eBay purchase weirdness

[fenchurch]

I've had an account at eBay since 1996, and have had only positive experiences so far... and this one may not wind up being bad, but it's the first time anything has ever gone wrong. I bought a large Tupperware tumbler and sandwich keeper (don't care about the sandwich keeper, but I really wanted the tumbler) a week or so ago. A package arrived from the seller today and right away there seemed to be something wrong. For one thing, the tumbler I bought is a huge 30 ounce one, and the package was a standard Priority Mail box, without a tell-tale bulge.

I just opened it up, and it's a Tupperware kid's cup and sandwich keeper... NOT what I bought, by a long shot. Now, I just checked out at the seller's site, and s/he's got several of these up for auction right now, so I suspect s/he just got my package mixed up with someone else. I've sent off an email asking about it and am now waiting to hear back... but this is the first time in ten years that I've ever had anything go even remotely wrong with an eBay purchase, so it's got me a bit nervous.

Comments

[matt1969.livejournal.com]

The very first time I bought something the seller sent the wrong item. He was very apologetic, let me keep the first item - which was a similar magazine - and then sent out the correct item FOC.

I've also had a photo lost in the mail. The seller sent out another one asap.

But this is why I always read feedback comments before buying. You can get a slightly better idea of whether or not the error is genuine.

[fenchurche.livejournal.com]

This seller actually has very good feedback, which is why I suspect it's just a mix-up... still, it's the first real snag I've run into.

Well, not quite true... now that I think of it, I did have one seller who wound up not actually having the item in question, was very apologetic and sent me a refund immediately. So, a somewhat bad experience, but it was all taken care of so quickly that I never had time to worry about it.

[matt1969.livejournal.com]

And how do you list something you don't have? I always have the item by me as I list it, so I can weigh it, take a look over it, etc.

[fenchurche.livejournal.com]

Well, I could sort of understand in his case... he ran a brick and mortar store, and it turned out (or at least he claimed) one of his employees had sold the item, not realizing it was up for auction. The way I figured it, he'd refunded quickly enough (quite literally within half an hour of my payment going through) and apologized enough that it really didn't matter. The timing was such that I'm guessing he got the notice for the payment, went to get the item to package and spent the next half hour trying to figure out what happened to it. :-p

Still no word back on the mistaken Tupperware item, though. :-(