WHY CANT I BLOCK A SELLER????

[jimmythejock]

If sellers can block a buyer why can't a buyer block a seller who keeps harassing you or to make sure you don't buy from a bad seller in the future forgetting their name and ordering again from a seller you had a bad experience with.?????

Can ebay give me a valid reason why I can't block scumbags?

DISGRACEFUL EBAY ABSOLUTELY DISGRACEFUL!!!!!!

[pixiesen2012]

use Advanced up top by the big blue search button

set your search criteria

scroll to the seller section

change include to exclude

add the ID's of any seller you don't want to buy from

save the search and use it every time you search

[gallovidian]

Now that is worth knowing. But had it been impossible, as I believe used to be the case some time ago, a better question might have been why sellers can block bids, when buyers coulfnt do the opposite. Or why is it easy for a seller to cancel someone's bid for any reason or none, , but subject to quite stringent conditions for the someone to do it himself?

Tbe answer in both cases would have been that a seller can be presented with a binding contract, either by Buy it Now or by a bid in the last moments, as plenty do for quite different reasons. The buyer' on the other hand, can study feedback for as long and in as much detail as he likes, hunt for danger signs in the listing, or take a look at the seller's Companies House records or supposed business premises in Google street photography.

That is imposed by circumstances, but the system for dealing with it seems pretty even-handed.

[pixiesen2012]

this block has been available for as long as I can remember

[plpmr]

if you have been in a recent transaction [perhaps one of the numerous negs you have left?] you cannot block them from messaging you.

[annkilner]

OP certainly seems to have more than their fair share of bad luck with Ebay purchases.

[m25jet]

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@jimmythejock wrote:

If sellers can block a buyer why can't a buyer block a seller who keeps harassing you or to make sure you don't buy from a bad seller in the future forgetting their name and ordering again from a seller you had a bad experience with.?????

Can ebay give me a valid reason why I can't block scumbags?

DISGRACEFUL EBAY ABSOLUTELY DISGRACEFUL!!!!!!

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You can.  Given that you've sold on this account yourself in the past just add the seller's User ID to your Blocked Bidders List and make sure that you've got your Selling Preferences set up so that the Don't Allow Blocked Buyers To Contact Me option is activated.  If you do that then the seller shouldn't able to contact you once the blocks kick in.  However, if you've been involved in a transaction with this seller recently then although the buying blocks will kick in straightaway it will take a bit of time for the e-mail blocks to kick in, but once they do the seller will not be able to contact you.

[gallovidian]

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@m25jet wrote:

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You can.  Given that you've sold on this account yourself in the past just add the seller's User ID to your Blocked Bidders List and make sure that you've got your Selling Preferences set up so that the Don't Allow Blocked Buyers To Contact Me option is activated.  If you do that then the seller shouldn't able to contact you once the blockcords kick in.  However, if you've been involved in a transaction with this seller recently then although the buying blocks will kick in straightaway it will take a bit of time for the e-mail blocks to kick in, but once they do the seller will not be able to contact you.

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That's good, as faras it goes. The OP has mentioned harassment, which mmight be anything from understandable remonstrane to the vilest abuse. We do hear of the latter occasionally. What you describe will block either.

But there are two ways a seller can change his ID. For a completely new record he can simply join eBay again. He will need another e-mail address, buthe can use the same Paypal account even if both remain in operation. Plenty of sellers do this for innocent marketing reasons.

But the other way is to change his displayed ID, which means keeping all his previous record of feedback, swdwxra, performance standard etc. That probably includes a block on messaging you buying from him unknowingly. If you buy computer games or used furniture, that is unlikely. But with authentic Roman lamps it easily could.

You used to be able to see a member's ID history by a link on his feedback profile, and although that ceased to be displayed there, it still exists. . You simply copy in the member's ID to replace mine:

https://contact.ebay.co.uk/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ReturnUserIdHistory&requested=gallovidian

Both in selling and in board posting, there are members with a long record of changes, which may denote the number of times they have painted themselves into  a corner. But it does provide a means of appealing against an accusation of malicious buying.  You can'tbe attempting to implement a previous grudge, when you don't know he is the person you supposedly have a grudge against.

[brfug_40]

Awesome, thank you!

[louper22]

My experience entirely. And eBay just don't get it. I challenged why someone sent something by a courier instead of Royal Mail as listed. The seller has accused me of everything and keeps sending messages. It should be possible to block these people!

[brfug_40]

Have you tried reporting this person?

Brian

[plpmr]

Why not leave feedback to reflect your experience?

And as you are responding to OP you can note that they have now made their feedback private.

