topic Re: 'Defects' Becoming More Buyer Personality than Seller Performance in Selling

'Defects' Becoming More Buyer Personality than Seller Performance

cmcoins2000 — Thu, 31 Jul 2014 00:52:22 GMT

Two instances of 'defects' on my Seller Dashboard are of concern.

First instance is a 'defect' for 2 items which were mutually cancelled (due to the buyer in Chile not willing to pay the relevant postage asked for by PayPal Policies).

Instead of just asking for a refund - having agreed to the cancellation - the buyer immediately opened an 'item not received' through PayPal.

A full refund was given - of course - the transactions were cancelled.

The 'item not received' defect stands.

Second instance is a buyer leaving positive feedback QUOTE 'A splendid exotic pendant arrived in mint condition'. UNQUOTE.

This feedback was accompanied by a 'defect' of 'item not as described'. ?????

Seems the system is more buyer personality than seller performance and begs the question of how on earth it can be of use to help sellers 'lift their game'.

Re: 'Defects' Becoming More Buyer Personality than Seller Performance

cq_tech — Thu, 31 Jul 2014 01:30:14 GMT

I know exactly how you feel. I also received an "item not as described" defect for a sale where the buyer left positive feedback which clearly stated "Item as described", which means that he must have scored it as 3 or less on the DSR. The sooner this appallingly unfair system is abolished, the better IMO.

Re: 'Defects' Becoming More Buyer Personality than Seller Performance

sueken4812 — Thu, 31 Jul 2014 01:46:10 GMT

The problem seems to be when buyers leave DSR's on their smart phones.
Apparently it's easy to make a mistake when using ebay's phone app.
What's not fair is that we sellers have to wear the defects, because ebay won't/can't remove them.

Both of these instances are Case in Point. Why would buyers leave positive feedback, then purposefully hit low DSR's.
Okay so we can contact the buyers, and ask them to look at changing the DSR's, but what a problem.
The procedure to remove them is so convoluted and complicated, that it's embarrassing to have to ask them to do so.

Re: 'Defects' Becoming More Buyer Personality than Seller Performance

i-love-my-sheep — Thu, 31 Jul 2014 03:03:55 GMT

I don't think a lot of buyers realise that DSR's are now no longer anonymous. I know my buyer who gave me raving positive feedback and then a 2 star rating for postage cost (actual cost $6.80, charged postage cost $7) didn't know. When I asked him about it he said "oh, I thought they were anonymous". No they're not! I did ask him to contact eBay and ask to have it removed, which he said he would, but he never did. I replied to his positive feedback with his username and said something like "leaves positive feedback and low DSR's", so anyone else can see who it actually is. Would be interesting to know how many others he does it to.

Re: 'Defects' Becoming More Buyer Personality than Seller Performance

cmcoins2000 — Thu, 31 Jul 2014 04:05:26 GMT

Not sure what the DSR s use is when:

Positive = Happy with purchase & can explain why.

Negative = Unhappy with purchase & can explain why.

Neutral = Not happy or unhappy but can explain why.

The stack against the seller is growing - all paths lead to the buyer - stupid really as - no sellers, no buyers.

Bring back the even playing field of Feedback - all Feedback - for Buyers & Sellers.

Re: 'Defects' Becoming More Buyer Personality than Seller Performance

dylan11235813 — Thu, 31 Jul 2014 04:42:14 GMT

It's also against ebay policy to contact buyers about a low DSR rating.

Re: 'Defects' Becoming More Buyer Personality than Seller Performance

cmcoins2000 — Thu, 31 Jul 2014 05:30:36 GMT

eBay are trying to do their best to protect sellers.

See the following - think they are all out to lunch.

Fair performance evaluation

We look at your performance as a whole. We don't want your ratings to be skewed by just one unfortunate transaction or difficult buyer, and we want you to be able to focus on providing great service to trustworthy, reliable customers.

