eBay to ban Sellers from leaving negative about Buyers

Markleshark

Markleshark

macrumors 603
BBC News said:
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.
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Full Story.

As a buyer, I think this is great.

Recently I've bought an item off a seller who, after 3 weeks, has decided to finally ship it. I'm planning on leaving probably neutral feedback but I'm worried that the seller will then leave me the same, even though I paid the minute I bought the item.

I think as a way to reduce this happening its great.

However, as a seller, I pretty much agree with what it says in the article. It does limit what you can say when a buyer is generally bad.

What do you think?
 
This move is an important one. I had a perfect feedback rating for over 6 years until I bought a laptop power adapter from a seller that promised it would be brand new. Not only was it scuffed but the cord was actually frayed and coper was showing. I sent him several emails asking for it to be replaced. No reply. Finally I just left him a neutral (because it *did* work). It was only later that I learned that he automatically leaves negative feedback for anything but a positive. He then immediately filed for mutual resolution (or whatever it's called when both feedback ratings are removed). It's clear that this seller leaves the negatives on purpose so that the buyer will agree to the mutual resolution. There have apparently been many, many instances of transactions like that with that seller, if only I'd bothered to look. BTW, I've not played into his game and have left the mutual resolution unanswered.
 
It's bad news for sellers. How are other sellers going to know about deadbeat bidders and other types of bad bidders?
 
They should have two ratings, one as the "seller" and one as the "buyer". This way, users can see if they are buying from a good "seller" or selling to a good "buyer" :D
 
Hankster said:
They should have two ratings, one as the "seller" and one as the "buyer". This way, users can see if they are buying from a good "seller" or selling to a good "buyer" :D
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Bingo.

Too bad eBay's built like a house of cards with more and more features shoveled onto an infrastructure that was never intended to be used in this manner.

If they were to implement something like that, they'd probably have to revert everyone's feedback to zero, which would cause a revolution.

Of course, knowing eBay, it sounds exactly like something they'd do...
 
Given the current chaos with the feedback system, at least this seems like a step in the right direction. I got my only negative feedback rating from a seller who advertised a children's CD as brand new when in fact it was scratched all over, cracked, and non working. Seller never replied to my complaints and it later turned out he was systematically defrauding hundreds of people advertising store return items of unknown quality as brand new.

He promptly retaliated my negative feedback despite the fact that I had paid immediately and had been very polite in my requests for a working item or refund. Even though the seller ended up with a court case against him for systematic fraud and lost Ebay STILL refused to remove his negative feedback to me, despite the fact that I explained the situation to them many times -- their reason being that the guy lost his court case after the maximum time had passed that Ebay allows for removing negative feedback (something like 90 days, I think). They are such losers, really.

What I think is more significant than them removing neg. feedback for buyers (which I think is mostly positive), is how they are secretly increasing their fees. They tell you all over the place that they reduced their insertion fees, failing to point out that they only reduced those fees by 5 cent, while SIGNIFICANTLY increasing final value fees so that in total fees are greatly increased.

I'll start looking for sales and closeouts in real stores (online or off) more in the future and for private sales will use Craig's List more -- Ebay is just frustrating at this point. Talk about corporate greed.
 
Yeah, it's amazing that no one's been able to put together a solid competitor to eBay.

Yahoo, Amazon, Overstock and others have all tried but failed.

I think Google could do it, based on the brand name alone - plus the fact they developed their own payment system - but I don't know what they're waiting for...
 
Unspeaked said:
If they were to implement something like that, they'd probably have to revert everyone's feedback to zero, which would cause a revolution.
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Well, they could start everyone off at zero but retain, for read-only reference, the original feedback. So, say, I'm a seller with +5 feedback in the new system, but you can see that I had +5,000 under the old system. Leave that in place until people establish themselves, then quietly phase out the old.

I had a guy with no feedback bid on a computer I was selling, and for two weeks after the auction closed I heard nothing back from him. Not a thing. I sent more and more upset emails finally threatening to escalate it.. that's when I got a phone call from his "office". Apparently he was on vacation and would be back next week and he'd send payment then. A week came and went, and finally I gave up, filed for resolution and a refund of my final value fees, left him negative feedback, and relisted the item. About a month after THAT, I got negative feedback because I had "ruined his first experience on eBay".

