An ebay conundrum
Posted on 15th May 2008 by Mat
I know it’s not baby related, or funny, but I need some advice.
I just bought two tickets to see Feist in Manchester on ebay, for £17 total. Face value of the tickets is £15 each, so it’s a bargain. However, the seller has since emailed me to say that he’s really sorry but he can’t seem to find the tickets, and obviously he won’t charge me. I highly suspect that he’s got the tickets but doesn’t want to sell them and make a loss on them (he’s based in Devon, so was obviously buying them just to sell on, with no intention of hiking up to Manchester), and will try to sell them again somewhere. Fortunately I was watching another auction that I have since bid on and won, but for £27 total. Still good, but not as good.
My question is this. As he’s apologised, would it be bad for me to leave negative feedback for him. I’ve got two reasons;
Firstly, he shouldn’t be advertising the tickets if he hasn’t actually got them. Secondly, I’m convinced he just didn’t want to make a loss.
Problem is, if I leave negative feedback he can just then do the same to me, and make up some random reason that I wouldn’t pay or something. Would it be better to report him to ebay? Or am I getting in a tizz over nothing really?
*EDIT* Andy, apparently I still don’t know how to embed a video, even though I copied your code (but changed the video URL) to the letter.
Andy
May 16th, 2008
9:46 am
Sorry about that Mat.
In the write post section - were you in html mode or visual mode? There are two little tabs up near the top of the editing pane that lets you choose - you need to be in HTML mode to embed videos (I think)
Andy
May 16th, 2008
1:56 pm
Also - in answer to you conundrum… er… the same thing happened to me once. I bought Commandos:Behind Enemy Lines off ebay… actually… I think it was Amazon Marketplace and I got an email saying “Sorry - I just found the box but it’s got no disk in”.
Not that that actually answers your conundrum. What I like to do in situations like this is ask what would Hiro do… he would probably leave negative feedback and see what happened then go back in time and NOT leave negative feedback if it didn’t turn out right for him.
Do that.
Pete
May 16th, 2008
5:51 pm
Can I offer a different solution…
well actually, its not a solution, it is a question for Andy, but Mat, if you meditate on my question you may find your solution with in.
Andy-I think this is actually a stupid question, but I thought I should make sure. I am involved in one of the societies at uni (the Society of medicine-yes, it really is as exciting as it sounds!). They have asked me to sort out a basic website for them. The place they plan to host it has a traffic restriction of 250gb per month. I think that sounds like plenty, but potentially there will be lots of photos on there from a photography competion the society runs (which I judge, which works out well for me as it would be embarrassing if I entered and did not win!!!). So potentially there may be around 20-50 images, at something like a 600×400 resolution, but perhaps slightly more, which potentially will be looked at by a couple of hundred people. Will 250gb per month be enough?
Mat, I hope that helps.
Andy
May 16th, 2008
6:29 pm
As long as you don’t start throwing videos around - 250gb should be fine for 50 600×400 resolution images…
Pete
May 16th, 2008
6:46 pm
If i embedded videos from youtube, does that count as my bandwidth? Cos obviously the actual files are comming from youtube
Andy
May 16th, 2008
9:13 pm
I don’t know… I’ll find out though. I think it would count towards bandwidth as the video is being streamed (kinda) through your site even though it’s not hosted. Also - I know my site isn’t that popular and doesn’t have many images… but I’ve never even gone over 1gb bandwidth in a month. That includes my church site, football team site and any testing that I’ve done.
Mike
May 16th, 2008
11:01 pm
Hi Mat, I’m one of Andy’s mates. Just stumbled across your ebay dilema.
leave negative feedback! I’m very into Ebay - and they have just changed their feedback rules so that sellers can only leave positive feedback. (See below)
Sellers can no longer leave negative or neutral Feedback for buyers.
*
Buyers should leave honest Feedback without the fear of receiving negative or neutral ratings
Buyers can now be protected by Ebay!
Mike
Pete
May 17th, 2008
1:59 am
Is that Mike, as in Mike North? How are you? I have not seen you for a while, although I enjoy hearing trax 16 every few weeks!
Gloria
May 19th, 2008
2:33 pm
Mat, I agree with Mike. I don’t use ebay at all, so don’t know how it works but if you can leave a comment, I’d do that, and just explain exactly what happened. Then people can make up their own minds about whether they want to trust him or not. Also, if the tickets do end up back on ebay, people should know that he’s previously tried to sell them, then claimed to have lost them, so he can’t do the same thing again if he still doesn’t get enough money for them.
Hi Mike.
Kathye
May 21st, 2008
6:24 pm
For anyone who is bored it is apparently a Japanese IQ test.
http://www.robmathiowetz.com/
Gloria
May 22nd, 2008
1:46 pm
It’s not possible! If only 2 people can go on the raft at any one time, you can’t help but leave mum with one of the sons, dad with one of the daughters or the robber with one of the family members at some point. I find it slightly disturbing that if you leave either of the parents with a child of the opposite sex, they hit them. I’ve given up already. What a quitter!
