Brad Ideas - eBay - Comments

The buyer should first

Anonymous — Thu, 18 Mar 2010 04:41:37 -0700

The buyer should first always send an eBay message indicating that the item was received, was as advertised, or if not, describe the problem with the item. The buyer could send positive feedback to the seller instead of a message. One of these two things should always be do before the seller gives feedback.

Many buyers do not realize that since the year 2008, a seller can no longer give negative feedback to a buyer. Most sellers only care about getting paid and knowing that the item was received and that the buyer received what was advertised. Hopefully the buyer was also happy with their purchase. Any problems the buyer has with the item should be resolved before feedback is given.

All due respect, you are wrong

Kevin D — Tue, 16 Feb 2010 20:45:32 -0800

"...it's not a matter of opinion. The buyer's sole obligation is to pay on time."

Uhhh... that would be your opinion. I find it pretty funny how some people think they can call the views of someone they disagree with 'just an opinion', and their own view a 'matter of fact'. In my opinion, if the buyer's only obligation was to pay (on time.. ha), then there should be a check box that says simply 'paid'. The system automatically checks it off if paid via Paypal, or the seller checks it if paid another way. And the buyer's feedback would only say "paid" for each transaction. Now, think this through. If that were the system, and there was not a choice to say things like "Fast payment, great eBayer A+++++", or some other clever compliment, I believe this would be true to your idea that that is the only responsibility of the buyer. However, this would probably destroy any chance of sellers receiving positive feedback. Why? Because what reason would a buyer have for leaving some witty positive compliment if the item was just what it was supposed to be and all their feedback says is "Paid". If this were the case, then most of the feedback that will be left for sellers will be negative for when things go wrong. When things go right, so what, half the people don't bother now, they certainly won't bother if they don't get anything but a 'paid' sticker.

The point is, eBay's feedback has more to do with good will, manners, and being polite to one another. It is intended to be community concept, not an objective record. It is purely a practice of subjective opinion. A give-and-take sort of thing. Additionally, the buyer has not only the responsibility of paying (on time mind you), but also they have the responsibility of being reasonable, communicative, respectful, and decent. No?

When you leave a store after buying a product, do you ever say "thank you" to the cashier? Why? They are just doing their job, no thanks required. Or maybe your are just being polite.. hey... what a concept! They usually thank you for not only paying, but being a nice customer that they welcome back. But if you after pay for the item in the store, you then call the cashier an idiot because she dropped your change, then tell the customer standing next to you, "I guess only retards get hired here". Then drop the F* bomb to the old lady that wanted to check your receipt on your way out. Should you get a good report since, after all, you paid for the item... right?

Back to eBay. Did you know that after 9 years of selling on ebay only 55% of buyers left me any feedback at all? Why? Because many don't really care about it. So, why should I bother leaving feedback for someone who doesn't care enough to leave it for me? Feedback is 1000% more important to sellers than buyers.

Within the last year or so, seller's cannot leave anything BUT positive feedback or no feedback for the buyer on eBay. Those are the only two choices. So now even if a buyer does NOT pay, we cannot leave negative feedback. Fair... eh? There is no more retaliatory feedback. But the topic is not moot. The ONLY way we sellers have any way of protecting our butts is to not leave any feedback until we know the deal is good and completed. The only way we know that is if the buyer either leaves positive feedback or contacts us to complain. We cannot warn people about non-paying bidders. We cannot warn people about chargeback fraudsters. We cannot warn people about buyers who return broken merchandise in exchange for the new one they got from us, but now want a refund (that's stealing btw). No, we can't do anything to fight against bad buyers except block them on our own blocklist and file a claim for non-payment in order to get our fees refunded. This change is dumb. It is correct that sellers make eBay profitable, buyers pay nothing. Yet eBay makes it harder and harder to sell unless you are some large wholesale buyer, or a big chain, or a criminal. Regular folks get screwed, as usual.

