Brad Ideas - Another eBay feedback improver - Comments

Ebay feedback

Sean — Wed, 21 Oct 2009 12:54:13 -0700

I hear ya about non-paying bidders and the toothlessness of the dispute process. I recently had a non-payer who promised to pay when his payday came around. 2 weeks went by and no payment, no contact. I sent several Emails over the course of 3 weeks. Still no reply. Finally, I filed a non-paying bidder dispute. He was awarded a non-paying bidder strike and I got my fees back. A few days later the non-paying bidder strike was removed..........as I was told because he requested it to be removed. Ebay sure wouldn't do that to negative feedback I've received.....even if the feedback was not fair or accurate.....ugh!!!!!!

Jeremy Russon is Aware of Fraud @ Ebay

Power Seller Extroid-N-Hair — Sun, 19 Jul 2009 22:03:37 -0700

Please be aware that there is a new FRAUD being implemented right before your eyes on eBay.

It's is difficult to identify due to it's cleverly hidden implementation.

Fake and nonesense accounts are being created and used to bid on high value items with no intention to pay.

These are actually account created and managed by eBay servers/people.

A normal non paying bidder situation used to be resolved by waiting the standard 7 days and filing a NPB Alert. After the expiry of an additional 7 days, the seller could choose to place a strike against the buyer and receive a fee refund. These buyers were often ones who had a problem with some term or condition they didn't approve of or communicated they simply changed their minds.

BUT NOW....

Suspicious and mysterious account using fake or missing account information are being used to target items in the 1000-10000 range. These accounts having missing or invalid contact information are considered a violation of the TOS and used to be immediately suspended or the accociated transaction was nullified/cancelled leaving no trace of it on the system. NOW....these accounts are not being treated them same and it's left to the sellers to finalize the cancellation process to receive a refund.

Often sellers will not do this because They fear that a negative strike against the buyer will cause them to leave a negative feedback. This fear for the seller is overwealming, especially for business owners who depend on eBay for a living.

With over 20,000.00 in npb sales on my two accounts in the last 30 days, the numbers being added to ebay's sales figures and the subsequent FVF collected as a result are most likely staggering. It is my estimation, a high percentage of these fees go unrecovered or unclaimed by seller out of fear of a negative.

Although a new feature has been added to allow the immediate starting of the 7 day process for refund, it's a little known feature and most likely would be used as a defense to this accusation.

The winfall from Ebay's new NPB fraud coupled with the revenue from 21 day holds are difficult for laymen to comprehend. These two matters should be investigated by federal trade comission authorities and charges brought forth against management if crimes are discovered.

I am convinced that Ebay is involved with NPB Fraud. The next time you have someone who hasn't said a word to you after 24 hours from invoice being sent....open your eyes to the truth. eBay is trying to steal your money while making itself look good to shareholders.

From a 10 year power seller with a retarded savant like illness which allows me to see the truth in situations easier than others.

I wanted to add that my ebay

Anonymous — Mon, 20 Apr 2009 04:32:04 -0700

I wanted to add that my ebay name is "Seaamigo" so that anyone who wants to see my ratings can do so. Anonymous bitching is meaningless if it can't be verified as to reputation. I also want to add that paypal told me that the seller always loses any "Significantly Not as Described (SNAD)" dispute, regardless, since they have no way to verify the information submitted by either party. My advice is to settle with the buyer and avoid the NEG. However: You can't make that a condition of settlement under ebay rules, since that would be "feedback extortion." Just kiss up and hope for the best.

Feedback by unscrupulous buyers

Anonymous — Mon, 20 Apr 2009 04:13:16 -0700

You make some excellent points regarding feedback from unscrupulous buyers. There are many horrible sellers out there as well, but as a seller with 2400+ power seller sales, and until recently, a 100% rating, I'll offer my experience from a seller's viewpoint.

There are only two MAIN reasons people shop on eBay: The first is to get a deal below the market value of an item. This is essentially a buyer who is seeking a "garage sale" price, which is perfectly acceptable. The second is to obtain a rare on unusual item, regardless of price. Again, perfectly fine.

