OT: Twatting eBay screwing with things again.

So you wait for the buyer to pay you, then you also wait for them to give you feedback? Why? The feedback is all about showing how each side of the deal has honoured their part of the transaction, the buyer sending money, the seller shipping the goods. Sellers rarely leave feedback these days until the buyer has, so they can leave retaliatory feedback if the buyer isn't happy with the seller.

Thankfully no more.

No, it gives the buyer *some* power, which they didn't have before. Fleabay themselves have pointed out that the buyer has to do all the trusting, it seems some people just don't trust anyone but insist that everyone trusts them.

So the alternative would be to maybe pay rent on a shop, rates, heat, light and phone bill....? I think the ebay fees will still work out cheaper by a big margin.

And that Austin old chap is your perogative to make that choice. Ebay isn't perfect by any manner of means, but there are endless companies out there who, without ebay, would never have had my repeat trade. Vehicle radiators, water pumps etc spring to mind. I think the days of anyone expecting to find bargains on ebay are long gone - I use it as a means of price comparison and then select according to what I feel is the best price for a quality item, not necessarily the cheapest - and to this end sellers can retail items via ebay without the higher overheads of advertising or premises. Just my personal thoughts, not intending to upset anyone so don't take it the wrong way. Badger.

Well put Ian, you saved me a lot of typing, lol. Badger.

As a seller I leave feedback when I get paid. I figure the buyer has done his part and paid, putting a certain amount of trust in me to deliver what I've described. But then, I'm honest, to my detriment usually, in my auctions, but then I normally only sell stuff I don't have a use for anymore and don't use it as a means of income, as such.

Ditto. I figure the seller, after being paid, should honour their part of the agreement properly. If I do have a problem I invariably use email or other comms to go as far as possible outside ebay to solve the problem before negging.

Interestingly the only neg I have against me is one from a power seller, who I paid immediately, they didn't deliver, constantly said to check my email settings and didn't really offer any solution for four months so I negged them. They negged back ... but had no cause to as I'd paid on the dot with Paypal, but being naive I'd waited, as per the PS instructions, for too long before I oculd do anything about his neg to me!!!

I learnt a lot from that one, but still do the same feedback, seller leaves when paid, buyer leaves when gods received as per description, or problem resolved. I see no reason to change, provided I can still reply to a neg, which is a tad different from a retaliatory neg. Most people who check feedback will see the neg and understand, I hope. ;)

I wouldn't, see above, and I doubt most buyers would unless they're deliberately setting out to stiff you anyway. I find most people simply want a fair deal, and although I've had some problems they've been minor and resolvable without resorting to negs. I do think, however, that this could lead to more people setting out to scam sellers and using the skewed feedback as a weapon.

I agree. A transaction is two-way, the resultant feedback needs to be too.

You keep coming back to this apparent need for instant feedback on payment. It's a non-issue, is positive feedback some sort of right, does it make any difference if you get no feedback at all? I really worry about the occasional buyer that is sending emails at the time of payment demanding positive feedback instantly, why is it so important to them, are they setting someone up for a sting once they've built a got rating?

Good buyers or sellers get good feedback from me when I sit down to clear up outstanding feedback this can be once a week if I'm busy. It's got nothing to do with holding anyone to ransom. When payment arrives I tend to post the item as first priority rather than rushing to leave feedback right away, which would you prefer a seller to prioritise posting or a pat on the back for being a good buyer?

Feedback isn't part of the deal/agreement. The deal is to supply an item for the bid price. Feedback is an OPTION to comment on the deal, it may well be more effective and revealing if it wasn't seen as obligatory with loads of people leaving corny feedback automatically.

I'm currently trying to extract the postage costs for returning a 99p item to a powerseller, they charged me £3.50 to send it in the first place, sent the wrong goods, I returned them at a cost of £1.70 or so to me, they promised to refund me the return postage but haven't done yet. They haven't left me any feedback, if I leave them neutral or negative feedback then as sure as ducks is ducks I'll get negative from them despite using "buy it now" and immediately paypalling the funds. I've done my part, they've not done theirs, but is it worth me blowing my 100% positive rating for the sake of £1.70? Even though I've done nothing wrong, that's the risk of the current feedback system, and it's pretty chronic hence the action ebay are taking. And about time too.