So, the bottom line is, eBay feedback is a subjective matter of opinion users share about their dealings so that others can learn more about the members they are dealing with. It is based on mutual respect and manners. If a person does not say 'thank you' when appropriate, then I don't say 'your welcome' in reply... that would be stupid. Remember kiddies, always watch your P's and Q's, even on eBay.

leaving feedback

Michael Anderson — Tue, 02 Feb 2010 17:15:53 -0800

I can't really understand the back and forth here, as it's not a matter of opinion. The buyer's sole obligation is to pay on time. If a seller doesn't understand that, I can put it another way: There is NOTHING a buyer can do, besides pay, to make his end of the transaction work properly. He can't reach over the internet and pack the item better of get it to UPS a day earlier. He can't look at the item before it goes in the box to make sure it's what he ordered or in the condition described. A buyer is paying for something that he has only seen a picture of. The fact that most things arrive on time and as described is a testament to the basic good intentions of most people, and to a lesser extent the feedback system on ebay. If nothing else happens after the package arrives safely and on time, the fact remains that the buyer finished his obligation first and therefore must receive feedback first. I would still buy from a seller who violated this basic concept, but I wouldn't leave feedback. Or if I did, I would be more likely to leave negative feedback simply because the seller has such a poor policy that misunderstands the nature of the transaction. It makes that seller a bad SELLER, even if the item was right. (But not necessarily cool to call this guy names just because he happens to be wrong.)

I am dissapointed

Marius — Fri, 29 Jan 2010 15:12:33 -0800

You all are right guys. I am selling on ebay for 2 years now, and it's hard, I still don't understand how is it possible that such a big company like ebay can f*ck around with their customers. Who pays them 10% from each sale? WE, who pays them paypal fees? WE, who makes them money? WE, but when some idiot leaves negative feedback because he don't like package material, even product is OK, and was shipped for free, ebay don't want to hear about it, they cannot revise feedbacks.

Where you gone after you left that stupid site? Where else you can do great business instead of ebay and amazon?

Amazon at least cares about sellers and protects them.

I've been let down by ebay too many times to continue working with them, I want to close my account as well.

Please, don't use capitals

Anonymous — Mon, 25 Jan 2010 11:23:37 -0800

Please, don't use capitals unnecessarily. Beside being considered as rude, it makes your post difficult to read.

That is incorrect. It has

NotTrue — Sat, 23 Jan 2010 07:58:50 -0800

That is incorrect.

It has and always has been the SELLER'S responsibility to buy insurance.

The item is YOUR (the Seller's) responsibility until it is in the buyer's hands.

If the buyer has to send the widget back to you, it is the buyer's responsibility for the package until it reaches them and thus it is the buyer's responsibility to buy insurance.

A buyer

Anonymous — Fri, 08 Jan 2010 20:25:39 -0800

I do nothing but buy on ebay, Ive sold in the past with no issues, but now I just buy. Nothing annoys me more than paying for an item immediatley after the auction ends, and seeing that the seller got my money and did not leave me positive feedback directly afterward.

In the real world when you buy something at a store, your only obligation is to pay them. Nothing more, nothing less. If you need to return something, its no hassle.
On ebay most sellers wont leave feedback unless I leave it first, which is BULL. I had one guy who I paid immediatley, who never left me feedback on my prompt payment. In the packages he added a long letter and stressed how vitally improtant it was I leave positive feedback, and once I did that, he'd do the same. Seeing that the transaction went well, I left him 5 star positive feedback and never heard from him again. I never got positive feedback in return, which is just shady.

I don't care about the seller to be honest with you. I have no established connection, same as Walmart or Target. Their job is to sell me goods, my job to buy them. If the product sucks, or an employee sucked, I return the item, or report the employee. I've never been retaliated against for such things, but on Ebay you have sellers who seem to think that their customers, who PAY them, are obligated to beckon to their 5 star demmands.

Its this simple. If I do not get positive feedback from a seller before they get my feedback, I never buy from them again. A good merchant knows how to keep buyers coming back, the rest fade away.

Ebay Feedback Is A Joke

Anonymous — Fri, 25 Dec 2009 16:33:38 -0800

The new feedback system Ebay implemented is a joke. I have been buying and selling (mostly selling though) for the past 10 years and have acquired over 10,000 positives between 4 ids. I have a fair share of negatives on all of them. Yes, some of them are deserved, but more are not.

I.E. Giving a negative because the item was refunded and unavailable (yes, ebay does relist sold items and you don't know it until it sells again; especially if you have over 15K auctions running) Or another example would be it took too long to receive an item (buyer bought on Sunday and received it on Sat of the same week DURING the holiday season).

