Retiring

[peacefuleasyfeeling]

Having bought stuff on ebay for a long and happy decade, I've recently had the irritating experience of quite a few sellers emailing me following a winning bid to tell me that while packaging the item up they've noticed some stains / scratches / holes / rattling (items from all sorts of categories) that they hadn't noticed before and which was not made clear in the original listing -Do I still want the item? At this stage I usually can't be arsed with faffing around with it so have until now tended to respond that it's OK, and to go ahead and send it to me regardless of error. Am I being played?

Hm, don't know what happened to my title there... Should have been "Revising item description post end of auction -OK or sneaky?" Nothing to do with retiring at all...

Maybe people are rushing on the free listing days and not checking carefully. I must confess this has happened to me as a seller even though I try and list carefully. You should get a bit of money knocked off or refunded really.

Think about who you're buying If it's a business seller no excuse for not noticing quality of items, but private sellers we're only human! As a seller I try to look stuff over carefully but if it's something I've only stopped using myself recently I don't see it with fresh eyes. Then it may be relisted 4-10x before actually sells so I see it very freshly when I go to pack it up.

Recently I sold something with a dark spot on it; you could just about see it okay in the pictures but I hadn't described it in the text with close up pic so I let buyer know in case they wanted to cancel. I'm only human, and just a few bad DSRs can cause me to lose selling rights forever so of course I'm anxious to be totally up front to try to avoid any trouble. Why in the world would I or any seller mess you about? You can easily destroy my account if unhappy.

It may be that some of the sellers haven't got as much for the item as they hoped and want you to cancel the transaction so they can re-list!

However, as lljkk says, you do tend to look at something more carefully when you package it - especially clothes as they have to be folded properly, de-fluffed etc.

Wow, thanks for responding to my post, I sort of wrote it off following my mystery title mishap, thinking nobody would read it. That's very interesting, hearing things from a seller's point of view. I've never sold on ebay so don't have that angle. I'm really quite easy-going, and not some perfectionist dragon; it is ebay after all, and the things I tend to buy are ones on which I would expect to see signs of use or wear anyway, which is why I've never bothered to ask for money back or cancelled the purchase. And I wouldn't dream of spoiling somebody's feedback and ruining their chances of selling in the future. But I do think you're right about when someone expects to get more for something; I once won a super cute Diesel dress for a pittance and the seller messaged me saying she'd spilled red wine over it while packaging it. I said it was fine, I didn't mind as could probably get it out in the wash or could dye the dress (denim). She refused, and that was that ;-) Anyway, thanks for taking the time to reply!

i looked to find out what you were selling which necessitated you announcing your ebay retirement!

I actually don't think there is any excuse for this.... I'm a casual seller, usually old shoes. When I list an item I check it over carefully and photograph any flaws. They should be in the listing.

Even if you have to relist 4-10x then it should have been in the first listing anyway, so that's not a valid excuse either.

I would refuse to go through with the sale if this happened to me, it's just taking the piss. If you want to sell something and have someone pay for it with hard earned money, then it's your responsibility to do it properly.