Ebay Feedback

neutral or no feedback at all. That'll teach him.

I would contact the seller. If they come clean and say they didn't clean it and apologize, then give them positive feedback. If they say they cleaned it, give negative feedback.

+1 shawn, mistakes happen

Agree with shawn622. Generally if they admit their mistakes and try to make it up to you give them Positive. If they act like they don't care of if they act like you are wrong I would give them negative feedback for sure!

He did offer to give you a refund, so he did try to make it right. If it were me I would give him positive feedback.

Yeah... pretty much what shawn said. Shit happens sometimes and that understandable.

He tried to make it right. I say positive.

Samo for me , he offered a refund, enough said. The old cajun

I would do a bad report on him , and never buy from him again . :evil:

This is a case where descriptive feedback would be in order. Leave him a positive, but say you were disappointed that the pipe arrived very dirty. Then use the star ratings honestly; leave him 1 star for accurate description of the item.
That way he doesn't just get a pass but you keep a clean conscience.

The seller did offer a refund that you declined, so he tried to make it right. I would leave a positive and I wouldn't ding him to much on description. I would just mention the condition it came to you in on the feedback. Mistakes do happen and they were willing to make it right.

Keep in mind some sellers ban you from their listings permanently if you give them anything less than perfect 5 star feedback in every catagory because their seller fees dramatically rise when you do not.

I think you made the right choice.

just some thoughts

From a customer service standpoint he did Attempt to "make it right" as everyone is saying. A perhaps more appropriate attempt at this would have been "send me back the package priority/overnight, I'll refund you in the amount of the shipping,clean the pipe up, overnight it back...extra coupla day's without the new pipe, still gets cleaned, no Additional cost to you."

I read send it back and get a refund as I'll just sell it to someone else who won't bitch about the cleaning...but that's maybe just me...and since I did not have direct contact with the seller his offer of refund may have been phrased or worded in a way that sounds less like that and more like a genuine trying to make it right.
as to how to review it...be honest...sit down write a pipe journal entry about this seller, and others you may have dealt with including your local B&M. figure out what notes you would put down about them to remind yourself about them if you were looking at buying from them 5 years down the road. Decide from that...those are the notes I want to see when I'm checking other peoples reviews. not just the stars, but here's why. Help a brother out and gimme a book to read in the reviews. if not a book at least an article, one that takes long enough to read that my pipe needs refilled when I'm done. Let me know everything I need to know dealing with a seller in your review. You wouldn't do any less here. And us pipers are searching e-bay too. I'll try to return the favor.

dang that came out more passionate than I thought it was going too.

They may take our pipes, but they'll never take our freedom!!!!!!!!!Scratch that...they can't have our pipes either. ::

Negative feedback on eBay is a big F-you. It's really a black mark for a seller or a buyer, and should be used I think only in special cases.
I bought some briar from a new ebayer (though not a new briar cutter) a few years back, and it was awful. Unuseable. And I sent him a picture, and asked for my money back. He refunded me and also later on sent me replacements, which was super nice. So even though I got crap, I gave him a positive feedback because he solved the problem and backed up his product. I probably could have put him out of the eBay briar game because I would have been one of the first feedbackers. Really could have hurt him, but there was no reason to do so.
This is a similar case, to my mind. A mistake was surely made, and the offer of a refund is literally ALL the guy can do. So, he's a good seller who screwed up. It doesn't sound like the pipe is junk.

Ive never received negative feedback and only left it once. Even when i received a broken beer glass in the mail. I contacted the seller immediately and received a refund without even me sending pics. The one negative feedback i left it was a gross representation of the condition of the item. wasnt worth my time to bother sending it back and didnt want to hear the sellers excuses. wasnt even close.

I agree with everyone who says DONT leave negative feedback if someone trying hard to make things right.

One question I have though, you said a pipecleaner in the bowl came out dirty ? I wouldnt base a pipes restoration on whether the inside of the tobacco chamber is clean. There is a wide difference of opinion on what a clean bowl should be. Some want it reamed all the way back to bare wood. Others want a reasonable amount of cake left in the bowl. To me, getting a tobacco chamber squeaky clean is not the goal of restoring a pipe ! I always leave a small amount of carbon in the bowl.

I do try hard to make sure the shank and stem are as perfectly clean as possible.

Either way, I'm glad you asked the seller for recourse before damaging their reputation.