@ostles999

I (metaphorically) feel your pain.

It is surprising, I suppose, that some sellers are still in the process of becoming aware that negative feedback can no longer be given to buyers; in a way it's understandable if sales over the last few years have not been problematic, or if one's not sold for a long time (or ever before), but I know there was a lot of kerfuffle about this when it first came in. I know too that eBay members were advised of the policy change... Without question, many people never do read policy updates, so that explains what might otherwise seem a puzzling phenomenon.

As Phorum Junkie says, issuing an unpaid item strike is effective in terms of making it less likely that the defaulting non-payer will be able to purchase from you and other sellers in the future - as long as at least one more strike is issued by another seller, and as long as your buyer blocks are in place to prevent buyers with strikes purchasing from you... and (I hate to say this) as long as the buyer didn't go weeping to eBay customer service with a tale about how unjust it all was and how they should be let off the hook. (Oh, and also so long as the strikes are not so long ago that they have fallen off the radar.)

But I fully understand just why some sellers are frustrated by not being able to leave negatives. It's not about what is the best and most business-like and effective way to deal with non-payers; it's about putting the bad buyer into the stocks and throwing a nice squidgy rotten tomato at him or her.

Light punishment during the Middle Ages, the pillory set the criminal up for public display of his/her wrongdoing, and there is some evidence that public humiliation of this sort was actually quite a good deterrent.  The wrongdoer would spend perhaps a few hours in the pillory, and everyone at the marketplace would know what crime the pilloried individual had committed. After he or she was set free, there was no further punishment, but there would be reputation (Oh, my reputation, Iago, my reputation!) in the aftermath, which meant the wrongdoer would have to regain trust by proving him/herself with better behaviour.

By removing the ability for sellers to leave negative feedback, eBay has told them "No, you can't have access to the pillory, except when we're putting you into them", and also prevented sellers from accessing beautifully quaggy and pulpous rotten fruit and vegetables for a little gentle throwing...

Perhaps a suitable way of venting for the affected sellers would be to print out an image of the buyer's imagined head, tape it to a wall, and toss darts at it.