Rant eBay to "ban sellers from leaving negative comments about buyers"

This is an ill-conceived move by the higher-ups @ eBay. Having been a user since its inception, I have seen the fees and costs skyrocket basically through the roof from practically nothing within the first couple of years, and this just gives yet another reason to stop trade on eBay. For shame!

 

I think there has been some confusion here. I've read in several places that when a user is banned from Ebay or suspended, THEIR negative feedback will be retracted from whoever they gave it to.

 

Step 1) How to kill eBay

 

this is terrible, sombody brought somthing off me, didnt pay, left negativ feedback then i contacted ebay and after weeks of messageing they said it wouldnt be removed

 

Pritty dumb move by Ebay I feel

One thing that crosses my mind is that possibly a rogue site could pop up, not run by ebay, where some form of feedback system would be in place, one that Ebay has no control over, one where the sellers could add a user to a database and add feedback, which other sellers would be able to check against. Tho that idea is a bit far out at present.

 

Is there an alternative to ebay?? that is credable and safe? I have 100% record on both my accounts but I see this move will increase the amount of negative feedbacks from buyers.

I admit as a seller, I hold back from giving feedback until the buyer is happy with the item and confirms so in their feedback. You wont be able to defend yourself now if there is no seller neg feedback option.

 

I thought of this a number of years back as a way to leave longer feedback. Sometimes it takes more than 80 characters to explain just what the person did (or didn't do). But it might have life as an alternate feedback system... problem is you have to go check another area (site) to see if the bidder is legit and with most bids coming in the last few minutes...

 

I agree that there should be a need to improve or expand the feedback system... but banning?!

 

Another nail in the coffin. Probably thought up by paypal, as they'd be loosing out on sales, thus fee's.

 

Wow... has ebay lost it? This is a really stupid move...

A responsible seller, that is actually trying to turn a profit on ebay, is actually protecting themselves (and other sellers) from bafoon customers that waste sellers time and money. It cant be a one way street on ebay, it completely takes away that "open market" feel that it has. I, as a seller, have left negative feedback about buyers because they were irresponsible and didnt adhere to the terms of the sale. It isn't wrong!

The entire feedback system is to weed out the bad, irresponsible and deadbeat crowed that has flooded ebay.

The interesting thing is that the seller community is just going to give a + and leave a bad comment anyway.... it just makes it harder now to actually see a real unbiased comment..... *sigh*

 

FOD has a good idea about forcing sellers to leave feedback once an item has been paid for. One way to ensure that they do this would be to prevent the buyer from leaving feedback until the seller has done so first. This way if the seller wants feedback then they have to comment first.

I don't use ebay much, but I have had a crappy seller leave bad feedback when I have left constructive criticism (I gave him neutral feedback so he gave me neutral feedback and all it was was some crappy ASCII text saying neutral feedback).

 

Might as well get rid of feedback altogether then. Without negative feedback stats, there's absolutely no way of comparing ebay users. A feedback rating of 1000 might look impressive but that means nothing if there's been 5000 people who've been unhappy with the user.

 

It's not fundamentally a bad thing - just done wrong. IMO, it should be done any of a couple other ways:

*Feedback isn't posted until either both the buyer and the seller leave it or the time runs out for feedback. This way a seller won't leave revenge negative feedback because they won't know anything other than "feedback has been left but you can't see it yet" or something like that. Feedback revision (if the buyer/seller rectifies the error) can only go up.

*Seller feedback is limited to paying/nonpaying buyer. For paypal transactions, it'll be set automatically (and find some way to deal with chargebacks). Once again, anonyous until both sides have posted so angry sellers who got a neg review don't leave false non-paying bidder feedback.

*keep it how it is now but have a 'this was unfair negative' button. Rather impractical as it requires human intervention in (nearly) all cases.

 

With all my accounts over the years, I've never received one negative (or neutral for that matter), because I'm very discriminatory towards who I do business with. As a buyer, if someone has a rocky track record I tend to steer clear of them. If someone bids on my item that has significantly rocky feedback, I remove their bids. Simple as that. I know I may have upset potential buyers in the past by doing this, but I'm within my right as a seller to do so. I even state it on my auction screens. 'If you have significant negative feedback, don't even bother bidding.'

This idea seems terrible on eBay's part.

 

I don't think that the option of forcing the seller to leave feedback before the buyer does is a good one. The main problem here is that sometimes you will have a buyer that leaves negative feedback because they had unreasonable expectations about what you were delivering or how long it would take you to deliver it.

Or for example you could send out a brand new product, but it turns out to be faulty. As the seller you are more than happy for them to send it back so you can send a replacement. For some reason the buyer does not find this acceptable and leaves negative feedback.

 

very very lame, i hope they retract this decision....

 

I hate being held to ransom over a positive review.

When I use ebay I check neutral and negative ratings they tend to give a more accurate description of the ebayer. You can tell if the negative feedback was out of spite/stupidity on the commenter's side or if the trader is a bit dodgy. Positive feedbacks are generally useless information; "A++++++++++++++++++++" tells me what exactly? anyone?

I like the 'hidden until both feedbacks placed' solution. I'd also add an anti-negative-feedback-asshole system...

Negative feedback would be automatically discredited and be counted as neutral feedback based on the trader's positive feedback after the negative. It shouldn't be easy to have a negative discredited perhaps 50 positives after a negative will discredit the earliest (least relevant) negative

These would show up on traders profiles as discredited negative. eBay would be able to lock a negative as a negative should a complaint be filed and found to be true.

If a trader is a good trader (or turns good) then negative feedback will be automatically discredited as he builds up more positive feedback after the negative.

If a trader is not a good trader (or turns bad) then negative feedbacks will remain as they won't receive enough positives to discredit their negatives.

 

Ebay just seems to be full of crooks out for a quick buck, I have used it a few times successfully but have had people try to con me so negged them only to recieve a retalialtory negative in return, annoyingly you don't sse the full story when someone checks your profile so a quick glance at my feedback makes me look like a crook if someone has put something bad about me, its a real crap system, much prefer to use the local free ads now, you meet the person and do a deal, less likely to go wrong and you don't have to give commision to a website.

 

Others have suggested it, but the only fair way is to "blind" each party to the other's feedback until both have completed it.

Making sellers leave feedback as soon as they're paid won't work, because some buyers are unscrupulous and will try to cancel the sale, or change demands after making payment.

 

How they should have fixed it:

-Buyer pays
--48 Hours aloud for Seller to post feedback on the buyer.
--No feed back permitted after this time has passed
-48 Hours +1min
--Buyer can post feedback
--Locks after 30days

-Users can only make a post if they had a transaction
-Only during the alloted times and only once.
-Users can opt to not show there info in feed back making it autonomously.

Another idea would be to also allow users to post comments about a feedback message. This way if they got negative feed back or something they could at least try to defend themselves and let the public decide what they want to believe.