As a seller on four recent sales I left feedback immediately I got paypalled the funds, only two of those have since left me feedback, the other two have not contacted me in any way at all, I can only assume it's gone fine, if there was a problem they'd contact me. And if there is a problem, they've still paid so they've done their bit.

The only alternative method I can think of to break the seller's power monopoly would be to prevent buyers from leaving feedback until the seller has left it, but then sellers would moan that this leaves

*them* open to retaliatory feedback... ignoring the fact that they hold the buyer to ransom from the start.

No, but abusing the system is, and too many sellers do that. Not everyone does, but it's a problem big enough to cause this action. They're not doing it for fun, they're making a major change to a system that's been in place for many years, and it's being done due to chronic abuse.

That's a fair point which I haven't considered. I see feedback as quite important to the deal and ought to be a good yardstick to use when dealing with someone, but you're right, it's not compulsory.

No it's not, it's just used as an indicator, but this issue has come up because too many sellers use it to falsely label another person as a cheat in retaliation for their own dishonesty, hence the changes that have some sellers up in arms --- they don't like it up 'em!

I think this new system may have merit providng that the seller is still allowed to attach a comment or reply to any negative feedback. This would allow the right to respond to a complaint in the right place without altering the other parties feedback score.

I'm still somewhat unsure about this. I have sent stuff to Argentina, NZ and Oz in the past knowing that I would have to refund if it didn't arrive safely, if a buyer has a good feedback as a buyer I have in the past sent it non-recorded thus saving the buyers P&P costs and accepting the risk myself. Without feedback as a gauge of a buyers integrity I can see that I won't be shipping non-recorded and that postage costs will rocket as a result.

OK, recent example as a seller...

I provide a bed to a customer, fully described, lots of photographs. They receive it (Cost me £125 + VAT to send it to them, but I didn't charge them that much because they got stroppy when I told them it cost that much - despite my listings prominently asking people to ask for delivery quotes *before* buying). The receive it, and despite all the description and photos (I embed large photos in my description, not the crappy small eBay ones) they say they don't like it after all and demand a full refund, including delivery cost. Without discussing it with me first the buyer makes a charge back on Paypal, and Paypal put an automatic hold on my account, plunging me 4-figures into negative - meaning that if I get paid by Paypal for something else, that money disappears into the negative balance, so I cannot sensibly accept Paypal until the matter is resolved, which in reality means I cannot now sell anything.

So, I am faced with having to cover a £250 + VAT bill (plus the eBay fees) for the sending and return of the bed with no fault on my part, and having my Paypal account suspended for around 30 days whilst Paypal piss about resolving the issue. In the end I paid up to avoid getting a negative feedback against my 100% record, but more importantly to release my Paypal account and allow me to continue selling.

A, If I had left feedback for the buyer when they had paid, that would not be reflective of the transaction as it panned out.

B, With the new changes I cannot warn other sellers that this person orders expensive goods and then makes unwarranted charge backs without any attempt to resolve it with me first.

Unless it is a repeat customer I know well, I leave feedback after the buyer has left me feedback, just to be sure that they are happy with the item - sadly most people don't have the courtesy to bother to email you to say they have received it and are happy, so how are you supposed to know?

My wife recently had over £600 held hostage by Paypal after she sold a buggy on eBay and the buyer filed a (100%) fraudulent claim. Paypal did finally find in my wife's favour, but only after many phone calls, 10's of emails, threats of legal action, and over a month of waiting.

Sadly this is quite typical of my selling experience on eBay.

I do realise there are some bad sellers on eBay, but as a buyer you do have the option to file a charge back through Paypal, and generally they do favour the buyer. As a buyer, if you pay using Paypal you are taking almost zero risk, it is the seller who always takes *all* the risk when it comes to the eBay/Paypal combination.

