how do i make a complaint about a seller

[dhawke2012]

my item is not expensive, BUT i feel that i have been unfairly treated by the seller.  (im autistic - althought that should make no difference).  the seller has a mulit listing of coins and an image of the best examples.  some multi listing sellers have images of the exact coin you will receive.  i asked this seller to send me an image of the exact coin and he replied: "sorry im afraid that not viable with an item costing 99p but thanks anyway" (quoted from his email). so when i did the review (in an honest and frank way) i said "wanted to see pic of actual coin, told it didint cost enough, take pot luck".

the email i got back from the seller quite frankly upset  me severly and frightened me "re: the recent damaging and untrue feedback left by yourself... your false statement needs to be removed.."

which i duly did giving five stars all around and updating comment to "thanks".

i now find that seller has banned me from buying anything more from him, probably a good thing, but even more annoying the coin i asked for was a 1914 and the coin i received is a 1918 and now i am too scared to even ask for the refund in case i get even more abusive emails and worry that he might ban me from the whole coin collecting section of ebay.  my ignornace, i dont really know just how much power these people have. 

i have brought 81 coins and not had any trouble from 80 differnt sellers.

i also note this seller has asked 98 people to amend their reviews so he can maintain his 56874* rating.

i feel i want to make ebay aware of this, after all coin collecting is a nerd kinda thing so more autistic people must be out there doing the same thing.

is there a way to make ebay aware of this? preferably without getting myself banned from coin collecting in the process.

thanks for reading all that detail.

[1956glyn]

Hi

To be honest i think you are over thinking the situation.

Just because this one coin dealer has blocked you from future purchases it does not mean that you will be blocked by all the other coin dealers on Ebay so i would not worry about that.  As you say.....its probably best for you that they have.

You have two choices i guess at the minute.......

either keep the coin and add it to your collection as it didnt cost that much

OR

Go to the resolution centre at the bottom of the page and open a not as described case (if appropriate) and return the coin to the seller.    You do not need to communicate further with the seller and just follow the instructions and get a refund.  The seller should send you a prepaid return label to return the coin to them. 

IF the seller sends you anymore messages or emails and they are upsetting you just delete them without even opening them.

Also in future do not be bullied into changing feedback if you honestly think what you have typed is true.

You do not have to worry at all about being banned from coin collecting ...I would just put this down as one bad experience out of 81 and move on 🙂

Good Luck with your future coin collecting and hopefully you may get a few bargains 🙂

Just to add.....this seller can ban you from buying from him but he does NOT have the power to stop you from buying from other coin sellers.

[tsmgmd]

I don't want to sound hard, but when you didn't receive a reasonable answer from your seller you should have bought elsewhere. 

But instead you took the decision to buy. 

You then left  feedback which was less than glowing. 

So now it's up to you. 

Did the seller actually quote in the listing the year of the coin you were bidding for?

If he did then you can use the eBay Money Back Guarantee under not as described. 

If he didn't then all I can say is put it down to experience and don't purchase from him again. 

[m25jet]

To begin with, if you have not already done so, open an Item Not As Described case via the eBay Resolution Centre.  If you purchased a certain type of coin but got something completely different then that ought to be enough for eBay to decide the matter in your favour and refund your money.  A seller who seems like a nasty piece of work is unlikely to agree to refund the money voluntarily, so you may well have to escalate the case to eBay to make a decision on if the seller refuses to issue the refund.  If you do have to do that then eBay will force a refund and you'll get your money back.

With regards to your worries that the seller might ban you from the whole coin collecting section of eBay, that simply wouldn't be possible.  Although he can ban you from buying anything from him again, he cannot say or do anything that would result in you from being able to make purchases from anybody else on eBay selling coins, or any other type of item for that matter.

At the end of the day don't let this seller intimidate you and put you off of your hobby.  You can buy coins from several other sellers on eBay, or alternatively if you want to take it to the next level and focus on buying genuine limited edition coins then you could purchase these type of coins from companies such as CPM (Coin Portfolio Management), Harrington & Byrne and the Royal Mint, to name a handful of specialist sellers.  However, given that the type of coins they sell tend to be limited edition releases and made from either gold or silver the prices can be quite high for what you're actually paying for, so it may only be worth considering taking this route with regards to your coin collecting if you've got very deep pockets.  If you don't have thousands of pounds that you can afford to spend on limited edition uncirculated coins that are struck to a higher quality than the type of coins you're likely to find in your spare change then it's probably best that you don't go down this route.

At the end of the day what you decide to do with regards to coin collecting is really up to you, but my advice to you would be to refuse to allow one bad seller from putting you off completely.  There are likely to be other sellers on eBay who would welcome your custom, especially if you were to become a regular buyer, and in that case it would be their gain and the aggressive seller's loss.

[roger_roger_over_and_nowt]

quite simply you should not have bought.

the sellers reply to your question clearly showed that problems lay ahead if you went ahead and you bought off them anyway.

[rusticrye]

It is your choice whether you buy or not. If you receive an item which isn't as described, or which doesn't arrive at all, just read the Money Back Guarantee and follow the instructions to get your money back. The MBG is on every listing, and in various other places across the site.  That, along with leaving appropriate feedback, is how you 'report' a seller to Ebay.

@dhawke2012