To this day it remains my only negative feedback.

So if the rules change I'm just supposed to take this crap and keep smiling?

I knew there was a reason I don't use eBay anymore.
 
notjustjay said:
I had a guy with no feedback bid on a computer I was selling, and for two weeks after the auction closed I heard nothing back from him. Not a thing. I sent more and more upset emails finally threatening to escalate it.. that's when I got a phone call from his "office". Apparently he was on vacation and would be back next week and he'd send payment then. A week came and went, and finally I gave up, filed for resolution and a refund of my final value fees, left him negative feedback, and relisted the item. About a month after THAT, I got negative feedback because I had "ruined his first experience on eBay".

To this day it remains my only negative feedback.

So if the rules change I'm just supposed to take this crap and keep smiling?
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That's a perfect example of why this is a bad idea.

Sure, the majority of people will think it sounds great to prevent sellers from leaving negatives, but that;'s only because there's a lot more buyers than seller to voice their opinion.

There's plenty of deadbeats buyers that ignore sellers, only to leave retaliatory negative feedback - the exact same thing buyers complain about.
 
I think this is a terrible move. Especially because I'm soon going to be selling 2 computers on eBay. Maybe I'll just sell them on the MR Marketplace. :) But, then again, who's gonna want a 4-year-old Windoze desktop with a CRT monitor?
 
My only negative FB is a retaliatory one...I left a negative FB after I hadn't heard anything from the seller for 3 weeks and then he left me one even though I sent payment immediately. Still pisses me off. But on the other hand, you do have deadbeat buyers who deserve the negative FB.


What they need is this: When the buyer leaves feedback (positive, negative or neutral), the feedback is completely hidden from everyone until the seller leaves feedback or 90 days (the length of time you have to leave FB) has passed. That way, sellers can't leave retaliatory negative feedback. And since I'm sure retaliatory feedback towards sellers happens, though not as often, same thing for the buyer. Basically, feedback won't be visible until both parties leave feedback, or 90 days has passed. It also prevents sellers who say them leaving you positive feedback is contingent on you leaving them positive feedback. Feedback shouldn't be based on what they left you, it should be left on how well they held up their end of the deal.
 
It depends. I see this as a bad move, for sellers.

I am a powerseller on ebay, and I never leave negatives for non-paying buyers. Especially when they email me and let me know that they either made a mistake, or they don't have funds to pay. Fine, I just file a non-paying bidder strike and don't leave them any feedback.

However, there are certain times when some buyers are absolute idiots. They won't pay - and after they win an auction, they'll ask me if I can ship it to them for $100 cheaper. I refuse, and then they leave me a negative feedback. Do they then really deserve negative feedback? Of course they do.

So I don't particularly like this new rule. Obviously 95% of buyers are genuine, and have no reason to leave negatives (unless the seller is shoddy and takes too long to ship or other reasons) but there are quite a few dodgy buyers, who deserve -ves.. and this takes that away.
 
Music_Producer said:
I am a powerseller on ebay, and I never leave negatives for non-paying buyers. Especially when they email me and let me know that they either made a mistake, or they don't have funds to pay. Fine, I just file a non-paying bidder strike and don't leave them any feedback.
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Yeah, I've always tried to be very reasonable. (My ebay "about me" page is still up if anyone wants to read it). If a guy makes a mistake, hey, that's cool. We'll work something out. And I always used to intentionally take a hit of a few dollars on shipping (or split the shipping cost) just to show my buyers that I wasn't pulling one of those "99 cents for the item, but $50 to ship it" deals.

But there are definitely idiots out there.

I had another guy buy an item off me, left positive feedback, and then several months later tried to file a chargeback on PayPal because "the item was broken and didn't work". Eh? Luckily (in this case) PayPal has a statute of limitations.

I just don't bother with eBay anymore. I got nothing left of value that I want to sell :)
 
Unspeaked said:
Yeah, it's amazing that no one's been able to put together a solid competitor to eBay.

