I want to see a dispute history for high-volume (1000+) sellers

[pcseller2011]

Here's an exchange I had with ebay recently, any thoughts?

Enter your question / concern
I am not happy that the ebay vendor, smartphone.online is still operating as a 'This member is an eBay Top-rated seller' and that I cannot leave feedback on the fact that I had to initiate a dispute resolution with PayPal/Ebay to get my money back. I would like to warn other buyers that a) their warranty is a lie b) if you have a problem with them they will stop communicating with you c) you may be without your phone/product for a significant period of time if you purchase from them. The fact that PayPal ruled in my favour should allow me to do this and I should be able to remove the previously positive feedback (when the phone worked) from their listing.

Hi ,

Thanks for contacting eBay about the purchase you made from the seller smartphone.online. I understand you're concern about leaving feedback for the seller. Let me assist you.

A member can only leave feedback once per transaction. Once a feedback is left it can no longer be removed, unless it falls within our guidelines for removal and once it is removed, a member can no longer leave feedback again. Also, changing a feedback is possible by requesting a feedback revision request from the seller. This applies when you've left a negative or neutral rating. Since you've already left positive feedback before, it will remain as is. However, you can a follow up comment. Your follow up comment will be shown below your original comment. Adding a follow up comment does not have a time restriction. Below are the steps:

1. Click Site Map at the bottom of most eBay.com.au pages.

2. Click COMMUNITY link.

3. Under the Feedback heading, click Leave follow-up comment.

4. Choose the comment you want to follow up and click the Follow up link next to it.

5. Enter your follow-up comment in the box.

6. Click the Leave Follow-up Comment button.

You can find the details about the eBay Feedback Removal policy here:

http://pages.ebay.com.au/help/policies/feedback-removal.html

Thanks for choosing eBay.

Regards,

Hi Marie, 

Thank you for your reply. I have done as you suggested yet I still feel that ebay is facilitating in the scamming of fellow buyers by not reporting on issues such as these under the seller's profile. This is a matter I may take to the ACCC as I feel strongly about my consumer rights. 

It boils down to this, if a seller claims to offer a warranty for their products or services yet does not deliver on them then a buyer should have the right (beyond an 80 character 'follow-up' comment) to alert other buyers of this. If I, for instance, had known that the warranty offered by this company was false (because of other buyers' feedback) then I wouldn't have been subjected to this entire process. Ebay made this seller look trustworthy on the basis of 6000+ positive feedback comments, yet I highly doubt that my experience is the only one of its kind. I woul dhave liked to know how many 'disputes' this company has been involved in and how they were resolved (i.e. in favour of the buyer or seller). This information would have allowed me to make a better informed decision as to whether to purchase a $450 phone from them or not. 

Despite your handling of this dispute and the favourable outcome for me, the buyer, it is extremely unlikely I will use Ebay to purchase products over $100 ever again. Nor will I recommend my friends, family, business associates or colleagues to do so until this matter is addressed. I would strongly suggest you provide more information regarding the dispute history of 'top-rated sellers' on their profile if you want to avoid dissatisfied customers like myself in the future. 

Lastly, I have written this feedback as a courtesy considering that I have been a loyal Ebay customer for many years. I will continue to use your services for small purchases or from small.independent vendors. I will not, however, trust your rating system for larger 'top-rated sellers'. I will forward this complaint to the ACCC for their consideration as well.

Regards, 

[springyzone]

Thanks DG.

I might have to get one of my kids to help me out when I change over to modern.

I'll probably end up with something middle of the road, price wise. But not on ebay, I'll need to see the things properly.

[phorum_junkie*]

The phone I use most is so old it doesn't even have a camera lol, it is a dual SIM phone though which is why I bought it so I don't have to swap SIM cards between here and UK, I have to do that with my smart phones and invariably lose at least one of them every year.

I am sure many people can make a smartphone last for years but I am prone to dropping things and also for losing them hence the stratergy of paying around fifty bucks for a cheapo while keeping my expensive one safely in a padded case and only using it if I am sitting down lol. Unfortunately the downside is that it doesn't do them much good to be idle for too long and the battery is getting worse all the time, it is a Nexus so unfortunately you cannot just put a new battery in yourself, it has to go into a shop to have it done and is way too expensive over here, I will have to get it done when I go back home in April though if I want to keep the functionality I get that isn't as good as on my cheapo bricks phones

[pcseller2011]

Thanks for the comment. I looked at a number of reviews for the product before purchase, as I do for any electronic consumer device, and it had been generally pretty good. I don't really see how this would have helped me with the issue of the seller not being able to fulfil their warranty promises though.

[pcseller2011]

Thanks for your comment. I agree that this is unlikely to happen and it points to the larger issue of whether eBay/PayPal are truly acting in the best interests of the buyers of their site. A dispute indicates a breakdown of some sort in the customer service conduct of the seller in question. Whether they have done something wrong or not is irrelevant, a customer has issued a complaint and other customers would benefit from knowing whether this occurs often. I agree, the disputes aren't confirmations but they are a record of how often their business conduct results in a dispute.

[pcseller2011]

Thanks for your comment and breakdown of the buyer's point of view.

1. If the breakdown showed that the seller had won most of the disputes raised you would not be confident in buying from them because if you had to raise a dispute your chances of winning may seem slim? - No, it would render the number of disputes as less likely to have had merit and therefore I would ignore them.
2. If the breakdown showed that they lost most of the disputes raised then you would not be confident in buying from them because they have a bad reputation based on the percentage of cases lost. - Yes, exactly.

