I need to VENT! I am furious with Ebay and will now refuse to ever sell anything on their site again. Please feel free to pass this story along to anyone who sells on ebay.


This is a really, really long story, so I'm giving the abbreviated version- and it's still long!!

The buyer who won my auction sent me rude, harrassing emails several times AFTER he won the auction and demanded that I ship the item to him for less than what I clearly had listed in the auction. ($6.00 for 5 books via media mail.) I responded to his emails and referred back to the terms of the auction and told him S&H was $6.00. He then stated he was going to pay for the auction with my "inflated S&H" and then leave me negative feedback. WHAT???

I contacted ebay via "live help" and phone on several occasions to get help with the buyer. Ebay originally read the emails between us and said it was feedback extortion (their term- not mine) and assisted me with filing a claim. They also walked me through canceling the transaction. Meanwhile, the buyer is sending me a several more rude emails & I'm trying to answer each one the best I can.

Then I receive an email from ebay stating they can't find any evidence of feedback extortion. I call and ebay assures me that it's only because the buyer only threatened to leave negative feedback and hadn't actually left the negative feedback yet. They tell me to call back if he leaves the feedback.

He leaves the negative feedback. I call back and suddenly their whole story changes....... Here are some of ebay's responses:


1. Ebay told me I needed to communicate with the buyer.
WHAT?? I answered every email - even the harrassing ones- professionally. I can't communicate much more than that.

2. Ebay said they couldn't find evidence of feedback extortion.
Didn't the buyer demand that I change my fees or he would leave his "concerns" in my feedback? Isn't ebay the one who originally read through all of the emails, called it feedback extortion and sent me the link to file an extortion claim?

3. An ebay supervisor told me that the buyer can ask for lower S&H fees after the auction and sometimes the sellers cooperate with them and lower the fees.
If the buyer doesn't want to pay the amount of S&H shown in the auction, shouldn't he contact the buyer BEFORE he bids to see of the S&H can be lower? Or maybe just not bid on the item at all?


Last but not least:

4.. The ebay supervisor informed me that the transaction, buyer and emails were investigated and they found NO VIOLATION on the part of the buyer.
So I said to the supervisor "So you're telling me that I can bid on an item from one of your sellers, win the auction and then send demand that the seller lower his S&H fees or I'll leave him negative feedback and that would be ok with you? I would not violate your policy?? I'd like you to send that to me in writing."

The supervisor replied "NO! That would be wrong and you would be monitored and penalized. You can't do that."

I'm completely dumbfounded. I have all of the emails, live help transcript and phone call notes if you can't believe what I'm saying is true. (I can barely believe it myself!) And, due to ebay policy, the seller can not leave the buyer negative feedback.


Now I will NEVER sell on ebay again. I can not possibly list on here everything I went through with ebay. I hope you pass this on to other sellers so that they can be aware. Thanks for letting me vent. Now.... time to move on to better things.