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May 27, 2006
An eBay dilemma
Here's a problem for the tit-for-tat sociologists: I'm in the middle of an eBay dispute, my first ever, really. I bought some audio recoding equipment nearly a month ago from a guy in Canada who appears to run a small business making this stuff and selling it on eBay. His feedback is very high, and people say nice things about his products. The problem is that I've been waiting nearly a month for it to arrive. I paid immediately after "winning" the make-an-offer-style auction, but he took 9 business days to get the thing to the post office, and it still hasn't arrived. In the process of tracking down the reason for delay, we both forgot that the $24 shipping charge I paid included a hidden $12 extra for a set of cables. He refunded it thinking it was an overcharge, and I thanked him, suggesting that I would leave him positive feedback for his fairness and good communication. Well, apparently he misinterpreted that as a threat, and preemptively warned me that he would respond to negative feedback with negative feedback and starting making charges about some failure to follow his payment instruction that are clearly discredited by our email history. That is, if I complain about the trully excessive delay in shipping, he will retaliate, even though I totally fulfilled my end of the transaction. Both of us, could, of course, post explanatory notes with any less-than-positive feedback, but here's the dillemma, custom-made for rat-choice theorist: He has 1050 feedbacks, 99.6% positive. I have 60, 100% positive. My potential negative feedback - which I have never left, for anyone despite a couple of borderline cases - even though merited, would hurt him far less than his wholly unfair retaliation to me. What to do...? And this from a Canadian? Aren't they supposed to be friendlier up there? 'S always been my experience. :-) (I sent back the mistaken refund, by the way.)
Posted by johnn at May 27, 2006 8:54 PM
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Comments
How interesting! I sympathize with you on both blog posts... the study of race in Brazil and ebay! I have been having doubts about the effectiveness of any study I could do in women's prisons in Brazil because I know I'll have to deal with the problematic issues of crime and race. On the one hand I want to be able to say something that highlights the reality of the situation and not the stereotype. However, on the other hand I'm afraid that if I am able to pull such a study off that nobody will pay attention to it anyway. So I'm toying with the idea of studying the changing roles of women in the Japanese Brazilian community. *sigh*
RE: ebay. I JUST had an experience like that. Mine didn't turn out too nicely though. I left positive feedback for the guy (who did a number of things wrong-- didn't mail out the item until a month later, overcharged on shipping bc i didn't want insurance, etc, etc). I listed these things as problems even though I gave him positive feedback... he left me negative which left me fuming given that I only had 45 positiives... I'm now down to 98% positive. :(
Anyway, hope things are going well for you!
Posted by: illianacelia ![[TypeKey Profile Page]](http://www.anthroblogs.org/norvell/nav-commenters.gif)
at June 24, 2006 12:46 PM
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