Trust on eBay, and the feedback system

[damien_pw]

I'm a long time eBay user, and like anybody, trust is probably my main concern. Can I trust the seller I am purchasing from? Can I trust the buyer bidding on my item to follow through? As a buyer, we have the feedback system to help us avoid those bad transactions. As a seller there's probably a little less protection - the options to screen buyers are a little limited, but that's another discussion.

So, as buyers, we rely on the feedback system. Personally, I try to avoid dealing with any seller having below 99% feedback. You may say that's a little harsh, but I work on the assumption that for every negative feedback a seller receives, there's probably a few more that they've been able to avoid. In fact, in the past I have had sellers drag out resolutions to the point where my abaility to leave any sort of feedback has expired (I'm pretty careful about this now).

Case in point, I won an auction recently. It was an item I didn't particularly need, but thought I would have a go as I wanted to try it, and the price was quite low ($1 no reserve auction on a fairly niche bit of camera kit). The seller had 100% positive feedback, there were only a few bids, and in the end I won the item at a very good price indeed. Moving along to the payment screen then, and found I was unable to pay for the item. Within a few minutes, the seller had cancelled the order. Reason: "I'm out of stock or the item is damaged". Sounds like a generic 'tick a box' excuse to me. There was no other communication from the seller.

Within a week, I noted that the item had relisted - no longer at $1 no reserve, but for $99 buy-it-now thank you very much. Exactly the same item (it was used, there were photos - the very same photos from the earlier listing). Perhaps I have an overdeveloped sense of moral outrage, but to my thinking, a seller on eBay should not get away with doing this sort of thing scott-free. So after a little research (googling 'ebay Seller cancelled after I won' seemed to do the trick), I decided that eBay would probably be do little to address my concerns, and the recommended course of action would be to leave negative feedback.

Now, I didn't lose any money on this transaction, it was just a little inconvenient to go through the bidding process, get excited about my win, and then try to pay for ten minutes before realising I'd been ghosted on the auction. After some thought I concluded that leaving neutral feedback would be fair. The feedback was something like "Won aucton. Seller cancelled, then relisted at higher price. Poor form". I thought that was quite fair (my wife said I should have left negative feedback, but in the absence of monetary lost, I did not think that justified). Anyway, I thought that was quite fair, and left it at that....

...until, some time later I wondered if the seller might have responded with counter-feedback. Like a dog with a bone who can't leave it alone, I had to have a look. I brought the seller profile up, clicked through to their feedback, and…wait a sec...where's my feedback?!? It was there before - where did it go?!?!? Nooooo way? Did they remove my terribly fair and factual, 80 character limited feedback?! DID EBAY ACTUALLY JUST REMOVE MY FEEDBACK, WITHOUT TELLING ME!!?!?!?!

I was pretty fired up after that. On to live chat then with my righteous indignation! I explained the situation, and how I felt that this was an abuse of trust and that the seller should at least face some form of penalty. Very quickly I was passed from one consultant to another, who informed me, "I did check the details [...] the seller appealed on the feedback which the system removed as there was no payment made."

"What?!?!", I choked out (well, this was a text chat, but I became livid in person)..."they cancelled the order within two minutes of me winning the auction, so of course no payment was made!!!! How was I supposed to pay?!?!?!". The conversation went on for a short while longer, but the general gist was, sorry, we can't do anything now, but we will put in a report as we can see that what you say is true. Can't tell you anything else...blah blah blah, privacy, blah blah blah. Case closed.

I should point out, I've over 1,000 transactions on eBay now...the vast majority as a buyer, and very rarely have I left negative or neutral feedback. In fact, after scrolling through the 1,106 feedback ratings I have left for others, I found two negatives and two neutrals. "Wow", you may well say, "you've been super lucky on eBay"! Well, it's not so much that. I have had more negative experiences than these few. Usually things are resolved, or the experience simply wasn't bad enough to drive me to diss on a seller. Sometimes I will simply not leave feedback at all. Only when there is truly bad behaviour on the seller's part will I go the mile and leave less than positive feedback.