[chriscwalker]

What a pain in the ass!

A seller just blocked me because I left a slightly negative review of a part of their product.

It was honest not malicious, and purely to help other buyers know what they were getting.

So the seller just blocked me and the negative feedback doesn't even register. They also trade under several names, and when I politely asked them why they had blocked me they were very rude and unhelpful.

I don't want to see them come up on any of my searches but they still do.

I figure they're possibly avoiding tax too, so I don't want to give them any business now anyway.

But it's incredibly unfair that I cannot just block them, but they can block myself.

I may even stop using Ebay and switch to Amazon if they give the customer more power over this.

It's extremely unfair imho Ebay!

[frmur_416447]

Exactly I want to block seller he been threatening me a buyer I brought some didn't get it so yeah you should be protected by the um seller but what if you paid for something I put negative review on buyer page yeah it negative review I'm not bullying him I'm not happy I paid for something haven't received it pottic is seller I want to block him I'm not change my review 

[simomesur5]

Agreed. 98% are good as gold. It's the odd one, two or few depending on how many purchase you make. I've got one that believes his discription of products is golden. I find flaws and he puts me right....wrong, his idea of hands free means you can put speaker on a table. Everyone else knows hands free means Bluetooth or headphones with answer button. In this case a speaker. And he won't stop. 

Or sellers pretend to send your purchase and don't. I like eBay, it's just some sellers. Wish buyers could ban.

[gallovidian]

This is a revival of an old thread,  in which it was established that the seller's ability to block buyers exists to address a situation the buyer can't have.

The seller can be landed with a transaction he doesn't want, either by Buy It Now or by a bid in the final moments of a listing. That might be a buyer with mental aberrations he knows or old, a horrendous feedback record or a previous grudge which suggests malicious buying. eBay offer only a very limited number f reasons for which a seller can cancel a transaction, and "This buyer is a salivating booby who seeks moral guidance from his cat" is not among them. He has no choice but to sell or be in violation of policy.

The buyer, on the other hand, gets to decide, after all the consideration he wants, whether the transaction can happen. He can check feedback, including comments, as far back as he likes, search his own memory for previous incidents, or search the listing for various danger signs which a buyer  (especially of expensive, high-fraud or high-ineptitude items ought to know.

Your estimate of 2% bad sellers may not be far off the mark. One might think you could remember them, or of not, affix a small post-it note t the margin of your screen. Or apply the same vigilance as you should to the great majority of bad sellers, whom you have never encountered before.

Essentially you can't block sellers because you have something better than they do.

[macaronytony]

I do agree we should be able to block sellers that have given us a hard time. If we go into a shop and are treated with a lack of respect we never go into that shop again.
It's my money and I should have the right to spend it with decent sellers and block the dodgy ones.

Come on eBay its time you treated buyers with the same respect you give the sellers.

[elitegiftsltd]

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@macaronytony wrote:

I do agree we should be able to block sellers that have given us a hard time. If we go into a shop and are treated with a lack of respect we never go into that shop again.
It's my money and I should have the right to spend it with decent sellers and block the dodgy ones.

Come on eBay its time you treated buyers with the same respect you give the sellers.

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And why can you choose not to buy from a particular seller?

Perhaps ebay treating people like adults is a novel thing. Your choice where to buy. 

[ztaberind]

Essentially, there are plenty of sellers who unse irritating tactics like bait and switch, or weird stuff like selling a broken item under the "used" category, rediculous postage costs and so on, having a "block this seller" button works in both the short term and long term.

[gallovidian]

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@ztaberind wrote:

Essentially, there are plenty of sellers who unse irritating tactics like bait and switch, or weird stuff like selling a broken item under the "used" category, rediculous postage costs and so on, having a "block this seller" button works in both the short term and long term.

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So there are, and another thing, some use multiple or discard-when-soiled IDs too. That prevents you from the obvious course of remembering the IDs of sellers you have found unsatisfactory, but it would entirely nullify the effect of blocking sellers - or rather blocking yourself from using a seller.

You would still have to fall back on the forms of protection we all have. Those include endless giveaways in the way sellers phrase their listings, what previous buyers have said about them in feedback, and the demotion in search placement which can result from defects. But as has been said before, sellers, who can be surprised willy-nilly by a buyer they have no opportunity to choose, are given a blocked buyer list as a substitute for powers and opportunities buyers have.

As to equality of buyers and sellers, how do you fancy receiving any feedback sellers choose, or having your activities limited by losing MBG cases?

I believe this old thread is going to be resurrected more often than Dracula.