The last post explains about the change from 90 to 60 days.
I've received an item after 60 days and I can't see it in my "awaiting feedback" list.
How can I leave feedback on those items?
If this is not possible, I suggest the extension of time because each item I buy takes aprox. 2 months to arrive.
Thanks.
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It used to be 90 days. Why they changed it to 60 I'll never know.
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https://community.ebay.com/t5/Archive-My-Account/Leave-feedback-after-60-days/td-p/2924887
So, multiple buyers have been asking eBay to extend the time limit for various reasons (some reasonable, not denying that), for years....and eBay hasn't.
Why?
One of the first things eBay did when they introduced protections for members during this time was to more than quadruple the amount of time a buyer gets to do certain things, like return items, and yet nothing was done for FB except - in a particularly rare move for eBay - introduce protections for sellers surrounding the removal of bad feedback.
Why?
Come up with a couple of astute answers to those questions, and you'll probably start to understand what is most important to eBay.
Or not, you almost never reply to my posts, I've noticed.
@digital*ghost wrote:So, multiple buyers have been asking eBay to extend the time limit for various reasons (some reasonable, not denying that), for years....and eBay hasn't.
Why?
One of the first things eBay did when they introduced protections for members during this time was to more than quadruple the amount of time a buyer gets to do certain things, like return items, and yet nothing was done for FB except - in a particularly rare move for eBay - introduce protections for sellers surrounding the removal of bad feedback.
Why?
Come up with a couple of astute answers to those questions, and you'll probably start to understand what is most important to eBay.
Or not, you almost never reply to my posts, I've noticed.
I do reply to your posts digital ghost. Anyway, one of the trade-offs eBay did was also take away the seller's ability to leave negatives and neutrals as many sellers were revenge-negging buyers who gave them a negative. This also forced many sellers to lift their game. And obviously nonsense FB and whatever other kind of FB that was obviously unwarranted wouldn't stick. But let's not get distracted from this issue here which is the "time thing", OK!
Anyway, in answer to something previous, you don't sell international so this wouldn't concern you in that respect and if you don't buy much overseas then it hardly would.. I still buy a bit overseas but if I didn't I'd still be concerned. Why? Well there are besides myself and yourself who are going to be affected. Now the world has changed, we need to change feedback to be in line with the current and continuing situation concerning this Corona virus.Two months is simply not enough. Wasn't it you who said somewhere that you use FB as a guide to working out what kind of seller someone is?
The change as you can see by looking at the C&P of the post by took place in May 2008 which was 2 years before you registered. I registered in July 2002, nearly 18 years ago. I remember having few years of 90 days to leave FB. Now my local PO lady tells me that my still waiting for an item to come from the US on its 6th week is nothing unusual. She also said some people have been waiting for up to 3 months.
Like I said, "We either have feedback or we don't (I think I said that). So?
Once in a blue moon you reply, but usually don't (I should know, lol, I'm always curious about your response but often disappointed - not that it's enough to keep me up at night, 
it's just something that hasn't gone unnoticed and I decided to comment on it). Also, I said I joined in 2008 (January, to be exact - this account is not my first account, it's my second, and I only buy with it) and your posts indicate it was changed in May of 2008. I didn't even know what feedback was when I joined, though, so by the time I started participating in the system it would have changed, if that's all true.
My post wasn't a distraction, I was asking you to think about what might be behind eBay's decision to choose not to extend FB timeframes in the face of well-known world-wide postal delays, particularly considering (as you have evidenced) there's been semi-consistent calls for an extension for a long time, and despite making very quick adjustments to timeframes for other things.
Why would they choose to protect sellers around feedback, over or without giving buyers more time to leave it? That is the question I am asking you to think about.
And, I do sell internationally. I also buy internationally. Just not on eBay, as a general rule.
Here's an easily dismissable anecdote for ya... I'm in a group on Facebook for sellers who sell on a different site, which is where I do sell internationally, and they have a feedback system too. Buyers can leave feedback for up to 100 days from purchase.
Every. Single. Day. in that group, there's at least one post from a seller who's received a 1-star review for items "not arriving" - some of the comments I have seen are absolutely disgusting and the protections / support being offered by the site are virtually non-existent. Quite often the buyer will receive their purchase not long after leaving their feedback. You might be reasonable, be fully aware of and willing to work around extended delays, and / or give sellers heaps of time to work on solutions to problems, but for everyone like you, there's at least one other person who's the opposite, and the damage they can do is not always negligible. You may dismiss this as irrelevant, but it's not. It's indicitave of a widespread problem that is affecting buyers & sellers no matter where they sell.
