Okay, long story as short as possible, I bought, I paid, I was sent the wrong item.  Seller says send it back for correct item (at my own expense, no less---HIS mistake and I pay the postage to get it switched?)

I ask if he'll reimburse me the return postage, he never answers.  I'm not thrilled.

I wait a few days, hoping he'll respond.  He never does.  Before I get the chance to even send the thing back, he's suspended off eBay.

I file a PayPal claim, because I don't feel comfy sending this thing back with no guarantees that I'll get what I'm owed.  With him being kicked off eBay, who says he'll send me the correct item in return for what I send back to him?

So, my question:  PayPal is giving me the option right off the bat to either wait for a response from the seller, or go ahead and escalate to a claim right away.

So which do I do?

Sorry to post and run, I'll check back in about an hour...little guy's hungry, time to feed the family.  Thanks in advance for your suggestions and advice!

This is somewhat delicate, so proceed with caution and consider yourself warned.

My 16 month old son, awesome little Baby Einstein that he is, is constantly making fascinating discoveries.  Fingers fit up nose-holes, toes make great pacifiers, pulling mommy's blouse down in public is fun...that sort of thing.  But his newest discovery is resulting in too much stress, too many baths, and WAY too much gagging (on my part, not his).

He has discovered that his diaper is a source of some fantastically interesting stuff.  Like, fingerpaint.

Now I can't keep his hands out of his pants.  Twice today I've entered the room to find him covered in poo.

HOW do you stop this?  I know all kids do it at or around this age.  I know it's a phase, a discovery thing, that will eventually lose its novelty.  But I want to nip it in the bud RIGHT THIS INSTANT.  My stomach---and carpets---can't take much more of it.

Advice?  Instructions?  Sympathy??  At this point I'll take anything.  I adore my child, but if I have to clean one more set of curtains, I'm calling the pound.

Looks like I've got another rant in the works.  Why is it so hard sometimes to have a successful transaction?  I mean, I know life happens and things get in the way of the best laid plans, but to have so many things go wrong on a single transaction just seems to me like negligence on someone's part.

I purchased three lots from a single seller, the items were listed as "excellent used condition", which to me indicates they've been used in a normal manner and have no damage.  That's obviously what the term meant to the seller as well, because her descriptions said "no damage".  The pictures looked good.  So I bid and won.

First there was a delay in shipping, which is okay, believe me I understand that it happens.  No problem there.  But I never got the email she sent telling me about it, so when I emailed her a few days later to ask if she could update me on the status, I got a bit of a snippy response.  Okay, she didn't know I didn't get the email, I can forgive that.

So the items finally arrive today and they look great, for the most part...until I get to looking through them and find that one of the shirts is missing half its buttons.  Strings hanging off where they used to be, etc.  To me, this doesn't really  constitute "excellent used condition".  Also, one of the lots is missing entirely, which I recall she briefly mentioned in the snippy response from the other day...so I guess that one's coming separately, which is okay, I understand things can get overlooked.

I know I got them cheap, but I'm not thrilled by the missing buttons...combine that with the other factors (late shipping, snippy response, missing items)---all of which I can easily forgive individually---I feel like I've just had a really rotten transaction overall.  I'd have to go back and look at her email again to be sure, but I don't recall any type of apology about either the lateness or the missing lot.  If there was, it was lost in the chilly tone of the message and certainly didn't stick with me. 

I guess I'll live.  I suppose it's not the end of the world.  I imagine I can dig out my sewing kit and repair the shirt.  I'm even relatively certain I can wait for the rest of the goods to arrive.  But I just couldn't restrain myself from emailing her to politely ask if she was aware of the damage on one of the "EUC" items and to ask if the other stuff was on its way yet.

Life gets in the way, yes...but when it does, it helps if the person whose life is getting in your way is a little more polite with you about the trouble they're putting you through.  After all, you're the one being burdened by their mistakes.

