Your advice sought on ebay dispute

From the terms of Mack's auctions:

Insurance optional but highly recommended. Items or shipments with a total value of over $100 will require insurance. Seller is not responsible for uninsured items.

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The buyer agreed to that by bidding on the auction. That seals it for me.

Originally Posted by bengal-stripe

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Gentlemen, you buy something by mail order at Brooks Brothers, Landsend, Dell, whoever. You pay for the goods, you pay for shipping whatever the company asks for (which might be ‘free shipping’ in certain circumstances).

Do you have the right to receive the goods? Do you have the right to receive them in good order and undamaged or unbroken? If an employee of BB or the courier company steals your packet in the warehouse, is BB no longer responsible? If that Dell computer arrives broken, can Dell walk away from it?

Do you think there should be a difference between a small and a large mail-order business?

I do not disagree. But, if the mail order company allows you to pay a reduced shipping rate, if you agree that they are not liable for lost or damaged packages, and they can prove that the item was indeed shipped, you would still expect them to cover loss or damage? That is what happened here.

When the buyer agreed not to purchase optional insurance they then accepted responsibility for goods that may be lost or damaged. But people tend to retrospectively recreate the terms of the sale and what they believe they are "owed" versus them taking responsibility for their decision, at the time. Accordingly, they get pissed and expect to be compensated. Big headache for the seller, who did nothing wrong.

As an ebay buyer and seller, I've come to realize the most prudent thing to do is include insurance and add the cost somewhere in the sale. Selling a $700 suit and charging $17 for shipping, which includes insurance is reasonable. Similarly, selling a $75 coffee maker and charging an extra $1 to the shipping for insurance is also reasonable.

In the two instances we needed to use the insurance (once as a buyer, once as a seller) it fell on the buyer to follow-up with the whole insurance process as the buyer purchased the insurance.

As a seller, I had to provide them with the insurance info and a receipt for the cost of the goods. After that, no more involvement. As a buyer, it was a slight hassle but definitely worth it.

In both cases everyone was satisfied.

BTW, in this matter comparing a part-time ebay seller to an on-line retail sales corporation is an apples/oranges issue. Of course one would expect BB to make good on a lost or damaged item they shipped, even if it wasn't their fault. It's part of doing business.

The same standards don't apply to ebay sellers.

Interestingly, ebay auctions for high-end clothing, are generally held to a higher standard than BB or other on-line companies. ebay sellers are expected to provide multiple measurements, multiple photographs and a detailed description of the item.

Originally Posted by mano

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The same standards don't apply to ebay sellers.

Exactly. One of the many differences between ebay and real brick & mortar retail stores is precisely this. You are dealing with a person, not a corporation witrh lots of warehouses, employees and storefronts. At BB, you can bring in the item with a receipt and return or exchange it. You can hold them accountable for screw-ups and human error. Somehow people think that you can expect the same level of customer service when shopping on ebay... Yet if an ebay seller tried to charge the same price as a retailer, they wouldn't last very long at all.

You can't have your cake and eat it too.

Originally Posted by Tarmac

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this is so simple - buyer CHOSE not to buy insurance. so the seller has no responsibiity.

Not so simple!

In the arguement I'm making the buyer would be working from the position that as long as he met his responsibilities (which didn't REQUIRE him to buy insurance) then the seller was already obligated to deliver the item in the condition described in the auction. Therefore he CHOSE not to buy the insurance because he didn't need it. The seller did!

Originally Posted by mano

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The same standards don't apply to ebay sellers.
Maybe, but the same LAWS surely do, don't they?

!luc

Originally Posted by tonylumpkin

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Not so simple!

In the arguement I'm making the buyer would be working from the position that as long as he met his responsibilities (which didn't REQUIRE him to buy insurance) then the seller was already obligated to deliver the item in the condition described in the auction. Therefore he CHOSE not to buy the insurance because he didn't need it. The seller did!
Somehow I agree with this.
If the goods are lost, the seller should refund the buyer and fill a claim with its shipping agent because it was its responsability to deliver the goods, regardless they were insured or not.
If you want to avoid this, the seller has to make insurance mandatory.