Here, instead it's been post after post of buyers accessing other options they have on eBay, leaving sellers without their goods and without the money they received for it, but at least no neut / neg that will affect their business for 12 months.
A very different kind of damage indeed, but buyers are largely insulated from it all, except for the lack of ability to comment on eBay, I s'pose.
I am watching this happen, in real time, in the context of all the ramefications to covid-19 and multiple other important events having massive, lasting impact on people and their livlihoods, and this request - no matter how well reasoned it is - just seems so darn trivial and unimportant to me.
Sorrynotsorry.
According to my feedback profile page, I registered on eBay on 31st May 2005.
I do remember feedback being longer than 60 days when I first joined eBay, but I don't remember the specifics of it. The main reason that I'm aware it was longer than 60 days is because of one particular purchase. I don't know the date of the purchase, as eBay helpfully refer to it only as being "More than a year ago". I'm sure that it was prior to 2008. I don't remember exactly what the item was, but I think it was a non-fiction history book for research purposes.
My feedback comment states:
15 weeks arriving, but not the seller's fault. Well packaged, good item, thanks. (#8373021420)
A purchase made at around the same time was a rare o/p CD of the Dutch soprano Elly Ameling. The seller and I kept in contact throughout the agonisingly long delivery time; I recall that for some inexplicable reason that the seller had sent the CD by sea mail. I'd certainly have paid any additional amount to cover airmail... but our patience was rewarded in the end and I think that the seller was as relieved as I was upon the item's delivery! I vividly recall the delivery taking approximately 3 months. My feedback comment states:
Excellent seller supportive throughout long wait due to shipping. Recommended ++ (#8375089713)
The first example suggests that I was able to leave feedback 105 days after the transaction, which is longer than the 90 days referred to. That means that:
- when writing the feedback, I miscalculated the number of weeks (unlikely, but possible), or
- feedback was generally 90 days back then but technical glitches resulted in still longer timeframes occasionally, or
- there was some sort of "back door" way to leave feedback longer than 90 days. (I don't specifically recall it, but I do have a vague memory of something of the sort. It's certainly possible that I searched for and found some way to leave that particular feedback at that time.)
So... I can certainly confirm that feedback timeframes have changed.
I've also googled 
and found "A message from Brian Burke" posted on the eBay US site (under Announcements) on 7th May 2008 concerning the forthcoming changes to take effect on 19th May 2008 for eBay US and eBay Canada.
and found "A message from Brian Burke" posted on the eBay US site (under Announcements) on 7th May 2008 concerning the forthcoming changes to take effect on 19th May 2008 for eBay US and eBay Canada.❝Hello everyone...as we announced back in January [dead link], we're making some bold changes to how Feedback on eBay works. As we get closer to our launch, I wanted to review the changes we've discussed and provide some additional detail and updates.
As a recap, here's what we announced in January that is scheduled to launch the week of May 19th in North America (which includes eBay.com in the US, as well as eBay.ca and eBay.cafr in Canada):
- Sellers may only leave positive feedback for buyers
- We will remove negative and neutral Feedback if a member becomes suspended
- Members can leave Feedback up to 60 days after a transaction (down from 90)
- We will remove Feedback when a buyer fails to respond to the unpaid item process.
- Members will receive credit for weekly repeat Feedback (going back to 1996)
- We will base the Positive Feedback Percentage on the past 12 months of activity (and include neutral Feedback in the calculation)
- The PowerSeller Program will use the same calculation method described above to determine eligibility for the PS Program for the Positive Feedback percentage requirement of 98% positive.❞
Spoiler
4channel, earlier in this thread one of your replies to my earlier post included the following:
@4channel wrote:
[...] You may buy a lot of new stuff and you're careful. But for others that buy collectablle things, many which are old and condition often being the deciding factor in their decision to buy, it's not always going to be smooth sailing. With collectable things, electronic or certain types of media, there can be problems.
My early purchases on eBay were primarily of collectables, antiques, o/p books, o/p CDs... things of that sort. Among my purchases were:
- Georgian silver (primarily English) items
- Georgian writing slope (I'd looked for a superb example with original skiver for YEARS)
- Antique jewellery
- Early Victorian brass bell
- Antique seals
- Various books of primary sources
- Hard-to-get opera DVDs
- o/p and hard-to-get classic computer adventure games (primarily by Sierra)
- DVDs of films in Russian, French, German, Dutch, Italian, etc.
- Scrabble and Monopoly and other board games in various languages
- Items in my favourite Wedgwood dinner pattern of Edme
- Georgian/early Victorian ice cream moulds
- etc.