If you think in terms of buying online using other methods, the issue of non-paying-bidders does not exist elsewhere - you place you order, the seller takes your money, and you as the buyer have no guarantee of anything at all. The seller takes no risk, it doesn't cost them anything to take your order on their own website. Whereas on eBay, as soon as the auction/BIN ends eBay charge the seller FVF fees regardless of whether the transaction goes ahead or not and if the buyer uses Paypal (99% of the time) you are left open to a fraudulent claim being filed at any time in the future after they have received your goods. Yes, there is a NPB report system, but all the 'buyer' has to do is reply with a non-committal response (this happened to me recently) to stop you getting your fees back, and still allow them to leave you neg. The NPB report mechanism does not assure you of getting your FVF back as a seller, or of stopping the buyer from leaving negative.

As a seller I fear negative far more than as a buyer. As a buyer I am more than happy to leave negative if the seller is crap, retaliatory feedback (as far as eBay have ALWAYS maintained on this issue) is obviously so. I have a professional sellers account, and a private buyers account to allow me to separate the activities - if I get the odd stupid neg on my buyers account, who cares, what does it matter?! I just don't see the retaliatory thing as an issue. If you are a casual seller with a negative then the buyers can see that the neg was left for you as a buyer rather than as a seller and it is disregarded. If you check through the crap 'bulk' sellers on eBay, some of them with 100's of negatives, retaliation is obviously not holding these buyers back from leaving a negative, it is a non-argument, until now, eBay have always taken that line too.

On the upside, it is going to be easy for me to screw my competitors around - I just setup a load of false accounts, buy up some of their stuff, leave them negative to get their scores down (making me look better!) and fear no retaliation. Superb! Better yet, I want a new mobile phone, but want to get it for the best price, so I set up a load of Snipes on several auctions ending during the same evening and then only buy the one that came out at the lowest price, sellers can't leave me neg, when they file a NPB report I reply and tell eBay I have paid cash on collection / sent a cheque, so no-one knows and I can continue at will!

Now, if eBay displayed the number of NPB reports filed against a buyer alongside their feedback rating, that would then make a big difference to me, and I would then be prepared to accept that I cannot leave them negative, as the NPB is what I'm really after avoiding. The buyer could easily prove to eBay through Paypal that they had paid, so in that way, the reporting of NPB's could not be used in a retaliatory way. As it stands, eBay will be taking away the power of sellers to warn other sellers of crap buyers (who far outweigh the crap sellers).

Matt

Matt, I sympathise with the bed story, but FFS, no-one's forcing you to sell on ebay! It's your choice to sell there, knowing what you know, so no point in bleating.

Badger.

Yes, but if you've built a whole business model on it, you have a right to feel aggrieved !

Steve

Quite! Whilst I have reduced my exposure to eBay from the early days,

50% of my turnover is still a large amount, and I can't afford to give up that overnight. With the lack of a heavyweight competitor, they do have many of us smaller scale sellers held to ransom, and if anyone has tried to deal with eBay, you very much get the sense that they couldn't care less whether they have you business or not.

Matt

It sounds like you've had a shit time with paypal, however there are also plenty of stories in the other direction with paypal not helping with sellers who take payment but never deliver, so it does cut both ways. Personally I'd shy away from selling something with huge delivery costs, when I sold a telly I said "collection only", it does mean there's much less of a market but it also means if some turd turns up and says "no thanks" then you've not lost much. Paypal's "buyer protection" scheme has a dreadful reputation, I tried using it once and there's so many get-outs and caveats that it never got anywhere.

Isn't there a "seller accepts returns" setting? If that's not used, does that not prevent such things or are you double-damned?

Personally I'd have refused to ship and re-listed it.

With power sellers it seems to be an issue as the occasional negative gets lost in the thousands of positives, so the negative feedback system really doesn't work there, this seems to be one of the reasons they're basing the overall seller rating on the last year or so of transactions so a seller can't go crap after a few years of being good.

Many buyers do, which is why this change is being made. While it doesn't matter much, I suspect it's more to do with people getting peeved at retaliatory feedback and the feeling of powerlessness poisoning their confidence in ebay rather than any real effect. On my auctions I don't generally bother to check the feedback rating of buyers for example, but if I got a retaliatory hit I'd be pissed off, even though it's not going to result in me getting bids cancelled by sellers. When buying second-hand goods from complete strangers it's important that the buyer has some confidence even if it's not entirely based in reality.

