Buyer can make their feedback profile PRIVATE?!

[saarzi]

A buyer left me a negative positive ("does LOOK like theres 200 seeds" - there was 208, and they are packed on camera).   So I had a look at their feedback profile.

Can't access it - buyers can make their feedback history private, so sellers can not see it.   I had no idea!

That is messed up!  Im going to cancel any purchases from buyers with hidden feedback profiles, defect or not.

[jbmbkb]

sure can , mines normally private because its nobodys buisness other than my own what i buy . not all feedback profiles are hidden due to dodgy feedback some people simply like their privacy.

[amber-eyed-girl]

Buyers can make their feedback private, if they want to start selling it has to be made public.

Before eBay changed the way items showed in feedback, it was a way to keep purchases exactly that, private. Some sellers like to advertise in the comments they leave the buyer "thanks for shopping at xyz for lingerie", say, so there's still a reason buyers may continue to opt for private feedback. Doesn't necessarily mean they have poor comments they are hiding. It's against the rules for sellers to leave false positives for a buyer anyway, so feedback shouldn't really be able to warn sellers about bad buyers.

[jbmbkb]

or comments like ive recieved in feedback on a past account when i sold a blower vac... the feedback read

thanks for the blowie ......................buyer must have thought it was funny but i didnt, my feedback profile got hidden quick smart until ebay removed it for me. so theres a couple of valid reasons for hiding feedback.

[saarzi]

I really doubt that the purpose is to allow buyers to keep their purchases private (from Ebays side of things).

If that were the case, Ebay would remove the item title from the feedback, and make it against policy to advertise in feedback. Then everyone could still see the feedback, and followups, without showing what the buyer purchased. Besides that, real life names arent in feedback, unless the buyer CHOOSES to use it in their Ebay ID.... no one knows who they are but the seller and Ebay, unless the buyer is telling people in real life what their Ebay ID is, and if they didnt want people to know what they were purchasing that would be pretty freaking stupid.

Making feedback profiles private is to hide the buyers feedback and followups - so that sellers cant see their false positives, or how many negs they are leaving, or sellers followups for a bad transaction and theres less of a chance of cancelling transactions - which is more money for Ebay. We cant report them for leaving 100 negs so Ebay wont remove them etc etc.

I realise sellers arent supposed to leave neg feedback (as a false positive), but a positive followup, with the buyers name, is the only way sellers can communicate possible issues here.

If they take too much of that away, many sellers will do it on the many other forums that allow sellers to report buyers, outside of Ebay. Thats less control for Ebay, and far more disatrous for buyers, since full details can be given to sellers/ the world in those groups.

The idea of allowing buyers to make their profiles private has been very very poorly thought out.  It doesnt benefit Ebay or the buyer, let alone anyone else.

[amber-eyed-girl]

"View item" and the item title has been removed from feedback from purchases, for some time now.

The item title is only shown for sales. Giving potential buyers the chance to see feedback relevant for any items/similar items they might be interested in from a seller. That can benefit sellers if it's good feedback.

your choice not to sell to anyone you like, including those who value their privacy. As I have said, there are sellers who leave free ads for themselves and their products in feedback, thus ruining eBay's efforts to give buyers any other option than the keep feedback private function if they actually want that. Until eBay bans it the keep feedback private option remains valid.

[jbmbkb]

canceling the purchase wont stop the buyer leaving feedback as they still can leave feedback after the transaction has been canceled.

[amber-eyed-girl]

As for the freaking stupid...well, there have been instances on these forums where people who have come here to innocently engage/ask a question, have had their purchases openly discussed here without their permission. That has served as a discouragement for others to use the boards I believe. It isn't always a case of telling someone your ID, that you personally know. 

That can be a reason to have private feedback, too. We are all IDs here, and more personal things should be up to the discretion of the ID holder to divulge on this public forum.

[digital*ghost]

This is one of those issues I tend to be in two minds about. On the one hand, I respect the reasons why some buyers prefer to keep their FB profile private - that's just ordinary, every day "person" me. 

"Seller" me doesn't take any notice or give it any concern, unless something causes me to want to look at a buyer's profile and then I see it's private, at which point - no matter how much I try not to - I always feel just that little bit more uneasy (I'm only looking because I'm already uneasy, which isn't the case 100% of time an issue is brought to my attention, because quite often the communication itself with the buyer allays any concern I might have had, but in other cases not being able to see anything just amplifies my uneasiness - just to be clear, I don't automatically assume that the buyer is that much more suspicious, but FB profiles can and do, quite often, add weight to or negate my concerns. Without the opportunity to do either, I will most definitely be a bit more guarded - I'm the same way on other sites, where there is no buyer FB profile at all for me to look at.

Or, in succinct terms, if in doubt, proceed with caution. 

I generally don't care about FB received, but I do care about FB left. 

[lyndal1838]

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@saarzi wrote:

A buyer left me a negative positive ("does LOOK like theres 200 seeds" - there was 208, and they are packed on camera).   So I had a look at their feedback profile.

Can't access it - buyers can make their feedback history private, so sellers can not see it.   I had no idea!

That is messed up!  Im going to cancel any purchases from buyers with hidden feedback profiles, defect or not.

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Thanks for the warning.  If I should want to buy anything from you I will use another ID that does not have Private feedback.

I thought you had been around the boards long enough to have seen discussions of Private feedback before now.

You do realise that if you cancel a transaction you can still get a negative feedback from the buyer as well as defects.  For your sake I hope you don't have many Private feedback buyers or your selling career may be shortlived.