To measure your overall performance as accurately and fairly as possible:

Sellers with 400 or more transactions over the past three months are evaluated based on the past three months, whereas sellers with fewer than 400 transactions are evaluated based on the past 12 months.
The defect rate won't affect your status until you have transactions with defects with at least 8 different buyers (at least 5 different buyers to impact Top Rated status) within your evaluation period.
There can only be one defect per transaction. For example, if a buyer opens a purchase protection case and also leaves a neutral Feedback rating on the same transaction, it will only count as one defect in total.
We also have a few safeguards in place to protect your ratings and help you out in case you have a problem. For example, we consider a buyer's pattern for opening cases and leaving low detailed seller ratings – and protect you when necessary. Learn more about our seller protection policy.

Re: 'Defects' Becoming More Buyer Personality than Seller Performance

goldeagle1970 — Thu, 31 Jul 2014 08:14:26 GMT

How do you find out who left the low dsr. I have 1 , nothing on my seller dashboard I can find. Thanks.

Re: 'Defects' Becoming More Buyer Personality than Seller Performance

2011.narelle — Thu, 31 Jul 2014 10:21:28 GMT

They have change that again so go to

Account

Dashboard

Performance to date-2.06% defects (well that's my eBay related defects)

Under canceled transactions in tiny blue print is-download a report

Have to sign in again

Expand or download a full report.I just click on expand & it has a grid thing with x under the defects & the item no. so you can track the problem,think it has the date also.I don't think it has the offending eBay defects,just from transactions with actual sales.I got 3 there& another 4 from eBay.Aww thanks eBay,it's just what i wanted!

& there you have it!

Re: 'Defects' Becoming More Buyer Personality than Seller Performance

goldeagle1970 — Thu, 31 Jul 2014 11:02:00 GMT

Hi, thanks for that, have found where to go, but the item no, is way back. tried for the date, so had to go back into my accounr, now they are saying not the right password, so thats it for the night. try again tomorrow.

Re: 'Defects' Becoming More Buyer Personality than Seller Performance

i-love-my-sheep — Thu, 31 Jul 2014 15:48:57 GMT

@dylan11235813 wrote:
It's also against ebay policy to contact buyers about a low DSR rating.

That's what I thought too because I'd read it somewhere. However, when I contacted eBay to see if there was anything I could do about the low DSR, they said to contact the buyer and ask if it was a mistake and ask whether they would contact eBay to have it removed. I double checked with eBay given what I had read, and even put a link in my reply and they still said to go ahead and contact the buyer. Doesn't make sense to me. Either you can contact them or you can't!

Re: 'Defects' Becoming More Buyer Personality than Seller Performance

lane-ends — Thu, 31 Jul 2014 23:20:44 GMT

rating of 3 for DSR are only traceable back a month or two on reports. Not sure if it will stay that way or whether thats just when they strarted logging them.

Otherwise under trending data link 3s are now added to the totals per month, whereas it used to only show 1s & 2s

Re: 'Defects' Becoming More Buyer Personality than Seller Performance

dylan11235813 — Thu, 31 Jul 2014 23:55:55 GMT

@ilovemychooks wrote:
@dylan11235813 wrote:
It's also against ebay policy to contact buyers about a low DSR rating.

That's what I thought too because I'd read it somewhere. However, when I contacted eBay to see if there was anything I could do about the low DSR, they said to contact the buyer and ask if it was a mistake and ask whether they would contact eBay to have it removed. I double checked with eBay given what I had read, and even put a link in my reply and they still said to go ahead and contact the buyer. Doesn't make sense to me. Either you can contact them or you can't!

The only place I have seen it is when I generated a DSR report and it is stated it at the bottom of the report. It then says to refer to the feedback manipulation policy with a link which doesn't really say anything about it.

Ebays system also allows sellers to send a feedback revision request to buyers....

Re: 'Defects' Becoming More Buyer Personality than Seller Performance

cmcoins2000 — Fri, 01 Aug 2014 04:38:50 GMT

Another interesting point is if the 'case' is opened in PayPal for 'item not received' or 'not as described' it will show on their (PPs) Resolution Centre. But It will NOT show in eBay's Resolution Centre but automatically will show in your eBay defects. Obviously there is a connection with PP & eBay - but that close - really. Next you know we will have 'black dots' from PayPal - even Westpac may step in.

