eBay Feed Back Complaints

[Doug Rose]

I have noticed lately a marked increase in buyers looking for money back stating the item wasn't as described. They immediately ask for a partial refund in their challenge of your listing. An after sale discount, if you will. Usually Janet and I will just refund a partial amount to save the headache of an eBay/Paypal trial; which a seller never wins. But the increase in this tactic is alarming. We will now go through the Seller's trial and have them send their purchase back for a full refund.

100% feedback for a seller is truly a feat in today's eBay.

Unless you have sold on eBay, you will never know the work that goes into just one auction, let alone a week's worth of listings. eBay has already handcuffed the seller with the ridiculous rule that we can only leave positive feedback. It was supposed to create a level playing field but gives the buyer total control. Buyer can do what  they want with no penalties what so ever.

I know the majority of you just buy (as I do as well) and think that most eBay sellers are less than honest.... BUT with eBay's increased cut of sellers profits, Paypal charges and now the after sale discounts it is making it hard to justify selling on eBay. Less sellers, less bargains to be found.

I will now step down from my soapbox....Doug

[liteamorn]

As far as feedback goes I have had a problem with feedback left buy sellers. It caused me to terminate my account for years, only in the last few months have I gotten back.

AS far as I am concerned as soon as I win a bid and pay (always prompt, almost immediate)I have met all my obligations as a buyer and should be left with positive feedback. Many sellers would leave no feedback at all so after a LONG time, sometimes a month or more I would leave neutral feedback saying my product was a good product, received in good condition however the seller never left feedback. Then I would receive negative feedback.

If a seller has an automated feedback program he or she should set it to leave feedback when payment is received.

Sellers used feedback as a weapon and sellers leaving unjustified negative feedback was the sole reason I left ebay for years. I always leave positive feedback when I receive mine. If you do not leave feedback for me I will not leave it for you. Plain and simple.

Part of the reason I returned was because sellers could not leave negative feedback and I brought 3 friends back with me.

[wds]

I've never understood why Sellers don't leave positive feedback once payment has been received.  I'm mainly a buyer, not a seller, but it seems that a Seller would want to do anything he can to received positive feedback, and the best way to do so is: No.1, deliver what he advertised, and No.2, leave feedback as soon as payment is received.  This leaves a good impression with the Buyer.  With at least half of my purchases, I have to hound the Seller to get my feedback. 

[liteamorn]

And as far as a product not being what was described, a little while ago I won a black WE 500. The seller said the phone dialed out perfectly. Well the dial was sticky and slow and would not dial, I contacted the seller and had a couple of bucks taken off.

I have found most if not all of the sellers I have dealt with to be not only honest but helpful. So far it has been a pleasure to play the ebay game. Every seller I have requested to wrap my phones the way it is described here have been more than happy to comply, a few have actually thanked me because they did not know how fragile these phones are.

I don't make it a habit to look for refunds, I believe I am entitled to expect my purchase to reasonably match the descriptions, and so far they have. The one occasion it didn't a compromise was met and positive feedback reflected "great communications"never mentioning the porblem. i thought it was a fair compromise.

[Sargeguy]

I've never understood why Sellers don't leave positive feedback once payment has been received.

Because some buyers are crack-pots.

eBay has enough buyer protections in place but sellers have little recourse.  Once the buyer is happy with the items and leaves positive feedback, the seller should do the same. If the seller didn't leave feedback, that's his choice.  Maybe the buyer annoyed him in some way.  Who cares, you , as the buyer, have your item.  Leaving neutral feedback just because you haven't gotten positive feedback from a seller makes no sense whatsoever, its just asking for trouble.  Besides, I don't even think seller's can leave negative feedback if an item has been paid for.

[AE_Collector]

As far as feedback goes I have had a problem with feedback left buy sellers. AS far as I am concerned as soon as I win a bid and pay (always prompt, almost immediate)I have met all my obligations as a buyer and should be left with positive feedback.

Amen. It used to be that sellers usually left FB once they received payment but then it changed so they would only leave feedback IF you left FB for them first. I already was the one who took the biggest risk sending off my money to who knows where and the seller wasn't willing to risk even leaving FB first?!?! Buyers can be crack pots but so can sellers.  

