Just a bad attitude?

cormie

I'm looking to buy something and the only place I can find it is on a Korean website (anyone speak Korean??) or from this guy on Ebay, but I can't "buyitnow" because he only ships to US/Canada. So I sent him an email asking could he make an exception and these are the responses I got:

I f you pay attenetion you will find out that it is stated that I DO NOT ship outside the US or Canada. The simple reason is that the price for europe will be substancially higher, in this case the item would cost you about $250.00 + S/H. Are you still interested? Let me know I will post for you on eBay.

to which I replied:

Hi again,
Yes I know it said you don't ship outside the US/Canada but I'm just asking if you can make an exception. I don't understand why it would be $250 + shipping and handling to ship to Ireland. How does the destination effect the product price? I thought it would only effect the shipping price?

I could pay you $180 including shipping and handling. This will cover the $119 for the buyitnow price and will leave $61 to cover shipping to Ireland which will be more than enough for a package this size. All that is different from this order and an order placed within the US is the extra shipping to Ireland as opposed to within the US?

If you want to put it up for $119 with $61 shipping to Ireland, I will buy it immediately.

Thank you,

to which he replied:

You just don't get it, don't you?
The price for Europe is $250 + S/H. Thank you.

to which I replied:

Why do you have such a bad attitude? I'm a potential customer and you're talking to me like I'm 4 years old. The whole reason I mailed you in the first place is because it was quite obvious from the listing that you had it set up to only ship to the US/Canada, meaning users from outside these regions could not "buyitnow" so the only option I had was to mail you.

There's no reason for the price of the product to increase more than two fold. Yes, the shipping will be more expensive, but nothing else will be different from a sale to Europe then a sale to the US.

It's simple, you list the item at $119+$61 shipping, I buy, I pay, you bring it to the post office, put my address in Ireland on it, pay whatever price it will be (less than $61 for sure) and that's it, finished, you've made a sale and everyones happy.

So can we do business?

Can anyone think of a legitimate reason for the product price to more than double and any reason why he would be so hesitant to make a sale simply because I'm in Ireland?

I still want to buy it, I may have to resort to asking a resident of the US to buy it, get it shipped to them and then ship it to me themselves. Any recommendations for such a service welcome

Alanstrainor

I think you should take the hint. Tbh, i wouldn't deal with a seller with severe attitude problems, no matter what the product. As for his reasoning for not wanting to sell outside the US/Canada, i have no idea, perhaps he's just stupid?

jor el

He obviously doesn't want to sell it to you, and there's nothing you can do to make him, no matter how flawed his reasoning is. I'd stay clear, because if there were to be any issues with the purchase, you already know how difficult he is to deal with, and you don't want that sort of hardship.

I'd guess the reason the price increases so much is because he knows you can't get it here, and he wants to make more from it. With availability in the US/Canada not a problem, people there wouldn't be willing to pay what he'd like to charge them, so he can't.

cormie

Yeah, I was trying to think of reasons for the item itself to increase, but just couldn't think of any.

Bit of a pain, I've googled and can't find it anywhere else. His feedback seems to be good on the item itself. His feedback score is about 120 and there's a good number of these sold for $119 with positive feedback from other members who have high points themselves. So all looks legit.

Might just try and get somebody in the US to buy it for me and ship it over and just hope nothing goes wrong with it. It's $299 from other places ex shipping (most who probably don't ship to Ire themselves anyway). So to get it for $119+$25 shipped to US, then whatever shipping will be to Ire, so about $180 total is pretty good, which is about €130. From the Korean site it's about €165 before shipping.

cormie

Oh, a new reply:

No question of bad attitude. It just happened that you don't know a thing about business. We, me and my partner, resell this item also in the UK and the price there is 250 Euro. It will be not right to sell it to you for one half of that price. Thus, the price for the EU is $250 on eBay and, it still a good deal compared to the 250 Euro. Now you decide. Don't get offended, I do this for living.

