eBay can suck to use. I have bought a bunch of comic books recently from many sellers. On August 13 I bought many books and all but one shipped within days. Then on August 26-31 I bought a fair number more and again all shipped within days.
About two weeks and receiving no shipping notifications about the one August 13 book, I initiated a request to cancel the order through the eBay system. The seller refused. An automated response said it was "too late" to cancel the order. Too late? the book has not even had a shipping label printed for it! I then sent a message to him in eBay Messages on August 28 asking when my book would be shipped, no response.
On his listing it says "ships within 5-30 business days." I did not look hard enough at the listing at the time I was buying. eBay lets sellers put a vacation notification on their listings but this seller did not have one. Even so, 30 business days to ship a single issue comic book is a ridiculous amount of time in this day and age but eBay permits it. Then on September 6 I sent him another message stating that the 30th business day would be September 24, I would hold him to his words and file a complaint with eBay on the 25th if he had not shipped it by then. He shipped it on September 9, via USPS media mail, 27 days after my order. (Shipped is when you put a package into the hands of the carrier, not when you print a shipping label).
After receiving the book on the 11th, today I left neutral feedback for this seller, (after debating whether to leave negative), writing that the book was well packaged and in good condition but the seller was uncommunicative and was absurdly slow in shipping. The seller does not live in a rural area and there is a post office within walking distance of his return address. I might observe that a single $9.00 purchase (including shipping) may not be terribly motivating to get a seller who runs a comic book selling business to the post office promptly. Within minutes of posting the feedback the seller contacted me for the first time on eBay messages to say he would be getting it removed. After a few minutes it was and he said as much and added me to the blocked list. I responded that I would never buy from him again anyway and it is sellers like him that makes eBay suck to use sometimes.
26 other eBay sellers managed to ship and deliver comic books to me before him since August 13. Most of them had them in the mail within 1-3 days after placing the order. Some of the other orders were for heavy trade paperbacks or from longer distances, this was for a single issue one state over. The longest to ship other than this seller was 7 days and I certainly did not ask to cancel that order.
How was the seller able to remove my neutral feedback so quickly? eBay has a feedback policy where it removes "neutral/negative feedback when we can see that: The buyer asked to cancel after placing their order". I think this is a bad policy to apply automatically when the seller refuses to cancel the order. I could not remember the last time I left negative feedback for a seller, I apparently have left only one since 1998. This seller still has 30 other neutral and 5 negative feedbacks that he cannot remove and will likely accumulate more if this is how he runs his business. He of course must know the eBay policies very well. Has he been able to stifle criticism of other buyers who have made the same mistake?
The moral of this story is to be patient and do not try to cancel items if you want to be able to leave honest feedback. Ask the seller through messages first if he is willing to cancel but it is better to steer clear of any seller which puts something like "ships within 5-30 business days" in their description. Fortunately I have had my fill of buying comic books for a while. Still, eBay has laid a trap for the unwary buyer by providing them with an automated system for buyers to request cancellation but not warning them that they give up their right to leave permanent neutral/negative feedback if the seller refuses to cancel. I do not recall seeing any such warning with the system. There are many bad reasons why buyers cancel but also some good ones. I believe my request was reasonable after waiting for two weeks for a seller to put the book in the mail or at least contact me to tell me why it would be delayed. The automatic ability to remove the feedback is my quarrel with the policy. A company which actually cares about customer service should at least have a human being consider the situation before removing the feedback.
