-GZ- said:
For the record..he had 100% feedback
Buyer complains about broken boombox. Ebay policy is that you can get your money back, if you send the item back, and provide proof of delivery via tracking. The ONLY way to get proof of delivery on international shipments is to probably use express mail, regardless of service used to ship to buyer. Anyone price the cost of express mail overseas? So to pay over 50% of the cost of a transaction (item + shipping), which likely equals or exceeds the entire cost of the boombox is not very attractive. Express mail to AU is like $650 on a large boombox. So seller agrees to a partial refund if the buyer leaves positive feedback first. Buyer figures this is a far better alternative than shipping the item back at big $$ loss. The reason the seller wants positive feedback first is that he does not want to voluntarily settle if he's gonna get negative anyhow. So everyone agrees, and the seller gets POSITIVE feedback. At this point, any resolution not involving paying a $250+ return shipping cost is looking good to the buyer.
That's how a negative is turned into a positive and the feedback score is often misleading.
So the 70 or 80% that I'm talking about is 70 or 80% arriving in good shape. The rest indicates mishaps that might not have been recorded.
For the record, I just looked at the sellers feedback and it's not what I would consider stellar. There were 5 neutrals in the past 12 months out of 95 feedbacks. That is NOT good. Check it out and you'll see that many of those neutrals are for GF-777's. Additionally, there are more neutrals beyond the last 12 months not factored in and 3 negatives -- 2 being for GF-777 sales. One buyer with 1378 feedbacks claimed his negative was the first he ever left.
As for the scenario I just described above, check this out........
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Very good products, seller helpful with resolving problems Member id 10dynamo86 ( Feedback Score Of 22) May-24-11 07:43
..........Follow-up by 10dynamo86 (Jun-03-11 15:35): Looks like I was tricked, I left positive feedback and have nothing left for me!
......................Vintage SHARP GF-777Z Stereo Boombox Ghettoblaster (#110678394493)
Now, I'm not trying to say the guy is a bum. Nobody has 100% negatives, so there are bound to be some good sales. Once again, all I'm saying is for my hard earned cash, I'm not gonna roll the dice and get a smashed boombox with a $250 shipping tag, then be encumbered with a decision whether or not to pay $200+ shipping to ship it back to get my money back on a $299 boombox or beg and hope for a partial refund so as not to be out or saddled with the return cost.
So I'm quoting Norm so it's seen twice!
Same thing happened to me though. With the same model! From the same country! Only, it happened to me 3 years ago! So nothing has changed. 
Way too much! And it'll never be perfect. But it's close. Hope you'll get yours sorted out. 
I know I have!
