Klarinet Archive - Posting 000058.txt from 2008/02

From: Tim Roberts <timr@-----.com>
Subj: [kl] Re: ebay
Date: Mon, 04 Feb 2008 13:09:10 -0500

On Sun, 3 Feb 2008 21:00:08 -0500, "thomaswinds" <thomaswinds@-----.net>
> I don't know how many of you have heard about upcoming changes to the eBay
> system for feedback, but if not, you can read about them here.
> http://blog.auctionbytes.com/cgi-bin/blog/blog.pl?/pl/2008/1/1201611437.html
>
> I can tell you that we won't be listing mouthpieces or anything else on eBay
> after these go into effect. While most of our buyers are honest, we can't
> afford to let people give us negs we can never remove, and yet not have the
> same option to do the same to buyers who treat us like crap.
>

Boy, do I have mixed feelings about that. I did find myself in the
position of being afraid to leave negative feedback for a seller who
screwed me over, for the very reasons they talk about in the notice.
Three years ago, I bought a used laser printer on eBay from a guy in
Georgia named Messam Naqvi. It was a big printer, designed for a
high-volume corporate office. He wanted to ship it via truck, but we
are in an office complex without a loading dock. I would have had to
drive to the airport to pick it up, 40 minutes away. When we couldn't
come to an agreement, I offered to withdraw the bid, but he finally
agreed to ship via FedEx.

Since he ships big office equipment all day, I assumed he knew how to
pack for shipment. I was wrong. When it arrived, the FedEx guy
mentioned that the box was rattling and I might want to check it. Naqvi
had put it in one layer of bubble wrap and dropped the printer in a box
that was 50% too large. It had banged and crashed all the way across
the country, so that the pieces remaining could have been carried in a
small sack.

This was clearly the sellers fault, and may even have been intentional,
but he tried to claim it was my fault for insisting on FedEx. I don't
buy that much stuff on eBay, so any negative feedback would have hurt me
much more than it hurt him. In the end, he agreed to eat half the cost
(despite having all of the liability), and I ended up leaving no
feedback at all.

There is still an "out" for sellers who are the victims of extortion,
and the Korean buyer of your Selmer pro horn would clearly have fallen
into that category.

--
Tim Roberts, timr@-----.com
Providenza & Boekelheide, Inc.

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