They sell it in the UK and charge in Euro?...

byte

Well, you blatently don't know a thing about business! lol

If that is how he makes a living, it's safe to say he doesn't know too much about business either!

cormie

Here's my reply to the above anyway. He's gone and made a new listing with it at $250 the cheeky bollix :pac:

I don't know a thing about business? Right, where do I start? I've already told you that I'd like to use this product as I drive a van for quite a successful business which I set up not so long ago. With plans and potential of expansion, you could be getting return custom from me and future sales but yet my very first enquiry about buying this, you fobbed me off saying a pretty swift "no".

Now if you do sell this item in the UK and you are indeed willing to sell to me, regardless of what price, wouldn't the sensible thing have been to mention this in the first reply to me as an alternative since you weren't willing to fulfil my request? Keep the customer on the line, don't let them go away and lose interest.

Also, if you do indeed sell in the UK you would surely know that you would be using their domestic currency of the British Pound Sterling and not the Euro as they have not yet changed over to the Euro.

Seeing as you do this for a living, if you want to reach your British market more extensively, I suggest publishing this information online. I've searched Google and have had no luck locating a UK or even a European supplier. How do UK customers find you?

As I've mentioned, your attitude is atrocious and your communication language will do you no favours in making a sale. The very fact I'm writing all this is a clear indication of that fact.

I see you have now listed the item "Specially priced for Europe" at $250 + Shipping. I'm sure you'd agree, since you know about these things that it would make more sense for me just to contact somebody in the US who could buy it for the US price of $119+$25 shipping, then ship it to me via USPS for about $35 bringing the total to no more than $180 for me I imagine, instead of the $294 you want to charge me, at least $131 more for the exact same product just because you know I'm finding it difficult to source here.

You could have already closed a sale with me. Unfortunately you made some woeful mistakes.

JJ

Jebus, give it a rest. I would've let him alone after his first email, especially with an attitude like that. Email wars like this are just a waste of time.

Nick_oliveri

Asshole greedy demand profiteer. What is the item? This sort of crap sickens me.

cormie

I know I try and avoid them as much as possible and I've a very good record on boards of avoiding getting too deep, I just make my point and be done with it, but this guy is just ridiculous and I'm hoping he'll change his mind and sell it to me at a fair price because it's impossible to find elsewhere

Nody

Why would he change his mind? You've already shown WHY he can do it, there is no one else, of course he'll try to get the maximal profit out of it. Heck, I'd do the same as well given the oppertunity and honestly I would not care if that meant I'd charge more in Europe, US or Asia as long as it meant more profit for non existant work.

cormie

You have a point alright, but the reason he would change his mind is because I've shown I can get this, off him, for the regular price by getting somebody in the US to buy it and ship it over. So he's wasted all this time and delayed any potential sales by trying to get more, which he wont get off me. He could have closed the sale and had it shipped to me already and still made whatever profit he makes off the regular price. Now he's wasted loads of time, come across really bad and if he will get a sale from me, it'll be for $119 :cool:

Chorcai

Alanstrainor wrote: »

I think you should take the hint. Tbh, i wouldn't deal with a seller with severe attitude problems, no matter what the product. As for his reasoning for not wanting to sell outside the US/Canada, i have no idea, perhaps he's just stupid?

I had to send 8 no 12 emails to someone I once bought off of ebay from the US I swear he was the thickess **** ever, I ended up scaning my address for him to print out and stick on the ****ing box took almost 2 months then he had the gaul to write on my feed back "he lives in england which made it hard" OMFG !!!!

rubadub

He seems an arsehole alright, but it is common business practise. Just look at a lot of electronics. A games console might be cheaper in Japan, if you try and buy an ipod from the apple store in the US they will point you to the irish/EU store AFAIK. They price it at whatever the market will pay.

Bit of a pain, I've googled and can't find it anywhere else.

post the ebay link, or what it is and let others have a go.

