topic Re: Negative feedback disappeared in Buying

Negative feedback disappeared

rosebelle9798 — Mon, 16 Jul 2012 02:54:14 GMT

I was shocked when the first negative feedback I left for a Seller had disappeared. I'm also posting because in my search for understanding I found similar threads with similar experiences.

I have made enquiries and I can only see two possible senarios but I might need further enlightenment.

1. my negative feedback left for a seller was removed because their Follow-up was considered defamatory, and therefor the Whole feedback including my feedback although it did not breach policy was removed.

Or 2. the Seller sent a Notice of Claim of Defamation Statutory Declaration to have it removed.

Either of these actions (if one is indeed the reason) made me feel that this was unfair. It seemed that I initiated a complaint with Ebay against the Seller which resulted not in any sanctions against the Sellar but a reward.

Clearly the first senario (if true- and I don't know) is extraordinary.

Because I am unable to ascertain whether the Seller had used this process; I only have an Email ( sent outside Ebay) from the company saying that they are undergoing this (after Resolution Process). I note that atleast Ebay UK policy is that I should have been Notified and given a copy if requested; these rules don't seem to apply here.

Am I right to assume that because I have received no advice from Ebay that the Seller has not submitted this "Notice" so senario 2. can't be?

This leaves 1. or what else?

I have not found on any forum that anybody has discussed the Notice of Claim of Defamation Statutory Declaration, I can see that the use may be abused by Sellers to have Negative Feedback removed.

Although I have noticed Sellers concern about not being able to leave Buyers negative feedback, I am writing this as a Buyer with possible concern about Buyer's right to leave negative feedback on less than satisfactory Seller's .

I have tried to analyse the Seller's scores (that I left negative feedback that disappeared as mentioned above) and found that they had received 1,098 but with only (971) against their ID. What were they Neutral or negative and what happened to the 127?. What does it also say about the Seller when his score is 971 but the Seller has only left 908 for others?

Could the 63 or the other 127 have left negative feedback that nolonger appears?

Re: Negative feedback disappeared

davewil1964 — Mon, 16 Jul 2012 03:25:46 GMT

I only have an Email ( sent outside Ebay) from the company saying that they are undergoing this (after Resolution Process).

Did the seller open an unpaid item case against you? Did you not pay for the item? That's what it sounds like.

If this is the case, then as soon as the case is closed, no feedback can be left, and a buyer's feedback can (and should) be removed. As no transaction occurred.

I don't think you need to go digging into defamation for the explanation.

Re: Negative feedback disappeared

rosebelle9798 — Mon, 16 Jul 2012 04:20:07 GMT

Thanks for first reply.

Careful don't jump to conclusions - there is a lot to my experience - and I have masses of documentation of correspondence etc.

The item was promptly paid for (no not the issue).

I initiated the dispute after 45 days of civil negotation on my part. The dispute was that the item ($250) was faulty, the Seller did not deny it was faulty (acknowledged even) however stalled and would not refund.

There comes a time after being patient ,polite, diplomatic and friendly, that I should go to Dispute Resolution.

They seemed to argue that because the item was secondhand they don't require to give a refund, when faulty and requested.

I felt they were not abiding by the Consumer Law changes that came into force 1 january last year requiring Sellers to provide Consumer Guarantees on secondhand items.

In addition the Seller stated in their ad. "tested and working perfectly" and made further email references supporting their claim with other tests they claimed they had done. There seemed to be illogical arguments and when I put the claim that they could not have come to their conclusion by those tests - they did not refute.

There are hallmarks to the case I can iterate, least of which is that phone calls were never returned, nor were some emails responded to.

Re: Negative feedback disappeared

xxstuckonstickersxx — Mon, 16 Jul 2012 04:42:34 GMT

How was your FB worded?