WHen the seller starts sending the item first and then I send payment, I will start leaving FB for the seller first. Until then, if I as the buyer don't receive FB first I simply don't leave FB for them. No muss, no fuss. I have even put in my feedback "Good Seller, left FB for Buyer once payment was received".

Terry

[HarrySmith]

I am a buyer & seller on eBay. I do not leave feedback for a buyer when payment is received simply because as far as I am concerned that is not the end of our transaction. I state in my auctions I will leave feedback after it is received. Positive feedback is very important to a seller as it affects our Powerseller rating which provides our discounts. 5 star ratings is also important to get a Top Rated Seller status which affects the placement of our items in search results. I include a note with every item I ship stating this and asking for positive feedback & 5 stars. I consider a transaction complete once the buyer receives the item and is satisfied with it. I leave feedback as soon as I get it. The system is definetly not seller friendly, I lost a few decisions early on and try to avoid making any now. I have had a few people ask for a discount and will not do that, I ask for them to return the item for a complete refund. As a buyer I leave positive feedback once I receive the item, find it is as described and it arrived in a reasonable time.

[pbghmike77]

Wow something I can give advice and input on!!! I manage 2 Top Rated Seller accounts on ebay. As Doug said it takes a ton of time if you list, take pictures, and package your items as a seller should. I have not had any instances asking for any money back or even partial refunds. Not that I am an expert Doug but if you dont mind I would look at your Ebay items and make suggestions. I have had a lot of success on ebay and started out from scratch not knowing anything about it.

As far as feedback goes, I never leave feedback until the buyer has. For the guys that think the buyer should get positive feedback for merely paying from a sellers perspective is absurd, especially if the item is used and collectible such as phones. Collectors opinions vary so much on condition, depending on the collector. My ads all have a note saying if you are not happy contact me first, as a buyer I would think if you are unhappy I should get the opportunity to make it right before you leave feedback. So basically if I leave feedback just because you paid and you leave me neutral/negative feedback with no contact and no opportunity to correct any problems your part is not complete.

Doug I do see a lot of positive feedback left for buyers with negative comments due to the seller only being able to leave positive. Good Luck, my #1 recommendation is pictures pictures pictures..... As the saying goes a picture says a 1000 words.

[DavePEI]

Doug I do see a lot of positive feedback left for buyers with negative comments due to the seller only being able to leave positive. Good Luck, my #1 recommendation is pictures pictures pictures..... As the saying goes a picture says a 1000 words.

Then there are SELLERS who ask for feedback, but then NEVER leave return feedback for completely successful transactions. There are a number of high volume sellers who despite good feedback left for then never leave feedback for the buyer. If I could identify them, I wouldn't deal with them, as I believe the feedback system is important.

These were all good transactions, buy the item, pay for the item, get the item, and leave good feedback. No return feedback.

I would say of all my eBay purchases, about 4 percent have not left feedback.

You do get the item you ordered, and it is perfectly satisfactory, but then you still end up feeling ripped off!

Grrrr!

Dave

[pbghmike77]

Couldn't agree more, I do believe it is a two way street. The only difference without feedback as a seller I dont get my 10% discount on fees if I do not  maintain PowerSeller/Top Rated Status. The buyer on the other hand does not suffer at all other than they dont get another star.

[AE_Collector]

I used to sell some phone items on ebaY several years ago but have always bought more than I sell. I agree 100% that it is a ton of work from start to finish to list an item never mind all the work once it has sold. I can never figure out the people listing 99 cent items that either don't sell or if they do they sell for 99 cents!

I know that ebaY seems to be stacked against the seller these days and add to that the what I call rediculous fees. I say that because I remember when seller fees were less than 5% on the first $25 or so and dropped from there. I looked half a year ago at fees and was shocked to see the fees approaching 10%.