I'm not saying by any means that this person is a bad seller, or a lousy person, or impolite or inconsiderate...she may be a very nice person, on any other day.  I just haven't seen much of it.  I sorta expect a little courtesy and customer service when I send someone my money, you know?  And when the person with my money makes a long series of mistakes that affect me, the customer, I more-than-sorta expect something other than a curt response that sounds like I'm annoying them.

I also expect buttons on an EUC shirt.

Oh well.  Like I said, I'll live.

End of rant. 

Apologies to anyone reading who may work for the postal service, this isn't directed at you of course.

A little rant, one that's been made before (at least once by me, in fact), so there's really nothing new here.

I just received an email chock full of ALLCAPS and the dreaded SCREAMING MULTIPLE PUNCTUATION (i.e. ?????????????????? !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! at the end of every sentence, whether it's called for or not) from a customer telling me to GET HIS PACKAGE MAILED RIGHT NOW!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! and alerting me to the fact that he WOULD NEVER HAVE BOUGHT FROM ME IF HE'D KNOWN I TOOK SOOOOO LONG TO SHIP!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

*ahem*

This customer of course received the obligatory notice from PayPal containing a Delivery Confirmation number AND a mailing date on the day his label was printed.  The "Order Details" summary on the listing also provides all the pertinent information concerning these details.  Both contain proof that it is not I, but the postal service, who is sadly lacking in speed.

So, I suppose this rant should be directed more toward customers who don't bother to read, rather than exclusively the postal service.  Maybe the two can share the blame.

At any rate, I took care of my end of this deal on July 9 and it is now July 20, and I am the bad guy.  I'm looking at a SCREAMING ALLCAPS TIRADE AGAINST MY POOR SELLER SKILLS WITH EXCESSIVE ?????????????????????????????????'S AND !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!'S peppering it, wondering how the person on the other end of the message managed to avoid learning how to check order details and emails but mastered the skill of baseless accusations and improper punctuation.

So...unless he can see reason, which my email response is full of...there goes my 99.9% rating, or at the very least, my shipping speed rating.  Gah.  Unfair unfair unfair...but I am a big girl and I know the world is a very unfair place sometimes.  Especially when you're at the mercy of a postal service whose rates continue rising while their quality of service continues falling and customers who live to give you an ulcer.

Rant over.  You may resume your reguarly scheduled blogging.

My little shipping issue took all of, ohhh, 15 minutes to solve, lol.  Thanks waitresschik for your response, I appreciate you taking the time to check out my post.

My seller wrote me back a lot quicker than I expected, which was a refreshing surprise.  He's not only processing a complete refund for me, he also told me to just keep the DVD, so the return shipping issue is now a moot point.  This guy is okay in my books =)

Sometimes things work out so easily it's scary...I may not be so lucky next time around, so I'm counting my blessings. 

A quick word of advice:  when requesting a refund due to a mistake/misrepresentation/general goofup, be as polite and non-accusatory as you possibly can.  Mention that you understand mistakes can happen and that you're sure this was just a simple oversight or an honest mixup.  A good seller will respond in kind, and things will move along a lot more smoothely and pleasantly for both parties.  Fortunately my seller and I seem to have caught one another on a good night, lol =)

I'm too skeered to go near the Answer Center, so I'm gonna ask this here and count on you lovely folks to offer your thoughts on the subject.

If you receive an item that is blatantly not as decscribed, in fact is SO not as described as to be almost ridiculously misrepresented in the grossest manner possible, are you in the right to demand, along with your refund, reimbursement to ship the item back? 

Seems only fair to me, since when you buy something that is advertised as "IN BRAND NEW CONDITION" you're expecting to get something in brand new condition, not half destroyed (and the damage is NOT from a shipping mishap, either).  Since you wouldn't have bought the item if you'd known the TRUE condition, does the misrepresenting seller owe you return shipping?

Just thought I would say that.

If you want to know why, read on.  If not, you can stop right here, 'cuz from here on out it's all gripe city.

For those of you who stayed, here goes.

