Most annoying buyer ever!

$10 item sells and ships out on Jan. 17th. I told the buyer it can take between 4 - 8 weeks to arrive to their country (Sri Lanka) so wait until March 17th latest. I told buyer if it doesn't arrive by then, I'll give them a full refund. She has messaged me 14 times now in the past 4 weeks asking me when it's arriving, she still didn't get it, tracking number doesn't show any updates, still didn't get it, when is it arriving, where is it, tracking isn't updating, is it coming, where is it, I still didn't get it, etc etc ....each time I told her wait until the March 13th. It's economy air mail with partial tracking. It doesn't show you exact details of where it's at it, when it's coming to you. It only shows when it was shipped out.

My goodness, this woman is a worry wart. I had a feeling 24 hours after I sold it to her, she was going to be trouble with all her messages but by that time it was too late.

This is why I think again, buyer's should have a performance rating too. Other sellers should be able to be warned about buyers like this who harass sellers for simply waiting for shipment. What exactly am I going to be able to do for her about the shipment? It's shipped out and it's going there. All anyone can do is wait for it to arrive. If it doesn't arrive, I refund her. Sorry for the rant, but I want to avoid buyers like this like the plague but there is no way for us poor sellers to know. I know she's going to give me a negative no matter what happens now and she'll probably leave all 1 star. She's completely unreasonable and there's nothing I can do about it except just give her a refund AND let her keep the item. Cheesus.

And just give some perspective, I have a 99.8% positive feedback rating (which these days don't mean anything cuz it's all about seller performance ratings), only 2 negatives of which 1 was a mistake admitted by the buyer but they didn't revise the feedback rating even though they told me they would LOL. Ebay didn't bother to reverse it either).

Its annoying, but its ten bucks. Refund her and move on.

it meaning u r not for customer services.... u have poor patience & attitudes.... u shoot not be sellers

Be patient with your customer. If you think $10 is not a big deal then give them a refund. It improves trust and make them buy from you again

DreamWorkz said:

it meaning u r not for customer services.... u have poor patience & attitudes.... u shoot not be sellers

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Dude..he already mentioned when it is arriving. So he should just stop his work and keep replying to her every single time?

I would shut her mouth by giving refund. Rather than waiting for negative review come

There are such buyers. I had also faced such issues and it is very annoying after certain level.

oatmeal said:

$10 item sells and ships out on Jan. 17th. I told the buyer it can take between 4 - 8 weeks to arrive to their country (Sri Lanka)

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Why are you even selling something that takes 8 weeks to arrive? There's just so many things that can go wrong with this scenario...

Does your estimated arrival date on your listing match up what you are telling her?
8 weeks is super long but there's nothing really wrong with that if that's really what your listing promises.
If that's what your listing says, then just tell her that, but if it doesn't, then there is an issue.

Sometimes you get crazy customers like this and honestly, I've refunded people and lost money just to save the time and stress.
There's been times I've literally wasted more time then the money was worth just trying to reason with certain individuals.
You have to decide what's worth more to you and your business on a case by case basis.

Regardless, if you provide good customer service and you word your responses properly you can usually avoid negative feedback.
How you word your responses is way more important then you could ever imagine.
When I first started eBay 7 years ago I would have customers flip on me out of nowhere and I had no idea why.
Now I know it was because my responses often could have been understood in 2 different ways and because I lacked experience in customer service, it took me a while to realize it.

There are people who are like that. Send her the refund after March 17th if she still doesn't get it. Overseas shipping should at least take 2-3 weeks to arrive and not longer than that. It would already be at the customer's risk if they still decide to make a purchase with a time frame like that to arrive at their doorstep.

I hate buyers like this. The last time I had a buyer like this, I've refund his payment and told him to never try my services again.

UPDATE: First, the item arrived to her about a couple days after this message (Feb.22), so it was there in just about 5 weeks.
So all those useless messages was just her being a worry wart. Next, the good news is she was happy when it arrived so she didn't leave me a
negative (which would have been completely unfair).

