Hey Leo, and TWiT Community

[G+_Tom Kenyon (tnvkenyon)]

Hey Leo, and TWiT Community.

 

I sell on eBay.  If you aren't part of the community there, you are probably unaware of this, but they have implemented a new system that counts your "Defect Rate" and uses it to determine if your listings get visibility and they even make PayPal hold your incoming money if too many buyers say you have defects.

 

Problem is, the following things count as "defects":

 

Buyer moves and does not change shipping address in eBay/PayPal.  Never gets item, opens a dispute on eBay saying "Item Not Received".  You get a defect for that.

 

Buyer has Thinkpad T410.  Buyer needs screen.  I am selling screens for T410s.  Buyer does not bother to look and see if those 2 models take the same screen.  Buyer buys screen.  Screen, upon arrival, has different connector type and connector location.  Buyer opens dispute, "Item Not As Described".  Counts as defect.

 

Buyer uses eBay to purchase lots of items.  Gets same item from me and from another seller.  Item from other seller is defective.  Buyer opens dispute on my item, including a photo that shows the shipping label, clearly showing that the item came from another company in another state.  This counts as a defect.

 

I know that this does not effect very many of your listeners, but some of us do sell on eBay.  Some of us own companies that use eBay as a primary revenue source.  If you could cover this on your show, I would greatly appreciate it.  These policies do not help anyone.  Buyers have no idea who the good sellers are anymore and anyone selling replacement parts (screens, memory, cpu, hard drives, etc) are getting their ratings destroyed by folks who are unable to or too lazy to ensure compatibility.

[G+_Dave Trautman]

So, if you win the dispute, do they restore you and remove the defect reference?  I would think you have to be as vigilant about your eBay reputation as you would a brick and mortar storefront.  Yes, people are dumb sometimes, but that's the price of business in almost everything.

 

I would hope you could persuade eBay to only apply the 'defect' reference when you lose the dispute rather than when someone initiates the dispute.  It's patently unfair to impune a reputation on the say so of just one customer.

[G+_David Litton]

Well, weather or not the buyer is correct, I always issue a refund and have them send the item back lest they leave bad feedback.  The issue here is, if the problem is one of compatibility, it dings you anyway.  It's basically "buyer always right even when they're wrong".

 

Like I said, this will hit people who sell memory, hard drives, laptop screens, etc pretty hard.