Oh your poor mum! What a terrible situation - likely to put her off ebay I would think good grief.

Agree totally with everyone here that it would be best to cancel the sale. if he gives you grief, report him to ebay (i'm sure there is some way of doing that) as he is being nasty - 20% discount is not on at all and he shouldn't be demanding it.

On another note, I charge for and send everything on ebay as recorded delivery now (special delivery if its something expensive on a BIN) as I've had one too many people "not receiving their items" recently after years of nothing ever going missing in the post.... hmmm, i really truly believe all thsoe buyers


Do hope it gets resolved.
- Gaspode

I usually just charge for and send things via ordinary second class mail (I find people don't even want to pay slightly more for first class and I get no bids otherwise!) but always get proof of postage. That way if they claim it doesn't show up, at least I can claim the money back from Royal Mail. But then I don't sell anything of that kind of value! I also clearly state in all my auction listings that I won't be held responsible for items lost in the mail (unless people pay extra for insurance), but will help people to claim from the PO. And the only time an item DID get lost (and I do believe the buyer on that one as it was right before Christmas last year), he was very patient and waited for the claim to go through.

I do feel partially responsible for not helping Mum to get a "blurb" about insurance etc. written on all her listings too, which is half the reason I made this thread. But we really had no idea it would go above the amount that proof of postage covers - we didn't even know it would sell. And by the time it started getting bids (the last day) we couldn't revise the listing.

Anyway, the latest update. My mum has written a friendly but firm message to the buyer and said she can't possibly reduce it by 20%. She has offered to lower the price to £300 or give him a full refund. No reply so far. Mum is asleep now so I'm just sitting here biting my nails and waiting for the next nasty installment.

Good luck. I bet he'll take it.

Well, we have received a reply from the buyer. He seems friendly enough now (almost TOO friendly compared to his previous letters) and has offered £290. Mum is perfectly happy with this but my dad (who tore the thing in the first place) is still telling her to argue for £295. >.<

Well, hopefully she will listen to her own instincts, accept the £290 and the offending buyer will be okay about things. I'm still worried he'll turn around and leave negative once he has it in his hands, but the situation is definitely better than it was a couple of days ago.

Thanks for all the advice, guys!

If it was me...I wouldn't do it still. I'd do like everyone has suggested, and refund and re-list with a better description and better shipping.

I'm with Eternia on this one, but I totally understand just wanting to be done with the transasction. If you're seriously concerned about the feedback, then the best thing you can really is to to cancel the transaction.

Thinking about it, its not really surprising that he is being extra nice now, because he is probably going to make a lot of money on your moms item I do hope that it turns out ok for you guys , whatever you decide to do though . I guess its up to your mom in the end isnt it?

I agree with everyone else. I mean this guy is probably going to turn around relist this item and sell it for more than what he is getting it from your mother for. And might I add in a bit of advice to research the type of item your selling, especially if its a band or something. Just to see what thats going for, especially when dealing with items like what your mother was selling. Hope your not upset at that advice. Its something I do ALL the time before listing something other than a pony.

Unfortunately, ebay does not protect sellers when a buyer turns nasty. I had a case where a customer verbally abused me, swore at me & called me some colourful names, demanded my phone number so he could ring me & verbally abuse me some more (for the record, he never got my number) I contacted ebay about it, and although all their staff were very sympathetic, technically because the guy was willing to still go ahead with the transaction, I had to honour it.

I was just so dissapointed there was absolutely no way I could back out of the transaction unless the buyer mutually agreed to it, which in this case, he wouldn't.

All over $1.49AU item.

If I was your mother in this case, you said she was reasonably new to ebay? I would actually risk my rating & give it to the second in line if he didn't agree to the 300. Bugger him, and I would be charging him the extra for postage too, he doesn't deserve to be treated like royalty just because he bid the item up. You listed it at less than 1/10th of that price. Not your fault it was bid up.

Lancer wrote:

Well, we have received a reply from the buyer. He seems friendly enough now (almost TOO friendly compared to his previous letters) and has offered £290. Mum is perfectly happy with this but my dad (who tore the thing in the first place) is still telling her to argue for £295. >.< Well, hopefully she will listen to her own instincts, accept the £290 and the offending buyer will be okay about things. I'm still worried he'll turn around and leave negative once he has it in his hands, but the situation is definitely better than it was a couple of days ago. Thanks for all the advice, guys!

I personally wouldn't accept £290 - he's just trying to get as much off as possible. I would do what others have said and just say that as the item is not in original condition, that you would feel best to not sell damaged merchandise and have the buyer be unsatisfied.

If that isn't an option, I would tell him - no I won't go under £300 as the second highest bidder is still very interested in the item in it's current condition.

I wouldn't have accepted it either, but that's just me. Normally, if a seller damages my item in any way after I've paid for it (which has happened before more than once), they immediately refund me for the item, without offering a discount or anything.

Thanks for all your advice. I totally forgot this thread, so sorry for not updating you guys sooner!

My mum and the buyer ended up coming to an agreement of £295 for the item. She still had to pay the extra £8 for insurance though, and then had a horrible shock regarding e-Bay fees. Call me stupid, but I understood from e-Bay.co.uk's FAQ that you got charged 10% fees up to a total selling price of £40, not that you could be charged £40 in final value fees on items ending at a price up for £400! And since I've never sold anything over forty quid, I had no opportunity to learn otherwise. So she got charged £31.50 in fees on the total selling price (including the £20 we had to refund the buyer) when we thought it would only be £4. Not a good start for her on e-Bay at all!

Anyway, the Pencil by Number set was shipped out last saturday, and we have heard NOTHING from the buyer at all. I need to get the post office receipt off of Mum to check the tracking number... I'm kind of hoping the buyer has received the item and has just shut up, not leaving feedback at all. But that seems too good to be true!

And Pandora, of course I'm not upset - that's a great piece of advice! I try to check everything that I sell before I list it too. In fact, Mum had been checking e-Bay for months before we finally got round to listing this thing, but it's SO rare that one never showed up on there. The only way we eventually managed to find out what it was worth was by Googling the buyer's e-Bay username and finding a Beatles sales site. I guess some things just aren't meant to be.

YIKES yea, those fees are killer that is for sure.