Have y'all seen this? Ebay feedback will now be decidely one-sided: buyers can leave feedback for sellers as always -- but sellers will no longer be allowed to leave neutral or negative feedback for their buyers!

It is true that for far too long, buyers have been afraid to leave negative feedback for fear of seller retaliation. But regardless, I think there is value for leaving feedback both ways. Ebay should do a better job as a referee -- something it stinks in doing -- rather than taking the easy way out.

Source BBC

Edited by ben2world on 02/05/2008 14:16:17 MST.

I agree with the new change for ebay.

The sellers get their money almost instantly when the buyer uses Pay Pal. I got lucky once and was the only bidder. I found the item about 2 minutes before the sale ended and make the min. bid and got the item. I bought something that should have sold for about $15 and only paid $2.50 for it. I sent the money about 5 minutes after the sale.

I never got an email about shipping. I sent 3 emails asking about my item and still didn't get a reply.

I sent a fourth email saying I was going to file a complaint.

I got an email from the seller saying he had 30 days to ship my item and to never buy anything from him again.

I got my item on about the 30th day. I have always though that seller was P.... that I got his item so cheap.

I gave the seller a nagative rating explaining why.

The seller then gave me a negative rating.

I use ebay a lot to buy things for another hobby I have. I always pay within 10 or 15 minutes. Sellers should work as hard as they can to ship their items as fast as they get their money, period. I have to say that the sellers I use more than once all ship very fast.

Bill:

I too had a situation where I paid instantly while the seller took his sweet time and never returned my email's. This went on for weeks.

I finally gave the item up for lost and posted a negative feedback. The unresponsive seller gave me a retaliatory negative within 3 minutes!

I took this up to Ebay, showing my prompt payment, copies of my unanswered email's to seller -- and the fact that I never got my item! Seller had no basis for giving me a negative feedback.

Ebay gave me a boiler plate response saying that feedbacks were between buyers and sellers. In other words, I had no recourse. I finally contacted seller and we mutually agreed to withdraw our feedback -- so none would count as a negative.

EBay lost my confidence totally. They must have gotten tons of similar complaints from buyers -- and now, Ebay's just taking the easy way out. Corporate America at its best?

Edited by ben2world on 02/05/2008 21:13:09 MST.

From the other side....
The shop I used to work for sells a lot of gear on E Bay. The feedback is mostly good, however in-spite of trying very hard we still got some negative response. A few memorable ones : the item was too expensive
(apart from the fact that he obviously bought it by outbidding others, it was the cheapest price for that product on the net at that time)
Another one : I had to wait for too long
(we posted the item the day after he paid us. the delay was his..)
In both cases we complained but the negative feedback remained.
Another complained that we did not want to accept the item back and refund his money. A search on the net revealed that he purchased a similar item from another site after he bought from us (also on E Bay) and even posted a comment on a specialized forum about how he was going to try the two and return one of them. (It was a high-end editing box). He used the same moniker in that forum....
Again, even after supplying all of the evidence we copped the bad rating.
Keep in mind that in the photographic trade the margins are very tight and the goods become obsolete as you look at them.
But I understand that when a customer "bends the truth" it's part of the game but when a salesperson does that it's immoral.

Franco

It's about time! There are numerous 'super uber power seller' who claim 99+% feedback. When you read their T&C's, you're REQUIRED to give them + feedback, sometimes within a certain time, then they'll give you feedback.
As noted above, totally rediculous.

The best ebay seller I ever bought from sent me a partially defective product. Upon notification, they immediately sent me all my payment back, including shipping, and told me to keep the product, or would send me a replacement.

Now we should see a much better customer service.

Mike:

As an Ebay buyer who had the displeasure of being held hostage by sellers -- I agree that change will help buyers to leave honest feedback going forward.

However, as an Ebay seller -- I think Ebay is making a big mistake by 'abandoning' sellers instead of playing an honest referee when situations call for it. Ebay needs to be pro-active both ways -- rather than just raking in the profits.

Edited by ben2world on 02/05/2008 22:04:52 MST.

I'm starting to see that from a seller point of view, if a buyer is not happy with the product its self, they give negative feedbacks. This is bad for the seller.

On the other hand, if a buyer is not happy with a seller and gives a negative feedback, 90%+ will retaliate and give the buyer a negative feedback as well.

There is no advantage to the buyer until now, however in the questions in the feedback, the buyer should separately be able to say what they thought about the item, (if negative) in a way that does not go completely against, (as a negative feedback) to the seller, but still be able to be read in the feedback if another buyer is looking for info on a product.
For example, a positive feedback on a used item but states that the item was a little more used than expected or stated. No retaliation necessary, but it gives both the next buyer and seller something to think about.