[RANT]
Just like many of you fellow N2 owners, in the past few months I went on a little ebay shopping spree looking for different Note 2 accessories. You know stuff like cheap cases, screen protectors, car mounts, otg cables/connectors, etc. I usually don't buy anything expensive on ebay, in $0.99 to $9.99 price range shipped mostly from China. As you know with a lot of these it could be a hit or a miss, and in some "miss" cases its not even an issue with a seller but rather their suppliers. No matter what outcome is, I always give a seller 5-star positive feedback.
So in the last few months I probably bought a few dozen of different items, all cheap stuff. In my personal opinion, if you get something that doesn't work - I always contact the seller, explain the problem, provide pictures, and ask how to resolve it. In some situation, they offer you a replacement, and in others when they are not sure they can guarantee replacement to work as well - they issue you a refund. All sellers from China don't even accept shipping their defective product back because apparently it cost them money to receive it as a return. So out of these few dozens, I ended up with 6 products that were refunded to me (screen protector that was lost and never made it to me, another screen protector that had a nasty oily splatter effect under the lights, OBD bluetooth car code scanner that didn't work, case with a narrow usb port opening - a bad design, another case with a stretched out inner silicon shell, and a local US seller who refunded part of the payment I paid for expedite shipping while he shipped it regularly). As I mentioned, in every case I contacted seller, discussed it, provided pictures, etc. They were the one suggesting to refund, and I still left them a positive feedback.
Now, I get a message from eBay "dear..., your buying privileges has been suspended for a period of 2 weeks because of the higher than usual number of refunds you received." They gave me a phone number to contact them if I have any questions. I did, and they are telling me it's irreversible decision, and based on restriction of limited number of refunds allowed in 60-day period. I explained to them every single instance, and they seems to understand what I'm talking about, but there is nothing they can do to help me. Pretty much, for 2 weeks I'm not allowed to buy anything from ebay, but no restrictions to sell or to use my paypal account. Period. End of sentence. I asked to talk to their supervisor, they took my number, and never called me back.
So what the heck is going on? If you go to Target or BB, buy something to find out later its defective, you return it back for exchange or refund - nobody suspends you from shopping in there. It doesn't matter these are $0.99 products, if something is wrong I contact the seller to let them know there is a problem with their product, if they need to contact their supplier to fix it, etc. Its up to them how they handle resolution of it. So now, if I get something that doesn't work, I should just forget about it and move on? On top of that, I did some on-line reading, and apparently ebay justify their action because they want to protect both buyer AND seller, and this is their way of protecting seller's from "delinquent" buyers. I'm sure there are some who abuse the system, but you can't have some dynamic software script running a count of refunds with automatic suspension of buying privileges. And if that happens, wouldn't they have to give me a chance to explain myself or for a human person to review it and make a call about it?
Very frustrating... I guess I will be spending more time shopping Amazon, considering that I see more and more ebay-type of sellers offering their product in there anyway...
[/RANT]
Just like many of you fellow N2 owners, in the past few months I went on a little ebay shopping spree looking for different Note 2 accessories. You know stuff like cheap cases, screen protectors, car mounts, otg cables/connectors, etc. I usually don't buy anything expensive on ebay, in $0.99 to $9.99 price range shipped mostly from China. As you know with a lot of these it could be a hit or a miss, and in some "miss" cases its not even an issue with a seller but rather their suppliers. No matter what outcome is, I always give a seller 5-star positive feedback.
So in the last few months I probably bought a few dozen of different items, all cheap stuff. In my personal opinion, if you get something that doesn't work - I always contact the seller, explain the problem, provide pictures, and ask how to resolve it. In some situation, they offer you a replacement, and in others when they are not sure they can guarantee replacement to work as well - they issue you a refund. All sellers from China don't even accept shipping their defective product back because apparently it cost them money to receive it as a return. So out of these few dozens, I ended up with 6 products that were refunded to me (screen protector that was lost and never made it to me, another screen protector that had a nasty oily splatter effect under the lights, OBD bluetooth car code scanner that didn't work, case with a narrow usb port opening - a bad design, another case with a stretched out inner silicon shell, and a local US seller who refunded part of the payment I paid for expedite shipping while he shipped it regularly). As I mentioned, in every case I contacted seller, discussed it, provided pictures, etc. They were the one suggesting to refund, and I still left them a positive feedback.
Now, I get a message from eBay "dear..., your buying privileges has been suspended for a period of 2 weeks because of the higher than usual number of refunds you received." They gave me a phone number to contact them if I have any questions. I did, and they are telling me it's irreversible decision, and based on restriction of limited number of refunds allowed in 60-day period. I explained to them every single instance, and they seems to understand what I'm talking about, but there is nothing they can do to help me. Pretty much, for 2 weeks I'm not allowed to buy anything from ebay, but no restrictions to sell or to use my paypal account. Period. End of sentence. I asked to talk to their supervisor, they took my number, and never called me back.
So what the heck is going on? If you go to Target or BB, buy something to find out later its defective, you return it back for exchange or refund - nobody suspends you from shopping in there. It doesn't matter these are $0.99 products, if something is wrong I contact the seller to let them know there is a problem with their product, if they need to contact their supplier to fix it, etc. Its up to them how they handle resolution of it. So now, if I get something that doesn't work, I should just forget about it and move on? On top of that, I did some on-line reading, and apparently ebay justify their action because they want to protect both buyer AND seller, and this is their way of protecting seller's from "delinquent" buyers. I'm sure there are some who abuse the system, but you can't have some dynamic software script running a count of refunds with automatic suspension of buying privileges. And if that happens, wouldn't they have to give me a chance to explain myself or for a human person to review it and make a call about it?
Very frustrating... I guess I will be spending more time shopping Amazon, considering that I see more and more ebay-type of sellers offering their product in there anyway...
[/RANT]
