Online auction site eBay has said it plans to overhaul its feedback system and will ban sellers from leaving negative comments about buyers.
EBay said problems were occurring, and slowing down trade, when buyers left negative comments about sellers who then retaliated with their own views. From May, those selling on eBay will not be able to leave unfavourable or neutral messages about buyers.
The move, which will affect users worldwide, has angered many sellers. Sellers say it will leave them unprotected.
EBay said problems were occurring, and slowing down trade, when buyers left negative comments about sellers who then retaliated with their own views. From May, those selling on eBay will not be able to leave unfavourable or neutral messages about buyers.
The move, which will affect users worldwide, has angered many sellers. Sellers say it will leave them unprotected.
Critics of the changes argue that by taking away a seller's right to complain about a problem buyer they will have very little recourse for action when a sale goes wrong. And they complain that by still allowing buyers to leave dissenting comments about sellers, eBay has skewed the whole trading process.
View: Full Article @ BBC News
I'm assuming you haven't sent the buyer the item you were selling without him paying first?
I am a buyer with 100% feedback. Some sellers tend to send items before funds are cleared if buyer have spotless track record. So I can get my item next working day. Sellers must be able to leave bad feedback if buyer cancels credit card transaction or refuses to pay after item was sent. If seller will not be able to leave bad feedback then benefit of 100% trusted record will be gone, because malignant people will have same feedback. This means that my 100% will be unreliable and I will lose chance of early delivery.
Last edited by EJocys on 06 Feb 2008 - 14:44
Or better yet, force a seller to give feedback for the buyer as soon as payment has (or has not) been made, since really a buyer's feedback should be based on how quickly they paid for the item than anything else.
That sounds like a better idea. I have never had negative feedback, but I noticed that most sellers don't leave feedback until you have given them feedback. Why? I paid for the item already! They just like to wait and keep the option of giving you bad feedback incase you do to them, which is annoying.
What about when the buying leaves bad feedback that's possibly unfounded? Seems pretty unfair to not allow the seller to refute.
Either full feedback, or NO feedback; just allowing one side a say isn't fair.
In cases like above, I think theres a good case for sellers also being able to hold back their feedback. That said, it is a bit of a stand off. Maybe they shouldnt be able to see the feedback directly (although for low count users they will still know who said what)
A seller should be able to retaliate to negative feedback, if the seller provides the product and the buyer has a problem then it's up to the buyer to contact the seller to give them a chance to make it right, all too many times though a buyer will mindlessly leave a negative without first contacting the seller and in that case the buyer also deserves a big fat negative as well.
If a seller leaves positive feedback to a buyer simply because he paid quickly then that seller has left himself open to being held as "feedback hostage", sometimes the buyer will complain about some small and ridiculous inconvenience in an attempt at getting some money refunded and if the seller doesn't cooperate then the buyer can leave negative feedback for the seller and the seller can't do anything about it so the seller is screwed.
Another problem with eBay that its full of greedy sellers who sell "overpriced" items and gives very bad name to eBay. You can find auctions where exactly same computer memory chip can cost 3 times more on eBay than on dabs.com or amazon.com. And there is only one way to counter that. eBay must have a partner who will sells new computer items with competitive prices. This means that most "overpriced" computer items, will have cheap alternative with price matching amazon.com or dabs.com.
+1
I spent 3 weeks trying to sell my laptop and every time it got to a reasonable amount, some one else with crappy feedback would jump up the bid to 3 or 4 times more than it was worth screwing my sale. After the third attempt I finally gave up. I will likely never sell anything on e-bay again, as for buying.... buying something on ebay for me now is a point of despiration, its not even in the top 10 places I look for something anymore.
The simple fact that they are removing negative feedback for buyers is retarded. If someone else hadn't been scammed at the same time I was, I never would have known that the guy was bs, his negative feedback allowed me to cancel my auction and not lose anything more than the listing fee. Better that than a few extra bucks for the cost of the sale.
after reading this, I officially hate eBay and will probably never use it again.
Another problem with eBay that its full of greedy sellers who sell "overpriced" items and gives very bad name to eBay. You can find auctions where exactly same computer memory chip can cost 3 times more on eBay than on dabs.com or amazon.com. And there is only one way to counter that. eBay must have a partner who will sells new computer items with competitive prices. This means that most "overpriced" computer items, will have cheap alternative with price matching amazon.com or dabs.com.
My favorite is the $10 shipping fees and when you get the item you see it actually cost less an a buck.
Shipping fees are what kills deals on eBay. I ship things all over the world and most times the cost is under $12...
Sellers are complaining about this and that when they have been ripping people off for years.
Another problem with eBay that its full of greedy sellers who sell "overpriced" items and gives very bad name to eBay. You can find auctions where exactly same computer memory chip can cost 3 times more on eBay than on dabs.com or amazon.com. And there is only one way to counter that. eBay must have a partner who will sells new computer items with competitive prices. This means that most "overpriced" computer items, will have cheap alternative with price matching amazon.com or dabs.com.
