New ebay seller feedback rules stink

[TexasSP]

I do not understand why they did this. Is a buyers reputation not as important when selling to see if they actually pay or for other problems. Now some guy left me neutral feedback which has messed up my rating (I don't use ebay constantly, just in spurts) and have I have little recourse. The claims he made for the feedback were false and he never contacted me to even work anything out. You should be forced to try resolution before leaving neutral or negative feedback in my opinion. I have had problems with sellers before but worked them out and left positive feedback.

[lincpimp]

ebay's reasoning is that buyers may not leave neg feedback for fear of receiving neg feedback. With this new method ebay feels that buyers can accurately rate sellers. This is based on the false assumption that buyers will be honest. Load of crap in my opinion, should have left it the way it was.

[rschoi_75]

Yeah... I don't think this new feedback policy is the right way to go about doing things. Hopefully there will be enough complaints to get ebay to re-think their new system.

I'd agree that it puts sellers in a real tight spot. The only way we can leave negatives is if buyers do not pay. It does not take into account dishonest buyers, and does not really allow for increased communication. Even if the seller does everything possible to please the buyer, there is still a chance that the buyer could leave a neg just for the fun of it. And I know there are a lot of dumb people out there that would do it simply because there is no risk of retaliation.

Remember the conversation about "feedback hitmen" we had a few months ago? Not a fun thought...

[jhautz]

Only recourse is to leave positive feedback with actual negavive comments in it. Like DONT TRUST THIS GUY! HE LIES! ADD HIM TO YOUR BLOCKED BUYERS LIST!! or something.

I agree that the new seller rules are total Bull. I'm thinking about just switching over to selling all of my stuff on the RC-Tecj for sale forum. I've had good luck there in the past. Screw Ebay. If the sellers stop selling there, then the buyers will be gone as well and Ebay will have cooked their own goose. I see a HUGE opportunity for another auction site to make some headway here. there are alot of sellers that dont like the new rules and would be gone if there were a viable option.

EDIT.... Maybee there is an opportunity to start a website where people can go to post a list of bad ebay buyers and then people can just take the list and add them all to their blocked buyers list. Ebay would have no control over it and if enough buyers started using it you certainly wouldnt want you name on the Bad Ebayer List or you may wind up blocked from buying things.

Not sure how to start this... But I would use it if it were available.

I am not a fan of ebays new system, but the old system was being abused by sellers.
I purchased some cell phone accessories from some guy. Three weeks after I paid I email him asking where they were, a week later I get an email from him claiming that they came back undeliverable and that I needed to verify my address or he would refuse to "resend" the items. I told him the address was correct and he "sent again" and it showed up after another week. The package did not have any signs of being sent more then once and there were at least 4 other people who gave him feedback mentioning the "undeliverable" comment. Now here is why he was abusing the feedback.
2 of those 4 people left neutral feedback stating the issue, one left possitive, but still stated the problem, one left negative feedback. All four of those users were given negative feedback by the seller with the comment "left incorrect feedback, never deal with this buyer".
I think that it was totally unfair for a seller with 3k feedback (and a growing number of negative feedback) to be blaming the buyers for his mistake and/or his not having the product he advertised.
Were a few sellers ruining it for the masses, you bet. But from ebays point of view, for every sellers that leaves, another two will come. While if you loose the buyers everyone (esp Ebay) suffers.

[Arct1k]

It is a double edge sword - I've left +'ve feedback several times when it was honestly not deserved but no choice as a buyer as I knew they would screw me back.

Likewise as a seller I'd hate to get a netral / negative for no reason...

It is a lose / lose situation but I think this is actually better - For a negative I think there should be some intermediation process though like PP.

[nolatron]

Neutral feedback does not affect your rating.

Also, as a seller when you go to leave feedback to the buyer, I believe I remember seeing a "report" link of some sort in order to dispute the transaction.

