systemic issue of sellers manipulating feedback

[btecau]

There seems to be a systemic issue on ebay of sellers manipulating their feedback scores. I have just recently been in a situation again when buying something sold as working on ebay and when i recieve it and plug it in its faulty.

the most recent purchase was for a cisco switch it was listed as working with warrenty I plugged it in and its not working properly, no output on the console cable nothing. I looked up the seller online and called them and they said they plug it in power it up and plug network cables in to see if they light up.

they then went on to say it was probably a problem with my power.

They admitted they don't plug a console cable in or do anything like that yet they sell it as "refurbished"

When i bought from them it was because they had 100% feedback however now looking at them on google they have a number of negative reviews on google.

So this is a clear case that the feedback is being manipulated by the seller because it is highly unlikely that someone is going to have 100% positive feedback on one platform and the likes of 60% on another arguably harder platform to manipulate.

So if ebay is facilitating this manipulation why have a feedback system in place? it is now forcing me to refuse business going forward with sellers who have a 100% feedback score when they have more than lets say 100 sales because it is impossible to please everyone 100% of the time.

[davewil1964]

I have TWO negs (one underserved) from over 4k transactions, so I please almost everybody 100% of the time. Admittedly I don't sell fraught stuff like electronics online.

eBay feedback percentages only relate to the last 12 months. Google probably goes back to before smartphones.

[btecau]

@davewill1964

If you have two negs and only one was deserved then by that very definition you don't have 100% positive feedback do you.

100%  means every single interaction results in positive feedback.

[twyngwyn]

It depends on the wording of the feedback….lots of comments can be removed….

go to HELP and type in feedback removal policy

[springyzone]

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@btecau wrote:

@davewill1964

If you have two negs and only one was deserved then by that very definition you don't have 100% positive feedback do you.

100%  means every single interaction results in positive feedback.

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I think ebay only counts feedback from the last 12 months, so if a seller has negs from before that, he or she might still show as 100%

You're right, it is hard to maintain 100% feedback. 

You're also right in that ebay does remove some feedback, you have to be extremely careful what you say. Sometimes comments get to stay even if they break ebay rules, and that is probably because the seller has not appealed.

But you'll find some of the shiftiest sellers will ignore their buyers but the minute they get a negative, they sure know how to respond to ebay and they are appealing straight away.

On the whole, I think you can get an honest idea from feedback. Not every neg is removed (or not for most sellers). I have read that there are some big chinese sellers who have negs miraculously removed. I can't vouch for it, it is just what I have read.

But if you restrict your buying to medium sized aussie sellers. I think the feedback should at least give you a feel for any particular problems. I don't believe feedback has to be 100% either, it always pays to check out the actual comments as some buyers can be unreasonable too.

[sandypebbles]

I am sure all the hard working, honest sellers here who have a high number of sales and 100% feedback for the past twelve months will be delighted to read that you believe they only have that 100% because they manipulated their feedback

Not only that, but you are fine with eBay only allowing buyers to be given positive feedback, no matter how underhanded they were, but that is not a form of manipulation 

[davewil1964]

My main account is showing 99.1%. From one neg in 18 years, from over 5k (I checked) transactions. So it is actually 99.98%, but that is not the way eBay calculate it.

[gutterpunkz05]

There are now numerous reasons, where ebay will automatically remove -ve feedback, in which cases there is no seller request or input required.  It is now actually feasible that a seller may not even know a -ve FB was left.