An Honest Mistake?

Stay cool.... SCF has the answer....

Use the feedback system for what it was meant for. Sounds like the old bait and switch hoping the buyer would just keep it. Whether intentional or not, sellers need to pay more attention to what they are selling. I'd leave neutral feedback at best, depending of course on who the seller is.

I have been buying and selling on ebay since 1996 and have a rating close to 4000. The seller may have made a honest mistake and sold a item twice. ( I have :-( ) but the fact that she sent a filler in the hopes you would not notice is not right. Having said that, she is sending you another stamp. If its good and she refunds you on top, she has made amens and paid the fine :-)
Depends on the stamp she sends....

These arrived in yesterday's mail, along with another note of apology. I already have them but I appreciate her gesture.



My purchase price of $2.50 has been refunded and the matter has been resolved to my satisfaction.

You are a lot more forgiving than I would have been. So you win a nice 4 margin balanced copy of a Stamp that is difficult to find in that state and it never shows up so the seller sends you 2 Stamps that you already own ? And poor centering on both to boot. I would have left neutral feedback at best and I don't think it was an honest mistake.

I guess I've just gone soft in my old age.

There have been a handful of times in the 14 years I've been on ebay that I've either accidentally relisted an item that previously sold or somewhere along the line lost the item that was listed (hey, it's life; crap does indeed happen occasionally).

Never on my worst day would I consciously ship a buyer something other than what they paid for. That's just plain wrong, no matter how you slice it.

I would contact the buyer, explain my mistake, apologize, and ask how they would like me to remedy it: full refund, a substitute similar item, a comparable different item from my inventory, whatever.

Just arbitrarily assuming what would please the buyer is presumptious. I tend to side with the comment above that this was deliberate and the seller was assuming the buyer wouldn't notice.

And I also agree that the substitute items are of subpar quality.

$2.50 gee, you have made the right decision.
nothing to get ruffled about, keep the peace and move on.

It's not about the money. If consumers keep turning the other cheek, then we will keep getting slapped on the other side. The feedback system let's the buyer seller know he needs to improve and if they feel they are doing nothing wrong, then nothing will change. A neutral feedback is not mashing a seller but rather saying the transaction was neither good, or bad.

Ive been a member on ebay for 9 years and only left one neg and one neutral. The neg was because I got no response from the seller at all and the neutral was for a less than satisfactory resolution. I did have one instance where I purchased an item that arrived damaged and in nowhere near the condition it was advertised in. The packaging was put together poorly and I did not believe it was a fault of the USPS. That seller bent over backwards to make it right. Full refund and offered a replacement. I accepted the refund only and in the end I said great communication in my feedback. Even though in this case presented here I would like to continue to agree that a blast or neutral should happen, I think this seller may have already learned from this instance and will most likely not perform in the same manner in the future. Time will tell.