Think I just got ripped off on ebay 0

[RockMyAmadeus]

Just now, wiparker824 said:

I have, and the fact that you and I both have heard of them is in fact proof that there are people willing to complain when you rip them off... 

And yet...the seller in question, "all_things_comics", maintains a 100% feedback rating on eBay....

https://comic-book-information.blogspot.com/2012/06/scammer-named-aram-shirinyan.html

 

...which, according to this statement here:

12 minutes ago, wiparker824 said:

you don’t sell thousands of high-dollar books thru eBay a year and have 0 negative or neutral feedback while routinely ripping people off... 

(emphasis added)

...is impossible.

[James J Johnson]

46 minutes ago, wiparker824 said:

Where exactly are you pulling this number from?......

Why, we all have a place to pull these numbers from. A veritable supposi…….er', repository to pull these numbers from, as though out of nowhere.

[wiparker824]

10 minutes ago, RockMyAmadeus said:

And yet...the seller in question, "all_things_comics", maintains a 100% feedback rating on eBay....

https://comic-book-information.blogspot.com/2012/06/scammer-named-aram-shirinyan.html

 

...which, according to this statement here:

(emphasis added)

...is impossible.

The last comments in that thread from about a year ago mentioned he was now listing restoration in description on restored books... and based on his feedback in the past year being all positive that sounds about right to me. 

As for what the seller did in what 2012? On a different username, well, it looks like there were plenty of complaints about that - again proving the point that if you do actually routinely rip people off for high-dollar books you will get complaint and people will leave negative and neutral reviews.

[RockMyAmadeus]

4 minutes ago, James J Johnson said:

Why, we all have a place to pull these numbers from. A veritable supposi…….er', repository to pull these numbers from, as though out of nowhere.

"A research study conducted by TARP research back in 1999 discovered that on average an unhappy customer will tell 10 people about their experience. In turn, these 10 people will each tell a further 5 people, meaning that a total of 50 people will have heard about their bad experience. A sobering thought, wouldn’t you say?

What’s even more frightening, however, is that if we work on the basis that only one out of every ten of your dissatisfied customers registers a complaint with you, then in total, for every formal complaint you receive, 500 people will have heard about your customers’ problems!"

http://marketresearchworld.net/content/view/1617/74/

"Only 1 out of 26 unhappy customers complain. The rest churn. A lesson here is that companies should not view absence of feedback as a sign of satisfaction. The true enemy is indifference."

https://www.huffpost.com/entry/50-important-customer-exp_b_8295772?guccounter=1

My "1 out of 5-10", then, was a generous estimate based on those customer service industry numbers.

Always remembering that "complaint" in these cases means complaining to the business that can actually resolve the complaint...not one's spouse, co-worker, or friend.

[porcupine48]

22 minutes ago, James J Johnson said:

Why, we all have a place to pull these numbers from. A veritable supposi…….er', repository to pull these numbers from, as though out of nowhere.

There's a Uranus joke in here somewhere

Edited August 7, 2019 by porcupine48

[Microchip]

7 minutes ago, wiparker824 said:

The last comments in that thread from about a year ago mentioned he was now listing restoration in description on restored books... and based on his feedback in the past year being all positive that sounds about right to me. 

As for what the seller did in what 2012? On a different username, well, it looks like there were plenty of complaints about that - again proving the point that if you do actually routinely rip people off for high-dollar books you will get complaint and people will leave negative and neutral reviews.

It's almost a board's right of passage, getting burned by Dupcak.   

If you don't receive a threatening email, with a picture of a roid freak in it, you're no one! 

[RockMyAmadeus]

On 10/17/2014 at 7:16 PM, BlowUpTheMoon said:

Diamonddave said:

Since then all-things-comics have started disclosing resto in the body of SOME of their listings.

 

That used to be robojo's MO too.

 

[kav]

25 minutes ago, James J Johnson said:

Why, we all have a place to pull these numbers from. A veritable supposi…….er', repository to pull these numbers from, as though out of nowhere.

You can find a "study" to support any position you like, including that the Earth is flat an we never landed on the Moon.  

[James J Johnson]

1 minute ago, kav said:

You can find a "study" to support any position you like, including that the Earth is flat an we never landed on the Moon.  

My favorite theory about all we can observe is that it's all a simulation! Including us and our ability to do so.

[RockMyAmadeus]

12 minutes ago, wiparker824 said:

The last comments in that thread from about a year ago mentioned he was now listing restoration in description on restored books... and based on his feedback in the past year being all positive that sounds about right to me. 

As for what the seller did in what 2012? On a different username, well, it looks like there were plenty of complaints about that - again proving the point that if you do actually routinely rip people off for high-dollar books you will get complaint and people will leave negative and neutral reviews.

