I placed an order for a textbook on half.com 2 weeks ago with priority shipping so i should have received my order by now, I can't seem t find any way to contact this seller...no email address, no form...is it even possible?

I don't think you can contact the seller. You have to to deal with problems through half.

A month or two back, half experimented with allowing buyers to contact sellers with questions, but it's no longer available.

Yea being able to contact someone you gave money to just makes too much sense i guess. If i don't get it tomorrow ill just dispute the charge.

That's one of the main reasons I prefer to sell on eBay - I want buyers to be able to ask questions in advance, or be able to contact me after a sale if there is any problem.

From the Half.com help file:






What happens if I haven't received my item and it's past the estimated arrival date?

If you checked in your account under 'Your Purchases' and found that the estimated arrival date for a transaction has passed you are now able to contact the seller. Simply click the "REPORT PROBLEM" button and select the 'item has not been received' option. Half.com will then forward this message to the seller. You should receive a response from the seller within 2-4 days. The response will offer either a resolution or may require assistance from Half.com Customer Service.

The half.com system of contacting sellers does work. I had a buyer report an incorrect disk in a new and unopened one I sold. I gave him a refund and paid for the return. Keeping a perfect seller's rating is valuable to me.

So you sold a sealed item, and the buyer said that the wrong disk was inside of the package?

What was the disk sold and what did he say was in the package? That is, I know you took care of him, but did you actually believe him?

The problem was that a regular disk was in a special edition case. Getting the wrong disk in a case is not unheard of, there has been some discussion of this in CH threads and elsewhere. But you are correct that I had no way to verify that I wasn't taken advantage of, that the disk returned was not the one originally in the case.

My feeling from the correspondence with the buyer was that the mistake was legit. (I then exchanged the returned disk at my place of purchase for a new one that turned out to be correct.) If I was a victim of petty fraud (swapping a regular edition for a special edition) someone went to a lot of time and trouble to do it. This is the only time this has happened to me in 45 sales at half.com. Of course, most of the DVDs I sell are once viewed and opened so disk swapping is not possible.

Are you sure? I had a problem a couple of weeks ago and was able to contact the seller but only after I had purchased the item and there was a problem with it. Contacting the seller beforehand to avoid problems is just to logical for half.com to consider.

From the Buyer/Seller Communication information:

What happens if I have a question before I buy an item?

In categories other than Books, Music, Movies & Video Games, you can use the 'Ask seller a question' feature. To ask the seller a question, find the item that you are interested in. Click on the blue 'Full Details' link located on the right side of the page. Under the yellow 'Questions and Answers' box, click on the 'Ask a new question' link. On the next page, enter your queston in the appropriate box and click on the 'Submit Question' link.

If the seller responds to your question, both the question and answer will be displayed on the site to help other Members just like yourself.

My guess is that books, music and movies are so simple and self-explanatory that Half.com doesn't think that communication before a sale is necessary. I use Half because it is so easy and I don't have to monitor my listings or deal directly with buyers. Once in awhile I get an e-mail from Half that something has sold and I just ship it to the address listed with a packing slip.