When dealing with US guys many say they only sell the the US. Many just do not want to communicate with people not fluent in "american". Ignorant that other countries actual exist that speak english, or just not bothering. Many will charge over the odds for postage.

What I do is email them saying "hi, would you ship to Ireland, if so how much would the shipping be? I would be willing to pay up to $40 because otherwise it is cheaper for me to buy within the EU". This usually puts them off acting the chancer and quoting a huge shipping price, thinking they are my only option (like this guy does)

cormie

I know what your saying alright about the markets and all that, but to him, I am his only market so he should sell at a price I will pay rather than trying to rip me off. That's a far better way to approach in the future, but I suspect if I said that to this guy, he would have just brushed me off worse than he did, if that's possible

Anyway, watch this space

cormie

An update on this:

I got a chap in the US I know to buy it for me and ship it to my friends friend who was coming over to Ireland.

It finally got to me and low and behold, it doesn't work:eek:

So I used the account of the guy who bought it and sent the seller a mail:

Hi
after this was held at customs in canada for an eternity, i finally got it but I can't get this to work, I've been trying all day, the computer wont recognise the SD Card and says it needs to be formatted, it's recognised it once and I was able to install the program, this was after many many attempts of it not working, and then it didn't work again. I'm following the instructions but it's not working. the seal on the box was broken when it got to me, im using the supplied SD card. have you any idea what's wrong?

and:

hello again,
if you could please reply to my last email as I think there may be an error with my product that hopefully you can solve

his reply:

The seal was probably broken by the custom. Give me your email address I will email you the software, once you get the software you can use any SD card.

my reply:

Hey,
thx for getting back to me, hopefully it'll work if you email me the software, the email address you can send it to is **************

fingers crossed it works, I've tried 3 sd cards so far no luck in any

and:

Hi again,
Got your mail, put the software on the card and still no luck, same as before. The day I got it, I was actually trying all day to get it to work, must have tried about 40-50 times and was online searching for ages, I even downloaded that software myself before and I even called the Manufacturers people who didn't have a notion what I was talking about!

So after trying 3 SD cards and spending hours trying to get it working, I've come to the conclusion that it must be a hardware error. I see you've a few more up for sale so can I get a replacement off you please? How will we arrange this?

his reply:

The product comes with 1yr manufacturer warranty. I am sure The Manufacturer will honor that.
Me I am just some dude that got a bunch of devices from a chinese whole seller, i am not an Manufacturer Name reseller. And I have a no exchange policy.

my reply:

You're the retailer therefore are responsible for the sale and replacement/repair/refund. I can choose which I'd prefer, but any is fine with me so I'll leave that decision to you. So let me know and we can arrange something from there. I will hold off leaving feedback until a clear resolution is achieved.

Thx

his reply:

My no return policy was listed. Don't try to teach me business, I am seasoned enough to know what I am doing. Go learn how to use the computer, then try use the device again, its a friendly advice, believe me. The probelm ususally rely on the user not the machine, again is experience talking here. Also, if you keep it on this line this will be the last time I reply to any communication coming from you.

my reply:

I'm sorry sir, but "My no return policy was listed" is incorrect, you had no return policy listed, there is a big difference:

Taken direct from the listing:

"Return policy not specified.
Read item description for any reference to return policy."

This is a lot different than having "I have a NO RETURN policy" listed.

I also know how to use a computer thank you. You confuse me, you say you're seasoned enough to know what you're doing in business, but before you were just saying "I'm just some guy who bought some things to sell on".

I'm close to reporting this to Ebay and close to leaving bad feedback which will have a terrible knock on effect seeing as though your score on Ebay is only 137 and will cost you far more than what you would lose in replacing this faulty unit. I followed the instructions exactly, more than once and it doesn't work. It arrived with the seal broken and I've already tried 3 SD cards with no luck.

I trust you will act accordingly.

thoughts?