That can often have a lot to do with the stance eBay takes

Re: Negative feedback disappeared

freightcar2009 — Mon, 16 Jul 2012 04:45:53 GMT

childz_play_oz wrote:

THINK - It's not illegal yet

Not that made me laugh 🙂 Thanks

Re: Negative feedback disappeared

freightcar2009 — Mon, 16 Jul 2012 04:47:34 GMT

NOT = Now

Re: Negative feedback disappeared

a_beautiful_room — Mon, 16 Jul 2012 05:19:32 GMT

Just a few things to comment:

What applies to the UK / USA definitely does not apply here, with regards to ebay rules. Despite it being a worldwide company, they all have their differences when it comes to lots of things in regard to ebay.

The fact that the number of feedback is different to the number of purchases and sales means nothing. Lots of people don't leave feedback at all - buyers and sellers - so it definitely doesn't mean that they might have been less than favorable feedback which has been removed or deleted.

If you went the dispute route and paypal asked you to return the item for your refund and you didn't - maybe this could be a reason that the feedback may have been deleted at the sellers request .. as in, they offered a resolution, you chose not to accept it. This may not been your scenario but it might be one which applies.

Sellers can do the defamation thing and many do. It is the route of last resort for sellers who feel hard done by with unfair or untrue feedback and I am not saying that this applies to you but ebay cannot, do not and do not want to involve themselves in any and every petty dispute over the millions of transactions that happen every day, so if a seller provides the correct paperwork, ebay will remove the feedback - and that is no matter who is at fault. How does ebay apportion blame really? No-one is going to sit there like in a court of law, and listen to both sides and read all of the messages.

Sometimes there's no point hanging onto these things .. you'll just have to move on, unfortunately.

Re: Negative feedback disappeared

rosebelle9798 — Mon, 16 Jul 2012 06:33:19 GMT

Thanks a-beautiful-room,

Thanks, probably agree with all your sentiment, Yes I imagine difficult for Ebay to manage but most people aggrieved would expect some "listening" to both sides.

PayPal not involved in my case (YES don't ever pay cash I hear).

I cannot see purchases and sales figures?

I read my Seller has rec'd 1098 Feedback but has only 971 Positive Feedback.

Is not 1098 Total feedback minus 971 Positive feedback = 127 Not Positive feedback, therefore , = 127 Negative/Neutral feedback.?

I raised this because I thought I should be using these figures to guage what confidence I should have in this Seller (or any for that matter).

Re: Negative feedback disappeared

marian_100 — Mon, 16 Jul 2012 06:37:38 GMT

Hi Rosabelle, great thread btw. One more thing to add. The totals do not represent the whole picture because feedback is not left for all transactions as it is entirely voluntary. So my feeling is that 971 feedbacks left is actually good going.

Re: Negative feedback disappeared

rosebelle9798 — Mon, 16 Jul 2012 06:44:32 GMT

Sorry I needed to add Seller did not ask me to revise my feedback, so he did not do the "defamation thing" as a last resort.

I am waiting if there are further helpful thoughts or questions before I post the FB with the follow-ups.

Re: Negative feedback disappeared

jameshouseofstyle — Mon, 16 Jul 2012 07:17:20 GMT

Hello OP,

Why does it matter to you so much weather the f/back is removed or not?

As long as you know not to deal with that seller again - that's all that matters.

I'm saying that because I have as yet to see that heaps of negs have any bearing on how many sales seller have. One great example, I know a seller (bunch of the them working together in Chicago) with more negs than you can poke the fingers at - but doing the roaring trade. They could have all the negs removed, virtually every single one of them - but don't want to - they want them there as examples of buyers stupidity and sometimes malice.

Also, Ebay - for whatever reason - will remove bad f/back sooner than not - if there is a request for it.

We had a neutral removed recently, wording was "not as described" - totally unsubstantiated, couldn't be compared to the listing to see what was not as described.

We have written to Trust & Safety, only as a suggestion that unsubstantiated statements should be subjest for removal- asking them to imagine what would happen if the buyer says not as described and we write underneath " yes it is" - both statements would be so dumb and meaningles and it wouldn't help anyone nor warn other people of how bad seller we must be!

In my letter I have specifically said " this is NOT a plea for f/back removal" - but half an hour later they've removed it anyway! And even added how it was a pleasure to help us and not to hesitate if we need any more assistance in the future and to use the same link from that message. I nearly fell of my chair from surprise.

