Can't believe this post grew to be so big, bust out the reading glasses fellas...
First off, Stussels, I hope I didn't come across like I was singling you out. I'm far too new to this forum to start arguments with people, especially after returning from a bar with a good buzz! Truth be told, I was completely siding with you when I first read this thread. I completely agree that it pays to be an informed consumer and to practice patience and good communication when buying. eBay's been good to me, but I, too, have been burned, so I try to keep pretty low expectations and make no assumptions. My last batch of Tycos were a lil more beat up than described, but since I feared/expected the worst, all I could say was "Score! No missing parts, no corrosion, and decent rubber!!".
I only chimed in after hitting the bar since it was so surreal comparing that experience to eBay. I know that sellers are going to emphasize the good and downplay the bad, but downplaying and omitting faults are 2 different things, and I think it's unrealistic to expect every buyer to have to dig for an item's defects as it should be clearly outlined in the description. We may just disagree here, but I feel that if eBay states that sellers should list all defects in their policy, it should be adhered to. If a seller says they didn't notice a defect, that's a poor excuse, they should've learned their product before they tried to peddle it. You may not be relying on eBay to protect you, but others are, and eBay makes a big deal out of making buyers comfortable. I, too, have been buying and selling on eBay for 12 years and have 100% feedback, and I've worked for and ran several different eBay based businesses ranging from bulk reselling to dropoff centers to supplementing retail sales, all of which had perfect or near-perfect scores. But that means a lot less to me knowing the seller in this transaction also has 100% feedback, despite being obviously shady by my standards. It's as if you, me and this other seller all got As on our report cards despite the seller not doing his homework and possibly cheating. How are buyers supposed to realistically compare sellers if they all have perfect scores?
This transaction may be a bad example, as my problem lies not so much in how sellers should disclose things, but the fact that leaving negative feedback is such a terrible thing. Most retail consumers are prone to write bad reviews for bad businesses than to write good reviews for good ones. It's a horrible trap for a lot of small businesses, they'll get 100 customers one day, and 99 of them will be satisfied, but they'll login to Yelp and only see the 1 bad review. With eBay, feedback is encouraged for every transaction, so a single bad review gets drowned out more easily,
but it shatters the seller's perfect 100% rating. I've seen a lot of similar posts lately where buyers are fretting over leaving negative feedback, and I guess I would prefer if people were a little more honest/brutal/direct in leaving scores and comments. You don't see near as many threads where people are debating on whether to leave a bad review for a retail business, in fact I tried looking and all I found were people asking how to ruin them (BBB, Yelp, boycotts, etc.)! Maybe the problem is that negative feedback taints the seller's rep more than it should. Maybe a 1-10 rating system as opposed to a Good-Bad_Neutral system would give buyers AND sellers more room to be honest without being too damaging? (8 out of 10, retail box was damaged due to poor packing) IMHO, this system of starting everyone off with these perfect scores to defend was necessary in the early days of eBay when consumers were much sketchier about buying online, especially from individuals and not accredited businesses. Heck, when eBay went live in 1995, only a handful of my then classmates had computers at home, and even fewer had internet access.
OMG as if this post isn't long enough... Jeff, as for the bar, the server was very apologetic, and she did mention that Sam Adam's is a craft beer, but I ordered it anyway as I didn't assume that being a "craft beer" affected it's domestic status (it was under US Beers on the menu). I think they were still $1 off or something so it didn't bother me (beer makes me happy!), but my friend's were still miffed on my behalf and wanted me to make a big stink about it, and I'd say that even further drives my point that consumers in the retail world are pretty ruthless.
Lol, anyone want to publish this book?
