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eBay sent me a message explaining some changes they are implementing. Most of them are fine but one gives me pause. It concerns the changes in the Feedback policy and was stated as follows:
3. Feedback Changes
Significant changes coming soon will increase buyer confidence and showcase good sellers.
* Buyers will only be able to receive positive Feedback.
* Positive repeat customer Feedback will count and Feedback more than 12 months old won’t.
* Negative and neutral Feedback left by the buyer will be removed for transactions in which a buyer doesn’t respond to the Unpaid Item (UPI) or if the member is suspended.Yes, there are links under each asterisk which Ive yet to read but wondered if anyone here has had the time to do so before me.
So, is a seller now never able to leave neutral or negative feedback?
Thats great that repeat buyers feedback will now increase your score BUT feedback that is more than 12 months old wont. Does that mean that a year from now, the feedback Ive accumulated over all these years will disappear and my score will come down?!
The statements I put in BOLD are what concern me most. That could suck in the long run if you take a break from ebay which I have. Until last year (late), Id not been on ebay since 2003/04 which would mean by these new rules, my score could plummet to zero if feedback from a year ago will no longer count. Basically, unless youre a power seller and ebay is your life, your count is going to go down. If so, totally NOT fair and Id complain to ebay about it if I find this is true.
I just read the links and they do not explain anymore than what youre reading here. Ive a mind to contact ebay for more information and express my displeasure if my above concerns are affirmed.
That’s putting the seller at the mercy of the buyer. I’m not a seller but I don’t think that is fair to the seller.
I just had a live chat session with ebay. They said the changes to buyers only being able to receive +FB is to discourage the retaliatory neutrals or negatives. It is supposed to encourage ppl to leave more feedback in a timely manner. But yes BDW, I agree that the seller is somewhat at the mercy of the buyer.
As for the accumulated score we have over the years (mine is 149 right now; Im not talking about your % score of 100% or 99.5%, etc), that will remain the same or increase as you sell or buy more. If you take a years break from ebay, it will not plummet you score lower because youve been inactive. It stays as is.
Im satisfied with the communication with the exception of the point of mercy BDW brought up. We’ll see how that goes.
Here’s the deal.
http://www2.ebay.com/aw/core/200801.shtml#2008-01-29054823The way eBay has the changes is confusing. I was mad at first too until I took the time to understand.
From the article:
Quote:But overall, the current feedback system isn’t where it should be. Today, the biggest issue with the system is that buyers are more afraid than ever to leave honest, accurate feedback because of the threat of retaliation. In fact, when buyers have a bad experience on eBay, the final straw for many of them is getting a negative feedback, especially of a retaliatory nature.
Now, we realize that feedback has been a two-way street, but our data shows a disturbing trend, which is that sellers leave retaliatory feedback eight times more frequently than buyers do … and this figure is up dramatically from only a few years ago.
How much does THIS ring true?? I’ve seen time and time again when it gets discussed here that you guys, as buyers, are scared to leave negative feedback because you’re afraid of retaliatory negatives. Right?
Quote:Sellers may only leave positive feedback for buyers (at the seller’s option).
I know this is a huge change, but we’re also putting into place protections that sellers have wanted for years. In addition to holding buyers accountable via non-public seller reporting tools, such as Unpaid Item reports, we are planning a number of other Seller Protections against inaccurate feedback:
* We will remove, not just de-score, negative and neutral feedback when a buyer doesn’t respond to the Unpaid Item process
* We will remove all negative and neutral feedback and comments when a buyer (or seller) is suspended. We will also do this retroactively – which means any negatives and neutrals you’ve received from members we’ve ever suspended will be removed.
* For sellers with an established track record, we’ll prevent negative and neutral feedback within 3 days of listing end to promote communication.
* We’re going to reduce the number of days a member can leave feedback from 90 to 60 days.
* We’ll increase block bidder list capacity from 1,000 to 5,000 user IDs.
* We’ll increase our monitoring, and take action based on seller reports of buyers behaving very badly.
* Feedback percentage will be based on the last 12 months, although the total count remains lifetime. This means that any negative or neutral feedback left for you more than 12 months ago will no longer affect your percent positive.Volunteer mod- I'm here to help! Email me for the best response: nambroth at gmail.com
My art: featherdust.comI was wondering when this would get brought up here. I’m not to happy with sellers not being able to leave neutral or negative feedback anymore. Sometimes you have a bad buyer and you should be able to warn other sellers about them.
Under the new system if you have a non-paying bidder you are basically forced to file a claim with eBay, meaning you have to wait an additional seven days for the buyer to respond before you can even move on with an auction (like offering it to the second highest bidder). That’s going to suck for some people.
