Thursday, December 5, 2013

Circumventing a Buyer Block

I have blocked a certain heavy buyer of series books from purchasing from me.  He purchased many lots from me last year and left a "four" DSR in all four categories.  This shouldn't have been a problem, except that he purchased many items, and my averages took a quick nosedive.  That alone would not have caused me to block him.  At some point, I figured out that he leaves very harsh feedback for any seller who messes up a description at all, delays shipment, or overcharges on postage.  The latter two would never be a problem for me, but I do sometimes mess up descriptions.  I don't need for a buyer to leave me an immediate negative or neutral for a mistake.  Therefore, I blocked this person on both his buying and selling IDs.

After I began selling on eBay in large quantity in June, I knew that eventually the buyer would run up against the buyer block that I placed on him.  I just received a feedback for a recent transaction, and the feedback uses the same odd phrase that the blocked buyer uses for all of his transactions.  The book purchased is exactly the sort of book the blocked buyer would have purchased from me.  I checked the transaction, and the buyer has the same surname but lives in a different state.  I looked at the feedback left for others, and this buyer leaves harsh feedback for exactly the same reasons as the seller I blocked and with similar phrasing.  Furthermore, one feedback followup mentions the state in which the blocked buyer resides.  I can conclude that my buyer block was circumvented by use of a secondary ID.

This is a reportable eBay offense.  Buyers are forbidden from circumventing buyer blocks.  I will wait several days before running a report to see what DSRs I received, since I do not believe that eBay releases the data immediately for recent feedback.  In the meantime, I have now blocked this third ID as a precaution.  I cannot have been left a low DSR in either communication or shipping cost, but I could have in the other two.  If I find that I have been left a low DSR on either one, then I will be filing a complaint against the buyer for circumventing the block.

If the buyer happens to read this, I am sorry but I cannot risk selling to a buyer who is known to leave harsh feedback without trying to resolve with the seller first.  I do understand that you are a large volume buyer with many incoming packages and cannot be bothered with asking for refunds.  However, sellers are real people who sometimes make mistakes, and nearly all sellers will rectify those mistakes if given a chance.  eBay now gives permanent selling suspensions to sellers who have just a few low DSRs and just a few negative and neutral feedback.

Furthermore, eBay suspends all IDs associated with the seller and all IDs for anybody who has ever used eBay in the seller's household.  This means that if a friend logged into eBay on the seller's computer at any point in the past, then that friend would also be suspended.  Some of you will doubt my words, but I have read eBay's message boards for years and have read dozens of reports of this happening.  This is serious, so buyers who have a habit of leaving bad feedback must be blocked.

For the rest of you, if you sell series books on eBay, you have almost certainly sold to this person, and the probability is at least 90%.

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