From the first page of this very thread:

Quote

This eBay seller does sell a lot of restored books. Amateur Color Touch and Trims. But he lists a lot of books unrestored. He has a 14 day return period and eBay Buyer Protection gives you 45 days of protection for item not as described. His feedback is 100%, which means he is taking returns and refunding money

(emphasis added)

from the 3rd & 4th page:

Quote

Quote

 

Since then all-things-comics have started disclosing resto in the body of SOME of their listings.

 

 

That used to be robojo's MO too.

 

 

...that was from 2014, 5 years ago.

But if you want to believe that "all_things_comics" has since cleaned up their act, based on nothing other than the fact that they have "100% positive feedback on eBay", and "you don’t sell thousands of high-dollar books thru eBay a year and have 0 negative or neutral feedback while routinely ripping people off", despite the fact that well known fraudsters could go YEARS with perfectly positive feedback, happily ripping customers off left and right....well....

Good luck!

[James J Johnson]

15 minutes ago, porcupine48 said:

There's a Uranus joke in here somewhere

Goes with the territory.

[RockMyAmadeus]

7 minutes ago, kav said:

You can find a "study" to support any position you like, including that the Earth is flat an we never landed on the Moon.  

You can...? Got a link...? To a real study, not conspiracy theorist websites. You know...like the TARP study I linked, which was conducted by TARP, and sponsored by the US Office of Consumer Affairs, now the Bureau of Consumer Protection, a division of the Federal Trade Commission of the US Dept. of Commerce, which I think might be a credible source...?

 

[wiparker824]

27 minutes ago, RockMyAmadeus said:

"A research study conducted by TARP research back in 1999 discovered that on average an unhappy customer will tell 10 people about their experience. In turn, these 10 people will each tell a further 5 people, meaning that a total of 50 people will have heard about their bad experience. A sobering thought, wouldn’t you say?

What’s even more frightening, however, is that if we work on the basis that only one out of every ten of your dissatisfied customers registers a complaint with you, then in total, for every formal complaint you receive, 500 people will have heard about your customers’ problems!"

http://marketresearchworld.net/content/view/1617/74/

"Only 1 out of 26 unhappy customers complain. The rest churn. A lesson here is that companies should not view absence of feedback as a sign of satisfaction. The true enemy is indifference."

https://www.huffpost.com/entry/50-important-customer-exp_b_8295772?guccounter=1

My "1 out of 5-10", then, was a generous estimate based on those customer service industry numbers.

Always remembering that "complaint" in these cases means complaining to the business that can actually resolve the complaint...not one's spouse, co-worker, or friend.

From the article:

“Let’s imagine you go out for dinner with a loved one or friends. As the night progresses, it becomes clear that the service at the restaurant is not as slick as you would have liked, and the food is ok but nothing out of this world. Despite the restaurant’s shortcomings, when the waitress comes over at the end of your meal and asks, ‘Did you enjoy your meal?’ what do you say? I’m not a betting woman, but my money would be on you responding with something along the lines of ‘It was lovely, thank you.’ Why? Because: most people feel they will ruin a lovely evening by complaining; its generally too late to do anything about it anyway, so what’s the point; and most people don’t like to complain face to face because it feels confrontational.”

Do you really think a study of this sort of situation is at all relevant to buying collectibles on eBay? You didn’t like your food and are too polite and don’t want face to face confrontation with a waiter is a bit different than someone selling you a restored book as unrestored and eBay prompting you for feedback on it. If you really think these are at all the same thing... well...

Good luck!

Edited August 7, 2019 by wiparker824

[RockMyAmadeus]

14 minutes ago, wiparker824 said:

From the article:

“Let’s imagine you go out for dinner with a loved one or friends. As the night progresses, it becomes clear that the service at the restaurant is not as slick as you would have liked, and the food is ok but nothing out of this world. Despite the restaurant’s shortcomings, when the waitress comes over at the end of your meal and asks, ‘Did you enjoy your meal?’ what do you say? I’m not a betting woman, but my money would be on you responding with something along the lines of ‘It was lovely, thank you.’ Why? Because: most people feel they will ruin a lovely evening by complaining; its generally too late to do anything about it anyway, so what’s the point; and most people don’t like to complain face to face because it feels confrontational.”

Do you really think a study of this sort of situation is at all relevant to buying collectibles on eBay? You didn’t like your food and are too polite and don’t want face to face confrontation with a waiter is a bit different than someone selling you a restored book as unrestored and eBay prompting you for feedback on it. If you really think these are at all the same thing... well...

Good luck!

There are principles that are universal in humans. A general reticence to complain...whether it is about bad food and service, or bad service on eBay....is one of them.

All_things_comics has learned how to game the system, and learned it years ago. Let me show you another piece of evidence for that:

That revised feedback is neutral/negative feedback that all_things_comics managed to convince buyers to revise...almost certainly by bribing them to do so.