There are other buyers: Shopoholics; or people who want to kick a dog, but don't own a dog; or those who just want to argue; or the unfortunates who are literally mentally ill and need the excitement.

The last three above are, thankfully rare.

I sell mostly clothing, and some camera equipment. On the clothing, I allow the buyers a short 24 hours to inspect and complain. The short period is for the following reasons: I don't want to "rent" clothes. I don't want to sell a tux and then get it back after they've worn it to the event. Likewise, I don't want to get it back after they've had it altered, damaged by a dry-cleaner, or let their cat use it for a scratching post. On cameras, I allow 7 days to conduct a film test. On lenses, I allow three days to inspect. Here's what I've seen regarding normal buyers who complain:

1. They have a legitimate complaint regarding the discription. I missed a pinhole on a jacket, or I mis-measured the item. In these cases, I allow a return, and pay the shipping both ways.

2. Buyers' remorse. They jumped in at the last minute and out-bid several legitimate buyers and then simply change their minds. Instead of simply saying: "I was over-zealous, and went crazy on the bidding," they want to make their problem my problem. I give a clearly defined period to inspect these items, after which the sale is final. In the 1% of problems I've had over the years there are tell-tale signs:

The first is: Multiple complaints. It's never just one thing, it is a multitude of seller crimes. "It smells bad; it's the wrong size; It's counterfeit."

Postage is an issue on eBay, since many items cost more to ship than they actually cost. I simply agree to a return with the proviso that upon a re-measure or verification of damage, I will refund all costs including postage if I made an error. However, I won't refund the postage if I am not at fault. Normal people who realize that their desire to wear the same size they wore in 1985 no longer applies, and know that their complaint is an excuse rather than a genuine reason for return, will accept this. I lay a tape measure across the garment, send pictures, and the dispute is closed with a refund, sans shipping.

The "smell" complainer is a bit more complicated. I had one complaint on a 50-year-old camera. Its odor was so horrific that the metal camera body simply reeked, and even after washing it and spraying it with Fabrize, she became physically ill by touching it. I took it back and resold it with no problem. I refunded all costs to avoid the negative, just to get rid of her. She left a glowing positive - probably because the others she had done this to told her to stuff it. I can only surmise this, since in the absence of her seller feedback, I had no way of determining if she was a serial complainer, or just a nut, or both.

The few "clothing smell" complainers were even easier to sort out.

A normal person will agree to a dry-cleaning at the seller's expense and "wait and see" if that solves the problem.

The scammers will respond that they "know that this will never come out, because it's so vile" and want an immediate refund.

I had one who said that the package was left on his porch, and it was so nasty, that when he brought it into his house, it made his residence uninhabitable. This was BEFORE he opened the box. Remarkably, he didn't want a refund - he wanted attention. After two months of emails between myself and his imaginary secretary, we agreed on a $20 refund - something I would have gladly given on Day 1.

Another, who was in the "kick the dog" category, waited a month to decide that a 25-year-old vintage jacket was "a bit musty." I asked why he waited a month to complain, he replied: "I hung it in the closet and hoped it would air out." It sold for $50 - about a third of what it should have brought. I jumped at the chance to get it back, offering round-trip shipping and a full refund, or a free dry-cleaning, fervently hoping he would take the former.

He waited several days, and then accepted the dry-cleaning option, and then left me a neutral. When I enquired as to why he did that, he said: "The musty smell made the purchase a negative experience, but since you paid for the cleaning, that made it a neutral." He had 24-hours to decide the item was defective.

This kind of stuff, in a way, makes eBay fun, since it opens one up to a whole new area of human nature to study and wonder about.

However, I had a recent complaint I could not stomach, in view of the current economic situation.

I listed a rare, 25-year-old camera lens with a starting bid of $50. When it got to $70, with several high-feed-back collectors, another buyer jumped in. He had a feedback record of 5 buys in the last 2 1/2 years. He rolled the bid up to $85, and won. He started exhibiting Buyers' Remorse before he even got it, asking whether he saw "lint" on the lens in the picture.

I gave 72 hours from the time of USPS delivery to inspect. This buyer received the item on Monday. On Friday - 2 days after the inspection period expired - he sent an email which contained the "3-rule" complaint: I said the item was "Clean, and the optics were blemish-free, to the naked eye." (Note that anything you can't see on a lens - dust, light scratches, dirt - will not be visible on a photo taken with the lens).

