Should Ebay reintroduce negative feedback for buyers ?

[haolove13]

I have been talking with a few friends lately and we all seem to be suffering from the same problem. It seems that there are a lot of people who are not paying for goods or leaving low feedback scores that are not deserved.

Ebay does not seem to help when we suffer from these problems as I noticed one person had SIX non paying complaints in his positive only feedbackand he was still bidding on items.

Another non paying bidder with a score of 1 had also received four non paying complaints that were turned into positives and I could not leave feedback as I made a non paying claim as well.

He is still bidding on Ebay.

If sellers could warn other sellers it would help us save a lot of time and money.

what do others think?

[lyndal1838]

Have you checked out the boards for this subject.  It has been covered numerous times and I think you will find the majority of ebayers like it just the way it is now.

If sellers open unpaid item cases against non payers and close them giving the buyer a strike and then set their blocks in place you will soon find that the non payers are not able to bid on your items.

This is far more effective than a negative, which is useless if they snipe or BIN an item.

[k1ooo-slr-sales]

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@lyndal1838 wrote:

If sellers open unpaid item cases against non payers and close them giving the buyer a strike and then set their blocks in place you will soon find that the non payers are not able to bid on your items.

This is far more effective than a negative, which is useless if they snipe or BIN an item.

---

and though the 'non-paying buyer strike' system is not perfect, it does work.  Recently, there have been threads started by eBayers who are asking why they are unable to bid/buy, and one in recent days where the member said they had been suspended from bidding for 7 days because of unpaid items.  So, the unpaid item strike system does work.

[thecatspjs]

Sort of ....  but not how it used to work with bosom for tat

IMO sellers should be able to tick some boxes after a non-payment dispute has been closed if they wish for a standard entry such as No Payment Received for this Transaction (or similar) to appear in the buyers feedback. 

In addition, IMO a tally of the total of non-payment strikes should show on buyers feedback, next to bid retractions.

Can't see it ever happening though, but always happy to help populate a wish list ... 

[zigzagdot]

It's not gonna happen.   I think Sellers having limited feedback is a marketing strategy, bizarre as it may seem.  The customer is always right....

[haolove13]

Interesting point that is.

Ebays customers are actually the sellers.

Sellers are the ones who pay the fees to Ebay and I do not see much customer support from Ebay.

I have seen it go from everyone giving honest feedback and sellers paying 5.25% to 3%

then third line forcing introduced paypal.

Now sellers lose as much as 10% plus 3.4% plus pay percentages on postage if you give "free " postage.

And many sellers are losing up to 10% through false claims.

not the fun place it used to be.

[desolate-sellable]

Yes I am sick of giving refunds to fraudulent buyers.

[davewil1964]

Don't do it then.

[colic2bullsgirlore]

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@lyndal1838 wrote:

Have you checked out the boards for this subject.  It has been covered numerous times and I think you will find the majority of ebayers like it just the way it is now.

If sellers open unpaid item cases against non payers and close them giving the buyer a strike and then set their blocks in place you will soon find that the non payers are not able to bid on your items.

This is far more effective than a negative, which is useless if they snipe or BIN an item.

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Short memory Lyndal... Do you not remember when we could suggest ideas on the Fora and also include a poll.

The consensus was 90% in the affirmative re reintroducing buyer negative feedback or initiating (at least) non paying

bidder feedback left automatically by ebay upon the successful closure of a NPB dispute in favour iof the seller..

The majority of ebayers that voted affirmed the exact opposite of your statement,

Your catchcry was then (I guess because the % from the votes gleaned did not suit your argument) that only a small

amount of ebayers actually use the boards and therefore the poll was not valid.

Yet now you try to use  this line and I quote

have you checked out the boards for this subject.  It has been covered numerous times and I think you will find the majority of ebayers like it just the way it is now.

A link please to where the info came for your guess that the nth of a % of people that actually know where these boards are prefer the way it is now.

I can provide plenty of links to threads where members are disgruntled re not be able to leave appropriate feedback for an ebhay transaction?????

[colic2bullsgirlore]

here's a start

http://community.ebay.com.au/t5/Selling/Ebay-need-to-bring-back-the-ability-for-sellers-to-give-bad/...

message 9

If we can't leave feedback, I'd like to know why eBay won't at least include Unpaid Item Strikes in a bidder's visible feedback?  After all, these strikes aren't unjustified, unverified retaliatory negative feedback from vindictive, dishonorable sellers.  As a seller, when I've gone through eBay's form UPI process ... I've now wasted an entire additional week BEYOND the wasted week of the auction waiting for some response from the bidder, just so that the system could formally declare that the UPI was EARNED ... and now eBay just assures me (and all other sellers) all that it is "keeping track" of that bidder's strike for us, behind the scenes somewhere.  There's no transparency.  How do I know that the entire UPI system isn't completely bogus?  That eBay isn't assuring me that it's assigned the strike, while doing nothing at all?

