eBay trials and tribulations

Hello, so today I spent a large proportion of my time musing the correct etiquette for eBay.  I’ve been a fan and a user for some time now and some of my favourite pieces have been picked up from there, but there is always the dilemma of feedback.  Now I’m very much the, instant payment instant feedback sort of girl, however there seems to a be a growing trend of “I’m not leaving it until you do” and this can often lead to a kind of stalemate.  I recently bought a cropped blouse which was described as being “in perfect vintage condition” which can mean two things:  either it is in fact not vintage at all and has had its brand new high street labels cut out just that morning, or, more often than not, it is genuine vintage but in such terrible condition that it takes a lot of work to form it into something sellable.  This item was the latter.  It wasn’t a cropped blouse it was in fact a shirt that had been clumsily hand sewn at the bottom using the technique of what can only be described as a rusty spoon ramming wool through holes.  It was awful.  So as you can imagine it took a lot of work to try and salvage it, I had to unpick the stitching which was so knotted in places I thought I was going to rip the poor thing to shreds.  Then there was the laborious task of measuring, cutting and re-sewing it into a piece that I was happy to sell.  Seeing as it took ten days to arrive from Durham to Cambridge I wasn’t going to give it a glowing review, however, as a fellow ebayer I decided to hold back.  I simply put, “not exactly as described but a lovely piece nonetheless” how restrained of me, I thought, how generous.  Not according to the seller, “don’t expect feedback after that” was the message they sent me.  Now, I have been using eBay long enough to know that a standard positive feedback comment goes something along the lines of: ~*~*~*A+ super star ebayer~*~*~*would recommend J J….etc etc so I know that mine was a little shorter than they probably expected, but surely they must have realised that what they sent out was not “in perfect vintage condition” apparently not.  After a week or so of emails I managed to get a feedback comment of “paid invoice”…WOW.  Thanks.  So, a warning to all eBay fans out there.  Unless you want a lengthy battle, often ending in bitterness and bad feedback (is there anything worse? ) just put feedback of, “would deal with again” and carry on living your life.  I’m currently in a stalemate situation over an item that was described as “over sized granddad jumper” hmmm size 6, over sized for an eight year old wasn’t exactly what I had in mind.  I’ll let you know how I get on.