Resolved issue but buyer won't fix the negative review, business heavily affected

Business has been heavily effected by one particular buyer that I had an incident with. I admit i made a mistake, and accidentally sold a male gecko as a female and the problem was resolved as soon as I could possibly resolve it.
I needed money for moving, so I sold some of my geckos earlier than I really wanted, to help make ends meet. I sold many geckos before this, and never had an issue until one accident. I sent them the gecko they purchased, i didn’t see anything indicating that it was a male so I sold it as female. I’ve sold many geckos sexed correctly, this was the first time this has ever happened to me. Well apparently some time later they contact me upset because the gecko ‘has huge balls’, and I did not see this review until I had moved and settled into my new place I didn’t have internet or data on my phone between this time I had sold all my animals and didn’t think there would be issues because I’ve NEVER had a single issue with any animal I sold in the past, so when I saw it naturally I freaked out inside, knowing that review had been there for a while for everyone to see when I could do nothing about it in my current situation until I had internet back. I explained to them my side of the story, that I was without internet, apologized for the wait and we resolved the issue by refunding them the difference in male/female pricing. They seemed happy, but never revoked the reviews they left on ALL my platforms. And now I’m trying to sell my reptiles and because of this review I believe no one will buy from me again. I don’t even sell geckos anymore because of that one stupid mistake. There’s only one bad review on my page, and it was RESOLVED. PLEASE, update your review. I’ve resolved this issue and you were satisfied, and I’m a new business and it’s been extremely hard trying to get my business going again since covid and moving across country. Even the MorphMarket support emailed me asking me to let them know when I resolved the issue and I did, and they didn’t remove it. I’ve completely made up for the mistake and it should be removed or updated accordingly.

You have a limited time as a buyer to update/change the reviews you leave on MM, so it could have easily been past that timeframe for the buyer. Even if it was resolved, it does not change that this still happened. If anything the only update they could have added is that they got a partial refund for the mistake. This is the reason most gecko breeders always put in that they never guarantee sex before a certain point.

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Unfortunately this can happen.
I had a bad review left and was even called names and threatened by a buyer. I refunded etc and all he did was call me and leave voicemails being horrid.
(Gecko died with an awful courier who didn’t listen to my instructions).
Regardless of this, it wasn’t my fault and they still thought they’d leave a bad review and do what they did.
I have still sold geckos fine as people can see I responded and the ‘issue’ was solved with what I wrote.

In future just don’t sell unless 100%. I don’t let Cresties go until 10/15g and sexed.
We have brought Cresties sexed wrong in the past and it is very annoying when you want a certain sex, and one breeder who we got from is constantly still selling the wrong sexes. As well as a lot of other breeders out there too!
So I won’t sell until 10/15g so I’m not one of those!

You should be fine! If people can see it’s solved don’t worry!

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I just hope people see it’s resolved, especially if the buyer can no longer edit/remove the review.

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Well I know you can respond to a review so maybe do that and explain your side of it? That’s all I can think off as a resolution. That, or hide your reviews but that is usually a big turn off for buyers as well.

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You can no longer hide reviews. That was stopped a while ago now!

And as you said anyway, it is a turn off!

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I would rather have one bad review among a few positive ones then no reviews at all.
Just give it time, when people communicate with you, they will see your heart. The whole review system is the way it is because transparency is needed. I hope it helps that I believe you are a great seller. :heart:

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Tagging in @john and @eaglereptiles, they should be able to provide better guidance here

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Thank you for the tag @t_h_wyman i missed this thread somehow :grimacing:

@skittlebunny, sorry for the delay here, I wanted to go over the situation fully before I responded. I understand your concerns and frustrations. Sometimes buyers leave ratings that are unfair. life sometimes gets in the way also and makes situations a whole lot more difficult.

That’s not the sort of rating we remove. If they want to leave their negative review up, that is there prerogative. They didn’t want a male gecko to begin with, so getting a partial refund, while maybe better than nothing, is not exactly a “happy resolution”.

We discuss our recommendations on how to respond to these scenarios in our help section on ratings:

As a seller, I don’t believe I was fairly rated. What can I do?

While MorphMarket does not interfere in the rating process (with a few exceptions), we have created the following options to address this situation:

  • If possible, address the buyer’s concerns on their side (which you have done with the partial refund). After the initial rating, they are still able to revise their rating by raising the overall score as well as leave additional comments.

  • Respectfully tell your side of the story by replying to each of the feedback comments (which I see you have also done).

  • If you need more space to explain, you can create a thread here: https://www.facebook.com/groups/342910095878787 and link back to it for future readers to see

  • While it won’t change your rating, you can also leave a Rating for the buyer as well.

  • Take comfort knowing that even the best services receive a negative rating occasionally. People understand this and will interpret it in the context of other ratings. Make sure to mark all your items as sold to the buyers to encourage other ratings.

I’m sorry that’s there is not much more we can do, but a single bad review doesn’t make or break a person’s reputation, especially when they already have more good reviews to balance it out like you do. Also, a business person’s reputation is built and strengthened by HOW they handle a bad review. I would just professionally respond to the rating with how you handled the situation.

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