I quit leaving feedback first about 8 years ago when I got burned, and now only leave it if it is received first (in selling). If I am on the receiving end (buyer), I always leave feedback if I am satisfied; but there were a couple of times I didn't leave feedback at all for pirated CDs or they were so scratched I couldn't get through the first song. I didn't pay much for it, and I didn't feel like the hassle of sending back a $1-$2 CD.

As a seller, I have to read through the feedback my buyers are leaving before even accepting their offers on merchandise. If they leave petty or undeserving feedback, I just block them, because I can't risk my job being ruined for some jerk on a neg/neutral spree.

As a buyer, I skim through the feedback for legit ones. I know sellers are more than likely than ever to get undeserved negative and I don't let it affect my buying too much from them. I can read through the lines and see who is telling the truth for the most part. I've purchased from users with as low as 95%; sometimes in the 80s. If they don't sell a lot and one or two people ruined their feedback percentage, I can see that and I don't hold it against them.

The way Ebay has set up the new feedback system is doing nothing but making SOME buyers out to be more of a con artist and waiving the negative feedback card to get their way. I simply don't bow down to it. If you're going to leave it, then do it. Don't wait 60 days to leave negative. If it was truly that bad, then why not leave it when it happens, because it makes them out to look really PETTY and still holding on to a grudge.

Always put a delivery confirmation on EVERYTHING that goes out, so you can have proof that it got there ok. I just had a buyer purchase 30 items from me from another country and claimed that only half of her box's contents arrived (keep in mind, I packed this so good that even if the box came open, they were double bagged and foamed wrapped they everything still would be there). I knew from the start this story looked fishy and that I was possibly looking at 30 negatives coming my way; in which Ebay would have removed anyway for feedback abuse; but still. The individual opened a paypal dispute stating the contents were missing; they held up nearly $200 of my money until the situation was resolved. I informed Paypal that I would like the rest of the package contents back so I could take it back to the post office to start a claim since they needed the original package and contents back for a lost/damage claim and I escalated the claim. Buyer entered in the SAME tracking number I sent on her original package as proof that she sent it back, Paypal didn't buy that because you can't use the same tracking number twice on a return and released the funding back to me. All the whole while and I maintaining my cool and communicating with this buyer, even after Paypal gave me the funding back. I check my feedback the next day and low and behold she left me all positives (so I guess it just magically appeared on her doorstep).

Now in this case, the buyer was trying to con me out of paying for their duty taxes for their country and I wasn't going to go for it. And if I left feedback first, I would have been up the creek, because I think it would have been far worst than it had been. Also, I wouldn't have left feedback for this individual for the hell they put me through the ENTIRE buying process. I received almost 50 emails LITERALLY from this one person in a 2 week span; and I kindly replied to all of them, even though it was taking away a tremendous amount of time for my other buyers.

Feedback is VOLUNTARY and addressed as so. No one OWES anyone any feedback. The only thing owed is PAYMENT for the auction, SHIPPING within a reasonable timeframe PACKAGE as described in the auction, and Excellent COMMUNICATION to let you know that your package has been shipped, etc (PLEASE REMOVE SPAM BLOCKER OR CHECK YOUR SPAM FOLDER REGULARLY, for I've had countless emails go into there and buyers claiming they didn't receive any communication and docking my stars for it; also UPDATE OLD EMAILS if you have changed them. Sellers can't communicate if they keep bouncing).

Ebay - feedback

Moomoo — Sat, 21 Nov 2009 16:37:23 -0800

First off, the toolhaus tool is GREAT! Thanks so much!

Next - I am so mad at Ebay right now that I could spit fire. A young man just left me bad feedback that was a complete lie, spoiling my 100% positive (out of almost 3,000) feedbacks I've earned. Ebay reps? I tried to get them to see the injustice of this situation and remove the feedback, but that was simply 20 minutes of on-hold time and 5 minutes discussion time wasted. Their policy is basically that unless someone uses a curse or a racial epithet, the feedback stays. No matter how foul the lie, or how nasty the language, the feedback stays. I pointed out to them that a lie in feedback actually qualifies as LIBEL, since it is a lie in print, meant to defame a person. I might as well talk to a dining room table. (Thank you, Barney Frank.) I'm thinking that maybe it's time for me to find greener pastures at other online auction sites. Ebay obviously doesn't give a rat's tail about their users.

