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Old 20-04-2004, 06:06 PM
Darren Garrison
 
Posts: n/a
Default Ebay ethics queston (plant related)

Wanting a few opinions on this.

I order some Lilly of the Valley pips (one order of 5 white, one order of 3 pink) from a high-volume
Ebay seller using buy-it-now and immedately paying via Paypal. Soon afterwards, I get a boilerplate
e-mail with the subject that the item "has been shipped", but in the body of the message it points
out that the seller ships on only Mondays and Tuesdays. So that would have allowed for a few more
days before shipping. But 14 days after the "item has shipped" notice it still hadn't arrived, so I
e-mailed the seller and asked if he could double-check on if the order had actually shipped yet (and
yes, I was polite and non-confrontational about it). He told me that he would ship it again.

Then, the very next day (15 days after the "item has shipped" notice) the order finally arrives--
and is postmarked 12 days after the "item has shipped" e-mail. As quickly as possible, I e-mail the
seller to say that the item has arrived, and to not ship the replacement order if possible, and
asked how I should handle the second package if it has already been sent. I get no reply from the
seller.

Now, yesterday, I get a package from the seller in the mail. Postmarked 6 days AFTER I told him to
not re-send the order. AND, it turns out, it contained only the pink pips, so if the first order
really had been missing, I still would have been missing half of the order.

Now, if the first order really had been lost in the mail, it would have been a great gesture from
the seller to re-send the order at his own expense. But it hadn't been lost-- it just hadn't been
sent, despite his e-mail saying otherwise. And not only was he not able to track that, he didn't
bother to NOT resend (half of) the order even though he had multiple days notice that I had finally
received the first order.

So (and here's where the question comes in) I've decided that I'm just going to keep the damned pips
from the re-sent order and not offer to ship them back to him or pay him ($10.00 plus $3.99 shipping
for 3 pips, even though it cost only $1.29 to send them) for the extras, as in my opinion almost all
of the problem has been caused on his end.

Any opinions of wherether I do that with clean hands?