I also know that FB is important to sellers and I know that if more buyers were like "liteamorn" and myself, there would be changes real quick because as important as FB is to Sellers, their "extorting" FB from me by not leaving it until I leave FB first is costing them a lot of FB. I probably leave FB 60% of the time hat I make an ebaY purchase. Looking at my ebaY handle won't support that claim because my wife uses my handle a lot more than me lately and she can't be bothered standing up to he sellers FB demands.

I do make exceptions if I feel that the seller went abouve and beyond and then even if they don't leave me FB first I will usually leave them FB and see if I get it in return. I can think of one such case where I broke my FB rule only to as DavePEI said, get nothing in return. I used to believe in 100% FB and was upset if I didn;t get it but lets face it, once you have at least a 3 digit FB number with little or no problems, getting every single FB possible from sellers really isn't important (to the buyer at least).

I still maintain that the buyer has completed his part of the deal when the seller has his money. The deal isn't complete but the buyers part is. The seller leaving FB for the buyer has nothing to do with how happy the buyer is with the purchase when it arrives.

Terry

[GG]

I think there might be something we can do about Ebay's obnoxious policies.

Weren't we all taught in economics, that "economies of scale" make it possible for bigger companies to offer better prices than smaller ones?  Yes, and so what's up with Ebay's fees DOUBLING from 5% to 10% as they grew from a little startup to a great big global corporation?  That's the kind of behavior we'd expect from an unregulated monopoly!

All this "Super Duper Special-Status Seller" stuff is just a distraction for the fact that they're fleecing sellers with high fees.  A great big serving of "bull stuff" to make sellers think it's their own faults for paying ridiculous fees, and if they just "try a little harder" and "sell a little more," the fees will go from ridiculous to reasonable.  (This, I'm sure, is what leads to the proliferation of 99-cent items that sellers are almost certainly taking a loss on.)

So!, what are we going to do about this, eh?

I'm willing to bet that Ebay has well over 99% of the online auction market share, in terms of a) number of sellers, b) number of buyers, c) number of items listed, and d) dollar value of transactions. 

And I'm willing to bet that if a bunch of disaffected sellers & buyers started making noises about raising an anti-trust action, that would rattle Ebay's cage the way the Tea Party and Occupy protests have rattled the two political parties, and we'd see some changes in policies. 

Ebay's not going to dare to retaliate against dissident sellers & buyers, because the media stink would cost them bigtime in terms of PR.

So: any sellers here who'd like to register "EbayMonopolyAntiTrust.org" or some such name, and do some research and put up a site?    And anyone care to bet how long it'll take before Ebay responds to the bad publicity by reconfiguring its rates? 

--

I have a few pet peeves from the buyer's perspective:

One, that this "Best Match" nonsense as the default search option, is a hubristic insult to our intelligence, that in no way can guess what each of us means by "best," and in any case may only be a seller ranking system and thus false & misleading.

Two, that the feedback system is deliberately hobbled and doesn't include anything about packing, thereby enabling sellers to use shoddy packing methods that result in predictable damage to items in the post, and not giving sellers appropriate credit for good packing.  For example recently I received a GPO 150 that was packed perfectly to the point where it wasn't damaged even though the box got crunched in shipping: that seller deserves extra points beyond my verbal thanks in the text feedback.  Today I received a North wall set that was shoddily packed and as a result got smashed up in shipping: I'm going to be tough about that because I always send shipping instructions etc. etc.  But those issues should be handled directly, in the feedback system.

Three, that the feedback system's top-end ratings are meaningless because anything less will trigger adverse action against sellers.  The reality of the rating system is that the 5-point scales go from "stink-o" to "satisfactory," with no real way to rate "outstanding."  A truly useful rating system would be 5-point scales of "unacceptable, mildly unsatisfactory, satisfactory, good, outstandingly good."  And sellers should get full credit for anything "satisfactory" and above, and special recognition for "good" and "outstanding" ratings.  Further, the "text" portion of the feedback system should allow for two COMPLETE sentences, rather than something more like a truncated telegram or a tweet or a string of adjectives that aren't even a sentence. 

