Unhappy buyer claims I doubled shipping charges

[Hausfrau]

Hi, everyone.

My title says it all. After accepting an offer on an item, I received an angry message from the buyer indicating that I’d doubled the shipping price from what appeared in the listing itself.

I responded that I didn’t know why she was seeing a different shipping price, but that I hadn’t changed anything and if we couldn’t find a method to get the 8-pound item to her at an acceptable price I’d be happy to cancel the sale.

Overnight she paid for the item and left a hostile “note to buyer” indicating that she would be mentioning in her feedback that I doubled the shipping price in my auction and that she wouldn’t be bidding on my items again.

I didn’t change the shipping price. (Also, there was no auction, it was a buy it now.)

I’ve tried to reach eBay to find out what to do but the customer service phone number goes nowhere and the online help flowchart doesn’t include my problem.

I would absolutely love and appreciate any thoughts about what I should do next. Thanks so much.

Edited to add: the shipping differential in question is roughly 9 dollars. I’m losing money on the sale as it is, so my impulse is just to refund her shipping “overage,” send the item, and block her. Does that sound right to anyone else?

• This topic was modified 23 hours, 16 minutes ago by Hausfrau.
• This topic was modified 23 hours, 13 minutes ago by Hausfrau.

[debitendcredits]

She is going to leave negative feedback anyway- Just cancel the order and block her.

Use the option problem with shipping address.

She will through a tantrum, but that is what she wanted anyway.

[sonia]

So basically the question is:
Is it worth $9 to prevent a single negative feedback?

Even though I’m typically not afraid of having one or two negative feedbacks, I think I probably would pay $9 to avoid one, if it’s a very rare event.

[Hausfrau]

My last negative is just about to age out of visibility, so it’s definitely worth it to me.
Although I was sorely tempted to cancel the sale (I agree with you that a negative is likely still on the way, D&C) and/or send various nasty messages, I ended up sending a nice note (with perhaps a soupçon of passive aggression) and refunding the shipping.

Thanks, everyone, for walking and talking me through it.

[Retro Treasures WV]

If she was on a work computer with a VPN, then the shipping would have been lower if the location of the VPN is different than her real zip code. Once she logged in and put in her real info, the price would most definitely change in that case.

[Jay]

She also could be telegraphing ahead that she’s gong to be a bigger problem beyond the shipping. She’ll receive the item and find something wrong and accuse you of being corrupt. Then you have to fight for her to return it etc.

I’d cancel, give a full refund, and block.

[Ryanne]

yep, i agree, cancel, block. let someone else buy it.

[sonia]

I don’t understand the advice to cancel the order. You get a defect for cancelling an order if it’s not at the customer’s request, no? I’d rather have 1 bad feedback than 1 defect.

[debitendcredits]

If you cancel the order by saying “problem with the address” you won’t get a defect. You might get caught, but doubtful. I would rather have a defect than deal with a crazy person who is just going to return the thing anyway.

[debitendcredits]

Good information @ Retro Treasures, I never thought of the VPNs messing with location.

[Old Dad]

In my experience, the more hostile and threatening a buyer is the more likely they are trying to beat you up for a lower price and will continue to be a problem. If they threatened negative feedback you probably could have it removed, it depends on how they phrased it. I agree with Jay, you haven’t seen the end of the problems from this buyer.

I believe that a few negatives don’t hurt that much unless the total feedback number is so low that it pulls you down to the danger zone. 100% positive feedback is nice for us to see but in my opinion, it makes no difference in sales volume. As long as the seller responds in a businesslike manner, without any snark, those few buyers who do look at feedback will likely just roll their eyes at the crazy buyer and ignore it. I personally believe that most buyers don’t ever look at a seller’s feedback anyhow.

[Hausfrau]

Thanks for all the thoughts. The VPN idea is brilliant.

I am definitely braced for continuing problems with this buyer, who has simply reinforced my ideas about lowballers and low-dollar sales generally. This disaster of a sale is part of an ongoing (and failing) experiment in online sourcing in new (to me) categories. I’ll keep you updated if more unfolds.

Buyer has been blocked.

[Jay]

Can I ask what category of item this is? Some categories definitely attract grumpy buyers.

[Hausfrau]

Sure — it’s a box lot of jewelry for crafting.

[Author]

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