I made it a point to check media items as quickly as possible after they arrived. I'd play those old games on the old 486 which I still own; quite a few of the games still needed to be loaded into DOSBox in order to run. As long as I could start the game and save and load saved games, all was good.
CDs - well, I'd play them as soon as they arrived.
DVDs - load into DVD player, and watch the whole thing at least within 2 weeks of arriving as a general rule.
Antique items - examine immediately, look at marks closely, check for anomalies or signs of damage. (I only ever had 1 problem with a collectable antique item purchased on eBay; it arrived broken in two, and I could see the glue where those two parts had come apart during shipping. Every other antique item has been authentic, undamaged, gorgeous.)
I would not leave something for weeks and weeks after arrival, without checking that it was in the condition described.
However, the collectables became increasingly more difficult to find on eBay, and I now primarily purchase online antiques and collectables from other sites. (There is also the problem of authenticity. I purchase from well-established antiques shops whose reputation is important to them. Quite a few of these once upon a time sold on eBay, but gradually ceased to do so.)
For perhaps 10% of my purchases in the early days of my eBay membership, the 90-day feedback period was probably appropriate.
For 100% of my purchases nowadays on eBay, 60 days is well and truly adequate.
The current pandemic with its effect upon both domestic and international postage delivery times has undoubtedly changed the landscape... and I can understand your point in thinking that the feedback timeframe should be extended to 90 days. Your point would particularly apply to reasonable buyers, who make international purchases at this time with a reasonable understanding of the devastating effects of COVID-19 on shipping/postage services and timeframes. These buyers would hold off on giving feedback until the very last day of this suggested 90-day feedback timeframe, and their feedback (when finally made) would not include comments such as "Delivery took AGES!"
However, I am only too aware that many buyers today are not "reasonable buyers" in that sense. There are all too many buyers in the US who don't even believe that COVID-19 is a real issue. (A significant percentage of Americans say that they think it's a hoax.) Even in Australia, there are eBayers who seem not to believe that domestic postage is/should be affected by COVID-19.
Buyers are opening INR cases for refunds very readily and quickly today. (This is not from my own experience, as I don't sell. It's evident from the Sellers boards, however.) In conjunction with that, buyers are also giving feedback quickly, at the same time as (or even before) they open disputes. I know from this page that sellers can set their handling time to a maximum of 30 business days (so... 42 days), so delivery time (and also the Estimated Delivery Date shown on the transaction) could be well and truly past 60 days. This may seem like a reason to have a longer feedback timeframe... and I'd agree to an extent. (A narrow extent.) But bear in mind that ❝A buyer can report in My eBay that they didn't receive an item once the latest estimated delivery date has passed, and for 30 days after the latest estimated delivery date.❞ That means that buyers can wait to open an INR dispute, to make allowances for extended delivery delays due to COVID-19 - but the anecdotal evidence shows that they are in many cases NOT waiting to do so.
Given this demonstrated impatience from buyers who are opening disputes almost as soon as they are able to do so, and given the different seller protections on different eBay sites (where such things as EU distance selling regulations leave sellers very vulnerable to buyers who either cannot or will not accept that the pandemic is significantly affecting delivery times), I think that there'd be enough buyers punishing sellers (via both feedback and disputes) for something entirely beyond those sellers' control to make the suggestion of extended feedback timeframes an unviable one.
I believe that eBay won't consider it, even if many buyers request it.* I don't believe that most buyers even want it. I believe that the very very great majority of sellers wouldn't want it.
I also believe that eBay are very unlikely to listen to suggestions by eBay members. (See this post where I refer to the specific eBay policy where they say as much.)
That doesn't mean that you can't make a suggestion. Here's the link to do so if you're interested in putting forward your idea of extending feedback.
* eBay have already considered the implications of COVID-19 and delayed deliveries. Their response is shown in Additional support during COVID-19 for buyers and sellers on eBay, where they say:
❝Seller protections
Some postage carriers are facing operational challenges at the moment and we understand there may be cases where your handling time and the speed of your deliveries are affected. [...]
We're also protecting your late shipment rate, defect rate and item not received (INR) count in service metrics. For transactions between 1 March to 30 June 2020, we'll automatically remove:
- Late shipments and seller cancellation defects, along with any related negative or neutral Feedback
- Item not received count (INR) in service metrics, along with any related negative or neutral Feedback. [...]❞
To me, this indicates that eBay sees a very considerable risk to sellers being penalised by impatient buyers. This is unusual... and in my view it contra-indicates any possibility of extending feedback timeframes.
