Chat not cheat...

I ordered a replacement telephone cord on Ebay a couple of weeks ago. I had a choice of a 3m cord and a 1.5m cord, so opted for the longer one. There wasn't much difference in price and the longer lead would be more convenient. The longer cord would allow me to sit on the stairs and chat, if I wanted to.

What I received a few days later was the 1.5m cord. I'm sure you can see the difference. It is obvious. Just count the number of coils.

I sent a message to the seller, but there was no reply.

I then opened a Case on Ebay and surprise, surprise, there was no immediate reply.

About a week later, just as the deadline for the seller responding was approaching, I did get a reply. In dodgy English. The seller maintained that he'd dispatched the correct item, the photo's were for illustrative purposes only, it was the length of the cable that was used to form the coil that was 3m and the cord should be expected to extend maybe only to 50% of that length.

I bet Trading Standards wouldn't agree with that I thought, so I insisted that by counting the number of coils it was clear that I'd been sent the shorter lead. It was also the same length as the standard 1.5m lead that I was replacing on the phone. I pointed out that the photo's were supposed to be accurate, stuck my ground and agreed a 50p refund. The difference in price between the two cords.

Yes I know. One can't even buy a bag of chips for 50p these days, but it was the principle. If Ebay traders are going to cheat, there's got to be a consequence to help make Ebay a safer place to do business. I felt that the partial refund did the job nicely.

Or it would have done if I'd received the refund. 3 days later, after agreement had been reached and the Case  had been closed, I still hadn't received the refund.

I checked with Ebay who said they'd refer the Case to their "Trust and Safety" team, said that they couldn't issue a refund as the case had been closed but suggested that I leave "honest feedback for the transaction if the seller won't co-operate".

Which is what I did earlier today.
If you read this blog regularly, I bet you can imagine what I would write by way of honest feedback...!

Needless to say I've now received the partial refund and have now had a message, in perfect English, asking me to revise the feedback.

I can't actually do that unless I get a formal "Request to revise feedback" via the Ebay system. I've then got 10 days to "Agree and revise" or "Disagree and state a reason".

As this problem could have been sorted out within hours of my raising it, and I still feel that the seller was trying to cheat me, I'm tempted to use every minute of that 10 day period.

But lets wait and see if I receive such a request. Sellers are only allowed to issue five of these per 1000 transactions. I suspect this seller might have already used his allocation...

I know I'll probably get negative feedback myself, but that's better than giving undeserved positive feedback just for the sake of maintaining my own feedback score

I can easily neutralise any negative feedback by replying to those comments and frankly if I've sharpened-up a sloppy-seller, kicked him out of his complacency, I'll have done all you other Ebayer's a favour...