"we have the best prices, most reliable deliveries, and most responsive customer service team in Australia  .............   You're kidding right....you actually believed the above statement? Do you not run a small business? You really SHOULD have realised that that statement is an outrageous claim to make...for any business - it's absolutely unrealistic. Wow!

It is not matter of 'believing' advertising, but I would expect that anybody trying to run successfull business, especially in such a competitive field, would indeed have a great customer service and be reliable with deliveries.  As it is they lost a customer who spends lot of money on their dogs.

If they let me know there is a problem immediately, I would have been happy to work around it. 

Feedback is a measure of the integrity of Sellers. For feedback to actually mean something it needs to be honest and 2 way. The amount of non paying buyers is getting out of control. The ability to leave negative feedback for buyers MUST re reinstated. EBAY is beginning to become some sort of joke wherby buyers can do as they like and sellers pay pay and then pay some more. the viability of selling on EBAY is fast becoming questionable.

If feedback is a measure of the integrity of sellers, which it is, then there is no connection between that and leaving negatives for buyers.

i would argue that buyers shouldn't get feedback at all.

So what should be done about buyers who are serial slow/non payers, impatient or abusive? What 'system' can be in place to alert other sellers?

ebay could set it so that a pop up screen comes up after say 30 days and the buyer would have to rate the transaction to continue

That would just send people nuts and make them delete ebay altogether. LOL yeh lets do it.

So what should be done about buyers who are serial slow/non payers, impatient or abusive? What 'system' can be in place to alert other sellers?

The strike system that is in place now will handle the non-payers. 'Alerting' other sellers via false positives is fraught, as a knowledgeable buyer will simply report them, get the comments removed (but not the dots) and the seller gets a policy violation.

I sell books. There are about 30,000 auctions out of several million listings. False positive warnings don't help with BINs. Or last second snipes, for that matter.

ebay could set it so that a pop up screen comes up after say 30 days and the buyer would have to rate the transaction to continue     That would just send people nuts and make them delete ebay altogether. LOL yeh lets do it.

So, are you happy with the system as it is now?

It's easy to critisize the ideas of others but do you have any of your own to offer?

ebay could set it so that a pop up screen comes up after say 30 days and the buyer would have to rate the transaction to continue     That would just send people nuts and make them delete ebay altogether. LOL yeh lets do it.

I have to agree, that is NOT a good idea, it would not make me get rid of eBay, but it would irritate me, just as all the unnecessary eBay messages do.  And considering that many people put off leaving FB  because they are already annoyed, but do not feel that NEG is quite deserved, I can see them leaving NEGs if pushed.

Lets face it, there is never going to be a perfect FB system; there is always going to be somebody not happy.

Correct me if I am wrong, but as far as I know eBay was the only site that originally had equal FB for buyers and sellers.  That was because to start with sellers were the buyers = people just selling junk from around the house etc.  That is not applicable any more.  Sellers are on line business.

I also buy on E..Y, did not even realised there was a FB option until I had a serious hassle with seller; so the only FB I left there was NEG.  I am not sure if the sellers there rate buyers, and frankly I do not care; I buy goods not FB.  

and I repeat, it's easy to critisize the ideas of others, but do you have any of your own to offer?

I like the original notions that the feedback system were based on.  I think it can be a valuable  point of difference between other selling sites.

Nonetheless, whilst I don't support a return to the past, with tit for tat feedback between buyers and sellers,  I would definitely like to see future developments in the feedback system that seek to make ebay a safer trading place including make buyers accountable for their purchasing habits and transparent information showing such as non payment strikes, as well as a count for the number of disputes showing for both buyers and sellers.