So, don't feel bad that your f/back has vanished - who knows why - it's not even worth your time thinking about it.

Have a happy and fun time on Ebay -

Cheers, Helen for JHS

Re: Negative feedback disappeared

punch*drunk — Mon, 16 Jul 2012 07:39:40 GMT

I read my Seller has rec'd 1098 Feedback but has only 971 Positive Feedback.

Is not 1098 Total feedback minus 971 Positive feedback = 127 Not Positive feedback, therefore , = 127 Negative/Neutral feedback.?

If you look at my feedback, you will see I have received 4790 feedback, but my score is only 3558. That is because multiple feedback left by the one buyer within a 1 week period only counts as 1 towards my total score.

So if someone buys 10 items on the same day and leaves feedback for them, my score will only go up by 1 point.

I can assure you I havent had 1200 negative feedback 😮 If you look to the right hand side of my feedback table, you can see that I have had 1 feedback revised, that was my only ever neg.

Re: Negative feedback disappeared

rosebelle9798 — Tue, 17 Jul 2012 03:23:45 GMT

So my mathematics is incorrect. I have perused over the Seller's feedback and have not noticed many multiple buyers within the week or month or whatever.

So using those figures aren't going to tell if the Seller is sometimes (many times) less than satisfactory?

Another point the Seller must have thought Negative feedback will do him harm, otherwise they would have not sent an email that they were undergoing the Stat Dec process. And should I think that if they had not submitted the paperwork to Ebay then this Email was harasement?.

Re: Negative feedback disappeared

argyboyz — Tue, 17 Jul 2012 08:55:15 GMT

The ebay mafia strikes again to protect their prominant sellers with disregard to buyers. Sellers now have the protection of Australian laws and not the dodgy juristictions of Indonesia and other places rules in place earlier in ebays contracts.

My advice is get a trade solicitor to send ebay a email asking why they may be misleading buyers by altering some sellers feedback and see the response.

Re: Negative feedback disappeared

mimsy68 — Thu, 31 Jan 2013 10:25:56 GMT

I recently left neg feedback for a seller wh,o well and truly deserved it, only to find that EBay removed it as being inappropriate. My issues were that

(1) EBay didn;t tell me they ahd removed it

(2) They still won't tell me why they removed it (I didn't keep a copy so I don't know what was inappropriate)

(3) I now have no way of leaving any kind of feedback - nor a chance to revise my comments into something that EBay deems acceptable

So now as well as being screwed over by the seller I have been screwed over by Ebay - feedback is a joke

Re: Negative feedback disappeared

davewil1964 — Thu, 31 Jan 2013 10:33:14 GMT

Please don't bump old threads. Especially please don't bump several old threads with the same complaint.

And you got your item in the end, did you not? So it's hardly the end of the world.

Re: Negative feedback disappeared

rockyroad123 — Fri, 12 Feb 2016 07:58:57 GMT

I am also searching for the answer to 2 disappearing negitive feedback I left to a deserving beater.

First negitive feedback disappeared so I made a small purchase and left another negitive feedback and that too has now gone also.

This is a very prominent high volume ebayer with an unusual 99.8% rating ... I am now thinking there is funny business going on.

Re: Negative feedback disappeared

lyndal1838 — Fri, 12 Feb 2016 08:21:52 GMT

This is a very old thread.

Are you sure that the first negative feedback was not removed as being inappropriate...did you mention a dispute?

Was the seller in the USA or UK and using the GSP? If so, they can often get negatives removed if they have anything to do with the GSP.

Your biggest mistake was to buy another item to leave negative feedback....that is grounds for removing both feedback.

If a negative is removed for no apparent reason you should ring ebay and ask why....they will usually reinstate it if there was not grounds for removal.

Re: Negative feedback disappeared

padi*0409 — Fri, 12 Feb 2016 09:12:05 GMT

Never mind your other 38 negs are still there. along with a few neutrals..................................and you bought another item just so you could leave another neg? That's malicious use of feedback......................

Re: Negative feedback disappeared

lyndal1838 — Fri, 12 Feb 2016 10:02:15 GMT

Yikes, that'll teach me not to look first!