Bad Experience With Ebay Seller Hiplatelics

Thanks for posting. Definitely an ebay seller to avoid.

Hello, I am the seller in question.

I did not mean to dox Mr Denman nor was there any intention in doing so by replying by his last name. I refer to most everyone that way (he can attest to that from my messages and private emails.)

You may theorize as to what my intentions were - but they are what I explained to Mr Denman. I made a mistake, the consignor did not want to sell. There was no "seller's remorse." As far as me making someone up to blame - our CSR offshore did indeed generate an invoice and label for the consignor (when a label is generated, it is marked as shipped on ebay.). The consignor then communicated with her, and I did not find out about any of this until later. When I sent the initial email saying 'hey, thanks' I wasn't aware of the problem. I also wasn't aware that a refund had not been provided, but I did reach out to the consignor, who rejected the offer, then pulled the lot.

In my response, I agreed with Mr Denman - I made a mistake. What I disagreed on was the "pattern" - one or two incidents does not a pattern make. As for the "bill via PayPal", the transaction was about to be cancelled and there's no mechanism for us to bill the difference had the consignor accepted Mr Denman's proposal, and the consignor might have been open to not paying commission that way if he was going to eat some of the difference. We only deal with PayPal when we have had a previous relationship with someone (either as a former buyer or otherwise) or if they reach out to us unsolicited. My initial response from private email (not through ebay) was in response to Mr Denman letting me know he had bought a lot from us (I was not aware of that), and I meant it when I said I could negotiate with our consignors for other lots. At that point, the relationship outside of ebay had already been established.

Someone else made a comment about lowball bids. On a hypothetical listing of $1000, we consider a bid of $100 is a lowball bid. Can we set limits? Yes, and if our consignors tell us to block lowball bids, we do. In the end, just as we can block buyers, I am sure buyers can block us. Our CSR rejects hundreds of bids a day, responds to thousands of messages a week about information that is easily found in our description and TOS, follows up with buyers demanding discounts after committing to purchases and as a non-philatelist, also helps us create listings.

Yes, we will make mistakes - some we can eat (we have before), some we can't. As I stated to Mr Denman, I can't force the consignor to sell an item.

If he truly believes I am not a good guy based on one mistake with him, then I am truly sorry about that. I understand being upset, but after having met my family, it is hard to truly think that he believes that, and I will just ascribe it to being upset.

You don't have to believe a word of what we say, but I am the one that has the whole picture at this point, and everything else are just assumptions on this board.

I appreciate that different businesses have different ways of dealing with mistakes: some will eat them, others won't. If we had owned that lot, and had it been someone other than Mr Denman, we would have acted the same. For Mr Denman, I would have eaten it.

Dr DeKornfeld stated I should be reported to the APS: I am fine with that. We made a mistake - that's it. Nothing evil behind it. Happy to have a chat with APS regarding the issue. Mr Denman has never been anything but a good guy in my book, regardless of this one and only transaction. However, the full-time dealers in this chat (i.e., docgfd) know there are many, many buyers out there that will make unreasonable demands, threaten negative feedback for silly reasons, neglect to thoroughly read a description then treat their purchase like an approval. Look at the responses to the negative feedback we have: I don't know of any full-time online dealer with at least a handful of negative feedbacks, many unwarranted.

We own the last 3 negative feedbacks at the very least.

Thank you for your feedback on this chat, we have implemented changes to our listing process, as well as handling mistakes from consignments. Mr Denman, I am very sorry you took this as a personal evil attack from my end, and not just as a simple business mistake, and would not take me at my word.

Revision: I am a member of the TSDA, and you should report me to them at https://www.tsdastamps.com. You may also contact ebay at the usual and known channels.

txphl,
Whether the lot was owned by you or consigned to you, you have a contractual obligation to fulfil the original ebay sale contract to Don. In fact, you may have a LEGAL obligation to fulfil the contract and yes, eat the loss yourself while satisfying your consignor. I have read your reply twice and I do not see you taking the high road - the honorable road in this case. Shame on you. Be a man.

Mr Becker,
You may call me Francisco. The business names are txphl | TexasPhilatelics | hiplatelics should you wish to file any complaints with any organization you feel should know about this transgression. Happy to work with them.
As I explained above - "the consignor did not want to sell" and pulled the lot. I think I mentioned it twice, and it is included in Mr Denman's screenshot of my reply. I cannot force the consignor to sell. I proposed what Mr Denman mentioned, and offered to eat the difference - he refused, and pulled the lot. So, I am unsure what you mean by taking the high road, eat the loss and "be a man" (whatever this means to you) when that is exactly what I tried to do (other than the undefined "be a man.")