!luc

Originally Posted by Joel_Cairo

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Exactly. One of the many differences between ebay and real brick & mortar retail stores is precisely this. You are dealing with a person, not a corporation witrh lots of warehouses, employees and storefronts. At BB, you can bring in the item with a receipt and return or exchange it. You can hold them accountable for screw-ups and human error. Somehow people think that you can expect the same level of customer service when shopping on ebay... Yet if an ebay seller tried to charge the same price as a retailer, they wouldn't last very long at all. You can't have your cake and eat it too.
Speaking of having your cake and eating it too... First let me say that I haven't been around here all that long and to date have, to my knowledge, purchased an item from only one person from the Styleforum. That was an amazingly fast and satisfactory transaction( By the way, I did puchase insurance even though it wasn't required. My choice.). Also, from what I've read here I wouldn't hesitate to purchase from any of the regulars here, either through the forums or through eBay. You all appear to be honest and responsible sellers. However, when arguements are made that eBay sellers can't be expected to meet the same standards as brick-and-mortar sellers, I find it to be a bit disingenuous. Both eBay, and the sellers that use it, are very clear that when you bid, you are entering into a legally binding contract. To excuse yourself of the obligations placed on you as the seller by that contract, just because you are not as big as say Brooks Brothers, looks to me as though you are the one wanting it both ways.

The general rule, according to my reading of the UCC, is that an eBay seller retains title (ownership) until the goods actually pass into the possession of the buyer or are accepted by the buyer as good. Until that point, the risk of loss remains with the seller. The seller would thus be liable for any damage or failure of delivery. http://www.law.cornell.edu/ucc/2/2-509.html This can be altered by express agreement, but it is my view, for many of the reasons stated in other posts, that stating that a buyer has to pay extra for insurance or else bear the risk of loss is not actually going to relieve the seller of liability for loss. This could be argued about for a while and I could be wrong.

More to the point, however, it is probably good business practice for a seller to accept responsibility. Take what happened to me recently. In April I ordered two $12 collar pins from an outlet in Texas called Broderick.com. When they hadn't arrived a month later, I emailed and complained. They didn't argue, or blame it on the carrier, and instead just sent me two more pins. Two days after the pins arrived, the postal service delivered the original pins, with a post mark showing that it had been mailed back at the time I ordered it. Apparently the post office lost it under a desk or something for a month. I contacted Broderick and offered to pay for them or return them, and Broderick said, "How about $7 and we'll call it square" (or something to that effect). I now have four pins. Broderick probably lost money on this deal, but I also went on Styleforum and recommended them for anyone looking to buy collar pins, and I'm giving them another plug here: http://www.highlandpark.com/x4/ElegantJewelry/15w.htm. It is good business practice.

Legal-schmegal! No one is going to court over this.

The bottom line is that unless you return the $40, you will get your first negative feedback.

Only you can place a value on your perfect 100% score. Is it worth $40, or not?

Originally Posted by knowsnothin

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Legal-schmegal!

From a purely legal perspective, I don't believe schmegal is a word.

Originally Posted by knittieguy

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From a purely legal perspective, I don't believe schmegal is a word.

From a purely empirical perspective, it does generate 4,110 hits on Google.

Maybe we should start a new thread about the propriety of the "word" schmegal

Originally Posted by tonylumpkin

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Not so simple! In the arguement I'm making the buyer would be working from the position that as long as he met his responsibilities (which didn't REQUIRE him to buy insurance) then the seller was already obligated to deliver the item in the condition described in the auction. Therefore he CHOSE not to buy the insurance because he didn't need it. The seller did!
no offense. but this argument is so circular that it makes no sense. The buyer has no rights at all to get a refund. The buyer has acknowledged what appears to be good faith effort to deliver the item, and yet it was tampered with. And he did not insure against that. This is why the buyer is hanging the neg feeback blackmail over the seller's head. he has nothing else to work with. If he had used a credit card, he would have a snowball's chance with a CC dispute. If he had used paypal? Paypal would not even give him said snowball's chance. They would rule against the buyer instantly. Please give the cheapskate buyer a neg feedback so I know never to sell to him.