Re: 'Defects' Becoming More Buyer Personality than Seller Performance

cmcoins2000 — Fri, 01 Aug 2014 05:07:24 GMT

Oh forgot. Noticed the information about the defect grid is 'updated' weekly. Rang eBay to ask what day of the week does the update occur. Was told it was from Monday - Sunday, therefore updated every Monday. Possibly what shows is not a true report until each update.

Re: 'Defects' Becoming More Buyer Personality than Seller Performance

lousbloomingarden — Fri, 01 Aug 2014 09:26:20 GMT

Im purposely not looking at my seller dashboard. I get tempted but I know what will happen if I see the tiniest little defect. I can handle neutral or neg feed back as its up front but this defect strategy is ....mmmmm BLEEPED....I Better not say any more

Re: 'Defects' Becoming More Buyer Personality than Seller Performance

i-love-my-sheep — Fri, 01 Aug 2014 10:43:36 GMT

My husband bought something the other day and the seller sent a message the next day saying that he didn't have any of that item left, had issued an immediate full refund and sent a request for cancellation. He sent the request as an item not in stock (or whatever the wording is). Of course I accepted it, but I added a message saying I hoped he didn't get a defect for that particular transaction due to eBay's defective defect system. He's a large volume seller and replied that he hadn't heard of the defect system. He checked and sure enough, he had been defected. I guess some people don't keep up to date with the latest things and maybe don't want to know. I suggested in future that he sends them as an 'other' and he was very grateful for my suggestion.

Would he still have got the defect if I didn't accept the cancellation?

Re: 'Defects' Becoming More Buyer Personality than Seller Performance

2011.narelle — Fri, 01 Aug 2014 10:51:19 GMT

Hmm dunno,i don't think eBay really knows either.

Seems it's a clumsy ridiculous system not well thought out before it was implemented

I only got 1 neg from maybe 10mth ago & I'm not even sure it was meant to be for my item,who knows,she was a serial neg leaver anyway.

I want to see eBays performance dashboard ! How many negs & nasty comments would be on that?

Re: 'Defects' Becoming More Buyer Personality than Seller Performance

tonalidesigns — Fri, 01 Aug 2014 12:11:56 GMT

eBay is entitled to set whatever rules it likes I suppose - BUT - if eBay is going to introduce a system of "defects" that is going to impact on seller rankings in search (and in some countries eligibility for fee reductions which I suspect is the REAL agenda here) they need to make sure it is fairly bullet proof.

Limited scope for accidental low scores, a mechanism that makes sure buyers understand what they are doing, basic checks and balances (so for example simple things like you can't get a defect for postage time while it's still within the estimated delivery schedule) and an ability to genuinely have a defect reviewed ought to be built in to this.

None of this is in place as far as I can see. That is bordering on negligent/arrogant/unconscionable - take your pick.

I can see that when this comes into play in three weeks time in the US and sellers there start to lose discounts on fees the ambulance chasing legal profession in the US will sense a chance for new blood!

Will be interesting.

Re: 'Defects' Becoming More Buyer Personality than Seller Performance

honest.johns.phones — Wed, 06 Aug 2014 21:09:27 GMT

@cmcoins2000 wrote:
Two instances of 'defects' on my Seller Dashboard are of concern.

First instance is a 'defect' for 2 items which were mutually cancelled (due to the buyer in Chile not willing to pay the relevant postage asked for by PayPal Policies).

Instead of just asking for a refund - having agreed to the cancellation - the buyer immediately opened an 'item not received' through PayPal.

A full refund was given - of course - the transactions were cancelled.

The 'item not received' defect stands.

Second instance is a buyer leaving positive feedback QUOTE 'A splendid exotic pendant arrived in mint condition'. UNQUOTE.

This feedback was accompanied by a 'defect' of 'item not as described'. ?????

Seems the system is more buyer personality than seller performance and begs the question of how on earth it can be of use to help sellers 'lift their game'.

eBay has made a point of empowering the buyer effectively turning on god mode for them. We as subjects are exposed to their bending will. The buyer/s in Chile would have felt compelled to punish you. Then a series of unfortunate events unfold where you chase the obvious injustice to fix it. But as you know you're flogging a dead horse and eventually you give up without the just result defeated again. Something really wrong with this common theme we see people.