I had one auction where I paid the invoice 20 mins after auction end, the seller took 4 weeks to ship (after a paypal dispute was filed). He got negative feedback for the transaction. What does he do? Leaves negative feedback ("Pay faster next time") on my account.

[BrianG]

Personally, eBay is getting "too big for their britches". With this utterly stupid new policy and the price gouging (fees to list, fees on sale, fees for paypal which ebay owns), I am definitely going to start looking elsewhere to buy/sell items. Something like craigslist.

[rschoi_75]

Originally Posted by nolatron

Neutral feedback does not affect your feedback score.

Actually it does now. My feedback went from 100% to 98.3% because of 2 neutrals I received over 7 months ago . I've never had a negative score on my record in the 4+ years selling on ebay, but mine still got hurt.

As for rctech... its a hit and miss classified forum. There are a lot of great sellers and buyers there, but there are also a surprisingly high number of scammers/dumb kids on that site. I try not to deal with kids on that site since they seem to cause the most trouble. I've been screwed over more than once by kids, since most have not learned about responsibility yet. I'd still rather deal with ebay most of the time.

[kulangflow]

In March, some idiot seller left me my first negative (after 6 years worth of positives) because they didn't like the neutral I left for them sending the wrong product. I fought it twice through eBay resolutions and they said there was nothing they could do.

Anyway, I checked my feedback just now (because of this thread) and the negative has been deleted! Sweet! I'm back to 100%!

[nolatron]

Originally Posted by rschoi_75

Actually it does now. My feedback went from 100% to 98.3% because of 2 neutrals I received over 7 months ago

Interesting. Ever asked Ebay about that?

http://pages.ebay.com/help/feedback/.../feedback.html

A neutral rating leaves the Feedback Score the same

[rschoi_75]

The total score stays the same... but the % of positive feedbacks changes. Your percentage is based on positive feedbacks divided by total feedbacks. So a neutral still hurts your percentage even if your overall score remains unchanged.

That's the part that gets me pissed, since both times I dealt with the problems responsibly. One time the shipping was slow, so I refunded their shipping costs (even though it was the post office's fault). The second one was just a guy who didn't like what he bought. The item was nib and exactly as advertised... but he still gave me a neutral, and never told me why. I even tried emailing him and offered to refund his money... but I never got a reply.

Ebay needs to implement a policy in which the buyer is required make an effort to work out a solution with the seller before being allowed to post a neutral or neg feedback. They have to at least give us sellers a chance to fix any problems that may occur before roasting us. Sometimes things are out of our control... such as shipping. For example... what if you give the buyer the option of insurance and faster shipping but the buyer does not take these options? If the package is lost or delivered too slow, the seller usually takes the blame... and that's not fair to us.

I understand that ebay is trying to make their site safer for buyers, but I get the feeling they did not think it through entirely. There are a lot of loose ends that they need to tie up for this new policy to be fair.

[nolatron]

Originally Posted by rschoi_75

The total score stays the same... but the % of positive feedbacks changes. Your percentage is based on positive feedbacks divided by total feedbacks. So a neutral still hurts your percentage even if your overall score remains unchanged.

Ah, dur... *smackheads* Forgot about the percentage, just kept thinking of the score. I blame the cold :)

[bdebde]

The ONLY negative feedback I have ever had on ebay (i buy and sell a little) was from a seller in retaliation for a negative feedback I had left for him. After a month or more of unanswered emails and not receiving an item; I left negative feedback and filed a dispute to get my money back. Within less than 24hrs. the seller left me a negative feedback in retaliation, and was quite rude, calling me stoopid (his spelling) and other unflattering remarks. A week or so later, he was no longer an ebay member (under that name anyway).

[ClodMaxx]

i did buy and sell a lot - but haven't since the new policies. the last thing i bought was this past march. i've mostly washed my hands of ebay.

if i need to sell something, i throw it on craig's list. works great for average to moderately rare items, and it's free. still have to worry about goofballs, but you'll find those anywhere. i just make sure i meet in open, public places. i never tell them where my home is.