Before I start to relate my worst eBay experience, I want to make it clear that I always deliberately buy from eBay sellers with a high positive rating, so I count myself lucky; people actually had worser experience on eBay.
The most recent trouble I ran into on eBay is when I bought a pair of hair straightener/iron from a Singaporean seller. From my experience, Singaporean sellers are reliable, and usually don't mind pressing inquiries (I do this all the time). This seller was no different: she was helpful, and I say this because I sought her out first for the said product, and she dealt with me professionally, which is all very well. Soon after, I placed the order and she proceed to deliver it.
A few days after it has been marked as dispached, I tried the tracking code, but it does not work. This usually doesn't bother me, because tracking codes generally take a few days to update, but I was a bit nervous seeing as it is from Singapore, it should not take them that long. I waited another three days and tried again and again it did not work. Something's wrong.
I contacted the seller immediately and relayed my concern, and she got back to me pretty quickly and had a check at SingPost. From there on it's nightmare. I waited nervously for a week while she updated me, SingPost trying to trace it...then, BAM! Apparently it was lost somewhere in the Singaporean postal system.
Thank goodness she's a reasonable seller and told me she'll send me another one...directly from Hong Kong, using EMS as insuranced delivery. Actually, she's not just reasonable, she's pretty awesome to do so much!
She definitity will get 100% positive rating from me.
Another experience which left me feeling quite angry is a seller from Canada. I bought a concealer wheel from the said seller, but it was never marked as posted...until it landed on my doorstep.
I've always avoided buying from US/Canada sellers, because if they're not extremely helpful, they're extremely rude. Plus, I have no idea why shipping from across the world never have any problems (aside from the one mentioned above), but shipping from across the Atlantic is like shipping into the Bermuda Triangle. The item usually end up:
lost,
damaged, or
take ages to arrive in bad condition.
Seriously, I've only had one good experience with shipping across the Atlantic so far, so you should understand my standpoint.
I seek out the seller and relayed my concern. It's not taken very well and I received a very rude reply.
I gave him 80% negative rating.
Nowadays, I rarely buy from eBay but from smaller, more reliable self-run webstores.
