Preventing Goofy Buyers - Ebay Banned Buyer's List
This wekeend, I had an odd exchange on ebay. Someone who messaged me before looking for bargains I guess. They waited for my fixed price listing on ebay to expire, then sent me a message saying "i'm interested in this stone". A run of the mill prefinisher, some suita that I can't recall the mine name - i believe it is shoubu but if it has no stamp i'm not making claims. Anyway, I don't see it as appropriate for razor finishing, so I listed it as a prefinisher (aoto substitute kind of thing). Not a fabulous stone, but a very good prefinisher, and about 2 pounds for $65, or roughly 2/3rds of what I bought it for from fujibato (who also didn't claim it was a finisher)
So I relist it figuring the guy probably had a 50/50 chance of buying it, but I'd relist it sooner or later (after the ad expires on here - ebay seems to have gotten stricter about taking ads down that can sell elsewhere). Later in the day, this doofus guy sends me some odd message back saying that he thought that $65 plus USPS shipping was too much to risk on an untested stone and that I was possibly untrustworthy and that he couldn't take such a risk (I have plenty of experience to know what I'm selling, and plently lack of untrustworthiness). I figured he was some kind of boob, so I sent him a message back that said politely "if you think that $65 is a lot to risk on a two pound stone from one of the kyoto mines, you probably shouldn't be looking at japanese natural stones" and warned him that it was not a finisher and that it was probably appropriate for a pretty narrow group of users that doesn't include beginners. I then added him to my banned buyers list to make sure he didn't buy the stone because that seemed like a risk to me.
I really don't know what his objective was when he said he was interested in the stone, because that's all he said. He didn't say "i'm interested in the stone, but for less money" or "i'm interested in the stone, and I want to buy it offline for less money". I suspect one of those two may have been his objective. Maybe he was expecting me to just give it away to him, I don't know.
He got all fouled up, told me that he had bought several japanese stones and he was a professional razor honer with a "service" and he'd never talk to customers the way I talked to him :) He also threatened that he wouldn't be buying the stone from me (that was predetermined by that time).
I sent him one more pointed comment that selling things to anyone with money at any cost was not my first priority. I don't talk to people differently if I think they're a customer, I think that's disingenuous for a hobbyist like me to see people as money mouths and put on a fake face for them.
In my estimation, there is a 2% tax on ebay that is not an above the line item, and that is time and sale to idiots, or people who send you messages like "why is this stone so expensive, I don't know about it but I want it at a lower price".
The only other individual on my banned buyer's list (over 15 years) is someone from NY who bought an escher from me and then two weeks later got really cold about it because his wife found out he bought it. He demanded to send it back, said "his wife wasn't satisfied with it" and said he'd get paypal involved. Of course, I took it back. He had a garbage reason, but I don't need any trouble on ebay or anywhere else. I don't fight with buyers after the fact, I just try to keep the goofs from buying anything in the first place.
That is completely and totally different than selling something and having the buyer just generally not get the jones they expected to when they use it. In that case, I'm more than happy to take something back. Maybe it wasn't as good as I thought it was, or maybe someone else would rather have it. I'm glad to take stuff like that back, why should someone be unreasonably unhappy?
I am still puzzled as to why someone would think $65 is a big risk for a two pound suita. I've been pretty good at avoiding the 2% dummy tax, and glad this occurred before a sale and not after.
