Bluegrass Lass

Just saw this article:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/business/7228460.stm

Philgr

This is nothing for buyers to worry about - you can still leave negative feedback for sellers. It will make selling on eBay a bit more of a risk though as there's no way of filtering out the bad buyers.

cybersecretary

Oh no. No negativity? What will us Brits do?

Bluegrass Lass

Then how do you know if a seller is good or not? For example, had a friend purchase a stolen cell phone. She found out when she went to activate it. How would others be warned if negative feedback is banned?

Philgr

They are only stopping sellers giving buyers negative feedback - not buyers giving sellers negative feedback. So in your case above your friend could leave negative feedback for the person who sold her the phone.

Bluegrass Lass

Ahh..okay. My mis-understanding then. I read it and thought they were doing away completely with all negative feedback.. Thanks for the clarification

Giantaxe

Not sure if I agree with the change, but the problem is sellers giving retaliatory negative feedback to buyers. It's not difficult to find sellers on eBay that do this as a matter of course, which defeats the object of the feedback system. Of course, a prudent buyer has the ability to notice this pattern of behaviour by a seller and not bid on that seller's items.

ukelaine

It only affects Sellers on Ebay. They can no longer leave negative's for a Buyer, which is sad, as that's the only warning that a Seller has that a Buyer may be a Nut Job

The Star Ratings also left by Buyers will affect Sellers and Buyers won't even know who left the ratings.

It's a shame as without the Sellers, there wouldn't be anything to buy on Ebay, but, they continue to make changes that only encourage Buyers to affect a Sellers reputation and many times without good reason

Eventually the good, honest, Sellers on Ebay will be gone, driven out by the lack of support from Ebay.

Elaine

Tracym

I don't think sellers will leave Ebay, just because they can't leave negative feedback. Most transactions on Ebay go very smoothly really.

Also, if they're still leaving feedback - though they can't tick a negative button, they can still SAY whatever they want. Unless they're eliminating feedback on buyers entirely.

There's not a perfect solution. But I think these two lines from that article sum up the problem:

"It added that many buyers would not leave negative comments for fear that sellers would retaliate.

As a result, buyers and sellers may not get a fair picture of what is actually happening between trading parties."

Sellers used to leave feedback as soon as you paid. Now, they wait until the buyer leaves feedback, then the leave theirs. So if you gave them a negative, they very likely would retaliate.

So while not perfect, I approve Ebays change. The only way I could think to do it better would be that the feedback cannot be seen, until both buyer and seller have posted it. That would hopefully get rid of the retaliation. Probably more technically difficult though.

Dan725

The only time I've left negative feedback on ebay was for an arsehole buyer who decided he wasn't going to pay. I've not yet had a problem with a seller.

I think this change is bad - there are plenty of buyers out there who bid on things who don't want them, are late paying, etc. Surely feedback is a 2 way thing.

Tracym

I agree, I'd prefer it to be two-way.

But the problem is - even after the buyer pays, the sellers WILL NOT leave feedback until they've gotten (good) feedback.

So under the current system, any buyer has to be afraid to leave a negative, since they will almost certainly get one in return (even if undeserved).

I like my idea personally - feedback doesn't show until both ppl have left theirs. Then they can't see what the other one said.

Longy

If they don't pay you can report the buyer to eBay who will investigate and then possibly ban the user.

This is the only way around the feedback issue as virtually everytime I have bought something on Ebay I have been told to leave feedback and then they will do the same. As far as I am concerned this was effectively saying if you knock us we will knock you.

chicagojlo

I used to belong to a purse forum where they discussed their various Ebay activities. The amount of people who were sent fakes that would still not leave negs was amazing. The problem is that a lot of buyers are also sellers and they don't want their rep to go down as a buyer because it would look bad when they were trying to sell. The concept of reading feedback comments rather than just looking at the total % esacpes most apparently.

Personally I am over Ebay, most everything is overpriced anyway.

ukelaine

The thing is, leaving feedback is a choice, no-one has to leave it at all.

Many sellers leave feedback after the transaction is fully completed and that is when the item has been received by the Buyer, Sellers know that this has happened, when the Buyer leaves feedback.

If there is any problem than it can be sorted out before any feedback from either party is left.

Saying that you get the idiot who leaves a neg and never even contacts a Seller to let them know there was even a problem, giving the Seller no chance to make things right.

99% of those are people new to Ebay, who just don't read

Elaine