Our man in Havana

I would report him to ebay and I then would neg feedback his ass.

o1s1n

After reading all of that, I really can't believe you went ahead and bought it knowing the guy was a complete ass.

Report to ebay, if you paid via paypal get a refund and leave him the most scathing negative feedback you can possibly think up.

Nick_oliveri

Em....Paypal dispute. You get your monehs and he gets **** all. Least thats what happened with our fake cards we got from china. **** him and his shiiite.

cormie

Would I have to return it to get my money? Would be funny him seeing the package sent from Ireland

Nick_oliveri

Probably, im not sure because our stuff was counterfeit. Check paypal and ebay for stated rules with return policies and you might not have to. There has to be a rule there that says he has to state his policy.

the_syco

Any clue on what you were trying to buy?

cormie

I don't want to mention the product as there's very little showing up in Google and I don't want this page to be one of the first results when it's searched for

It was just a gadget for the van

I'll wait and see what he says back anyway and if I don't get anywhere with him, I'll get onto ebay/paypal. Thanks for the feedback everyone!

eringobragh

cormie wrote: »

I don't want to mention the product as there's very little showing up in Google and I don't want this page to be one of the first results when it's searched for

It was just a gadget for the van

I'll wait and see what he says back anyway and if I don't get anywhere with him, I'll get onto ebay/paypal. Thanks for the feedback everyone!

Finally going to run that C*mera???:pac:

cormie

Not yet by the looks of things :P (in response to your PM that I read when I was just going out the door )

eringobragh

cormie wrote: »

Not yet by the looks of things :P (in response to your PM that I read when I was just going out the door )

I suspected as such keep us posted! You may have to go with the eiredriving setup yet

cormie

I'll keep you posted indeed, thanks for the idea

cormie

Heard back from him:

No exchanges, no returns. The item was HIGHLY discounted. See actual price on today listings. Again, the device comes with one year warranty from manufacturer, i suggest you contact them.

my reply:

The price has no relevance to your responsibilities as a retailer. I also told you I did contact The Manufacturer and they hadn't a clue what I was on about, this was not something I had to do, it was something I did to try and sort it before coming back to you as a last resort. Now I am back to you and if you don't confirm you will be sorting me out with a refund in the reply to this mail, you will receive negative feedback, worded to warn any potential buyers of your incompetence as best as possible. I guarantee this will have a bad knock on effect so I highly suggest you take responsibility and sort your dissatisfied customers problem. You have 48 hours from the time of me sending this to reply with a satisfactory resolution. If no resolution is achieved, negative feedback will be left.

P.S. I will also be keeping watch for any new Ebay accounts selling this product just incase it's you

Have a good day and for both our sake, just do the right thing.

Our man in Havana

I like it!

Report to ebay/Paypal next. Then leave neg feedback. Leave it at that.

cormie

Looks like he may be slightly worried about getting negative feedback:

I have a no exchange and no return policy on highly discounted items. Please, contact the manufacturer www.the manufacturer.co.kr. If you can, looks like the company is out-of-business. I have emailed the software to you, check your computer, try on another computer. Not all customers will be be happy, I know that, I live in the real world where people like you also live! It is your right to leave a negative feedback, don't forget to mention that you pay only $119 for a $300 device, see amazon.com for product name from the manufacturer! Don't forget to mention I have replied to all your emails and simpatized with your situation. But, I do not exchange or refund an item I paid $178 for and sold for $119. Besides, I am almost positive it is a software issue. Connect the camera to you car cigarette lighter take a few seconds of test video. Install the software I have emailed to you (I can email that again), on your computer. remove the SD card from the device, insert the SD card onto your SD card reader connected to your computer. Launch the device software. Open the database file contained in the SD card from the device software, watch the video. For Google Maps to work make sure you have internet connection. I understand this might be more than you can handle but, you knew what were you buying! This is not a toy. If you are not familiar with the computer stay away from it and don't blaim others for your ignorance. BTW, 48 hours, nice movie!!