As someone who has received retaliatory feedback that brought my score way down bcause I have little feedback anyways, I can appreciate the new rule. I hate that some sellers wait until they see what you wrote before they’ll leave feedback for you. I usually pay within minutes of winning a bid, and didn’t appreciate buyers using my feedback space to defend where they messed up. Of course then they petitioned to have feedback mutually withdrawn and what buyer wouldn’t? So in order to make it so my feedback score didn’t suffer, I had to withdraw my negative. I should have known ahead of time from the number of withdrawn feedbacks this seller had.. I recently had someone ship an ornate, expensive dagger to me in a manila envelope with no other protection. By the time it got here, it was hanging half out of the envelope and I’m really surprised it wasn’t damaged, lost, or stolen. I’ve declined to leave any feedback at all regarding their poor shipping because I know the result will be a negative for me.
On the other hand, I can understand where it would frustrate sellers who legitimately have bad buyers on their hands. I wish they could think up something that would make everyone happy.
As a seller I wait to leave feedback until I know the buyer has received their purchase and are happy with it. That way if something is wrong I can hopefully correct things before feedback has been left.
I’m also a buyer who typically pays within minutes of the auction ending or invoice being received. As a buyer I send a note to the seller letting them know I received the item, I’m happy with it, will be leaving positive feedback and remind them to leave feedback in return.
PhoenixTears wrote:I just had a live chat session with ebay. They said the changes to buyers only being able to receive +FB is to discourage the retaliatory neutrals or negatives.
That right there is why I am behind this 100%. Yes, in some ways it’s going to suck, but NEVER AGAIN will I see somebody with 95% positive feedback in which nearly all of the positives actually said “this wasn’t what I thought I was bidding on” and who had fifty or sixty mutually withdrawn feedback. If you looked at this person’s score, you’d see 95% and that looks like you could probably trust them! But if people weren’t being bullied into leaving positives and withdrawing negatives, they’d have like… 70%! That made me SO mad. And of course I have a negative from this person, because I refused to withdraw my negative about their scamming and unsavory behavior.
As a seller, I leave feedback when the item is paid for. That’s when the buyer’s end of it is finished. As a seller, it’s my responsibility to keep the buyer happy.
I have one negative feedback and it was a retalitory for and item I bought that they took a month to ship. That’s when I started looking at feedback closer. I’d look at any neg received and then go look to see if he left negative in return. If so, I wouldn’t buy.I’m sure Ebay will keep score on non-paying bidders. Plus, nothing says you have to leave a feedback if the buyer is an a22hat 😆
I suppose you could leave them positive feedback and say in the comments that the buyer was an a77hat, and that you wish you could give them a negative, etc. Of course it would add to their total.
It’s going to make things a lot harder as a seller. I’m actually closing my ebay store in June or maybe even May. And I’m going to have a garage sale. I can’t stand having this stuff all over my house anymore. It just needs to go. And I’m very tired of dealing with Ebay.
I still might sell something there, once in a while, but the continuous inventory is going.
So… if you want a good deal on something out there now… 😀
I think I like this rule…. From reading posts on the forum I know some members have been really hesitant to give bad feedback in fear of a retaliatory negative. And since this forum contains just a very small sample of Ebay buyers, I imagine many, many other Ebayers feel the same. Because I decide to bid (or how much to bid) dependant on a seller’s feedback, I rely on feedback from other buyers, which I’m always hoping is honest and accurate. If it’s not, then I really have no idea what I’m getting into if I bid.
emerald212 wrote:It’s going to make things a lot harder as a seller.
In what way? I am only seeing an upside to this.
A seller can’t leave negative feedback on a buyer, so a buyer doesn’t need to worry about leaving negative feedback on a seller if the seller is bad.
This means the bad sellers are more likely to be able to be separated from the good sellers, which means buyers are more likely to buy from the good sellers.
Of course, as a seller, you would no-longer be able to check negative feedback of your bidders or buyers, but does it do any good to know that a winning bidder has a past history of, say, slow payment? Are you able, knowing this ahead of time, to do anything different to how you would do it without that knowledge? I know some auctions have limitations on who may bid, but does anyone here actually use the ability to block certain bidders? (This is not a rhetorical question.)
emerald212 wrote:I’m actually closing my ebay store in June or maybe even May. And I’m going to have a garage sale. I can’t stand having this stuff all over my house anymore. It just needs to go. And I’m very tired of dealing with Ebay.
I’ve always shied away from doing stuff on eBay. I even paid a customer once to sell something for me under our eBay account, because it’s all just too iffy for me.
But are you meaning running a store is a PITB because of the rules and regulations of eBay? Or is it too much of a chore dealing with the process of listing, selling, and interacting with buyers? Is it eBay the corporation, or eBay the method, that is tiresome and causing you to close your eBay shop?
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