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Salamander
Fire Walking

I've got a bad feeling about this.
Wed Jan 14 2004

I made an eBay purchase on December 23rd. I made a rare exception to my ordinarily hard-and-fast rule of never to buy from anyone with any bad feedback, and purchased from someone who'd had problems historically but seemed to be doing OK now.

I'm a realist, and I know there are some psycho-nut cases out there that will complain even if you deliver their order in person and serve it up on a golden platter, giving them the platter as a bonus gift before you leave. So I will sometimes purchase from someone who has some negative feedback, if I get the feeling the charges against them are unmerited.

My order from December 23rd has not been shipped yet. When I made an (utterly polite) inquiry asking if there were any problems and was there anything further needed from my end, I got a terse reply dated January 11th. The bolding is the seller's, not mine.

As listed, we are able to process orders within 4-10 days of payment. Normally we ship out much faster, most often within 1-3 days, however in the last 2 weeks we have gotten clobbered with orders and have fallen a bit behind. I have been working very hard, with 19 hrs. work days, to catch up. It hasn't been easy, but we are making progress. I am only human and am working as hard as I physically can. I am very sorry that your package has been delayed. It has taken me a littler longer than I had hoped to get completely caught up.

I will be completely caught up within a few days from now, at our current pace, with all our packages.

Your package will ship out Tuesday for you.

To answer your question about why we have not posted nice positive feedback yet for you, we always post nice positive feedback for buyers AFTER they have posted nice positive feedback for us; we found that when we did it first before, many buyers forgot to do it for us.

Thanks for your purchase and most of all, your very kind patience. Your next order will go out much faster. Our normal processing time is 1-3 days. I am very sorry that your package has been delayed.

I never asked why they hadn't posted positive feedback on me. I frankly don't look for positive feedback until I've posted some about the seller. It would never have occurred to me to even bring up feedback at this stage of things. I also observe that shipping my item on Tuesday the sixth is well beyond the ten-day outside limit that they touted in the item description and again in their email.

I begin to understand why there have been 43 complaints about this guy registered since I made my purchase. Their positive feedback score has fallen to 95%, and if things keep up I won't be surprised if it falls lower.

I do note that for every negative feedback he gets, he posts negative feedback in return. I've never gotten negative feedback (or even neutral feedback) in all the years that I've used eBay. I'm going to have to decide whether or not it's worth getting a single slur on my record to tell the truth about this guy in his feedback log.

13 Comments
  • From:
    Thubten (Legacy)
    On:
    Wed Jan 14 2004
    Documenting everything is the best way to handle these cases. I was so happy to read that you were doing that.
    Wow, what a turn around for Larry and Moe. I wonder what Curly thinks?
  • From:
    Arielswing (Legacy)
    On:
    Wed Jan 14 2004
    love your new word. must learn to use often.
  • From:
    StrangeBrew (Legacy)
    On:
    Wed Jan 14 2004
    Perhaps the new liver came with an A-hole reject device. Like your new word and plan to make it part of my language. NoMP!
  • From:
    Jade (Legacy)
    On:
    Wed Jan 14 2004
    I can't picture you being over-excitable. My guess is you had a reason to be excited the day they said that, and they have probably forgotten they'd ever mentioned it. *Calm* sounds more like the Salamander I've grown to know over the past couple years. :)

    But I like StrangeBrew's idea about the new liver, too. ;)

    Oh, and NoMP is great!
  • From:
    JustAHintOfLemon (Legacy)
    On:
    Wed Jan 14 2004
    what does ramifications mean? lol sorry im stupid. NoMP...cool word lol thats v cool. u hav a new liver? fair enuf lol....and thanks 4 tryin 2 help me 2 understand how 2 put pics in. how do u get the pics URL? can u do that if its just a pic u hav saved in ur documents or woteva? i really dont hav a clu lol...ty neway
  • From:
    TraumaMama (Legacy)
    On:
    Wed Jan 14 2004
    I like NoMP, I am going to use that.
    People tell me I tend to get overly excited at times. My response is *Up yours, maybe you should open your eyes and look around* Of course, I am only think it, I am too chicken to say it.
    Re your impending snow: HeeHee
  • From:
    Jade (Legacy)
    On:
    Wed Jan 14 2004
    Yikes. I'd say 'bad feeling' is putting it rather mildly. I hope you don't end up losing much money on this if it never arrives. I've only used eBay once, but had a good experience with it.
  • From:
    StrangeBrew (Legacy)
    On:
    Wed Jan 14 2004
    ebay.....dang, that's a tough call.
    If it's any comfort to you the man went through a simular problem in December. He was more than a little vexed when he got no reply after sending the person 3 emails after 12 days. He finally did get the item 3 weeks later with an apology.



  • From:
    Allimom (Legacy)
    On:
    Wed Jan 14 2004
    Ah, the joys of e-bay transactions-gone-bad.

    I think e-bay needs to sell t-shirts that say:
    Bad Transaction?
    Been there, done that, cancelled the account.

    Alli
  • From:
    Arielswing (Legacy)
    On:
    Thu Jan 15 2004
    eBay scares me! i've never used it.
  • From:
    Allimom (Legacy)
    On:
    Thu Jan 15 2004
    you wrote:
    Has there ever been a child who willingly went to bed on time?

    I did once! It was in February of 1975. I think my parents still celebrate it as a holiday.
    Alli
  • From:
    MoonriddenGirl (Legacy)
    On:
    Thu Jan 15 2004
    I also rely on feedback in making my choices, and whenever I see negative feedback on somebody's page, I always check to see if its retaliatory.

    His letter to you almost sounds like a form letter, which is alarming. I wonder how many complaints he's gotten.

    Meanwhile, look for me to have friended you on bookcrossing. I will list you for the referal if I can figure out how.
  • From:
    Shay4l (Legacy)
    On:
    Thu Jan 15 2004
    So, basically he was hinting that he will say something negative about you as a buyer if your dare say anything negative about him? That's what I got out of it.

    It sounds like he's trying to run a home business and needs help getting everything out.