Life is riddled with a procession of minor impediments

[Noisybast]

Oh, for god's sake. Now he's making out I'm trying to defraud him.
To the tune of three back progs, the most expensive of which was £1.45 (plus p&p).
What would be the point? It's not exactly heist of the century, is it?

[TordelBack]

It'd drive you mad, the whole thing.  My wife is a devoted eBay seller, and supremely careful in her dealings, but the hassles we have had even so... One parcel to the Ukraine saw a case taken against us for 'non-delivery'.  When the delivery confirmation was produced, they changed it to 'item not as described'.  And Paypal still yanked the cash back out of our account.  Again.

Another classic was someone who took a 'not as described' case over a €1 doll's blanket - because it wasn't big enough for a baby, even though the measurements and a photo of the blanket with a doll, were in the listing.

One of my personal favourites was a guy who was bleating non-stop about late delivery from the day after the sale (despite the terms on the item being 10 days from payment), so to shut him up I drove all the way to his office in another town and hand-delivered the damn thing, only for him to then go back on line and complain that he'd paid for postage (because my time and petrol is free, obviously), and (get this) that the item hadn't been packaged properly (even though it was actually nicely padded with bubble wrap and wrapped in brown packing paper).  What additional precautions does one need to take when you are handing the item to someone?

People, let us be clear, are gits.

[Van Dom]

What a total Tosser. It's for these very reasons that I tend to steer clear of ebay. Waaaaay too much hassle for me!

[Dandontdare]

as a seller, can you blacklist buyers who've messed you around in the past, or refuse to accept orders from someone with a poor feedback rating?

[TordelBack]

You can indeed block specific buyers, and you can set rules for blocks of buyers too, but i forget which criteria you can use. 

There's no official way of blacklisting them or leaving negative feedback (because this could be seen as a way of strong-arming positive feedback from buyers, which makes sense), but there are all sorts of unofficial blacklists, which can be googled.

EDIT:  The wife maintains that almost all 'bad' buyers are complete noobs, and thus probably just don't know how to behave or are suffering buyer's remorse after a stupid bidding war, but she also notes that almost all ridiculously profitable sales are also to complete noobs, so if you do enough selling it balances out.  Those who are actually determined to be jerks are few and far between, she claims.

[Rog69]

I probably have worms.

[Gonk]

Are you sure they're not maggots Rog?

[HdE]

The wife maintains that almost all 'bad' buyers are complete noobs, and thus probably just don't know how to behave or are suffering buyer's remorse after a stupid bidding war, but she also notes that almost all ridiculously profitable sales are also to complete noobs, so if you do enough selling it balances out.  Those who are actually determined to be jerks are few and far between, she claims.

There's truth in that, but I'm also a little dubious of that as a 'catch all' explanation.

I had an experience recently where a piece of outboard guitar processing gear I was selling took a bid, but no payment was forthcoming. The buyer contacted me about three days after I emailed him enquiring after payment, only to say 'sorry man, I'm not in the country anymore, so I don't want the kit.'

Well why the bleedin' hell did you BID ON IT, you friggin' idiot?!

I call wilfull arseholery on that one.

[Gonk]

1st rule of selling - the customer is always right.

[Tombo]

1st rule of selling - the customer is always right.

1st rule of working in retail - the customer always thinks they're right (and usually they're not)

[The Legendary Shark]

1st Rule of working in retail - never work in retail.

[Gonk]

It's like I went to argos just to buy a kettle, and came out with an "opera kettle" with an "ergonomic handle". All I want is a flipping brew. Light bulbs, try buying a simple light bulb nowadays, impossible there's about 2000 varities to choose from. I play safe and go for the eco classic. Don't ask me what an eco classic is because I ain't got a clue.

[Mardroid]

1st rule of working in retail - the customer always thinks they're right (and usually they're not)

From the customer end:

I've been waiting for an item for a while. It's taken longer than normal so I sent a polite message to the seller last night just to make sure it had been sent.* I got a reply today which was rather catty:
"your item was sent ,AS ALWAYS, within one working day of your payment on 24th january."

AS ALWAYS? It's not as if I know the guy, right? I meant no insult, I know how people with good intentions can sometime forget things. It happens to all of us.

"i have done my bit as promised, but the one thing i cannot control is the postage."

Erm, I never said he could. I merely contacted him to makes sure he had done the first bit. As I said, I don't know him, but I don't think the tone of my enquiry was negative at all.

To his credit he did suggest I give it until Wednesday as that will be the 15 day period the Royal Mail allows before an item is considered lost and to contact him for a replacement if it hadn't arrived. I'm happy to do that. Smeg, I'll leave it until next Saturday, it's no big deal to me.

*I probably would have left it even longer if it were an item for me, but I'm actually ordering for a mate and he was getting a bit impatient. I'm happy to help out computer illiterate people but it can be a bit of a pain being the go-between sometimes.

[Gonk]

Slipped over in some dog turd.

[staticgirl]

I have lost weight and my trousers are too big. This could all go a bit Pete Tong.