for the record, ma'am

I recounted some of this story elsewhere, but now that I've received my first negative feedback on eBay/Half.com I need to give a more precise account. (Hey, I managed to go four years on eBay without having it come down to being forced to negative feedback for someone... and of course suffer the retaliation feedback.)

Obviously this is my side, but I'll try to stick to the official remarks that passed through Half.com.

I purchased a book, Unfinished Nation by Alan Brinkley, at Half.com from the seller known as mb20forlife. The order was placed on 27 March and confirmed on 30 March. The description was: "Condition: Very Good • Notes: third edition, volume II: from 1865, has some highlighting. CHEAPER THAN THE COLLEGE BOOKSTORE BY FAR."

Please note that the book was classified as Very Good.

Half.com has a fairly straightforward rating policy. In their easily accessible Help area there is a section called How do I rate Item Quality?. It lays out the guidelines for when a book may be rated as Very Good. These guidelines are: "Doesn't look brand new but has no easily noticeable damage to the cover, dust jacket included for hard covers, no missing pages, all pages undamaged (no creases or tears), no underlining/highlighting of text, no writing in margins, very minimal identifying marks inside cover, very minimal wear and tear (You would give it to a good friend as a gift) "

Now, obviously the book being sold by mb20forlife was already technically misidentified since it was identified as having "some highlighting," a no-no for the Very Good category. However, we all know that sometimes you have a book with no underlining, a clean cover, no creasing of pages, etc. but it does have something that keeps it from being in the next best category. Since the seller only described this highlighting, I assumed what I was buying was a book that was Very Good, except for this "some highlighting."

I received the book very promptly. However, there was definitely more wrong with it than "some highlighting." Granted, 'some' could mean anything, but throughout the book entire pages were highlighted, many colours of highlighters were used, there was underlining, pages were wrinkled (like clips had been on them), and the cover was grimy as well as scruffy around the edges. No big deal on the scruffiness, by the way, except Half.com does say 'has no easily noticeable damage to the cover.' That may be a borderline issue, so I'm willing to ignore it.

Anyway, it doesn't really matter to what degree the seller screwed up. The fact that the seller screwed up at all was important.

At this point, despite being disappointed in the book and feeling ripped off, I wasn't sure how to proceed. If I returned the book, by the time I could get another it would be too late for my purposes. So returning wasn't really an option, which meant I couldn't really give the seller a chance to 'make it right,' at least not in the financial sense.

However, I couldn't just blow it off — what about this seller's other potential customers? I've been chirping for years about the importance of good communication and using the feedback system appropriately. At the same time I've chosen to walk away from some less-than-what-was-promised sales just because it wasn't worth the risk of getting negative feedback in retaliation. We all know how it is.

But now I had enough feedback to eat any negatives and a clear enough case to pursue this. I decided to take Step One and contact the seller and see what we could resolve. Maybe there was just some miscommunication. The seller was new to Half.com; maybe they didn't understand the rating system and would offer an apology. And really, that's all I wanted. Since I was waiving the right to a refund with my need to keep the book in whatever condition, I mostly just wanted to alert the seller to my dissatisfaction and let them know that I felt obliged to submit negative feedback but wanted to give them a chance to pacify me with their acknowledgement of the mistake.

Restrained by a 250 character (I think?) limit, hence the terse brevity, I sent the following message through the Half.com 'report a problem' form:

'Some highlighting' doesn't equal entire pages marked in green. Rest of book isn't 'Very Good' (defined by as 'gift-quality for good friend'). Book has obviously seen frequent use. Item needed now so can't be returned, thus limiting the seller in making amends, I know. Yet I feel neg. feedback is necessary to warn other buyers. Solutions?

Once a seller makes a response, that's it. Half.com doesn't give either of you a way to contact each other further, so all that's left is taking it to feedback. This was the seller's response to me, through the form:

When studying for my American History II I highlighted the the parts I thought were crucial to doing well on the exams. But 'some highlighting' still means that the parts of book will be highlighted. To your question concerning the quality of the book, the books cover was mot missing and no pages were missing. This would give it the very good s a book. Finally I would like to add that this book was meant to be used as a college textbook like this is a 'very good' friend then they would understand that it is not the perfect quality of the book that counts, but the thought.