I do not believe that I have engaged in any ad-hominem attacks, exaggerations and/or hyperbole in the responses to this thread (or in my responses to neutral/negative feedback o ebay - and if I did, I apologize for that.)

You may look at my 20 neutral and 11 negative feedback here: https://www.ebay.com/fdbk/feedback_...ack_page:All

If you disagree or have comments about our responses to any of the feedback, I would be happy to clarify here (and have the complete message/email threads to support it.)

Additionally, if RXC feels I was rude about what I considered lowball offers, I do not oppose them publishing the entire message thread here in the interest of transparency.

You have to live with yourself. I don't. Your actions speak for themselves.

Francisco,
The same lot is now being offered by Paradise for $500 https://stampauctionnetwork.com/AB/abf6194.cfm#13 .
So what was wrong with my offer of $200 ($100 over what I already purchased it at) and you eat the other $200? The consigner would not have to eat anything (if he is wiling to take $500 from Paradise less commission). Last I heard from you I thought we were in a negotiation with you going back to the consigner but instead you went totally silent. After about a week the only thing I heard was a message from ebay that I had been refunded. You never responded back to me at all. Nice. The lack of communication is 100% a failure on your part and has nothing to do with 'we made a mistake'.

Saying 'I am sorry' showed that you are a nice guy, but it is the corrective action which shows if you are an intelligent person or not. In this case, and again without anything to do with 'we made a mistake', your business acumen was a total failure. As soon as you realized the mistake, you should have come clean with both me and the consigner, paid the consigner whatever he wanted, and then hoped that I would be a good guy and anted up more to defray your mistake (which I clearly was willing to do).

You can call it what you like, in my opinion it is 'seller remorse'. (You had remorse after the transaction was closed and you found out you made a mistake.)

This was to be a Christmas present to me from my wife (who always struggles and stressed over how to buy me stamps since she does not know what I want/need). I gave her a list of items and your listing was right at the top (I did not know it was yours at the time). She was so happy when she was able to get this knowing that I really liked it. When the wheels came off the deal, and dragged on with poor communications for weeks, she was in tears and even more stressed.

Perhaps you will learn from this lesson that what you thought as a simple 'mistake' was a significant impact on your customer. I stand by my feedback of 'avoid this seller' if others do not want to get treated the same way (which your post above clearly demonstrates will happen if you make another 'mistake'.)
Don

I think that some are getting hung up on the delta between the offer and what the consigner was willing to accept (we do not know that number but the Paradise lot gives us an idea). The item was listed, the offer was accepted and the buyer paid. Whatever the delta between the accepted offer and payment and the consigner's ask is irrelevant. The buyer has no contract with the consigner. The seller had a duty to deliver the goods. If this meant "eating" $1, $400 or $1,000 then so be it. There is no magic number at which conditions change. All other discussions beyond fulfilling the contract are just noise meant to obfuscate.

seems to me once the initial sale was made the consignor has lost his right to withdraw the lot

Morally, yes, but if the consignor still has possession of the item, there's little the seller can do about it if the consignor refuses to go through with the sale.

If the consignor had a minimum he'd accept, the seller should have been made aware of that up front so he didn't run the risk of accepting a legitimate offer and then being refused the item. Makes for a very bad customer service issue , to say nothing about the damage to the seller's reputation.

Luckily it looks like the item is still for sale so the consignee could technically purchase and sell it back to the original buyer as agreed, at a loss of course (ie: a cost of doing business sometimes). Thankfully there is a solution here…if one did wish to honour their original contract!

It is indeed unusual that the "high road" option may still be available.

If the seller chooses not to do this, then we know the modest value he places on his own reputation and his honor. If he has children or other relatives, he should have them read this thread and see how they react.

Hi txphl

A lot of words to say nothing!

Or, as Gertrude said in Shakespeare's Hamlet:

'The lady doth protest too much, methinks.'

I feel it is worth mentioning a pretty big kudos to Don for actually agreeing to drop another bill on this lot even though he won it at a set price fair and square. Not many customers would do that, regardless of how bad they wanted the lot, as they did technically win it. If I had been the consignor, I would have sent my thanks for that!

So, I suppose you hadn't planned on 'doxing' me either, then? Not that it matters much as I have nothing to hide, although I don't get what you had to gain by doing so (to me or Don). I guess you figured it all out on Facebook where you argued your case to me.
Also note, I'm not a full-time dealer, only part-time. The only thing I'm full-time with is being a collector. I guess because of my number of sales you considered me to be full-time, so in keeping with that thought, you stated something about all f/t dealers having at least a handful of negative feedbacks. In my ebay, HipStamp, and HipPostCard pursuits...not a one (and no 'neutrals' either).