If they're overpriced they wont sell. If people are willing to pay the price then let them, I dont see how its being greedy, many people use eBay as their main income. Putting a $10 note on there for $50 if somebody buys it who's the idiot? Its a market economy.
Although I agree sellers should be allowed to give feedback. Had an issue with a buyer myself, I sold some tickets to a buyer with only 4 points, they never replied to emails and the tickets were lost. I refunded the full amount even though they still didnt reply. Then they left me negative, hardly fair considering a full refund was given and they hadnt even replied to my emails or contacted me first. So my blemish free 100% feedback was ruined while they're 4 points just went down to 3 and never since used.
i think that resellers must be able to put a negative reviews from bad buyers but on a different rank, so a single persons can be a good seller but a bad buyer at the same time.
i dont even leave people feedback at all if im buying or selling these days just in case they get the sh*ts with you for one reason or another and after you leave them positive they leave me negitive or if i leave them negitive they leave me negitive in retaliation. it works both ways, for if youre buying or if youre selling.
this move for ebay seems to be stopping dodgey sellers who buy lots of 1c items to get their positive feedback scores to make it seem like they not dodgey and then go on to sell imaginary items to rip people.
Then I was thinking of something that happened to my wife on her eBay name. She bought a shirt from a seller. After paying for the shirt, they shipped the wrong size with a note explaining that they didn't mean to list anymore large shirts as all they had left was medium so they gave us a medium. After much hassle we finally returned the shirt. My wife left a negative feedback rating for the seller to warn others of the issue and the hassle. They did the same thing in response to her. The thing was they had thousands of reviews, so her negative didn't even really register. On the other hand their negative rating was a HUGE blip on my wifes handful of ratings. She wrote them a brief e-mail asking why and they basically told her that they did that so she'd retract her rating. Basically they forced her into artificially keeping their rating high... with people like that out there I really don't see how eBay could do anything else.
It's not a perfect system, but I don't think anything could be. This change will provide more accurate results about sellers and I for one think that's a good thing. I really don't care about the ratings if the worst sellers can force people into rating them positively, or that positive ratings are given mostly out of fear of retribution. With these changes hopefully it's sort a lot of that out. This just makes eBay a more valuable place to shop. Deliver the products you promise and these changes really shouldn't be an issue. I really think all the people complaining about the changes should log their eBay names so I can avoid buying things from you on there... if you're an honest legit seller you've got nothing to worry about.
So what happens when the buyer doesn't send payment very fast or is rude or whatever?
What's the point in having a feedback system then, if you can only leave a positive?
Perhaps a new buyer could buy loads of stuff, get loads of good feedback then sell something, but be a rubbish seller, everyone would see his good feedback and buy - thats complete crap!
I think the move was neccesary since their feedback system has become so broken. Most sellers hold their buyers hostage until they leave feedback. A buyer may do everything right, (pay immediately, contact seller about a problem with the item, etc) but will think twice before leaving a neutral or negative comment, because the seller will leave the same. So buyers feel forced to leave positive or don't leave feedback at all.
The best and most unique thing about eBay was it's feedback system. It was a mechanism that protected buyers and sellers. Now it is pretty much worthless because there will be no consequences for bad buyers.
I don't sell much on eBay and now I don't plan to, ever.
And I think people need to give up delusions of 'perfect' feedback ratings when conducting transactions on eBay. Everyone knows that a perfect rating is eventually going to get tarnished a bit by some idiot who either wants to has unrealistic expectations of what should happen. Disputes filed with eBay can and should be attached to the feedback that was left for that transaction.
90% of the time, Sellers leave me feedback long after I have left them feedback, some sellers sell items they do even have on hand or inventory, so I'm forced to wait or leave negative feedback, then of course the seller retaliates by leaving me negative feedback.
eBay has to completely overhaul it's feedback system.
I predict this will be a nightmare in the first year
This move seems a bad idea.
Not only NO, but HELL NO!
There are a lot of sellers who might be "96% positive feedback" now, who would be 75% or 60% if people mildly disappointed (two-day postage takes two weeks, item is slightly off from description) didn't feel like they'd get burned if they left a negative.
The bottom line is that Ebay doesn't care about buyers, or sellers, and they don't have a clue. They continue to alienate sellers with fee hikes and changes that are most always negative for the 99.999% or quality sellers. Ebay does whatever Ebay thinks is good for Ebay. The arrogance towards sellers is incredible.
As one poster noted, and as every seller knows, they are trying to push business into their store model. The reason they want to do this is that they see Amazon making lots of money and Yahoo stores making lots of money and they want it. The fact that they are making (literally) billions off of the auction market isn't enough for them - they want it all. Their latest fee change (hike) was intended to level the fiedl between stores and auctions so that sellers would move to the stores. Unfortunately, while they push sellers to the store model, their search tool doesn't return items from stores... so buyers who search in the usual way rarely see any of the store items.
Ebay has been doing stupid things for a while, and will continue. Example: They are down 20% in listings... so they raise fees for selling. That follow two months of "sales" on selling fees to attract listings. Smart people.
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