Leaving neutral / negative feedback

[maconii]

So, lets discuss. When would you leave a neutral or a negative feedback? What irks you?

As an eBay shopaholic of many years (8 years+?), I have only ever left one negative feedback for a seller where I did not receive the item, was told they would resend, then contacted several times with no responses, and missed out on opening a dispute against. This was left many years ago. I haven't left a neutral or negative since.

Although I've had many transactions where parcels would take 6-8 weeks to arrive (international), or nail polish bottles would arrive half empty, and many many other stories. I've always been able to resolve these problems with sellers either by obtaining a refund, discount, or having an item resent.

I would never leave a neutral or negative for these common reasons that I see:

• The colour is off
• Postage took 1 week! Should have arrived yesterday!
• Postage is expensive
• DOA
• Does not fit/suit me
• Item not available - Refunded
• ON AND ON AND ONGOIESJOIA

Sorry for the rant. Have been receiving so many of these feedbacks where buyers don't even bother sending me a message to let me know of problems, and when they do it's like this:

"Hi, before I leave negative feedback I wanted to give you the chance to rectify the issue. I received the parcel and the polish has leaked out the side and dried up. Thus polish did not look brand new. I was not overly impressed."

I would have been happy to resend them a polish back without the threat of a negative.....  

[zenremix777]

Like you, I've very rarely (if ever) left a neutral or negative feedback. I've also rarely asked for a refund/return. Most things are as described, sometimes it's my own fault for not checking the item properly before buying and rarely the item isn't entirely as described. Only once recently did I ask for a refund when the item was squished in the mail.

I'd probably leave a negative if:

1. The item was completely not as described
2. I asked for a refund/return
3. The seller was rude and didn't provide any help
4. It was not able to be sorted out via PayPal

Even then, who knows. Most things are as described and most sellers are nice, so there's not much reason to leave neutral or negs. If you buy alot, obviously the chances of a bad transaction are going to go up.

[hodgo0204]

As far as I'm concerned, once I've paid that I've done everything that is required by myself yes. What else do I do? If something goes wrong with the delivery, or the item then its a different matter.

If I am the winning bidder then I just need to pay for the product. Once I do then what else am I required to do? 

I know its probably meaningless, but its not the point. The point I was trying to make is why the seller doesn't leave feedback straight away? I understand that they might be doing a lot of transactions but thats not my problem. My contract is fulfiled as far as I'm concerned.

[digital*ghost]

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@hodgo0204 wrote:

As far as I'm concerned, once I've paid that I've done everything that is required by myself yes. What else do I do? If something goes wrong with the delivery, or the item then its a different matter.

If I am the winning bidder then I just need to pay for the product. Once I do then what else am I required to do? 

I know its probably meaningless, but its not the point. The point I was trying to make is why the seller doesn't leave feedback straight away? I understand that they might be doing a lot of transactions but thats not my problem. My contract is fulfiled as far as I'm concerned.

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The point I was trying to make to you is that the way you see it isn't the way everyone else sees it, and you don't have the right to expect sellers to do things they way you expect because of a personal opinion.

It is only a personal opinion about if and when feedback "should" be left by anyone - be they the buyer or seller in a transaction, and eBay would be a much happier place to trade if everyone simply respected the fact that it's an individual choice.

Like I said, a buyer's involvement in a transaction is not ended just because they pay, in the same way a seller's involvement is not ended just because they post. There are a number of things that can happen between paying / posting / receiving that means the transaction needs follow-up communication and action. A lot of the time, the only way a seller knows a transaction is finalised is when they receive feedback from the buyer, since they have the right to decide that they will defer feedback until they are certain the transaction is concluded (not just when the buyer has done the one thing they have to to progress it), then why not just respect it and leave it at that?

For the record, I leave FB on receipt of payment - it's my choice - but this whole "I deserve feedback when I think I should get it" is one of my biggest bug bears of eBay. I do feedback my way, and have no problems whatsoever with others choosing to do it their way.

Even eBay says it's "incorrect" to expect sellers to leave FB after payment has been received (you take the FB tutorial to confirm that).