because I
affix my return address label to every parcel. Speaking of which, I have only had four or
five come back. Contrary to what many say, the U.S.P.S. is on point. In my case, most of
the items I sell are only a dollar or two so to insure or track them often cost as much as
the item itself. Most people decline this option until an items goes MIA then they wish
they had purchased it. Occasionally, if an order is big enough, I will insure it on my own
just to play it safe. Ironically, those ones never go missing. NEVER! Even still I offer the
option to everyone. Mr. Miserable’s closest relative is “Notapy”. He is a very small
percentage of the community I encounter but when I do, WHATCH OUT because he will
make himself known. He is the guy that really inspired this piece. As not to give up his
true identity, we will call him John Doe.
John buys a bunch of items during which time there was a contest. The contest was a
pretty big one too. It was Christmas time and I was feeling the spirit so I gave away
over a hundred items during the month of December in the spirit of the season. Now, I
list everything I sell to be shipped parcel post which generally takes two to nine days.
John writes me after taking three days to pay and tells me that he needs his order in a
hurry. At that point he insists he needs his order to be there in four days for a charity
event he was attending which involved his order. Not a problem, I already had him
packed to go out the very next day. Trying to be accommodating I shipped his order first
class and insured it at my expense. Six days later I get an email (early Monday)
informing me that he did not get his order in time for the event and he had to spend
another fifty dollars on similar merchandise. John insisted I absorb the cost of it and
refund him for damaged merchandise. Hmmm, which is it, was it late or damaged? Even
though I never knew anything about his event or him needing his order in a hurry for the
event until the night before shipping it, it was not late. You see there is no mail on
Sunday, I got the email early Monday which means he must have had his order on
Saturday; the day he claimed he needed it. Bing! Caught in a lie! So I confronted him
with this & he shifts his story. He moves from not getting the order on time to it being
severely damaged. Almost a week later he sends me pictures of a smashed box and a
couple damaged items one of which he did not even purchase from me. No problem I
informed him, "I insured your parcel". He retaliates that his mailman informed him that it
was not worth a claim. "Okay, makes no sense to me but how about you let me replace
the damaged cars?" He says, "No, I wants fifty dollars of the seventy dollar I spent
refunded to me or else I am going to contact your boss where you work and leave
negative feedback for each item. Well at this point I knew John Doe was not going to be
happy no matter what I did but still I wanted to try to satisfy him even though my boss
at my real job should have nothing to do with my ebay transactions. I might have
considered negotiating further except he began insulting me personally. I told him we
were done and dared him to leave the negative feedback. He did. 46 red marks he
splashed on my rep. It was a small price to pay to get rid of him especially since this
buyer had called me four or five times from the time we commenced doing business on
the telephone. HELLO! Ebay is an Internet business, there is no reason to call the seller
unless there is a problem and all of his calls came in before he was even done buying.
One at Thanksgiving. Now don't get me wrong, I will take a call to answer a question,
but I will not listen to you insult me on my dime just because you don't like the skin you
live in.
Anyway a few weeks later I was loading stuff to my ebay store and I watched the
negative feedback come on like a rash. Wow. How do some folks live with themselves. I
actually thought the guy was bluffing, but in the end he was serious. At first I was upset
about the negatives, but then I go to thinking - he did me a favor. I have gone over and
beyond over the years trying to satisfy some unreasonable requests in an attempt to
maintain a perfect rating. Now I don’t have to worry about that anymore. John Doe
erased my hundred percent and essentially set me free. Oh don't get me wrong, I still
chase a good rating, I just no longer allow myself to be extorted.
John Doe also inspired me to list in details everything I do and don't do with each listing.
I am sure in spite of all the clarification disclaimed in my store that someone will sooner
or later whine about something that could have been avoided if only they took the time
to read the disclaimer. Time will tell. CONTINUED
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| NO WHINING, 01-08 |