So, how does eBay increase trust? If it's so easy for a party to (and let's call a spade a shovel here) lie, and have feedback removed on appeal with no communication whatsoever with the complainant, then how can we trust the feedback system at all? How many buyers and sellers are able to have negative feedback removed so easily? It could be argued that negative feedback impacts sales and adversely affacts eBay's business, but I'm sure that if the feedback system is not robust, then surely that also has a negative impact?

No easy answers I'm sure.

I should give some credit to eBay for live chat...the ability to get onto live chat now is a much better thing than we ever had in the early days of eBay, when it was very difficult to get any sort of answer to a question at all. At least there's some small sense that you may be heard by eBay.

[tazzieterror]

Feedback ratings and comments are one good way to gauge a seller; finding a reason to message them and seeing how (or if) they respond can be even more informative, I've found.

[11dustyattic]

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@damien_pw wrote:

I'm a long time eBay user, and like anybody, trust is probably my main concern. Can I trust the seller I am purchasing from? Can I trust the buyer bidding on my item to follow through? As a buyer, we have the feedback system to help us avoid those bad transactions. As a seller there's probably a little less protection - the options to screen buyers are a little limited, but that's another discussion.

So, as buyers, we rely on the feedback system. Personally, I try to avoid dealing with any seller having below 99% feedback. You may say that's a little harsh, but I work on the assumption that for every negative feedback a seller receives, there's probably a few more that they've been able to avoid. In fact, in the past I have had sellers drag out resolutions to the point where my abaility to leave any sort of feedback has expired (I'm pretty careful about this now).

Case in point, I won an auction recently. It was an item I didn't particularly need, but thought I would have a go as I wanted to try it, and the price was quite low ($1 no reserve auction on a fairly niche bit of camera kit). The seller had 100% positive feedback, there were only a few bids, and in the end I won the item at a very good price indeed. Moving along to the payment screen then, and found I was unable to pay for the item. Within a few minutes, the seller had cancelled the order. Reason: "I'm out of stock or the item is damaged". Sounds like a generic 'tick a box' excuse to me. There was no other communication from the seller.

Within a week, I noted that the item had relisted - no longer at $1 no reserve, but for $99 buy-it-now thank you very much. Exactly the same item (it was used, there were photos - the very same photos from the earlier listing). Perhaps I have an overdeveloped sense of moral outrage, but to my thinking, a seller on eBay should not get away with doing this sort of thing scott-free. So after a little research (googling 'ebay Seller cancelled after I won' seemed to do the trick), I decided that eBay would probably be do little to address my concerns, and the recommended course of action would be to leave negative feedback.

Now, I didn't lose any money on this transaction, it was just a little inconvenient to go through the bidding process, get excited about my win, and then try to pay for ten minutes before realising I'd been ghosted on the auction. After some thought I concluded that leaving neutral feedback would be fair. The feedback was something like "Won aucton. Seller cancelled, then relisted at higher price. Poor form". I thought that was quite fair (my wife said I should have left negative feedback, but in the absence of monetary lost, I did not think that justified). Anyway, I thought that was quite fair, and left it at that....

...until, some time later I wondered if the seller might have responded with counter-feedback. Like a dog with a bone who can't leave it alone, I had to have a look. I brought the seller profile up, clicked through to their feedback, and…wait a sec...where's my feedback?!? It was there before - where did it go?!?!? Nooooo way? Did they remove my terribly fair and factual, 80 character limited feedback?! DID EBAY ACTUALLY JUST REMOVE MY FEEDBACK, WITHOUT TELLING ME!!?!?!?!

I was pretty fired up after that. On to live chat then with my righteous indignation! I explained the situation, and how I felt that this was an abuse of trust and that the seller should at least face some form of penalty. Very quickly I was passed from one consultant to another, who informed me, "I did check the details [...] the seller appealed on the feedback which the system removed as there was no payment made."

"What?!?!", I choked out (well, this was a text chat, but I became livid in person)..."they cancelled the order within two minutes of me winning the auction, so of course no payment was made!!!! How was I supposed to pay?!?!?!". The conversation went on for a short while longer, but the general gist was, sorry, we can't do anything now, but we will put in a report as we can see that what you say is true. Can't tell you anything else...blah blah blah, privacy, blah blah blah. Case closed.