Yahoo, Amazon, Overstock and others have all tried but failed.

I think Google could do it, based on the brand name alone - plus the fact they developed their own payment system - but I don't know what they're waiting for...
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I would sign up for a Google type auction service in a heartbeat. I also hate PayPal so it's even more reason for me :)
 
I've had nothing but good luck in the fourteen or so auctions i've won, very good service (aside from the fact that my copy of Pokémon Red was counterfeit, but hey, it works!) and especially on the newest bid (comes in tomorrow) the seller was incredibly fast, as were we- we payed within 5 hours, and he had it shipped immediately after that.
 
Hankster said:
I would sign up for a Google type auction service in a heartbeat. I also hate PayPal so it's even more reason for me :)
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It's one of those rumors you always hear floated around (the Powerbook G5 of the auction world, if you will) but has you to materialize...
 
I've never had a problem with eBay as such, a few slow sellers but I think my expectations are especially high because I regard myself as a good seller. (Post things out next day and such) But I guess if your selling thousands of things it's harder.
 
Hankster said:
They should have two ratings, one as the "seller" and one as the "buyer". This way, users can see if they are buying from a good "seller" or selling to a good "buyer" :D
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Great idea. Though I will take what is being offered. I had a seller give me a negative rating when I complained that the watch I bought arrived broken. eBay refused to do anything about it; PayPal made him return my money. That said, I was stuck with the negative rating.

The other point to remember is that a buyer buys on faith. A smart seller uses PayPal or another reputable service and has the money prior to shipment. At this point in the history of the Internet, any seller who ships a product on the basis of a money order or a check should do so only if they personally know the buyer.
 
Meh, I've always had good luck with the few items I've bought off of ebay. I don't worry if the seller doesn't have a 100% positive feedback, if 90-99 people thought they did good, and 1-10 thought they didn't, well, there's one in every crowd. (Now a 50% positive rating! Yeah, probably not!)
 
Hankster said:
They should have two ratings, one as the "seller" and one as the "buyer". This way, users can see if they are buying from a good "seller" or selling to a good "buyer" :D
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They do have that, people just don't look.

When you click on 'feedback' there are tabs that display 'Feedback as a buyer' and 'Feeback as a seller' There are also other tabs such as 'Feedback left for others'
 
eBay's feedback system is somewhat of a joke anyway. It was designed with an honest community in mind, and during eBay's early years it served its purpose.

Now, it's just problematic. You have eBay sellers with very high feedback scores (generated by low cost items) that sell a high ticket item via shady methods contributing to fraud. You just don't know anymore.

I think the majority of eBay users don't "understand" (or care) how feedback is supposed to work.

For example, the only negative I have on my 120+ feedback record is a one-time eBayer who left me a positive comment, yet checked the negative radio button (I suppose accidentally). As a seller, I tried to contact the buyer to mutually withdraw feedback. However, he didn't bother to respond—now he's unregistered and eBay won't remove the feedback from my profile.

Ridiculous. All because someone wasn't paying attention.

Other than that situation, I've never had a major problem as a buyer or seller. However, if I'm selling an item of higher value (Used Mac, etc)—I tend to get bombarded with "novice" questions that are answered within the auction description, scam artists (How much is shipping to Singapore?) and users looking for "extras" (pirated Photoshop, Final Cut, Office, etc).

At this point, I've learned to look at a person's feedback before I even bother answering questions or responding instead of answering every single request.
 
If you're a seller, you shouldn't be allowed to see the rating that the buyer left you until you have left the buyer some feedback. That way, you don't show your cards before the buyer shows his. Same thing happens if you're the buyer. I haven't really given this a lot of thought, but I think this off-the-cuff idea may help.
 
Abstract said:
If you're a seller, you shouldn't be allowed to see the rating that the buyer left you until you have left the buyer some feedback. That way, you don't show your cards before the buyer shows his. Same thing happens if you're the buyer. I haven't really given this a lot of thought, but I think this off-the-cuff idea may help.
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Yep, that's basically the same thing I proposed, and I think it would work well. No feedback is shown until both parties have left feedback, or the 90 days limit for leaving FB has passed.
 
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