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!!!!!!

Should a buyer get Pos feedback for paying? Look here!

Justice — Sat, 17 Oct 2009 01:43:22 -0700

Buyers can no longer receive anything but positive feedback from sellers. This eliminates "retalitory feedback" right? It certainly does - even when it is deserved. There is a site called Toolhaus.org which shows ALL feedback LEFT by buyers AND sellers in one neat package. This lets sellers see what manner of "fair" feedback these now-immune buyers are leaving for the sellers. This isn't a bitch site put up by unhappy sellers. It distills all buyer and seller feedback down for anyone to see and displays the activity of ALL buyers and sellers by user name.

For fun, put in a buyer named "Newglas" and see what he leaves for sellers. He leaves a neg or a neutral every other day, yet keeps buying! He's the unluckiest eBayer on the planet. His speciality: Weighing items and then leaving negs for charging extra for shipping. One of his recent victims charged $1.35US for handling! His other pet peeve: Wrinkled ties. They are all damaged and wrinkled beyond repair when he gets them... yet he keeps buying. See it for yourself at Toolhaus.org.

My point: Some people are just mean and also crazy.

I find it astounding that so

Anonymous — Thu, 15 Oct 2009 15:22:12 -0700

I find it astounding that so many people have an imagination so limited that they can't think of a reason why a buyer may receive negative feedback after they have paid.

I am not going to list any reasons here, I shall leave you in blissful ignorance...

Personally I leave automated feedback first, that is my preference, feedback is stupid anyway. But I don't agree that anyone should be forced to leave feedback first.
I have received almost 5000 positive, 2 neutrals, 0 Negative and 1 negative which was reversed by the customer after they realized that they were wrong. Because I leave my feedback first, I receive a pathetic 40% feedback in return.

So here is my neg to all you buyers that make up the other 60%

NEGATIVE These buyers didn't leave me any feedback at all. How rude!

I agree, ebay should have Brad's system for multiple items

Homunq — Thu, 08 Oct 2009 12:47:07 -0700

"They would have to provide a UI to set up such bids (something they are not yet so good at) and effectively place your max bid on each successive item the moment it fails to take the prior item. This would look just like sniping if the auctions were spaced minutes apart, just like late bidding if they are further apart."

This would help level the playing field. Currently, if you want to bid on multiple items but only get 1, and you are not online all day, you are forced to use sniping services or software.

There are two other things eBay could do that would make the early-bidding strategy better for buyers, to even up the sniping advantage. One is to not report another bid when the current winner raises their max bid. The other is that if my secret reserve bid is $20.01 and somebody else bids $20, that person should not be able to know (by seeing the bid at $20.01 instead of $20.50) what my high bid is. eBay could implement this either by not incrementing the earlier bid beyond the later one (that is, leave it at $20), but that would lead to lower prices - they won't do that. Instead, they should report the "price to beat" as $20.50, even though my secret winning price is still $20.01. While this might discourage them from beating my price, it would be just as likely to make them bid $21 - so it is in eBay's interest to make this change.

Both of the above changes, by keeping your secret bid truly secret, would make it easier to maintain a dominant stance of "I will always beat you, so don't even try", even if you are bidding on multiple items and cannot afford to win them all. If you have $200 to spend on one of 4 items, you could put in a bid for $50 on each, then increase that bid to $67, $100, and then $200 as each auction closed without you winning. This would probably be enough to maintain leadership in many auctions, because few items get bid up too high early.

feedback

crazed seller — Sat, 26 Sep 2009 13:53:01 -0700

The buyer's responsibility is to not be rude, to not harass the seller over and over about how long the mail system takes,or my personal favorite... they MOVE yet they don't change the address and thru my crystal ball I should have known that and they expect ME to pay to reship their item. THAT is a joke. Then there are the LIARS that should not be working on their own car that CLEARLY break something and then LIe that it broke in shipping. Then I get the item back with grind marks, melted, crowbar marks, hammer holes, seriously.

