New Feedback Policy - no negative face capabilities. Ergo negative feedback driving UP % rating

[cass.lou]

More fool me for judging feedback by % rating when I agreed to an offer on my listing.  2 weeks later & this person has ignored many emails.  & I can't leave negative face!  I'm watching this person - I think what we all may expect to see a lot of now is people buying then disappearing.  Then the seller leaves negative feedback with a happy face.  This person was at 98.4% feedback when I sold to them.  They are now 98.9%, all recent transactions (4 so far) are warnings that this person does not pay or respond to contact.  Ebay says negative feedback discourages people from buying, driving sales down, hence this new policy.  Or in other words, Ebay don't get as big a cut as they would prefer, & people don't always apply for their success fee refund when a sale falls through.  Be certain to actually go through feedback before agreeing to offers.  Be careful leaving any feedback if you've been stuffed around as you will just wind up driving up their rating.  Be careful using Ebay, period.  

[*sparklz*]

It has been years since sellers were prevented from leaving anything but positive feedback.

Put in place the blocks to stop buyers with more than 1 non payer strike in place to stop them from buying from you.

As a seller you need to open a dispute 4 days after purchase for non payment and then 4 days later if still unpaid close the dispute to add to their strikes and you can get your fees back from the sale.

If that buyer reports those false +ives to ebay they will be removed and the seller gets a slap for violating ebay policy.

[i-love-my-sheep]

Further to what has already been said, if you don't have blocks in place, you can set them up here http://offer.ebay.com.au/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?BuyerBlockPreferences

If you set it to 2 strikes in 12 months, that's the harshest setting for serial non paying pests. Well worth setting them (although others may disagree). 

To add to your blocked buyer list, http://offer.ebay.com.au/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?BidderBlockLogin