I should point out, I've over 1,000 transactions on eBay now...the vast majority as a buyer, and very rarely have I left negative or neutral feedback. In fact, after scrolling through the 1,106 feedback ratings I have left for others, I found two negatives and two neutrals. "Wow", you may well say, "you've been super lucky on eBay"! Well, it's not so much that. I have had more negative experiences than these few. Usually things are resolved, or the experience simply wasn't bad enough to drive me to diss on a seller. Sometimes I will simply not leave feedback at all. Only when there is truly bad behaviour on the seller's part will I go the mile and leave less than positive feedback.

So, how does eBay increase trust? If it's so easy for a party to (and let's call a spade a shovel here) lie, and have feedback removed on appeal with no communication whatsoever with the complainant, then how can we trust the feedback system at all? How many buyers and sellers are able to have negative feedback removed so easily? It could be argued that negative feedback impacts sales and adversely affacts eBay's business, but I'm sure that if the feedback system is not robust, then surely that also has a negative impact?

No easy answers I'm sure.

I should give some credit to eBay for live chat...the ability to get onto live chat now is a much better thing than we ever had in the early days of eBay, when it was very difficult to get any sort of answer to a question at all. At least there's some small sense that you may be heard by eBay.

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Let me explain a few things.

Firstly, the seller percentage rating. I currently have about 5 negs I think. My percentage plunged to 92% at one point. Every positive feedback I now receive, it goes up a whopping 0.01% 😁 My total feedback is kust under 1500 and I usually sell an item or 2 every few days, so not high activity but not bad. A chinese seller with 92% feedback with a total feedback of 220,000 and high activity, would mean they have hundreds of unhappy buyers, maybe thousands. Feedback percentages are subjective based on many factors. 

Your decision to not buy from percentages below 99% is yours, but keep in mind many negs are left by scammers, so the seller doesn't only suffer the pain pf losing a large amount of money, but then a whole year with an unfair negative feedback. Do you know why the seller was given a negative? You are far better off clicking on the number and carefully reading ALL feedback and checking out their registration location while you're there. You can get a clearer idea of common problems (for example items damaged through poor packaging or underquoting postage and buyers getting stung at the other end, some of which are mentioned in positive or neutral feedbacks hence wouldn't affect percentage score but might be a concern for you)

I found it didn't effect my sales thankfully but limiting yourself to a set percentage, well your choice but I always click on the number and thoroughly check out anyone I sell to or buy from.

As for your ire over the seller cancelling, interesting you mentioned the start price and that it was a choice item, yet didn't mention what you won the item for. It's little details like that that I notice 😉

[damien_pw]

Thanks for your comment 11dustyattic

My point about feedback ratings was probably a little abbreviated as I chose not to explain my full decision process (my initial post was long enough without going right into that). I will, indeed, generally note the turnover of a seller - and other points as well (and I think I mentioned this later in this thread). There are always exceptions, and I acknowledge that feedback can be unfairly given and will blow your rating out of the water if you're not completing a lot of transactions on eBay. A seller might be just using eBay for personal purposes (as I do), and a single negative will drop the rating substantially as you've pointed out. At that point, much depends on what complaint I find in the feedback description, and what - if any - response the seller has made. I may then choose to purchase, or not.

Since you're curious, the ending price on that particular auction subject of this thread was in the $11-$12 range, from a starting bid of 99c. To my mind, the item was probably worth $40-$50 in the secondhand market (based on previous examples I've seen) - and I made my bid accordingly. Obviously, nobody else felt the same way as I, and so the item sold for under $12. Note that I did not say that this was a 'choice' item, but rather that it was a "niche" bit of kit (a camera harness, to wear and hold a camera or cameras over your shoulder). In my assessment, it was something that not that many people would be wanting to buy (ie 'niche'), and so perhaps, a poor choice for a buy-it-now auction. The seller relisted at $99, then froped to $89, and I've no idea what it's sitting at since as I haven't checked back and obviously would not enter into any transaction with this seller now.