So, 99% of the buyer's responsibility is NOT to pay on time. It is to not be A LIAR, a SCAM ARTIST, a WHINY BABY. It is their responsibility to give the seller the CORRECT ADDRESS THE FIRST TIME. It is THEIR responsibility to pay the return freight if they "decide" they are out of money and want a refund, or if they cannot tell the right from the left side of the car. It is their responsibility to be mature in communications and not send the seller stupid emails like "hey it's been 3 days WHATS UP WITH MY PACKAGE! It still isn't here." Nevermind they live in freaking Arizona and the item shipped from MAINE and they bought it on a Sunday morning!

Seriously I have heard it all and this new Ebay no negative feedback policy for sellers is CRAP. I RARELY left a negative, but after 78,000 transactions rest assured I would have like to leave about 50 people a nasty feedback comment and 45 of them after this ridiculous policy.

I could go on forever. Sell a few hundred items so you can see both sides of stupidity.

I am fair, I IMMEDIATELY replace ALL BROKEN items only requesting a PHOTO as proof, I give refunds if they have to buy locally in a time crunch, I bend over backwards for people. But every so often I get one customer that makes me crazy. I suppose Ebay is no different in real life.

Buyers assume most of the risk

Engineeringtech — Fri, 18 Sep 2009 19:47:58 -0700

The sheer number of postings here, means it's unlikely anyone will see my individual comments. That also happens to be one of the problems with eBay feedback. Negative feedback left by an individual will rapidly get lost in the volume of feedback big stores accumulate.

How accurate is it anyway? How many private buyers, trying to build their own feedback scores, give a selller a pass to ensure that they don't get retaliatory feedback? How many hold back because they are being held hostage by a seller? I encountered sellers who despite receiving payment, wouldn't ship until they first received a positive feedback! And what does it prove if a seller has a 97% positive feedback rating? We'd like to think that in the other 3% of cases the seller worked hard to resolve the issue with the buyer. But maybe he figured it wouldn't hurt his long term profitability if he screwed 3% of his buyers.

Please tell me what risk sellers assume on eBay! All they have to do is wait for payment to arrive and clear before they ship. If they don't get payment, they don't have to ship. Worst case they have to offer the item to the next highest bidder. Or put it back up for sale. Sellers have lots of angles too. Like having their employees bid up prices in the last few seconds of the auction. Or jacking up the "handling charges". When bad feedback starts to cut into their bottom line, they just open up shop under an new eBay account.

Buyers assume all the risk. They send their money on the assumption the seller will deliver. Sometimes sellers don't even do that. In my case, 85% of the items I purchased were misrepresented, defective, damaged, or not even remotely as advertised. I always paid promptly with cashiers checks or money orders. Only time I used PayPal, their system screwed up and triple charged my charge card for the same item. Took months to get that cleared up.

I realize lots of people have good experiences on eBay. More power to you! But my experiences as a buyer were awful. I did all the work I was supposed to do. I reviewed the feedback scores, and read individual reports. I emailed sellers for more detailed descriptions. Despite my careful efforts, I can only recall two of 15 purchases which were honestly represented. I was repeatedly lied to and cheated. I kept my cool and worked with the sellers trying to get satisfaction. Only when that was un-productive did I resort to leaving bad feedback or approach eBay for help. But every time I gave a less than sterling, (but honest) report, the seller retaliated with falsehoods. Ebay never helped, even though I had the documentation necessary to prove my case. Screen captures of the auctions. Proof of payment. Pictures of what was shipped. Ebay wouldn't even look at it. Fact is, eBay gets paid by sellers, not buyers.

I'm sure someone is now saying I must've done something wrong. I don't think so. So to protect myself, I stopped bidding. I finally cancelled my account three years ago. I suppose it's possible eBay has changed. I don't know. My employer ordered a tool for me last year from an eBay store. We never got it, and the seller refused to provide proof of shipment or a refund. We noticed him re-selling the same item later. Did eBay help? No.

Sorry if I offended any sellers. I'm sure the majority are honest. But eBay is not for me.

My solutions? Auctions should be held open unless there hasn't been a bid in the previous 15 minutes. That will reduce the last minute sneak attacks. Sellers' feedback should be restricted to "paid / did not pay" without further comment. Ebay should act as a middle man for payment, confirming that the buyer has paid and seller has shipped. They could also pass judgement on whether the shipped item matches what the auction offered.