His complaint: The 99-cent lens caps on the camera were "dirty" (not true, and rediculous anyway) therefore my claim that the item was "clean" was a misrepresentation. he also said that he found light "scratches" on the barrel of this lens, so it wasn't "clean" as described. Finally, he said that the lens was "chipped."

In fact, I acquired this as part of a group of equipment, and, in the hope of making a killing on it, I paid a camera expert to inspect, photograph it, and write the descriptions before listing it. They found some minor issues with the camera body and one of the lenses, and prounounced the other items - including this one - "pristine" by their standards.

I eschewed "pristeen" in favor of "clean" and listed this item as such.

After five days, the buyer said the lens caps were "dirty" and therefore the item was not "clean." He also said the lens was "scratched." he said it was worth "less than half of what I paid" and asked for "suggestions" as to what we might do about that. No request for a return.

I felt he had outbid the real buyers and was looking for a discount. I told him that the item was as described, and in any case, the sale was final after three days.

He left me a negative, describing me as a scammer who wanted to palm off his "trash" on others.

He opened a Paypal dispute, won, and sent the item back. The item was perfect, despite his poor packing. Note: Paypal told me that the buyer always wins.

Moral of the story: I am now going to take anything back for any reason, just to avoid the hassle. If I find I can't make a profit doing that, I'll quit. A sellers, we can complain all we want, but it will do no good. Suck it up, or move on.

Feedback held Hostage II

Anonymous — Sat, 07 Jun 2008 15:41:11 -0700

I agree with the above response. The buyer has the commitment to pay promptly to the seller in order for the product/s to then be delivered. If the buyer has paid promptly then feedback from the seller should not be a problem, and the quicker the payment the better the feedback should be. Then it is the buyers commitment to leave feedback after goods are received. But, by all means if there is something you are not happy about with product, go back and fully re-read the description before leaving negative feedback, and make sure you haven't overlooked something before placing a bid in the first place. Then once you're satisfied that you have not overlooked anything contact the seller before leaving feedback. If the seller is obliging to help you in a proper professional manner then there should be no need for a negative feedback. However, I do not believe that in a situation with me just recently, that a seller should have the power to blackmail the buyer into leaving them a positive feedback before they will refund your money, because I'm still waiting for my refund even though I kept within my agreement. Now, I'm beginning to wonder if the records were broken before being sent, as the photos in the description were only the record covers. And, it is very easy to blame the poor person in the middle (the postman) isn't it?

Is This Supposed To Be Funny????

Anonymous — Sat, 07 Jun 2008 15:24:50 -0700

God help us all if there are too many of these type of minds on the Ebay system. And, if at all you hold a day job, don't give it up, because you will never make it big as a comedian.

Buyers trusting sellers

Anonymous — Thu, 05 Jun 2008 16:12:19 -0700

I have just recently received two records from a seller called tradingp0st, however I was pretty disappointed to open the package to find both records broken in half, due to inadequate packaging. I contacted the seller, who informed me that they would give refund on one of two conditions. First was to send the records back for a refund or to leave a positive feedback providing them with my bank account details and they would pay the refund. However, being reasonably new to the system, I have left the positive feedback and provided my account details, I am still waiting for the refund, and now all of a sudden the seller has changed their name to sh0pcl0sed. They have supposedly closed. However, I still have the packaging with the return address. Does, anyone have any ideas of what to do?

e(enron)Bay's recent feedback debacle

Larry G. Hamm — Fri, 23 May 2008 08:46:26 -0700

I decided to express my anger with e(enron)Bay through their discussion board. They promptly suspended my rights, not only post, but to view the boards. I expressed my total disgust with them, i ask for and suggested other sites for sellers to try. I informed the board of different communications i had received and supported a boycott of e(enron)Bay. I never used foul language, cursing or anything like that. This place is so apparent with their obvious distain for the sellers. Their cowardice, in not allowing those who make them so rich, to express their views is indicative of their God like attitude. Think back a short while, to the tapes of the Enron executives laughing at the Grandma's having to pay such exhorbinate fuel oil prices because of their price fixing schemes. This is what we have here, only on a smaller scale. I will not be silenced and e(enron)Bay will regret this stupid decision.!!!!! ABOLUTE POWER, CORRUPTS, ABSOLUTELY.