I must agree with Ian, my 100% rating is very valuable to me and it means buyers can bid with a degree of confidence. I always read feedback comments if I'm buying something expensive and make my own judgement on whether the comment appears justified or not. Mostly it seems easy to judge if a seller is genuine or not.

I would fear leaving neg feedback to a crap seller as it may mean I would get retaliatory feedback, so in that sense the changes are good.

Matt's experience could have happened from a shop order or a website order but his problem really arose because eBay and PayPal are linked and PayPal froze his account. That issue really needs to be addressed if eBay want professional sellers to keep using their facility. I'm surprised they haven't sorted it as it is damaging eBay's business hugely. Maybe this business of holding money will help.

My experience of eBay has been largely positive, I left neg for one guy who sold me two "working" outboard engines, neither of which actually worked at all. I also filed a non-paying bidder report to a guy I sold a cheap book to. Until that point I had no problems whatsoever and because it was cheap I had actually dispatched the book before payment was received. Good customer service and all that. I reasoned that the guy would have a long time to make the payment as he lived in Oz, before he received the book but he simply didn't pay or communicate. Lesson learned but it was a cheap lesson. I assume my selling fees were refunded and I note the guy is no longer a registered user.

TonyB

Does work both ways though Ian, sellers get retaliatory feedback just as much as buyers. A friend of mine deals in lots of 'small' antiques, he's had 8 pointless negs in the past year, and he's one of the most honest blokes I've met. I recall a car dealer I bought an Audi off a couple of years ago, he had loads of negs, with all sort of bollox about dodgy cars, no communication etc. etc, but was an absolutely top bloke (mind you I was immediately biased as he picked me up in his RR!), went well out of his way for me. He was selling part-ex's from his dealership 'privately' from his home - this guy did not need the money (he even gave me £100 off just because he hadn't had chance to clean the car!) and was no way selling dodgy motors, but because of twatty 'buyers' he had a load of negs, why should he not have the opportunity to respond? I did notice that about 6 months after I bought the car that he gave up on eBay - little wonder.

If you don't see it from a sellers point of view, think about it this way, a few silly negs (just 3 in 100) from buyers will drop me out of the buyer protection scheme run by Paypal (which requires over 98% and currently on my account you get a buyer protection of £500) If I am kicked out of that scheme, who does that benefit, buyers? nope, oh yeah, hang on - that's right, Paypal! (aka eBay) All they are doing by making it 'easy' for buyers to leave negatives is reducing their own liability, which is going to harm you by offering less (or even no) buyer protection by increasing the number of sellers with pointless negs. It's total bollox, and nothing to do with making eBay "better" it is about them making more (or should I say loosing less) money. Trust me, this is not a good thing for buyers.

Matt

Yes but the key point is that sellers can wait for the customer to cough up before they ship, if the buyer gets the upper hand in the feedback stakes, it's a fairly pathetic advantage compared to the seller's ability to take the money and the buyer having to trust them to ship them the goods.

Some things are just not good things to sell in unseen auctions IMHO, cars and antiques being two good examples. Lots of people in here have said that they buy cars on ebay unseen and go out to see the car, and if they don't like it they'll walk away. If I was going to try and sell a car, I wouldn't use ebay for it, I tried it twice and it was a total waste of time. I wouldn't buy one on ebay either for the same reason. Antiques too are one of those things where you can't be sure what you're buying and whether you want it until you see it so it's not really suitable for an online unseen auction. Clearly defined goods are much easier as it's much more clear cut. I have bought one antique on ebay, a clock, that went fine, but it's a dodgy thing for buyers too as well as sellers as there's a good chance that when you see it you just don't want it. Sellers can't expect people to just accept it, IMHO such items just aren't compatible. "Good condition" when it comes to second-hand cars and antiques is extremely subjective, much more so than most items.

Well, I don't think we'll agree on that. I've done a fair few sells on ebay and it's fine for what I use it for, but I certainly wouldn't base a long-term business on one outlet anyhow.