My reply:

The fact is you didn't have a "no exchange & no returns" policy listed on the auction page. This is where everything should be listed & this is what counts. The price you bought & sold the item for is totally irrelevant.

I wouldn't call your replies sympathetic in the least. I'd call them rude and condescending.

I've done exactly as you said enough times to know it doesn't work, with 3 different SD cards.

Why are you assuming I'm not familiar with computers? I could go on listing many things that would give you the impression I'm VERY familiar with computers, but I'm not going to bother.

Calling me ignorant and misspelling "blame" in the same sentence says it all really.

You still haven't proposed a resolution, you were supposed to do it in that reply. You're threading on thin ice but I'm a nice guy so I'll give you the full 48 hours.

Oh and the feedback wont be an 80 character moan, it'll be a link to an external page with copies of all our mails and the full story

jor el

Don't put a link in feedback though. eBay will remove it.

Our man in Havana

Oh and the feedback wont be an 80 character moan, it'll be a link to an external page with copies of all our mails and the full story

LOL!

I bet that will scare him.

cormie

jor el wrote: »

Don't put a link in feedback though. eBay will remove it.

Manually? I know they don't allow linking in messages, but all you have to do is take out the http://:confused:

Gran Hermano

What capacity SD cards have you tried and how are they formatted?
A low capacity, less than 2 gig and standard SD, card with a basic format/file structure might be worth a punt.


PS. I an pretty sure Dealextreme have all the in car AV gear you could need. I looked at similar after that thread in Motors.

Resi12

Really, No offence but you asked for it.

Buying from him after you knew that he was a complete moron and cun*.
Oh and also never buy anything from Korea/Hong Kong on E-Bay its usually just counterfit junk.

the groutch

this is better than every show on tv put together

cormie

Resi12 wrote: »

Really, No offence but you asked for it.

Buying from him after you knew that he was a complete moron and cun*.
Oh and also never buy anything from Korea/Hong Kong on E-Bay its usually just counterfit junk.

I agree, hehe, but this guy was the only resource to get it at an affordable price. It was worth the risk. I mailed another customer of his who left good feedback, and he bought 5, one had to be returned, not sure what happened with the return though.

the groutch

Resi12 wrote: »

Really, No offence but you asked for it.

Buying from him after you knew that he was a complete moron and cun*.
Oh and also never buy anything from Korea/Hong Kong on E-Bay its usually just counterfit junk.

in business sometimes you have to take a gamble

cormie

He got back to me again:

Sure i mispelled, English it is not my language, would like to continue this conversation in italian?
I have a no return, no exchange policy. Particularly for high discounted items. You have the right to leave a negative feedback, just don't lie. You only have one (1) feedback, that does not make you reliable at all. My mistake I have done business with you in the first place, everyone knowse, do not sell or buy from people with zero (0) or only one (1) feedback. These are usually accounts of scammers or people like you! (I am not saying that you are a scammer but, you are trying to get something you are not intitle to). And please, don't get personal, English is my second language. At this point I will appreciate you go your way.

I haven't replied yet as I'm not fully aware of the situation of putting in a dispute. Do I actually have a case here? Should he have definitely mentioned "no returns" in the listing?

wyndham

cormie wrote: »

It was worth the risk. I mailed another customer of his who left good feedback, and he bought 5, one had to be returned, not sure what happened with the return though.

You got it.:pac:

cormie

This story has had an interesting twist. What would be the best place to post all these emails to and link to on his feedback page? I don't want to link to here. Maybe a blogspot page?

cormie

My reply to the above:

Hello again!
I don't speak Italian and I'm not getting personal. I was simply pointing out that calling me ignorant in the same sentence you misspelled "blame" was quite ironic of your attitude.

I have just checked your latest listing and I see you now have:

"Return policy
The seller will not accept returns for this item."

instead of what was on the listing I bought from:

"Return policy
Return policy not specified.
Read item description for any reference to return policy."

and it also said on mine "Seller assumes all responsibility for this listing."