So what

brad — Sat, 16 Feb 2008 11:26:12 -0800

Against this type of buyer, negative feedback is not relevant. They will just get neg feedback and get a new buying account. You don't get to pick your buyer based on feedback.

Neg feedback on a buyer only hurts them when they become a seller, and if I'm a dishonest buyer, or seller, I will buy with a different account than I sell.

FEEDBACK

Anonymous — Sat, 16 Feb 2008 10:21:48 -0800

What about when a buyer recieves an item says its not working and sends back the item missing parts then wants 100% payed back. You think this is fair NOT. This is why sellers hold back on there feedback. I just recieved a clock back that was missing parts on the inside and half the case screws were missing buyer said his jeweler took it apart and cant be fixed. Well now i have a clock oh buy the way it still runs and keeps time but is missing parts off the alarm part of it and case screws. I expect him to neg me even thow i paid him back the auction closing price but not the shipping.

Whiney Sellers? Whiney buyers!

Mike S. — Fri, 08 Feb 2008 18:06:25 -0800

The person above who commented:

"I get so tired of the whine sellers. I have just made my THIRD sale to a seller who requested that I, as a buyer, post feedback first. Just to test the above assertion that sellers want assurance that buyers are "HAPPY", I have sent them emails saying "THANK YOU! YES! GREAT DEAL! THANKS FOR LISTING!". For the third time now, I have received an email back from these unscrupulous sellers, thanking me for my note, but NONE have given me any feedback. This clearly demonstrates that most people who withhold feedback do so for RETALIATION purposes. They simply can't trust the community. I won't give them any more excuses."

has no clue.

I've bought 5000 items over eBay and sold 50,000. The buyer holds most of the power:

a. feedback (over-emphasized)
and
b. chargeback

Any seller who does not perform gets charged back. Yes, it is right for the seller to leave feedback after the buyer leaves feedback. I always leave feedback first as a buyer because it is the buyer that closes the transaction by saying "it worked, I won't charge back."

The seller has some powers:
a. refund
b. feedback
c. Block

But other than those three, he is powerless after being paid.

Mike

I have another post on it, but really, what was the value?

brad — Tue, 05 Feb 2008 08:45:58 -0800

What was the point of feedback to buyers? You usually don't get to do anything with buyer feedback. A buyer with poor feedback can win your auction in the last second. Sellers could get hardlined about voiding wins by low feedback buyers, but then buyers would just discard and recreate accounts regularly if this became a problem.

No, the only real value in giving neg feedback to a buyer was to punish them when they want to _sell_, and largely in particular it was to have the threat of revenge feedback to keep the buyer from doing a negative. And that was not a productive system at all. So I'm glad it's gone.

Anybody else notice the

Mike — Mon, 04 Feb 2008 23:37:35 -0800

Anybody else notice the trend of BUYERS NOT READING THE DESCRIPTION for the item they are buying? I'm a powerseller and have noticed a huge increase over the last year or so. They seem to be reading the titles, clicking buy, and then complain when they get the item that it's not what they expected... when, if they would have read the first sentence in the description they would know right away exactly what they are getting.

Morons.

Then there's the buyers who CAN'T EVEN READ OR SPEAK ENGLISH who are buying and then complaining because they didn't understand the terms of the sale.

Or the Buyers who Buy a whole bunch of items from you.... then don't pay, and when you file a NPB against them they have some story about how someone got on their account and bought stuff and blah blah blah.....

A FOOL AND HIS MONEY WILL SOON BE PARTED, READ THE DESCRIPTION, DON'T BE RETARDED

And now ebay is making it so buyers can ONLY RECEIVE POSITIVE FEEDBACK!!!!

WTF is that!?!?!

So when Joe Buyer comes and takes his sweet time paying for an item, then once he gets it and leaves me a negative because he didn't read the description and thinks he should have gotten more than what he paid for, and used EXTREME vulgarity in his emails towards me... he can leave me a neg and I can't do anything to show sellers what an ass he is?!?

