What is the name of your state? nc
(I know that there are many questions about eBay purchases on this forum already, but I didn't see this specific scenario....)
I recently completed a transaction for an eBook on eBay, and made immediate payment via PayPal. The seller quickly sent a link to download the eBook; however, there was an error message saying that the document did not exist on the server. I immediately contacted the seller, including the text of the error message. The next email from the seller asked me to leave positive feedback. I wrote back, saying that the link still did not allow access to the item, and included a graphic actually showing the error message saying that the document still was not available. The seller's response was that he would just refund the purchase price (without exploring other possibilitites, like fixing the link, or sending the book via email, or some other option -- and without asking if that solution was ok). He did refund the amount very quickly.
Since I never received the advertised item, I did not feel that positive feedback was appropriate; however, since he provided the refund quickly, I also did not want to leave negative feedback -- so I chose neutral, saying only that the item wasn't received, but payment was refunded courteously.
Almost immediately, he posted extremely negative -- and TOTALLY false -- feedback on my eBay ID, accusing me of being a "bad eBay'er". I am only a very casual eBay buyer, but had had 100% positive feedback until now; this one negative feedback dropped my rating to 96%, which sounds quite low to me -- and which would take quite a few transactions to raise back up!
I questioned the seller, who replied that I shouldn't have posted anything if it wasn't positive, and that's why he posted the negative on mine. Had the seller provided the item as advertised, I would have gladly left positive feedback. However, the seller is STILL selling the item -- presumably with the same erroneous link -- which seems to be grounds for leaving neutral (or even negative!) feedback.
Do you know if I have any reasonable recourse? The seller's false negative comments have damaged my eBay "reputation", which (in my limited understanding) is now on my "permanent record".
Thank you in advance!
(I know that there are many questions about eBay purchases on this forum already, but I didn't see this specific scenario....)
I recently completed a transaction for an eBook on eBay, and made immediate payment via PayPal. The seller quickly sent a link to download the eBook; however, there was an error message saying that the document did not exist on the server. I immediately contacted the seller, including the text of the error message. The next email from the seller asked me to leave positive feedback. I wrote back, saying that the link still did not allow access to the item, and included a graphic actually showing the error message saying that the document still was not available. The seller's response was that he would just refund the purchase price (without exploring other possibilitites, like fixing the link, or sending the book via email, or some other option -- and without asking if that solution was ok). He did refund the amount very quickly.
Since I never received the advertised item, I did not feel that positive feedback was appropriate; however, since he provided the refund quickly, I also did not want to leave negative feedback -- so I chose neutral, saying only that the item wasn't received, but payment was refunded courteously.
Almost immediately, he posted extremely negative -- and TOTALLY false -- feedback on my eBay ID, accusing me of being a "bad eBay'er". I am only a very casual eBay buyer, but had had 100% positive feedback until now; this one negative feedback dropped my rating to 96%, which sounds quite low to me -- and which would take quite a few transactions to raise back up!
I questioned the seller, who replied that I shouldn't have posted anything if it wasn't positive, and that's why he posted the negative on mine. Had the seller provided the item as advertised, I would have gladly left positive feedback. However, the seller is STILL selling the item -- presumably with the same erroneous link -- which seems to be grounds for leaving neutral (or even negative!) feedback.
Do you know if I have any reasonable recourse? The seller's false negative comments have damaged my eBay "reputation", which (in my limited understanding) is now on my "permanent record".
Thank you in advance!