On top of this, I'm told that I'm protected as a seller because I can "block bidders" by setting certain requirements.  But I'm not actually allowed to set the requirements I want to set.  For example, I don't want to let bidders with ANY unpaid item strikes waste my time by bidding on my items ... but eBay won't let me block bidders with fewer than 2 unpaid strikes (and now I read that it's fairly easy for bidders to have strikes removed by eBay if they complain about them, so I guess it was DOUBLY a waste of my time to wait a week to be able to get those strikes ... which is probably why a lot of sellers don't bother, and just cancel the transactions instead ... which means most non-paying bidders never even get strikes at all ... which makes the "blocking" system TRIPLY useless as "protection" for sellers).  

I also don't want to let bidders with fewer than 3 verified completed transactions bid on my items, but eBay doesn't give me the option of blocking bidders with less than -1 negative feedback.  Which doesn't even make sense, because exactly how could a bidder even GET less than -1 negative feedback, when bidders can't be GIVEN negative feedback?!?!  This is a completely bogus and meaningless block that, again, provides ZERO protection for sellers!!!

I have been selling and buying on eBay for a very long time ... not as a power seller, just as an individual who, a few times a year, finds some high-end items in a closet that it's time to part with.  I have never, in at least 15 years on eBay, ever run into a non-paying bidder.  Last week, I had two.  I had no idea until today that eBay had made it impossible for sellers to leave negative feedback for buyers.  

Now, having gone through the UPI process, I completely understand why I and so many others are experiencing this ... there is no real protection anymore for sellers because there is no VERIFIABLE, TRANSPARENT cost to a buyer for simply not completing a transaction.  

No visible strike.  Nothing but 100% positive feedback ratings.  

I had no idea eBay's feedback system had become so utterly meaningless.   How disappointing.

Thank goodness I have only a few more things to sell ... I'll look around to see if there are specialty sites related to those objects that might be more fair to me as a seller; otherwise, I'll just expect it'll take two or three times as long to sell things off, thanks to non-paying bidders.   But in future, unless something is VERY valuable and collectible, I'll probably just donate and take the tax writeoff instead.

10 kudo's

[colic2bullsgirlore]

If we can't leave feedback, I'd like to know why eBay won't at least include Unpaid Item Strikes in a bidder's visible feedback?  After all, these strikes aren't unjustified, unverified retaliatory negative feedback from vindictive, dishonorable sellers.  As a seller, when I've gone through eBay's form UPI process ... I've now wasted an entire additional week BEYOND the wasted week of the auction waiting for some response from the bidder, just so that the system could formally declare that the UPI was EARNED ... and now eBay just assures me (and all other sellers) all that it is "keeping track" of that bidder's strike for us, behind the scenes somewhere.  There's no transparency.  How do I know that the entire UPI system isn't completely bogus?  That eBay isn't assuring me that it's assigned the strike, while doing nothing at all?

On top of this, I'm told that I'm protected as a seller because I can "block bidders" by setting certain requirements.  But I'm not actually allowed to set the requirements I want to set.  For example, I don't want to let bidders with ANY unpaid item strikes waste my time by bidding on my items ... but eBay won't let me block bidders with fewer than 2 unpaid strikes (and now I read that it's fairly easy for bidders to have strikes removed by eBay if they complain about them, so I guess it was DOUBLY a waste of my time to wait a week to be able to get those strikes ... which is probably why a lot of sellers don't bother, and just cancel the transactions instead ... which means most non-paying bidders never even get strikes at all ... which makes the "blocking" system TRIPLY useless as "protection" for sellers).  

I also don't want to let bidders with fewer than 3 verified completed transactions bid on my items, but eBay doesn't give me the option of blocking bidders with less than -1 negative feedback.  Which doesn't even make sense, because exactly how could a bidder even GET less than -1 negative feedback, when bidders can't be GIVEN negative feedback?!?!  This is a completely bogus and meaningless block that, again, provides ZERO protection for sellers!!!

I have been selling and buying on eBay for a very long time ... not as a power seller, just as an individual who, a few times a year, finds some high-end items in a closet that it's time to part with.  I have never, in at least 15 years on eBay, ever run into a non-paying bidder.  Last week, I had two.  I had no idea until today that eBay had made it impossible for sellers to leave negative feedback for buyers.  

Now, having gone through the UPI process, I completely understand why I and so many others are experiencing this ... there is no real protection anymore for sellers because there is no VERIFIABLE, TRANSPARENT cost to a buyer for simply not completing a transaction.  

No visible strike.  Nothing but 100% positive feedback ratings.  

I had no idea eBay's feedback system had become so utterly meaningless.   How disappointing.

Thank goodness I have only a few more things to sell ... I'll look around to see if there are specialty sites related to those objects that might be more fair to me as a seller; otherwise, I'll just expect it'll take two or three times as long to sell things off, thanks to non-paying bidders.   But in future, unless something is VERY valuable and collectible, I'll probably just donate and take the tax writeoff instead.

10 kudo's