Another ebay question: negative feedback?

[DizMe]

I recently won an auction for an ipad case. I paid immediately through paypal. The day after the item was scheduled to arrive, I received an email from the seller saying:

Yesterday,we have got a returned package from post office due to the label issue which was supposed to belong to you.

We shall take full responsibility and to save your time of waitting,we have cancelled your order and fully refund to you asap, you could check your paypal account to check that .
We sincerely apologize for the unexpected situation, but please kind understand that this is really unexpected and we really have no intention to upset you.
Again, please accept our sincere apologize about the delay. Wish you a wondeful day !

I emailed back and told them to send me the case and I would do a Buy It Now at my original price. They emailed today and said they no longer have the case.

This store sells lots of ipad cases and has the item I purchased in 4 other colors, though the color I ordered is now out of stock. They are based in China but the items ship from Illinois. I have ordered many, many items without ever having Paypal make a label error, so I doubt that is the issue, but I'm not sure what I should do now. I only paid a dollar less than the Buy It Now price so it doesn't seem like they would have much to gain by cancelling my order, but I really need a case and am bothered that they didn't offer to send me another ASAP (I don't care what color it is). Do I contact them again or try someone else? And what kind of feedback do you leave in a situation like this?

 

[wdw4rfam]

Could be legit, but sounds shady to me. If the item came back, why wouldn't they still have it? Sounds like they may have sold more then they had in that color maybe? Otherwise, why were they in such a hurry to refund without at least giving you the option to wait to resend? I'm not buying it, but that's just my opinion. I'd give neutral if it were me, you didn't get the item, and they didn't try and work with you for a resolution, just cancelled it.

 

[plummer925]

If they are from China maybe they just did not communicate well? The email sounds a bit funny to me - like English is not their first language. Here is an example of something that JUST happened to me:

I had an item returned to me on Thursday - It was priority mailed, flat-rate envelope, to my customer. I (thankfully!) tape all around the envelope, both directions, because I know how badly the post office handles things. Well, they apparently dropped it in water and then the wet envelope ripped in the machines. They put it in one of those "oops" bags and mailed it back to me. Ugh. But because of how I taped it, my return address was on it and the item was still in the envelope.

I wonder if something similar happened and the item fell out of the envelope, so they did not have it to send back.

 

[robinb]

I guess if you don't really care about the color and you like the price, I would give them another chance to send you a case. Searching for another seller of that case may take more time/trouble that it's worth. If you don't want to deal with them then I would leave them a neutral and move on. At least they are communicating with you. I left a negative a couple months ago on a canceled order (way after it was supposed to arrive) and the seller (1) didn't return my emails and (2) relisted the item at a much higher price.

ETA: How is their other FB? Is this a common event? If this was a 1-time thing I would cut the seller some slack. If it's an ongoing issue, I would be harder on them

 

[DizMe]

Thank you for your replies. I thought they had good FB (99.1%), but when I checked it just now, there are many messages with situations similar to mine. They have over 16,000 FB items in the last month (!) so the negative (161) and and neutral (263) get a little lost in the shuffle. I'm going to look elsewhere for a case.

 

[robinb]

Thank you for your replies. I thought they had good FB (99.1%), but when I checked it just now, there are many messages with situations similar to mine. They have over 16,000 FB items in the last month (!) so the negative (161) and and neutral (263) get a little lost in the shuffle. I'm going to look elsewhere for a case.

Good idea.

You can use this website: http://www.toolhaus.org/ to check negative and neutral FBs for a seller.

 

[rock_doctor]

If they sent you a tracking number and it is for your state i would believe them. If they didn't i would assume they over sold or there was something wrong with the one they had. Personally, i would probably not leave them any feedback. I don't tend to leave negative unless their listing gave an incorrect description or i had issues with them. Just look again you probably can find a better one or the same one again. I have found when it comes to ebay it just isn't worth getting upset unless you lost your money. And we use ebay for nearly everything we need.

 

[DizMe]

If they sent you a tracking number and it is for your state i would believe them. If they didn't i would assume they over sold or there was something wrong with the one they had. Personally, i would probably not leave them any feedback. I don't tend to leave negative unless their listing gave an incorrect description or i had issues with them. Just look again you probably can find a better one or the same one again. I have found when it comes to ebay it just isn't worth getting upset unless you lost your money. And we use ebay for nearly everything we need.

I'm still considering it. I'll either leave neutral or no feedback. It doesn't seem like my feedback is going to mean anything anyway!

The did not send a tracking number, just an email saying it had been shipped.

You're right about quality...I was trying to go cheap and 'you get what you pay for' is likely applicable here.

 

[rock_doctor]

If you are still looking for the case. targus just sent me an email about a sale they have going. Maybe consider if you are still looking. You can't get much better then targus. http://targus.com/us/2014-valentines-day

 

[DizMe]

If you are still looking for the case. targus just sent me an email about a sale they have going. Maybe consider if you are still looking. You can't get much better then targus. http://targus.com/us/2014-valentines-day

Thank you so much!! Unfortunately, the sale doesn't include a case for the ipad Air. I just can't stand the idea of spending $50+ for a cover. That $9.99 deal would've been sweet!

 

[rock_doctor]

Oh well, keep looking. Something will pop up. Keep an eye on the targus site and retailmenot website for coupons. Good luck.