Nonetheless, this seller chose to list at 99c starting price, and did not end the auction early when they had the opportunity to do so (it was up for a week). They allowed bidding to take place and completed the auction, disliked the result (we assume), and then cancelled the sale, with no communication to the winning bidder whatsoever. I don't know how anybody could argue that this is anything other than poor form.

As I have mentioned elsewhere in this thread, I too have listed at a low 99c starting bid and not obtained the price I would like, but I have always held to my side of the bargain and followed through with the sale. I expect no less from others, but at the very least I would hope for some communication if the seller is going to pull this sort of thing. It was certainly not this seller's first trip to the races.

So...getting that aside, the intended point that I probably did not make very well is, eBay removed my neutral (not even negative) feedback at the drop of a hat and I was not happy with that. My opinion is that this probably should not be so easy for sellers to achieve, and that in this case, the feedback was fair, concise, and to the point. Why pull it down? I acknowledge that the harm this seller did was minimal: it cost me time and some stuffinf about on these forums (my choice I guess). Should a seller be allowed to do this over and over again without consequence though? I think the message this sends is, if I run an auction and don't get the price I want, I can simply cancel the sale before the winning bidder pays and everything will be fine.

My feeling is that this particular ease of feedback removal degrades the marketplace, but your opinion may be different - let's hear it as it relates to that point.

[11dustyattic]

Word is they've been removing a lot of negs during the pandemic. Lots of adjustments during that time like the call centre not being available. A different time for sellers, a lot more competition but on the plus side a lot more buyers. I think Ebay had to automate some things and that MIGHT be one of them. I stress might

The price you won the item for, you still haven't said if rhat included free postage. Regardless it the seller's item to do whatever they want with. Sellers are here to make money. Gifting things is not the objective so whether you like it or not, the only way to avoid possible disappointment is to pay full retail in a bricks and mortar store. You didn't lose money but the seller did stand to lose money. That would be okay with you

Regarding feedback percentage, another example I'll give is one I came across today. A high volume toy seller, even uses a well known logo, but anyway feedback score of about 7000, only been operating for 12 months, based in Australia with a percentage of 99.3%. All pretty good you might think until you further investigate to discover they sell expensive toy sets (lots of high value lego sets) they don't have. Weeks later the buyers have to chase them up only to be told it's 'out of stock', eventually get refunded but not instantly so I estimate they have taken excess 

payment for somwhere between $10,000-$15,000. About 100 negative and neutral feedbacks most saying the same thing.

So according to your algorithm, you rank such a seller higher than me. Sellers like myself, the small fry, you would bypass looking at that stupid percentage. Ignore the percentage. It is not worth the paper it's written on

[tazzieterror]

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@11dustyattic wrote:

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The price you won the item for, you still haven't said if rhat included free postage. Regardless it the seller's item to do whatever they want with. Sellers are here to make money. Gifting things is not the objective so whether you like it or not, the only way to avoid possible disappointment is to pay full retail in a bricks and mortar store. You didn't lose money but the seller did stand to lose money. That would be okay with you

No, that's incorrect. When you list on eBay you are committed to following through with a completed sale. I've read cases where  a seller has been successfuly sued in court to complete a sale they've otherwise tried to back out of. Not worth it for most transactions, but you're wrong in your assumption.

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So according to your algorithm, you rank such a seller higher than me. Sellers like myself, the small fry, you would bypass looking at that stupid percentage. Ignore the percentage. It is not worth the paper it's written on

I took your advice from an earlier post to read the comments left against neutral and negative feedback, on your account, dusty.  Elsewhere you've alluded to this feedback as being unfair and left by scammers, yet there's a recurring theme to received comments that seems pretty consistent throughout the years, and is reinforced in your replies to them. If I were you I wouldn't be drawing attention to them.

And you can save your "you're a troll" comments.

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[damien_pw]

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@11dustyattic wrote:

...

