Don't sell on ebay. The best you can hope for is to mitigate the instances of the headache.
Dear Xxxxx,
I did play the cart for a few minutes with no problems, so I'm sorry you are encountering them. Ship it to XXXXXXXXX. As soon as I can confirm it is the same cart, I will issue you a full refund as well as the price of first class return shipping.
I wish you the best of luck in finding a 20 year old used SNES cart with a fully working battery in the future!
-me
The bolded part is unnecessary and snarky. My SNES carts all still have working batteries (as I discovered when I booted up SoM & FFVI and saw save files from Jr. High), and even though batteries are going to start failing the way you worded that could very easily get you some bad feedback. A better way to put it would be "We're reaching a point where batteries on SNES carts are starting to fail, so you should look to see if the seller has specifically tested the battery functions."
Blizzard Entertainment Software Developer - All comments and views are my own and not representative of the company.
Yeah, that last part of your message to the buyer sounds a little passive-aggressive to me, Dave. From all Fragems' horror stories, it seems like you basically have to give buyers a happy ending (yeah, that kind) these days or risk the wrath of the Bay. Hope it works out, though!
One of the last games I purchased on eBay was Ogre Battle. Dead battery. I just chalked it up to "shit happens, it's an old game" and didn't contact the seller. I guess I didn't even realize returning it was a possibility. The description said "tested" which I generally take to mean "the title screen appears okay." I'll replace the battery someday or hell, I guess I could just use Retron 5 save states now.
Dave, everyone is different when it comes to expectations. If you plan on selling on ebay, expect to have an added cost of "customer satisfaction", because the policies have become such that you can't win as a seller in any case.
I think you did the right thing but, it would have pissed me off to have that snarky comment at the end come back to me. Especially considering he was completely considerate in his correspondence and gave you the opportunity to avoid a major headache by him skipping you altogether and opening a case (he could have if he was a dick).
Beyond all that, I will say that even selling here on Racketboy I have had one or two issues with people not getting what they might have expected and I simply sent a refund...no questions asked. Of course I trust people here a lot more...but it is simply the easiest, best, least painful experience for both you and the buyer, to eat a few bucks. If it shouldn't be a big deal for him, then why should it be a big deal for you? I realize we probably won't see eye to eye on that, but it's my two cents as someone who has sold and bought a lot on ebay with little problems. The guy may not have known about "save batteries" or their problem with age. It isn't common knowledge for everyone that plays games. These days cards hold a save without a battery, you know?
Last edited by jp1 on Mon Aug 11, 2014 6:48 pm, edited 1 time in total.
For what it's worth, I've not had a game's save battery fail on me yet outside of the original game boy pokémon games (which are notorious for it). I'm not looking forward to when they all start dying on me!
MrPopo wrote:
The bolded part is unnecessary and snarky.
Super snarky at that. Dishwasher is snarky, playful, but to someone not used to his banter I agree that the last sentence makes him sound like a punk.
But W.
At the end of the day the game was listed as acceptable, and the buyer didn't find it to be so. Dish took care of the matter, so hamburgers. (That's lingo for beef being squasrhed. Sqaurshed is lingo for squashed).
Moving on...
Ticked: I'm all out of thyme.
Not kidding or trying to make a pun. I'm grilling syrup glazed salmon and I am all out of thyme.
TSTR wrote:Yeah, that last part of your message to the buyer sounds a little passive-aggressive to me, Dave. From all Fragems' horror stories, it seems like you basically have to give buyers a happy ending (yeah, that kind) these days or risk the wrath of the Bay. Hope it works out, though!
That's why most ebay sellers now operate out of Nevada (but not inside Clark and Reno county); it's legal there.
Blizzard Entertainment Software Developer - All comments and views are my own and not representative of the company.
Dear Xxxxx,
I did play the cart for a few minutes with no problems, so I'm sorry you are encountering them. Ship it to XXXXXXXXX. As soon as I can confirm it is the same cart, I will issue you a full refund as well as the price of first class return shipping.
I wish you the best of luck in finding a 20 year old used SNES cart with a fully working battery in the future!
-me
The bolded part is unnecessary and snarky. My SNES carts all still have working batteries (as I discovered when I booted up SoM & FFVI and saw save files from Jr. High), and even though batteries are going to start failing the way you worded that could very easily get you some bad feedback. A better way to put it would be "We're reaching a point where batteries on SNES carts are starting to fail, so you should look to see if the seller has specifically tested the battery functions."
a better way to put it would have been to exercise some restraint at venting your frustrations and leaving it out entirely. believe you me, i have wanted to tell SO MANY ebay buyers to fuck off forever and that i wished their families would be forced, eyes held open a la Clockwork Orange, to watch them burn in a lake comprised of a mixture of diarrhea and lighter fluid. but i haven't. and i have pretty good ebay feedback as a result of that restraint.