That word... "Responsibility"! You have a responsibility as a seller!

The fact this account only has 1 feedback doesn't make me, as a person, any less reliable than if it had 100,000 feedback. And I will certainly not lie in my feedback, don't worry.

So you have absolutely no intention of sorting out an item you sell that is faulty upon arrival even when this isn't mentioned in the listing?

Let's clear this up, it'll be over soon.

Also in the new listing he now ships to Ireland and is only charging $139+$62 shipping, instead of $250+$62 shipping, so the same base price worldwide! After all that huh?

cormie

I made a blog anyway, http://80charactermoan.wordpress.com , so the post above saying about the interesting twist, I should have posted the twist before the above post, this is it quoted from the blog though

"So at this stage, I was close to leaving negative feedback but I decided to hold out, just a bit more, as I really didn’t want the hassle of having to send this back and having to go through with a PayPal/Ebay dispute, especially with this guy at the other end. There were two final things I could try. A higher capicity SD card (the biggest I had tried was 2GB and another computer with a card reader.

If both of these failed, I would leave the feedback and then get on to sorting out a dispute. I really wanted it to work, I wanted this product. After all of the above, I wanted it to work, that’s why I bought it in the first place

So I went to a funnily named computer repair shop in my home town where the friendly and very helpful man behind the counter let me try it with a bigger SD card. Same thing happened as usual, turn it on, it would beep, then remove the card and put it in the computer… but this time, it worked!!! The card was read without a hitch and up popped the program file, the config file and the data files for the video, I couldn’t believe it! So all I needed was a bigger card I thought, but I also had the card that came supplied with it and that I had tried many times to get working, but it had kept saying on my computer it needed to be formatted, I put this card in the computer in the shop and it worked too!!! AGHHH!

So at this stage I knew it was my SD card, but was puzzled as my card reader had no problems reading SD cards from cameras with images and videos, or writing other files to it when I was testing it out. It seemed to work perfect, but the fact it wouldn’t work with this new product, but the one in the shop would, meant there was definitely something up with it. This guy saved me a lot of hassle, I asked how much and said to charge something for solving this for me, but he insisted it was ok and not to worry. I told him I’d be back if I can’t get my card reader to work to buy one off him.

I went home and googled and eventually came across this page: http://www.antifart.com/2007/12/31/dell-vostro-1000-sdhc-driver.html which pretty much explained the exact same problem I was having and also posted the solution. I followed it and the card was finally readable on my system! I spent a while testing the camera out and it’s fine, works just the way it should!

So with the product working perfect now, I still had feedback to leave and I still wanted to see if this guy would take any responsibility, so I popped off this reply to his last mail:"

Our man in Havana

I would still leave neg feedback, purely because he is a knob.

cormie

He definitely is, but in terms of ordering, shipping and the product working, that all went through fine.. hmm

boopolo

And he ships to Ireland now for $139 + $62 p&p

Boo

the groutch

the OP should have pulled out of the deal, left a negaitve and reported the guy to ebay as soon as he tried to increase the final selling price to $250 purely based on the OP's location

boopolo

the groutch wrote: »

the OP should have pulled out of the deal, left a negaitve and reported the guy to ebay as soon as he tried to increase the final selling price to $250 purely based on the OP's location

He did pull out of the original deal. He then got somebody in the USA to take delivery for him.

To pull out completely was not an option as he wanted the item and could not buy it elsewhere

Boo

the groutch

sorry, forgot about that

cormie

Oh I don't believe it!! I just went to leave feedback and I can't!! Went to the FAQ and it says you can only leave feedback up to 60 days after the transaction!!! now what!! aghh!

6 days too late ffs!

corkstudent

Jesus. Tell him the whle point of buying it on eBay is to get it considerably cheaper than here. No other eBay sellers pull this ****. I'd also post the name of the seller here, name and shame.