Regarding feedback percentage, another example I'll give is one I came across today. A high volume toy seller, even uses a well known logo, but anyway feedback score of about 7000, only been operating for 12 months, based in Australia with a percentage of 99.3%. All pretty good you might think until you further investigate to discover they sell expensive toy sets (lots of high value lego sets) they don't have. Weeks later the buyers have to chase them up only to be told it's 'out of stock', eventually get refunded but not instantly so I estimate they have taken excess 

payment for somwhere between $10,000-$15,000. About 100 negative and neutral feedbacks most saying the same thing.

...

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Thanks for your points 11dustyattic

Yes...I can understand that there might be a lot of people panicking over the long shipping times. I expect this is why eBay might be removing more negative feedback than usual (thought this really should only be those complaining about shipping times).

Good example with the toy seller. So the hit rate of 99.3% wouldn't concern me overly, no. I would enter into dealings with this seller thinking that one person out of a hundred may have a problem such that they leave a neg. In reality probably more - let's say two or three - so 97% chance I'll be happy.

But from what you've said about them selling things not stocked, it leaves me to wonder if they're getting around a lot of the potential negatives by (eventually) getting refunds out to buyers and so avoiding any negs (and according to eBay, it's a reoslution if that happens and so negs will be removed). Does this mean they're avoiding another 5...10...20% of negative feedback?

I don't want to buy from a seller who has a high level of transactions that need resolution. It wastes my time, ties up my cash, and may deny me the opportunity to pick the item up from a legitimate seller who can actually deliver. If this sort of thing isn't reflected in feedback, then I'd propose that it reduces trust and hence is a problem that eBay should address (and this is what I wanted to talk about in this thread).

Re: your comment on sellers not being around to "gift" things - well, there's a simple solution to that. Don't start auctions at 99c if you don't want to sell at a potential low price. On a related point - not all sellers are here to make a profit, as we're not all businesses. Maybe we need money, or maybe we just need to downside - there are a whole host of reasons to sell on eBay besides turning a profit. I sell sometimes - and I rarely profit on anything I sell. It's only my own personal items after all and usually I've paid much more at a retailer than I am able to sell for, but sometimes eBay surprises me and I actually get my money back or a little more! Overall, selling on eBay is, for me, certainly not a profit making venture! Sometimes, I might even effectively 'gift' an item, as you say. That's ok, because for some things, I'd rather move them along to somebody who can use them than throw them away! But for goodness sake, if you don't intend to follow through on a sale when the price doesn't meet your expectations, save everybody's time and DON'T list at 99c. Commercial sellers should be well and truly across this, and personal sellers should learn after their first disappointment. Simple. Sorry, this is a little off-topic (feedback and trust), but it keeps coming up in this thread and I feel like I need to keep addressing it.

[tazzieterror]

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@damien_pw wrote:

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But from what you've said about them selling things not stocked, it leaves me to wonder if they're getting around a lot of the potential negatives by (eventually) getting refunds out to buyers and so avoiding any negs (and according to eBay, it's a reoslution if that happens and so negs will be removed). Does this mean they're avoiding another 5...10...20% of negative feedback?

...

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In general it's difficult to get feedback negative or neutral removed, and providing a resolution (i.e. refunding) doesn't guarantee that a resulting neg will disappear. 

As had been pointed out, eBay have recently eased their criteria for removing negs in response to COVID related issues, but normally a neg will stay unless the accompanying comment is in breach of the FB guidelines.

What I'm saying is, it's not the ideal time to be evaluating the trustworthiness of eBay's FB system - eBay isn't setting out to artifically inflate feedback scores by removing negative ratings, but is trying to prevent sellers being unfairly penalised for COVID delays which are out of their hands. Yes, this means some sellers will be fortunate in that a warranted neg might be removed, but this is probably the lesser of two evils given the cirumstances. 

[damien_pw]

Fair enough. Granted, it is indeed strange times, and I can see how eBay might have had to scramble to tweak their trust systems.

[tazzieterror]

For what it's worth, I've recently had a similar experience as you where a negative comment I've left for a reneging seller was removed a couple of days later, so I understand your frustration.

[11dustyattic]

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@tazzieterror wrote:
For what it's worth, I've recently had a similar experience as you where a negative comment I've left for a reneging seller was removed a couple of days later, so I understand your frustration.

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Yes I think it must be automated atm