Shady eBay Seller or Honest Nice Guy?

[AnGeLiCbOrIs]

I recently bought these shoes on eBay since I was expecting to receive 30% cash back.

After buying them I received this email:

Dear Mr L---
Thank you for using the buy-it-now option to purchase these beautiful new size 10.5 D Cole Haan Italian Werner model shoes in a dark walnut brown color. We appreciate your business.

Your shoes will be shipped tomorrow by US Mail Priority Mail, and should arrive within 2-3 days from then. If the cost you paid for shipping exceeds our cost with the Post Service, we will refund the difference within 48 hours (my apologies, by the way, for the high shipping cost up front--I do hope that it actually costs less than you paid). We will contact you after we ship your shoes to let you know that they are on their way to you.

We will be in touch soon and thank you once again for your business.

S----

I had paid the seller $12.20 for Priority Shipping - hardly unreasonable in my book.

I soon received a refund of $1.65 with this message:

This refund represents the excess of the amount you paid for the shipping of your shoes over our actual cost of shipping those shoes. Thanks again.

This all seems very nice but I'm afraid that now I will not get my Cash Back since I now see a "refund" icon in My eBay instead of the "paid" icon. I also understand how important it is in today's **** eBay world to keep customers happy since a few four star ratings can strip you of powerseller discounts.

Was the seller just being an honest nice guy or did my meager refund somehow help him get out of paying eBay fees? Think I'll have trouble with the Cash Back?

 

[ThinkDerm]

probably honest.

 

[forex]

check your cashback account,it will say it is cancelled if it is not,you are all good.I happened to return something and it automatically got cancelled,I think in order for MS to cancel your cashback,seller needs to refund total amount.

 

[knittieguy]

Probably honest. I've done the same thing when shipping to a buyer was less than expected. I have no idea about the cash back, and am curious to see what will happen.

 

[Tangfastic]

I'd give him the benefit of the doubt. Even if he is trying to avoid fees he's gone about it in a pleasant and courteous manner to his customer. Its a shame if the discount doesn't work, that's just one of those things.

From the communications you've posted I'd think its worth contacting the seller to explain the situation with the discount (which I guess he wouldn't have been aware of) and see if he can re-do the auction as a buy it now for you or something.

 

[hadamulletonce]

The Live.com discount is transparent to the seller. The seller hasn't a clue you were using a discount and is charged e-bay and Paypal fees based on the full BIN price. The only money saved would be the Paypal fees on the $1.65.

They were being a very honest seller and only charging you the exact cost of shipping.

The discount is issued based on BIN price, not shipping charges. I doubt this will affect your cashback as long as the seller indicated through paypal that the refund was for shipping charges.

 

[hadamulletonce]

Love those shoes, what a great deal! Even better with the discount.

 

[jetfight]

glad to hear a good story amid tons of ebay horror stories

 

[A Guy from Shanghai]

Originally Posted by hadamulletonce

The Live.com discount is transparent to the seller. The seller hasn't a clue you were using a discount and is charged e-bay and Paypal fees based on the full BIN price. The only money saved would be the Paypal fees on the $1.65.

They were being a very honest seller and only charging you the exact cost of shipping.

The discount is issued based on BIN price, not shipping charges. I doubt this will affect your cashback as long as the seller indicated through paypal that the refund was for shipping charges.

Agree on most part. Seller was being a very honest...a gem in today's ebay world. $1.65 was just a partial paypal refund towards the buyer's entire payment. From paypal's stand, it really does not care and will not know this refund is a partial refund for the merchandise or for the shipping charge.

I recently bought a gift card using live cashback. Upon receipt, I verified the card with a local store and found it was $6 short. I contacted seller and he/she refunded this $6 back to my paypal account.

Initially I had a same worry as the OP about my cashback. Now, it has been 3 weeks, and I have not seen any ajustment in my live cash account. (Hopefully it won't)

 

[knittieguy]

Originally Posted by jetfight

glad to hear a good story amid tons of ebay horror stories

The horror stories get more play than they deserve, in my opinion. I've done over 500 transactions on ebay as buyer and seller and have had only two or three where there was any problem at all, and these problems ultimately got resolved at relatively little cost. The vast majority of buyers and sellers on ebay are honest and fair. People don't make a stink about good transactions, though, so the ones you hear about are the ones that go awry.

 

[AnGeLiCbOrIs]

I just got a message saying that my cashback was canceled due to the refund. However, the email informed me that I would get an adjusted amount if I was eligible. I don't necessarily think the seller was up to no good but I just want to warn y'all about partial refunds.

Purchase date \t cashback \t Updated cashback \t Details
Thursday, October 23, 2008 \t$57.00 \t $0.00 \t eBay
Unit price: $200.54
Quantity: 1

 

[sho'nuff]

dude that sucks. let us know if you get the adjusted rebate.

 

[NoVaguy]

Same thing happened to me, same exact seller, I think.

I emailed them about it, and I don't think they knew about it.

As an aside, the shoes didn't work for me (size 10.5 Trafton Wingtips). I think I need a size 11, these things are ridiculously tight.

Leather is kind of weird; very soft, very smooth. Everything else is very good quality.

 

[Hard2Fit]

Honest nice guy.

 

[AnGeLiCbOrIs]

Originally Posted by NoVaguy

Same thing happened to me, same exact seller, I think.

I emailed them about it, and I don't think they knew about it.

As an aside, the shoes didn't work for me (size 10.5 Trafton Wingtips). I think I need a size 11, these things are ridiculously tight.

Leather is kind of weird; very soft, very smooth. Everything else is very good quality.

I haven't tried mine on yet. The excitement of my cigar shell Aldens kind of lessened my anticipation for the Cole Haans.

Having said that, the Cole Haans have a very nice level of finish.