@amigadave: ah, you've yet to feel the frustration of dealing with an irrational buyer under this new system of "no negatives for buyers". In the past, buyers had to think very carefully before giving negs. Now they seem to be doing it at the drop of a hat and unfairly.
My mother recently sold a brand-new pair of Levi 501 jeans. The jeans were a labeled as 30inchs and so, naturally, she listed them as such. Anyway, some guy purchased 'em for £2.50 (a steal) and later contacted her saying they were too small for him. He claimed he had measured the waist himself and they were around 28inchs, not 30inches as described on the label. Anyway, he demanded a FULL refund, including delivery and return postage costs. This would have put my mother £8 out of pocket. She kindly refused and he gave her a negative. Totally unfair.
Just think about that, what was his basis for wanting a refund? That my mother didn't think to measure the jeans with a tape-measure? Of course she didn't, she listed them as described on the label. My mother is not a retail outlet, and she certainly isn't a dishonest person trying to "rip people off". She's just an individual selling the occasional item to make a little extra cash.
I think this new system is going to make selling on eBay a complete nightmare. People are going to give negatives for the most trivial of things and make unreasonable demands on sellers.
These types of people should not be purchasing on eBay. They should stick to retail outlets, particularly when it comes to items like clothing where they should really be tried on before purchase. If I were to buy cloths off eBay, I'd have the sense to realize that the _exact_ fit of the item is a game of roulette before you actually get to try them on and would not expect someone who listed "as described" to cough-up full postal refunds because I decided something was a "tad too tight around the waist"!
Yet this is the type of thing many private sellers are going to face from now on on eBay and if they don't meet buyer's petty expectations they'll get instant negatives.