Either way, it is the number of disputes raised that would be what you want to know as the outcome would have little bearing on your decision making. - not necessarily, in the first example I would be less likely to worry if the number of disputes were decided in the seller's favour, i.e. I trust eBay and PayPal to have made the right decision that's why I shop there.

Your guidelines are all excellent, BTW, and I really should have checked the revised feedback.

[pcseller2011]

Yes, quite. I think it's fairly clear that eBay prefer that information is limited regarding their dispute resolution mechanisms for fear that it might be gamed by unscrupulous buyers/sellers. Fair enough, but they need to consider that this kind of information has value for the buyer and that is the reason why I, perhaps foolishly, thought it safe enough to spend a large (for me) amount of money on their site. I now won't deal with high-volume traders at those sums of money and will use other sites that offer better guarantees and/or information about what I'm buying. It seems a loss for eBay and PayPal considering they have the information and it would improve the marketplace functions of trust and good business conduct.

[pcseller2011]

Thank you for your contribution. Interestingly, the ACCC is a valid to the seller as a complaint may result in an unfavourable outcome to eBay which will get them kicked off. It was actually my main point, that eBay called smartphone.online a 'Highly rated seller' that could be construed as an endorsement of the seller's trustworthiness, a stretch I know. My complaint therefore would be about eBay rather for allowing 'dodgy products' to be sold by 'dodgy sellers' in their marketplace but making them look good.
I would add to your supposition 'you'd know there are some things you should never buy from Asia' 'on eBay' as essentially everything is bought, via intermediaries, from 'Asia' these days. My point is that eBay should disclose the sellers dispute history (when dealing with high-volume sellers) so that i can make an informed choice regardless of the seller's location. this would make for a more efficient market.

[pcseller2011]

Thanks for your comment. I agree, these sorts of things are best purchased from trusted retailers, which eBay top-rated sellers are clearly not.

[digital*ghost · Accepted solution]

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@pcseller2011 wrote:
Thanks for your comment. I agree that this is unlikely to happen and it points to the larger issue of whether eBay/PayPal are truly acting in the best interests of the buyers of their site. A dispute indicates a breakdown of some sort in the customer service conduct of the seller in question. Whether they have done something wrong or not is irrelevant, a customer has issued a complaint and other customers would benefit from knowing whether this occurs often. I agree, the disputes aren't confirmations but they are a record of how often their business conduct results in a dispute.

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Does it, though?

If whether the seller did something wrong or not is indeed irrelevant, what kind of weight will the instances of buyer complaints actually carry? 

There are some key points that I want to put forward here - the first, and most important one, is that sellers will have their selling privileges restricted or suspended (sometimes permanently), if the number of unresolved buyer complaints exceeds 2, or 0.3% - whichever is higher, in their evaluation period. Higher volume sellers will have a 3 month evaluation period, and this 'allowance' equates to no more than 2 unresolved issues per 1000 sales.

The second goes back to my initial response to the question I've bolded.... The mere act of communicating with a seller on eBay about an issue, opens up a dispute. In these cases, no matter what, that would become +1 to the stat you're requesting, and the reason I said it would be misleading on average is because of the following kinds of commonly experienced scenarios...

Let's seller Seller 1 gets about 50 'complaints' over 3 months, but 75% come directly via eBay message - no eBay or PayPal dispute involved. Seller resolves these issues to buyer satisfaction in one way or another, and gets say 12 disputes added to this stat. 

Then let's look at another seller - and please note that the following instances I've detailed are real life scenarios that I, or other sellers in my category, have experienced. Let's say over the course of 3 months, they also get 50 'complaints', this time eBay or PayPal disputes are opened for 75% of said complaints. The nature of the buyer's complaints are things like "the "tiny" beads I bought are really small", "the "burnt orange" beads I bought aren't bright red", "the jump rings I purchased aren't a chain", "the 35mm pins I bought aren't as long as the 45mm pins I bought last time", "the beads with a 1mm hole don't fit my 2mm cord".... I could actually go on with this kind of stuff all day, sadly. As 75% of these came through as (erroneous) INAD disputes, this seller gets say 35 added to the 'complaint' stat.

Lastly, let's take a look at another seller - one who is very high volume and sells really cheap products. It's common for such sellers to never hear a word from buyers about problems (so many can't be bothered for a $2 free post item), they get a few negs, for sure, but you might get say 5 actual disputes recorded on their account. 

So, how indicitave would that truly be of instances of legitimate complaint, enough for another buyer to base an informed purchase decision on? Seller 2 would clearly have the highest instances of complaint, but lowest instance of actual problems.

[k1ooo-slr-sales]

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@pcseller2011 wrote:
Thanks for your comment and breakdown of the buyer's point of view.

1. If the breakdown showed that the seller had won most of the disputes raised you would not be confident in buying from them because if you had to raise a dispute your chances of winning may seem slim? - No, it would render the number of disputes as less likely to have had merit and therefore I would ignore them.
2. If the breakdown showed that they lost most of the disputes raised then you would not be confident in buying from them because they have a bad reputation based on the percentage of cases lost. - Yes, exactly.

Either way, it is the number of disputes raised that would be what you want to know as the outcome would have little bearing on your decision making. - not necessarily, in the first example I would be less likely to worry if the number of disputes were decided in the seller's favour, i.e. I trust eBay and PayPal to have made the right decision that's why I shop there.

Your guidelines are all excellent, BTW, and I really should have checked the revised feedback.

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I have highlighted just one bit of your reply to my post.  Hang around these discussion boards long enough and you will see the absurdity of the bolded section of the quote.  Sellers often lose cases where the buyer's case has no merit.  Just look for threads on the Selling boards about the eBay MBG.