Leaving neutral / negative feedback

[maconii]

So, lets discuss. When would you leave a neutral or a negative feedback? What irks you?

As an eBay shopaholic of many years (8 years+?), I have only ever left one negative feedback for a seller where I did not receive the item, was told they would resend, then contacted several times with no responses, and missed out on opening a dispute against. This was left many years ago. I haven't left a neutral or negative since.

Although I've had many transactions where parcels would take 6-8 weeks to arrive (international), or nail polish bottles would arrive half empty, and many many other stories. I've always been able to resolve these problems with sellers either by obtaining a refund, discount, or having an item resent.

I would never leave a neutral or negative for these common reasons that I see:

• The colour is off
• Postage took 1 week! Should have arrived yesterday!
• Postage is expensive
• DOA
• Does not fit/suit me
• Item not available - Refunded
• ON AND ON AND ONGOIESJOIA

Sorry for the rant. Have been receiving so many of these feedbacks where buyers don't even bother sending me a message to let me know of problems, and when they do it's like this:

"Hi, before I leave negative feedback I wanted to give you the chance to rectify the issue. I received the parcel and the polish has leaked out the side and dried up. Thus polish did not look brand new. I was not overly impressed."

I would have been happy to resend them a polish back without the threat of a negative.....  

[davewil1964]

From a seller's perspective -

I leave feedback the evening I post. It is very much cut and paste as the transaction is really in its infancy.

If posting a parcel, I use click and send and tick the box to have tracking events sent to the buyer.

i do not send personalised messages to buyers. There is a lot of evidence available that a lot of buyers are mainly interested in receiving their item in as advertised condition and in a timely manner rather than have their email accounts spammed.

I get feedback from about 70% of my buyers, so a lot don't seem to think feedback is important. It used to be 80%+, but my sales have increased. I suspect if I can ever sell 200 items per month I will get no feedback.

[bookdragon57]

Did your husband also tell you that feedback is voluntary for both buyers and sellers? Then why does eBay spam me to leave feedback when I don't? It feels a bit like you HAVE to then, even if it's to keep your inbox clearer.

Did he tell you that many sellers have their feedback automated to leave feedback for you when you leave them positive feedback? When you've had a number of sellers lie about that, you don't believe it anymore. Few ruining it for the many? Not one seller who has said that has ever told the truth to me. And should I trust a seller again who has lied to me?

Did he tell you that many sellers leave feedback in bulk once a week or once a month? I've had ones inform me of that, and I do tend to wait about a month before asking. So plenty of time there, don't you think?

Dd he tell you that feedback for buyers is pretty meaningless as you can not get negative feedback anyway. Then it may as well be leaving negative, yes? Kind of like walking into a store and buying a jigsaw puzzle from someone who clearly doesn't want to be there and says nothing as you leave. Makes you not want to go back there.

Maybe I'm a nice person. I've had sellers ask me for feedback before, and I don't mind it- usually I haven't left feedback or contacted them because the item hasn't arrived yet (we all know Aus Post is going down the drain), and I'll tell them that. But communication is a nice, two way thing. 99% of the time when I buy that item, I pay for it right away. The other 1% of the time, I message the seller right away to tell them when I'll be paying, and that's usually because the item is a one off, or is selling very fast, and I don't know if it will still be there in a few days.

Dave, you're the kind of seller I like. By posting the item, you're also saying you've received the payment. And you're clicking that it's posted anyway, what's the harm in a little more time?

I was talking about this a few months ago actually. I found out I'm not the only one doing this, a majority of people I know are as well. And they feel the same way. One person left neutral feedback after receiving "reminders" from eBay on the one item three times in a week. Thankfully, I've never had that. And I also put all emails into a folder, so if need be, I can look back.

With all the fake eBay's spamming me, the last thing I want to see is a feedback reminder, and neither do a lot of other people I know.

[digital*ghost]

---

@bookdragon57 wrote:

I leave them plenty of time, and if they can't be bothered to spare 5 minutes (and I know you can leave bulk feedback), I leave them a neutral. 

---

Well...how gracious of you.  I almost thought your post was a wind up but then I checked your FB comments. (Thanks for bringing this behaviour to the attention of the public boards, though).

As I asked another poster who mentioned they do the same thing not so long ago, does not receiving feedback from the seller alter the entire transaction and make it a neutral experience?

I find that very difficult to understand. See, when I buy something, if I get the item, it was posted in their stated handling time, it's as described etc, the seller has done their job. If they haven't left me feedback (not that I would check), I fail to see how that changes the entire experience. A neutral FB is bad feedback, you're telling eBay and other buyers that the seller is doing something wrong. I can't even begin to rationlise how you think that's ok over something as petty as a feedback comment, which is entirely up to the other person if / when they leave it. 

Good grief. 😞

[digital*ghost]

---

@bookdragon57 wrote:

With all the fake eBay's spamming me, the last thing I want to see is a feedback reminder, and neither do a lot of other people I know.

---

Switch off the reminders, then. 

[lyndal1838]

---

@digital*ghost wrote:

---

@bookdragon57 wrote:

With all the fake eBay's spamming me, the last thing I want to see is a feedback reminder, and neither do a lot of other people I know.

---

Switch off the reminders, then. 

---

So you are blaming ebay sellers because you are getting spam emails?  Now that really makes plenty of sense to me.

As digital ghost says....turn off the ebay reminders and increase your email security so you won't get either the real or the fake emails.

[springyzone]

purpledonkey, I think you are making it all too complicated. Feedback is about how the transaction went-if you got what you bought in a reasonable time and as described. I do understand your frustration with having sellers not leave feedback when you have gone to the trouble. You feel you are building up their reputation with them not bothering to return the compliment. There is an easier way than leaving neutral feedback, especially if the transaction has otherwise gone very well and you are happy with your purchase. Just don't leave feedback, full stop, not until the seller leaves it for you. That way, if they don't bother, then you aren't building up their reputation, it is fairer than giving neutral, which implies something wasn't right with the actual sales process to me.

[jensmanchester-australia]

Purpledonkey- in case you are unaware ebay recently introduced policies to protect sellers from buyers who leave too many non positive feedback.

There have already been some buyers who have been suspended from buying based on the feedback they left for sellers so you may need to reconsider your thoughts on leaving neutral feedback if a seller doesn't leave feedback first.
 

[lyndal1838]

I am sure that policy will be of some comfort to sellers Jen.   There have been a number of neutral/negative leaving buyers bought to the attention of the board users lately and purpledonkey is fast joining their ranks.   She has left 52 feedback, including 8 neutrals in just 8 months...and there don't appear to be any real issues with the transactions.

[i-once-was-bump]

So now feedback is all about leaving feedback about the feedback or lack there of.?

It doesn't matter about the transaction it is all about the feedback now.

[davewil1964]

It seems that way.

There is a definite trend recently of buyers coming to the boards complaining that they aren't getting feedback from sellers. And not understanding why it doesn't really matter. Unless they're coming off a low base.