Four, that Ebay tolerates item listings that are full of keyword spam via the use of "not," for example, "ITT 500, not WE, not AE, not SC," which immediately spams the searches of anyone who specified WE, AE, or SC.  The use of "not" in listing headers ought to be banned and the headers rejected, with a warning about not spamming keywords, and disallowing the "notted" terms from the header for that item.  The use of "nots" for keyword spamming ought to be a reportable offense that can trigger disciplinary action against "not" abusers. 

[Doug Rose]

I am a buyer & seller on eBay. I do not leave feedback for a buyer when payment is received simply because as far as I am concerned that is not the end of our transaction. I state in my auctions I will leave feedback after it is received. Positive feedback is very important to a seller as it affects our Powerseller rating which provides our discounts. 5 star ratings is also important to get a Top Rated Seller status which affects the placement of our items in search results. I include a note with every item I ship stating this and asking for positive feedback & 5 stars. I consider a transaction complete once the buyer receives the item and is satisfied with it. I leave feedback as soon as I get it. The system is definetly not seller friendly, I lost a few decisions early on and try to avoid making any now. I have had a few people ask for a discount and will not do that, I ask for them to return the item for a complete refund. As a buyer I leave positive feedback once I receive the item, find it is as described and it arrived in a reasonable time.

I agree with Harry 100%. Transaction does not end until the buyer is happy and has left positive feedback.  As a buyer, I always leave positive feedback first. As a seller, I do not chase feedback, I only want it 100% to get my power seller status. It is a big savings.

We always leave Positive feedback (is there any other) once it is received. Always!

From a sellers standpoint, we cannot take it bake because your wife thinks you spent too much money. I changed my mind or the classic, I just decided I don't want it.

We are not the Post Office or FedEx, we do not make the delivery rates. We have to charge insurance, even if you do not want it. BUT if you didn't take it and it was damaged, it was packed poorly.

Buyers, sell a few items on eBay and take a walk on the wild side!

[Dennis Markham]

Years ago I was given a "negative" by a seller to whom I had left "neutral" feedback.  It was retaliatory feedback for my neutral and the negative was undeserved.  It took a long time for that one negative to go away.  I think the current method of eBay to not allow sellers to leave anything but positive feedback was their attempt to stop retaliatory feedback.  Perhaps there's a better way to do that, I don't know.

I also believe that positive feedback should be left for the buyer as soon as the buyer pays for the item.  I have sold on eBay from time to time and it is my policy to leave the buyer positive feedback the instant I receive confirmed payment.  That's just the way I do my business.  Because the things I have sold are phone collector related for the most part, I am confident enough with my product to know that the buyer will be happy and I will eventually get the coveted positive feedback from them.  If they're not happy I will do what I can to rectify the issue.  So far, I guess I've been lucky because no one has complained about an item I've sold.  I understand everyone has a different way of doing things and can justify their policies and I don't have a problem with that way of thinking.  I know it's a tough world being a seller, especially for a seller like Doug Rose that does a lot of transactions.  I'm not knocking his system at all, just illustrating my feelings about what I expect as a buyer and a seller and what has worked best for me.

[Doug Rose]

 I think anyone who has been on eBay awhile has received a negative from a PITA Seller. I know I have. Retaliatory negative feedback is dead wrong, but so is the system that ties the hands of sellers.  This was also in the days before eBay reset your % total yearly, so that negative stayed forever.

A buyer buys your item and you remind them weekly that they have not paid. You bring it to eBay/Paypal court and they refund your listing cost. BFD. The delinquent buyer gets off scott free. Does this deserve a negative, you bet!

A buyer decides they do not want it. They go to eBay/Paypal court and say it is not as described. They get their money back, plus shipping, now I'm losing money. If I had given positive feedback as soon as it hit the Postal network, bad buyer would really be in the drivers seat. I left him positive feedback. Why? Does this deserve a negative feedback?

Negatives should alert the buyer/seller that this person has has difficulties on eBay and they might no want to deal with them. Bad history. Now it is just a way to manipulate the seller. If you don't give me what I demand, I'll give you a negative and then go the eBay/Paypal court and get my money back and part of yours. Not a real fair system in my humble opinion.

Bad buyers are the same as bad sellers, a real low minority. One bad apple......

Doug