Next, I don't use the global shipping program so please don't assume that international orders from the USA to anywhere in the world should only take
1 week. I'm sorry but that is not the norm. Anyone who has shipped overseas via economy air mail knows that it can take anywhere between 2-8 weeks sometimes
even longer. I do state in all my listings "economy" shipping. For some reason, ebay decides to just post their own estimated arrival time EVEN BEFORE i shipped it out.
The service I use arrives on average 2-4 weeks. But there are those cases in certain countries where it seems to take much longer. Some of it is most likely due to customs.
They will hold packages for up to 30 days (I don't know why) to release it. So I've had plenty of people get theirs on the 7th, 8th and beyond. I always place a limit to 8 weeks max since that is what the dropshipper also does before I can get a refund. So it's not unusual, it's not strange or weird. It's quite normal for economy/regular air mail shipping.

It's funny when people think its "my" service when all I'm doing is placing an order on another site and they are the ones shipping it out for me (hence dropshipping) . Of course, as the seller, I'm responsible for whatever happens to the shipping, but let's make that clear distinction that when you question me and the timeframe of these shipments, it's not actually me, but you are questioning some of the largest shipping services in the world lol. I agree with you. Why do these shipping services (household names) take this long to ship sometimes? I bet it's not even their fault too. It's when it gets in the country and depending on what country that is, they have different regulations on what is allowed in and not, and how long to hold packages before releasing it or maybe never.

I should also note that MOST of the long shipping times happens once it arrives in the country. It usually only takes about 1 week or so for it to arrive in their country. But after that point, it takes 4-6 weeks more for them to deliver it for some reason I can't figure out why.

don't deal with this type of people, avoid headaches and more issues in the future, just refund his/her money and move along man

You refund him and do not allow him to purchase products from you again.

AlibabaSeller said:

don't deal with this type of people, avoid headaches and more issues in the future, just refund his/her money and move along man

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Did you even read his last post?

I've gotten picky with some clients over the years as well.

A few red lights for me would be:
If they want to "help out" in order to reduce the amount of time/money it'll take me to get the job done.
If they email me and then call immediately afterwards, multiple times a day, to find out if I've received their email.
If they want to "meet up" every time they want a new change or addition.
If they are constantly requesting "quick changes" that were not in the agreed upon scope.

It doesn't hurt to just say no sometimes. You'll feel better about it.

I understand where you are coming from. I do like the idea of the buyers having a rating as well. This would solve a lot of problems about sellers worrying so much.

Save yourself from stress and avoid working with these people as soon as you spot them. It's the 80-20 rule, 20% of customers will create 80% of the problems. Ditch the 20% and value your own time more than theirs.

hacko said:

Save yourself from stress and avoid working with these people as soon as you spot them. It's the 80-20 rule, 20% of customers will create 80% of the problems. Ditch the 20% and value your own time more than theirs.

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It's easier said than done. How do you politely tell a customer you don't want to work with them, without escalating the situation? I for one haven't managed to figure it out. No matter how bad a customer might seem, you have no idea how insane they can get if you refuse them service. This "20%" is like nitroglycerin all they need is the slightest nudge to go berserk!

What I recommend is making it clear that you reply to emails within 2 business days (maybe in your contact form page) so you won't constantly have to be dealing with them. Additionally, you must keep in mind that the internet is the most competitive field in the world, and value a client who has chosen to give you their hard earned money, instead of giving it to someone else. At the end of the day you must treat the customer with a high priority if you wish to remain on top of the game.

I would do any of these,
1. Refund her and get my mind free from worrying
2. I would stop selling on ebay, instead i would start my own site (if niche was good enough to push forward)
3. Or increase price and always prefer fastest shipping

It is always heartbeating, when you sell low priced items to longer destinations with slower delivery

Simply competition in your niche, really killing you.