I goofed.  I admit it, I screwed up, it's nobody's fault but mine, so I'm not looking for sympathy or validation that I'm not a rotten person and the other party is just a great big meanie.  Though I'll happily accept those things if you have them to spare.

I sold a bunch of stuff, and somewhere in the packing and shipping process my brain went out for a smoke and I switched two postage labels while operating without it.  So two people got each other's stuff, which in itself is a nightmare, but if you have a strong stomach and a morbid curiosity for train wrecks, stick around, it's gonna get worse.

One buyer got her (incorrect) package really quick.  The other did not.  The one that got hers quick was in a BIG hurry to get her correct item, as she decided to go out of town and wanted to take the correct item with her.  She told me to give her and the other buyer each other's addresses so they could mail them to each other.  I got with the other buyer and explained that she was going to be receiving an incorrect package if she hadn't already, and that the other buyer was already prepared to do a switch with her.  She hadn't gotten it yet, but promised to contact me as soon as she did.

All seemed to go smoothely, except it was a couple more days before the second buyer got her package.  She notified me right away and I started getting the addresses ready to facilitate the switch.

I then get a second, very impatient email from the first buyer with a lot of allcaps, sounding none too happy, informing me that she's leaving TOMORROW for her out-of-the-country trip and she wanted to take her item with her, so she's very disappointed with me since she doesn't have it yet.  All I could do was tell her I couldn't very well have the other buyer send her an item she hadn't even received yet, which was the case until today.  She then said she couldn't send her end out until the 16th now since she'll be out of the country, heavily insinuating that I had fallen down on the job and she wasn't in the least bit happy with me about it.

What could I have done??  The other buyer didn't get her package until a few days after buyer #1 contacted me about the mistake.  If they'd gotten them on the same day, there would have been no problem, buyer #1 could have had hers in time for her trip.  But it didn't work out that way---postal service, thank you so much, you make my life a joy.

The way buyer #1 spoke to me leads me to suspect I'll be getting negative feedback from her.  I freely admit I goofed in the first place by switching the packages, but the delay in being able to get them switched back wasn't my doing, it was the USPS's.

Gah.  I don't feel like buyer #1 understands that I did what I could do as fast as I could do it, and that my hands were tied until buyer #2 received her package.  There was NOTHING I could do until then.  Nothing I could do would have made her get the correct package in time for her trip.  Nothing! 

Except not to have switched the postage labels in the first place.  But that's sort of behind us and all we've got is consequences to deal with now.  Gotta love consequences, especially when they balloon.

I couldn't have buyer #2 send buyer #1 something she didn't even have yet.  Simple, really...but difficult to get across to an impatient buyer #1 who's impatient due to a mistake *I* made in the first place.

Buyer #2, by the way, has been superb through it all.  Thank god, because if they were both honked at me, I think I'd be having a nervous breakdown in about an hour.

Have you ever had a buyer that you felt like was just too impatient to even listen to your explanations, much less accept them? 

Sucks to be me tonight.  I think I'm gonna go cuddle with my little boy so it'll all go away.

Thanks for listening.  I don't dare take this to the help boards because they'd rip me to shreds...bloggers are much sweeter people =)

A customer just emailed me to say thanks, her stuff arrived, but all the lipstick samples were melted and had to be thrown away.  She didn't ask for a refund or replacement but it felt like she was fishing for me to offer one (I dunno, could just be paranoia on my part). Apparently the postal service lef ther package sitting on a loading dock for a while and these things were zapped beyond use by the heat.

Is this something the seller should assume responsibility for?  Should I offer her some sort of recompense?

If insurance was purchased (it wasn't) would the postal service actually pay on a melting claim? Or would they say "sorry, that's beyond our control, it's summer"?

Am I expected to do something here, or does melting in transit fall under the category of "beyond the seller's control"?  I packed them properly but there's obviously nothing you can do about heat.

She left me good feedback already so I don't think she's trying to get anything out of me.  I think she was just letting me know, although I don't know what kind of good that does if you aren't asking for a refund.  Made me feel like I should do something.  But what?