Kathye
May 22nd, 2008
2:39 pm
he he, its not easy is it, I have done it though, it took 17 crossings, it is disturbing how they all hit each other though!
Gloria
May 22nd, 2008
8:38 pm
HOW???
Gloria
May 22nd, 2008
8:52 pm
Yay! By a joint effort, Andy & Gloria have done it! Feel very triumphant now!
Jonny Evans
May 22nd, 2008
9:58 pm
I did it!
I feel a strange, warm sense of triumph! Either that, or I’ve wet myself.
No…
Wait…
It’s ok - it’s triumph
Kathye
May 22nd, 2008
10:11 pm
Well done Jonny, you made me laugh for the first time today… it is much appreciated, so ty!
Well done Andy & Gloria!!
it is very satisfying when you finally get it
I had a 2nd and 3rd go to see if I could remember HOW I had done it, but still got stuck at one point and still don’t quite remember it clearly
Kathye
May 22nd, 2008
10:35 pm
I also like
http://www.games.co.uk/game102542.html
Gloria
May 23rd, 2008
7:58 am
I understand now why they didn’t let me access games from the work computer. I’d never have got any work done! Why are games like that so addictive? I haven’t tried the Japanese one again because I probably won’t be able to remember how to do it and that’ll infuriate me even more than trying it the first time round did!
Kathye
May 23rd, 2008
1:38 pm
I can get sucked in by the games but get far more distracted by Mumsnet and the “Am I Being Unreasonable” forum, which can easily suck hours out of my day without me noticing!
He he, 4th time was the charm for me, I actually managed to do it without anyone getting whacked *g*
Kathye
May 23rd, 2008
1:40 pm
PS - Sorry Mat for taking over your post
flipperr
May 25th, 2008
11:34 pm
(Hi, it’s cousin in law - just in case my name is a little too obscure!)
I hear about this blog all the time from Matt, so I thought it was time to say ‘hello’!
Just so as not to lose the thread completely, I’ve also had similar e-bay dilemmas and I still don’t know what to advise - it depends how brave I feel on the day! - what was the outcome?
Other than that, congrats to Andy and Gloria on the imminent arrival (I’m guessing Matt hasn’t said anything, being a bloke and all!) - and Gloria: has anyone sung the praises of gas and air? - it’s great!!
Lastly, did you hear about our chance encounter with Susie last Sun? V bizarre since we were in Brighton for just the night, but we’ll hold her to her promise to visit Hastings again before she leaves! (of course the invitation is open to any other Hoylands down this way too!)
Andy
May 26th, 2008
11:44 pm
YAY Flipperr… I didn’t know that was how you spelt it… sorry for getting it wrong in all the Christmas cards I probably don’t get round to sending…
Welcome to the blog - sorry it has taken me a day or two to aprove your comment - I haven’t been online much lately.
Thanks for the congrats! It’s only three weeks or less or more now which is fun and exciting. The bathroom will be finished…
On the eBay thing I just this very minute got an email from eBay confirming what Mike said - sellers can no longer leave negative feedback about buyers so you should all feel safe. Well. As safe as you can with interweb shopping…
mat
May 27th, 2008
12:59 pm
Firstly, Kathye don’t worry about taking over the post, I wasn’t doing anything with it!
I still haven’t left any feedback yet. Part of me thinks I may as well just leave it seeing as I didn’t actually lose any money and got some different tickets anyway, but the other part really wants to leave bad feedback! I don’t think I’ve felt brave enough to do it yet! Have I left it too long now?
And hello Flipperr. I’m not a Hoyland.
Andy
May 28th, 2008
10:58 am
Flipperr isn’t a Hoyland either! But she is family. So she wins.
I’m not sure what she wins. There’s no prize. And really Mat - you’re as much a part of this family as anyone.
Hmmm…
What don’t you have a gravyateher?
flipperr
May 30th, 2008
7:55 pm
Thanks for the warm welcome (…..Mat, I cheated on the family thing by marrying in - to Matt!) Apparently it was highly amusing to nickname me Flipper at school, and I acquired the extra ‘r’ on account of the marriage thing. Always best to remain semi-anonymous on the interweb me thinks - particularly when some people I work with might feel the need to stalk me from time to time! Happy days!
Andy
May 30th, 2008
8:48 pm
Flipperr - what do you do?! I feel I should know the answer to that…
flipperr
May 31st, 2008
11:21 pm
I’m one of those people who (as far as the press are concerned) either steal away people’s children for no particular reason, or who should know the business of every family with children within the whole county, to prevent them coming to harm….in other words a social worker!
Leave a Reply