But hey, atleast ebay is lowering their fees by a nickle and giving us free gallery... right?

negative feedback

Anonymous — Sun, 03 Feb 2008 04:03:32 -0800

I fully agree i just got two negatives from idiots that failed to pay after i gave them 58 days to do so, they both promised to pay me several different ways on several different occasions yet when after almost two moths of waiting i posted non paying bidder reports to ebay i got negative feedback off them both in which one accuses me of banking his postal order and the other suddenly decided that my description was false. in the first case i never got any payment to bank and in the second he never got the item so how does he know the listing is false he didn't pay so i didn't post it so he has nothing to go on, the problem is even though i've been slandered in feedback by both buyers ebay refuses to remove their comments without a court order!!!, both buyers are now threatening me in e mails with court action for not sending the items out yet both buyers have failed to pay, now ebay sends me a stroppy email saying that my sellerrating is too low because i got two negative together, my 500+ positives count for nothing.
ebays non paying bidder process is a joke i think its best described as a toothless gaurd dog makes a lot of noise but has no effect on the non paying bidder at all. my rant anyway

Pay? Ebay should make enough

Anonymous — Tue, 28 Aug 2007 11:11:37 -0700

Pay? Ebay should make enough from fees to offer it free!

Another eBay feedback improver

brad — Wed, 16 Feb 2005 10:35:38 -0800

Earlier, I wrote some proposals for improving ebay style feedback, including not having feedback revealed until both have left it. That has some flaws, but the main reason eBay is unlikely to do this is that eBay likes feedback to be positive, they want to convince buyers it is safe to shop there.

So here’s an alternate idea to prevent revenge feedback. Revenge feedback is only vaguely in eBay’s interests, in that the fear of it keeps feedback positive, but the existence of it adds to the negatives.

To solve this, attempt to detect revenge feedback and print statistics on it. What would be detected is negative feedback left by a seller on a buyer after the buyer has left negative feedback, but not if the buyer left this feedback immediately.

In theory the buyer has just one duty — to pay promptly. Indeed, since eBay owns PayPal they could also just report about buyers whether they paid promptly with PP and that should be all you need to know. Sellers might want to tag a “troublesome buyer” who has a lot of complaints after getting the item but I think that’s in an entirely different class of feedback anyway.

So really, a seller should leave feedback once the buyer has paid, and negative feedback only if the buyer pays slowly, pays falsely or doesn’t contact the seller.

Under my system above, if the seller waits to give feedback, in particular waits until after the buyer gives feedback, she’s taking a risk that her own negative feedback will get counted in the revenge count. And a high revenge count will scare away deals, deservedly.

More simply, the system could also just count how often the feedback came in the expected order (Seller’s first, then Buyer’s) and how often the other way around. This would strongly encourage sellers to feedback first. You would see when bidding that a seller always or rarely feedbacks on payment, and again, stay away from those who don’t.

Now admittedly, with the fear of revenge feedback gone, buyers would be more honest, and reputations would drop a bit. eBay might still want to avoid this, but with luck it would not be a big change.

Updated thoughts: It may be time for a 3rd party company to begin offering more detailed reputation information. Since eBay has stopped robots it doesn’t like, this would have to be on-client software which extracts results of transactions from eBay to another database that a browser add-on (like ShortShip) can display. All the useful information could be stored — feedback order, possible revenges, feedback based on dollar volume etc. Counting no-feedback transactions is harder and probably requires a blockable spidering operation or some complex shared network. To this one could add more feedback done outside of ebay, including revenge claims and full text stories that eBay doesn’t allow in feedback comments.

Useful hint: eBay doesn’t allow URLs in feedback, but if you invent a random string you can put ‘Search for randomstring’ in the feedback comment, and make a web page with that string in it that Google and the rest will find. Then people wanting to know more than 80 characters can learn it. Of course, the other party can also make a web page with that string so searchers see both sides, which is fine. A good non-random string might be something like eBay followed by the item number, as in ‘eBay130064299000’ — in fact, if such a method became common you could search for it without even needing it in the feedback.