For what it's worth I'm a buyer and a seller on eBay and have been for years so can see this from both sides. Sorry in advance for lengthy post but don't want to drip feed!
I bought a designer dress on eBay two weeks ago, BNWT. Before buying I'd asked about the fit and got a very friendly reply saying if it didn't fit it was fine to return it, so I went ahead. Dress arrived and not only did it fit very oddly (ie poorly) but I noticed the label was really poor quality too, like smeary print. Given the designer I thought this felt a little odd, so decided rather than flying off the handle I'd try and find a dress from the same designer on the high street so that I could compare the labels, fit and fabric etc. I said to the seller that the fit was a bit odd and could I return it and they confirmed on Saturday just gone that it was fine to return.
Yesterday I managed to see a dress from this designer in person and the label on the eBay dress looks bad quality in comparison and the fit is very different, so I reluctantly opened a return request through eBay and informed the seller. I got a lukewarm email back saying I'd left it a long time (since Saturday) to take them up on their return offer, and then very quickly received a whole host of messages saying I was "bang out of order", "disgusting", "taking kindness as weakness" and then saying they'd sussed my game and that I'm only saying the dress isn't genuine so that I don't have to pay for the return postage?!?
I'm a relatively new first time mum so as you can probably imagine I'm emotional, hormonal and exhausted so I cried for a good 30 minutes after these messages as I'm honestly not the terrible person (or buyer) they've said I am. I'm truly not playing games or trying to be difficult. I can understand that if they believe the dress is genuine then obviously I can see why they'd be upset, but in their position I wouldn't then unleash abuse on the buyer. (The dress has US labels so I'm guessing they didn't buy it first hand from a shop).
My initial response was to return the dress and leave negative feedback given the abusive and aggressive messages, but now I'm thinking that if they really believe the dress is genuine (I'm still not convinced) then they probably just had a poorly-judged emotional outpour in my direction. Therefore I'm thinking maybe my kindness will be to not leave feedback at all. For what it's worth they are accepting the return but have made it very clear that they're not happy.
What would others do in this situation? Thanks x