Obviously sellers are allowed a higher word limit. (Luckily this buyer has a website.) I'd like to address my problems with this response:

• Note that the seller has their own rating system that isn't in step with Half.com. To them, the existence of a cover and pages is enough to warrant a Very Good rating. For this comment alone, I'm glad I gave him the negative feedback. Even though I hate that I received negative feedback even though I did nothing wrong as a buyer. The seller simply doesn't understand the rating system. And unfortunately it doesn't look like this is likely to change.
• Next, the seller said the book was 'meant to be used as a college textbook.' Who said this? And what does that mean? Just because they used it as a textbook doesn't mean it has to be used as such. And although many used college textbooks are of poor quality, many aren't. (Just look around Half.com.) If the book is only meant to be serviceable for its content, then it needs to be marked as such. (And a book identified as an acceptable reading copy doesn't belong in the Very Good section.)
• The last line is priceless. If my 'good friend' (again, Half.com's definition) is of any count, apparently they're supposed to take what they get and like it, so there. Next Christmas I'm giving everyone balls of mud with decorative pipe cleaners stuck into them. It's the thought that counts. And actually, it is, and my friends would probably be delighted. But I think we're all savvy enough consumers to understand that 'You would give it to a good friend as a gift' means that it's pretty much going to meet the conditions Half.com described.
• Finally, there was no apology of any kind. I'm not one of those people who believes 'the customer is always right.' Anyone who works with the public would be the first to agree that the entitlement complex runs rampant in our society. :) But I do feel that when a customer is dissatisfied but not antagonistic the seller needs to first express regret that a problem has occured. Not to get all Miss Manners or anything, but my post emphasized solving the problem, whereas their post was defensive and unwilling to concede a problem. Not most people's favourite kind of seller.

So I left negative feedback. I wrote: "Said if cover/pages are there, book is Very Good. Doesn't know Half.com policy."

It's hard to say much in 80 characters, but I felt I was accurate and the feedback was useful to other buyers.

The seller responded with: "Described and meant to be a college book. They were mad it wasnt 'gift material' "

I don't think I was 'mad' but that's not important. And of course he missed the point. It was not described as a college book, and in any case a 'college book' doesn't have a different definition of quality from other books (or else Half.com would offer a separate rating system), and as seen in my feedback I made no mention of the whole 'gift quality for good friend' issue. The seller did not respond to my calling them on their erroneous definition of Very Good.

Then the seller left negative feedback for me in retaliation. This feedback was: "complained that the college book wasnt 'gift material' IT WAS MEANT FOR STUDYING."

Again, same issues. Misguided fixation on the gift-quality definition. Then this new information: 'it was meant for studying.' Says who? And how so? The worst textbook I ever had was a British Literature book full of underlining and highlighting. I found it very distracting when reading the stories. When buying textbooks I've noticed that almost no one marks up the parts I would mark up, if I were one of those people who benefitted from highlighting and such. So, if it was meant for studying, it was in the worst possible condition for me to study it.

But in the end, no matter what the seller thought, this book was sold as a Very Good book per Half.com's definition, with clean pages and cover and no underlining or wrinkles but some highlighting and something I'd feel comfortable giving to a good friend as a gift. It's unfortunate that the seller had something else in mind when he/she sold it, but Half.com doesn't support the telepathy plug-in. I didn't receive what I bought. I did receive negative feedback for being unhappy with my experience.

Photos of the book (sorry about the flash/no-flash effects):

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  Typical page with wrinkles, underlining, two colour highlighting
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  Typical highlighted page
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  Another typical highlighted page, in yellow
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  This highlighted page has some of the typically sloppy underlining
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  Just another example of highlighting so you can see I'm not kidding about the entire pages being done. At the time I quipped that I didn't know if I was more upset about the bad sale or that people are out there studying like this.
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  Cover grime.

I couldn't get a good picture of the cover since the light kept smoothing out the 'generally somewhat worn' look, if that makes sense. Plus I've had this book under a stack of other books for over a month, working on flattening out the cover and pages, so there's that too.

Do I hate this seller? Is this missive a vendetta? A bizarre obsession with decent customer service? Nah. I'm just verbose, and if you look around this site you'll see I'm a blogger and we like to express ourselves on our websites. I mean, it beats endless photos of one's cat, right? (Although I happily share those too!)

No, this page is mostly here so I have the satisfaction of telling my side. (Hey, if the seller wants to do a write up of their own, I'll be glad to link.) Also, I want sellers to feel comfortable when I'm their customer. I pay fast (usually within moments of an auction's close), I'm open-minded on problems so long as the seller is courteous and interested in a resolution, and as I said about a jillion words ago, I went four years without a negative feedback or feeling the need to leave one.

Best always, Shari