If everything besides the communication is a positive experience I would leave a positive feedback. However, I would leave a one star rating on the communication. A one star rating is worse for a seller than receiving no stars at all. (You might want to look at her communication star rating, she may have others) If she falls below like 4.5 or something like that ebay could ban her from selling (not that I'm saying they should) All I mean is if you leave one star for communication maybe she'll realize she needs to improve on her communications.

I agree that she should ask first and not send until you say it is OK. I agree that it helps other buyers to know who they are dealing with.
I have only left one negative feedback because it was not as described. The book binding was completely off and it was described as good condition. Never mentioned the binding.

She contacted me, yes. AFTER she'd already shipped it and refunded for the shortage. Sure, I can return it...and pay for shipping *again*. I can't really put myself in her shoes...because I would never be so presumptuous as to change a customer's order without first contacting them....

Ladies, I apologize for above post......I apparently clicked on the wrong post when I answered. Gotta watch these fingers! :oops:

Since the seller initially said she had 10 yards available, then made the adjustment after the sale, I have to think she sold the rest of it to someone else and was trying to finagle to be able to sell her entire 10 yards... But not checking with you first was definitely NOT COOL.

You should NEVER leave bad feedback before trying to work things out with the seller. Most would rather give your money back and let you keep the goods than get a negative feedback rating to hurt future business. Contact her and tell her your feelings and then decide on feedback, based on how satisfied you are with her response. Always give them a chance to make it right, first. Negative feedback is a serious business, as many people are making their income selling on Ebay.

What is her feedback like?

Ebay uses feedback to help buyers know what a seller is like - the problem with what happened here is that because of what 1 seller has done, it will make a lot of us quilters think twice from buying fabric on Ebay.

Nah... I'll still buy it.

I don't feel she should get a negative feedback. You should email her and suggest that she always email the buyer before shipping if there is a shortage, explaining that it could be meant for a project where the full amount is needed. But, be charitable and give her the benefit of the doubt. She may not sew and not know.

Her feedback was 99.9% positive. She'd had only one neutral in the last month, and that was for slow shipping, which, based on her reply to the buyer, was unavoidable (buyer paid with e-check, she didn't ship until it cleared, so it was 7-ish days before it was shipped, then however long to get there, but to me, she did nothing wrong) 7 neutrals in the last 12 months, no negatives in the last month, 4 in the last 12 months, with 10,000+ sales - even the comments for those I felt weren't worthy of a negative feedback. So I felt pretty confident.

I haven't emailed her yet. I think I will tonight and base my feedback on her response, the fabric when it gets here and low stars on the communication.

I think that is exactly what happened. I just went back and looked at the auction, it shows the purchase history of that product. When I bought it, it showed 10+ available. After my purchase, it showed 8 available. The day after I bought, someone else bought the remaining 8. So it seems like she cut the other buyer's first and I got the raw deal.