Despite the claim, it is perfectly possible to maintain 100% positive feedback while routinely ripping people off. This seller counts on two very specific things to accomplish this:

1. Many, many buyers are simply ignorant that they've been sold something that isn't as decribed; and 

2. The ones who figure it out hesitate to complain, because of the reasons I listed at the beginning of this discussion. I can only imagine the florid messages the seller sends: "Oh, I'm SO SO sorry I missed that! Please return it right away, and I'll give you a FULL refund, including return shipping! This has never happened before, but I guess nobody's perfect!"

Voila.

Edited August 7, 2019 by RockMyAmadeus

[lizards2]

5 hours ago, kav said:

You can find a "study" to support any position you like, including that the Earth is flat an we never landed on the Moon.  

[Gaard]

I've always believed (incorrectly?) that the FB percentage was based on the past 12 months...not the total FB received over the years. Is this right?

[wiparker824]

6 hours ago, RockMyAmadeus said:

There are principles that are universal in humans. A general reticence to complain...whether it is about bad food and service, or bad service on eBay....is one of them.

All_things_comics has learned how to game the system, and learned it years ago. Let me show you another piece of evidence for that:

That revised feedback is neutral/negative feedback that all_things_comics managed to convince buyers to revise...almost certainly by bribing them to do so.

Despite the claim, it is perfectly possible to maintain 100% positive feedback while routinely ripping people off. This seller counts on two very specific things to accomplish this:

1. Many, many buyers are simply ignorant that they've been sold something that isn't as decribed; and 

2. The ones who figure it out hesitate to complain, because of the reasons I listed at the beginning of this discussion. I can only imagine the florid messages the seller sends: "Oh, I'm SO SO sorry I missed that! Please return it right away, and I'll give you a FULL refund, including return shipping! This has never happened before, but I guess nobody's perfect!"

Voila.

Lol, okay. Let me fill you in on what’s happened since 1999 and your “study” entire websites and huge companies like Yelp have launched and are widely used because it is in fact very different. Leaving feedback behind the anonymity of the internet the next day is much different than ruining your night and having a face-to-face confrontation with a waiter in a restaurant. People are conditioned now to leaving feedback online, positive and negative. It’s a very different world than 1999 with that regard. We do it on everything - from movies we see on rottentomatoes to products we buy on Amazon. The fact that you’re still living in the 40’s where people don’t complain online, well I can’t help you with that, but the rest of us don’t live in that world. 

Secondly people are less likely to complain about bad service (what all your articles focus on) than being ripped off. These also are very different, and shouldn’t need explaining... I agree that some buyers won’t catch you or are ignorant to the purchased item not being as described, and you may get away with it for a bit and you may be able to convince a couple revised comments but eventually you’ll be hit with negative and neutral feedback. And it usually happens well before thousands of purchases have been made over the course of a year.

To your second point, no, people who figure it out don’t hesitate due to the reasons you listed. Those reasons don’t make any sense. Your reasons were: 

1) it’s not worth their time

- it is actually, it takes 2 seconds on a book you paid hundreds or thousands on.

2) they don’t want to burn a bridge

-lol this is my favorite one, like people want to keep a “bridge” of a random eBay seller that scammed them around. For what purpose? So they can work with them later on to scam others? So they can buy from them in the future and get scammed more? No. People are more than willing to burn a bridge of a seller that scammed them.

3) they don’t want to be thought of as a complainer

-thought of by who exactly? Again this gets into you’re still living in the 40’s where feedback happens face to face, but on eBay, where you’re pretty anonymous people don’t mind at all about what people think of them in general. If you’ve scammed the person they mind even less about what your opinion of them is.

4) they don’t want people complaining about them

-again who are these people you’re speaking of? And if they’re complaining about me complaining about being ripped off they’re not people I care about in the first place. Again this feeds more into live 1on1 feedback where you don’t complain to your waiter because you’re afraid they’ll be complaining about you after you leave. It’s not relevant at all to this situation.

Lastly I’m not advising anyone to buy or not buy from this user. All I’m saying is the feedback doesn’t represent someone who has been recently (past 12 months) ripping people off, and typically it does when this happens. 

[october]

8 hours ago, wiparker824 said:

you don’t sell thousands of high-dollar books thru eBay a year and have 0 negative or neutral feedback while routinely ripping people off... 

There are multiple sellers that manage this, and have for years. It's really not that hard, provided you are ok living with a moral compass shattered beyond repair. 

[Krismusic]

I think the general point that is trying to be made here is that yes there are sometimes complaints registered on E bay through negative or neutral feedback but its not a really true representation of the issues that occur whether they be resolved or not or are rip offs etc.. Not everyone will complain is the point being made here. So we should be weary of cautious about the Negative or neutral feedback of some sellers . 

[Logan510]

I know I've kept it to myself as opposed to complaining.

I've even left positive feedback for transactions I was not happy with and just never did business with them again.

I recognize that as a fault and have worked to correct it.