Bring Back Negative Feedback For Non-Payers

[atticspiders]

I'm not asking for any help just having a RANT.  I can't believe the number of times I have viewed feedback in the past for people who have bid on items just to see that sellers are having to resort to giving Positive Feedback (thus increasing the buyers score) just so they can get out there that a buyer doesn't pay or contact or apologise . Many of my friends that sell are also now saying they are noticing an increase in this.

I changed all of my sales to buy it now a while ago to combat this problem. I wonder if these non-payers ever have any action taken against them by eBay, if not they will just go on doing this and frustrating sellers.

[love_of_cars]

eBay can't do that, it will cause harm to buyers.  eBay is always on the side of buyers.

[sandypebbles]

You will need to give your rant, as you call it to eBay  (they won't do it though, the rant has been had hundreds of times by many hundreds of people)

However, sellers need to stop rewarding and start reporting these 'buyers'

The people rewarding non payers with positive feedback are helping these fake buyers keep on fake buying

It is NOT a warning to anyone looking at the feedback, nobody knows who the  non payer since the 'buyer' ID  is not seen by anyone except the seller is so that excuse is moot 

Nobody else would have a clue who to beware of or avoid selling too

Not only will eBay remove the comment but leave the green tick there, they will also ping the seller's account for breaching eBay policy 

Plus by not reporting the 'buyer' for non payment, the 'buyer' avoids getting a strike against their account and sellers who do have the appropriate blocks in pace which would otherwise weed out these time

wasters get hit up by them

eBay most certainly will not take any action where a seller has chosen to give non payers false positive feedback

[springyzone]

I don't think ebay will bring it back. I could be wrong.

But it did cause a lot of resentment years ago when sellers would hold off on feedback and give a neg if the buyer dared give a neg. Sort of **bleep** for tat. Almost like blackmail. I am sure lots of buyers would have complained to ebay about it. I was a seller too at the time but even so, I resented how some sellers were abusing the system.

Sellers have got their ways of getting even. If someone doesn't pay, you can open an unpaid claim against them and my understanding is that gives the buyer one strike. Two strikes in eg 6 months to a year and they could find themselves blocked from bidding or buying with a number of sellers.

Ebay is up against a lot of other online sales sites these days, it can't afford to turn buyers off, which could happen if sellers gave buyers a blast in negative feedback. At the moment if a buyer doesn't like a false positive feedback, they can get it removed.

Giving someone a non payment strike and then blocking them is probably your best bet.

[jellybirddesigns]

None of the other big platforms such as Amazon and Etsy offer the ability to give buyer feedback at all.

Ebay is the only platform that still gives sellers some ability to do so. I can imagine it will only be a matter of time until it is done away with.

The only steps you can take to protect yourself are to set your items to BIN (which you say you have done) - just make sure you add on the requirement of "Immediate Payment".

For those sellers who still auction, the only things they can do are to make sure their buyer blocks are in place and to also check out the buyer prior to sending. If there are any red flags, then better to cancel the transaction and block the buyer.

[repentatleisure1952]

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@atticspiders wrote:

  I can't believe the number of times I have viewed feedback in the past for people who have bid on items just to see that sellers are having to resort to giving Positive Feedback (thus increasing the buyers score) just so they can get out there that a buyer doesn't pay or contact or apologise . 

I never underestimate the power of stupid sellers in large groups.

I know you don't want help.

However have you ever considered using the correct Unpaid Item Process & setting your Buyer Requirements to block those with 2 or more UPI Strikes in a 12 month period?

Now I have a question... or two.

What would leaving a negative for a deadbeat do to them?... apart from making you feel good.

How would a negative stop a buyer from using BIN or sniping an auction?

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[countessalmirena]

There's no doubt that buyers hated receiving negative feedback.

There's also no doubt that quite a few buyers flaunt their 100% positive feedback as though it were a banner of great magnificence. The number of times I've seen a buyer post on these boards with a situation they don't like, and they mention something about what a valuable and good buyer they are with their 100% feedback...!

Once eBay introduced the Ban On Negative Feedback In Response-Ectenic Sellers (BONFIRES - but it's not an eBay acronym, I admit), there was a shift in perspective. Sellers were by and large no longer there as "part of the community" in the old classical sense of the original eBay, so much as there to make money and be... quite simply ... "sellers". They were expected to be professional in how they listed, how they concluded the sale, how they dispatched the goods, how they handled returns, and in how they responded to buyer feedback.

Don't give a buyer any feedback if they are a bad buyer. Instead, do two things:

1. report them to eBay under the Abusive Buyer Policy (as long as the behaviour is indeed engaging in unacceptable buying behaviours as defined by eBay under the policy), and
2. open a Non-Paying Bidder (NPB) report which, if the buyer doesn't make the payment within the required amount of time, will result in an Unpaid Item Strike on the buyer's account.

The strike will be invisible, but two of these over 12 months will result in the buyer being unable to buy from any seller who has set up their Buyer Requirements to block bids or purchases from any buyer who has at least 2 unpaid item strikes over the last 12 months. That's a better outcome for sellers who are focused primarily on having successfully completed transactions on eBay, with money coming in and plenty of both new and repeat customers.

[sna-4293]

MusicStack and Discogs also allow sellers to leave feedback to buyers, both negative and positive.

[davewil1964]

Hardly big players. Extremely niche.

Most importantly, in reference to eBay, not eBay

[zanadoo_56]

This is in the days when sellers could leave feedback and situations with the dodgy Chinese sellers (in my experience lately they have been very good) was really awful.  I once won an auction for dolls clothes at a very low bid and the Chinese seller then upped the postage.  I was very new to eBay and didn't know that wasn't allowed.  I paid for the items and discovered they was not even remotely like the photos - the quality was appalling.  I gave the seller bad feedback.  I received a nasty message from the seller saying if I didn't withdraw my feedback I would get bad feedback as well....very bad in fact.  I was scared enough to comply.  Being threatened made me very nervous about buying on eBay for some time.

I get the sellers would like to leave bad feedback for bad buyers who deserve it, but allowing it means some sellers would abuse the system by leaving revenge ratings to cover their own bad service.  I guess that's one reason why it was withdrawn.