need advice from karma police
 

hi all. recently bought some parts on ebay. parts turned out to be misrepresented by vendor. asked vendor for refund but he delayed. raised dispute on ebay and he promised refund in return for me shipping parts back to him. i did so at my expense with a promise that he'd refund this cost as well. he then delayed the refund to the 1 month ebay dispute limit, so i escalated the claim. he has now refunded me the cost of the items, and the cost that was paid to ship them to me. he has not refunded the cost for me to ship them back ($80) as this cost was not part of the ebay transaction. he now says that he will refund me this cost as promised, provided i leave him positive feedback.

what to do? leave the feedback and hope he refunds me? leave negative and eat the $80? leave positive feedback but slam him on the boards? i stuggle with my conscience.

Have him refund the shipping, then leave positive feedback. Tell him the transaction is not complete until he refunds the money, after that you promise to leave positive feedback. Don't leave positive feedback now, that's your only leverage. Give him a couple of days, if he doesn't comply leave negative feedback, then tell him if he pays you what he owes you, you will withdraw the feedback.

What he said...

No point in flaming the seller because he will just flame you back and then you are besmirched and you did nothing wrong.

Remember, it is not up to you to see that he gets his due, Karma will happily do it in ways you cannot imagine.

I just had a guy sell me something as new and it obviously was not. Not expensive item so I decided not to get into a pissing contest over principle when the item works just fine and I like it.

ok. i'll do the positive feedback/refund exchange, but then let y'all know who and what to watch for so that you don't get led down the same path as i.

Keithl's approach is very sound...

However, I will take a slightly different approach and assume that the seller won't send you the refund until you post positive feedback first.

If your goal is to get a refund and you don't care about the feedback, then leave the positive feedback and hope that your postive action will motivate him in a sense of reciprocity to do the right thing and send you the refund (since you did the right thing first). In terms of karma, postive energy creates more positive energy. Its a beautiful thing.

And even if he still stiffs you on the $80, you'll know that the positive karma is on your side and that one day he will get his due.

If your goal is to burn him on the feedback, then leave negative feedback now and write off the $80. In terms of karma, uh, not so positive.

keithL got it right. Keep your leverage.



However, I wouldn't leave him positive feedback. That would be a unethical seller manipulating you to lie for his benefit. No way. Not posting a negative would be this seller's best case from me. I would tell him that straight up -- "return the $80 by this specific date (like Tuesday) I will consider not leaving you any feedback. If it goes past Tuesday than I will post negative feedback with the full truth about this transaction".




I've given up on EBay long ago because of shenanigans like this.

tough one!

Positive feedback after all is clear for you, I'd say.

Up to date I was always lucky with Ebay and Amazon buys.

+1 !!! This guy on ebay is a real loser.

You can always leave feedback saying that you weren't satisfied with the purchase and the seller made it right by refunding your money. No lies, no negative feedback and you keep your personal convictions intact. After all, what you want is satisfaction - right? Not revenge.

Ebay changed it's policies on feedback ratings within the past year or so......sellers can no longer leave negative feedback for buyers. I can see why (it eliminates retaliatory feedback) but it unfortunately leaves the sellers no way to warn others to steer clear of potential "problem" buyers, there are plenty of them out there.

Regarding the Karma......If I ultimately received a full refund I would not leave anything, at best I'd leave a neutral feedback rating due the misrepresentation, lengthy dispute and refund process. The feedback system is there to warn others of the headaches you just went through.