Comments on: eBay sellers to be banned from criticizing buyers

Online auction giant's move to ban seller feedback on customers is praised by buyers but criticized by sellers.

[dinopopulus]

I am selling on the eBay from (approximately) 2000/1, my first sales were just my garage junk and some stuff that I wanted to get rid of, such as old tools and bunch of old clothes. And it did work out; sometime I was getting buck or two for used shorts then sometime somebody paid $10 and then things evened out. Right? Well things get even better for me when I found wholesale place where I was purchasing stuff and selling it for a few dollars more. Over the period of time I saw incredible changes with eBay policies, from not being able to use your web page and email as a user name up to the what exactly you can say or do trough the comments and other communication ways, they are even applying to you as a user in which way to think and act, today (2008) eBay have more policies against sellers than US government have against all terrorist countries, it is simply amazing how some people can be so badly evil for control against someone, that this thirst and need for power overshadowing any democratic way of thinking living and existing. Several years ago I meet person who worked for eBay as a middle level executive, and the story that we heard from her are amazing. From higher management being totally discriminative against woman, African Americans, and other nationalities, to the stories about higher executives spending millions of dollars in to the mistresses, unnecessary luxuries and so on?Discrimination was totally pointed in to the eBay competition. Lets say that eBay wanted to get rid on someone (usually small auction site), they will find way openly and publicly how to do it, and then they will send lawyers specially trained on how to destroy those small companies. My eBay friend was always talking about how illegal activities that may be so illegal in another company are so open at eBay. Employees are definitely not so happy or they are just figured out how to deal with mafia stile management, and then you know...What I did with my eBay business is really simple, you see there is a city, state and federal law(s) that you as a eBay member can not and should not go against. What am I trying to say... Who cares about eBay comments and Power seller status, do your job honestly pay your bills to eBay, do not brake any law, meaning what you sell send it to the customer, pay you bills, and any time you get in trouble with eBay, pay your last bill and open another account. IT IS SO EASY. I never missed my first account neither did I missed my tenth account nor? I am right now probably on my fifteen account. I never brake any law all my bills are paid all my accounts are legally closed and all my other accounts did make me money. It is absolutely lay that people wont by from you because you don't have high account status. 10 to 30 feedbacks are everything you need. Look, if you have 500 positives and 3 or 4 negatives you are suspicious by someones standards, if you have 30 positives you are absolutely 100% perfect. First things first, this new feedback rules will not fly for so long and in next year two or three all today's existing rules will be changed 5 times. So don't worry just open another account and don't do nothing wrong. You know, god did not create eBay. Sellers and buyers created eBay, just because eBay have wrong leadership does not mean that you can not profit. Honesty honor and dignity are not created to be used specifically for eBay, it is just every day principals of how we live and what make us good husbands, brothers, parents ?humans, all those rules you do not have to apply when dealing with eBay. You are the customer and they are just very expensive service TO YOU that you/me/us are paying, so you should create your own rule, and push eBay in to serving us for our money. That was/is my rule, and I am sticking by. Good look to you all?

[DANNY101]

For years as a buyer I would not leave a Negative for a seller because the one time it was needed to alert others to this seller who was ripping off people, I got one for my trouble. Here it is just a month into the new policy and here comes the rub. I sold an item for $36 and the next day the buyer said he didn't want it. He did offer me $3.99 for it (the opening bid). I asked him to at least pay the $3 or so listing/selling fee and he said No, just relist it and don't contact me again. I don't know what eBay meant when they said they had extra avenues for non-paying bidders because unless I filed a NPB complaint, I would not get selling fee credit. I asked if I could get a Neg. on my record from the bum who even offered a fraction of his bid, and I was told Yes. I would have to prove he didn't pay to have the mark removed from score. It seems to me if a NPB complaint is filed, any neg. comments should automatically be disregarded. I thought that would be common sense... I will look for over avenues to sell now.

[DachsiegrrlCinci]

I'm not sure what the solution is; it's unfortunate that sellers cannot leave negative feedback when it is truly warranted, but it seems like it is a situation of the few spoiling it for the many. We had a seller who sent us a completely different item; we sent polite emails with pictures asking to send us the correct item and telling them we would send the incorrect item back. The seller flat-out denied sending us the incorrect item, and after repeated, patient attempts to resolve the situation, we were forced to file a claim with PayPal. The seller responded by filing an unpaid item strike with eBay, which was a complete abuse of the process because we had paid immediately for the item. During the emails, the seller admitted that the item could have sold for much more than our winning bid, making it obvious why we had received the incorrect item. We wanted to leave a warning feedback about this seller, but we knew that it would result in an incorrect, unjustified negative feedback about us (we have 100% postiive feedback after 10 years on eBay - I have never, ever received anything but glowing feedback as a buyer or a seller). We had the unpaid item strike removed and got a refund from PayPal, but we were unable to warn others of this dishonest, manipulative seller. This went on for over a month; I don't have the answers, but this was a very horrible experience as a buyer, and I'm an honest, quickly-paying buyer. Sellers like this one have ruined it for all other sellers. I'd love to post the eBay ID so that all other sellers could write and thank him, but unlike this seller, I'm an ethical eBayer and user of cyberspace. This experience has definitely changed the way we buy on eBay; we video all packages as they are received and opened in case someone decides to just deny that they sent the wrong item, even tho it was packed in their box with their name and address on it. Luckily, we have encountered far more honest sellers than dishonest, but it is dishonest sellers like this one that have forced this policy.

[Hazardrrr]

I'm a Powerseller, and sell roughly 10,000 items a year. I work very hard to keep my Feedback score high. If a buyer doesn't receive an item, I send them another. If a buyer receives a broken item, due to rough handling by the postal service, I send them another (insurance or not). The only time I would leave a negative feedback to a buyer, would be for an unpaid item (after going through the dispute system), or if the buyer was unwilling to allow me to correct the problem. I was doing this before EBAY's ridiculous feedback policy. Since this policy started, I have quit selling international (20% of my sales), and have joined a group of sellers that pool their blocked buyers list. Before this policy, I never questioned the buyer, unless they had tons of NEGATIVE feedback, now I question all buyers. I recently received a negative feedback from a buyer who received an item with a small crack. The buyer left me the negative without even trying to communicate. I would have sent her a new item, along with a gift, if given the chance. I also emailed her apologizing that the item was received cracked, and I would have no problem replacing the item. The buyer wrote back, that she expected a lot more than that to remove the negative. My only recourse was to leave a positive feedback with a negative reply. Needless to say, EBAY removed that feedback, and sent me a threatening abuse policy letter (my abusive statement, was that she left unfair feedback without giving me the opportunity to correct the problem). So what does a seller with a 4.9 DSR do? I have dropped my sales to 50% (my doing), even though I receive emails wanting me to put more items on, which means less fees for PayPal and EBAY (just doing my part). I'm not as friendly with my buyers as I once was, and don't go out of my way anymore. I no longer give free gifts, or answer the stupid questions. To put it all in a basket, I don't give a crap anymore. I am constantly looking for another auction site, so if anyone can suggest, I'm open. EBAY, with their new policy, to protect some of the crybaby buyers feelings, ended up screwing the 96.4% of the sellers who believe the new feedback policy is the beginning of the end for EBAY. Trust me, there are a lot of sellers out there, who will seek some other type of revenge on unfair buyers. Don't believe me, just check the thousands of blogs out there. It almost appears, that the new management is deliberately trying to sabotage EBAY, or they might just to be too stupid, or full of their own self rigorousness to realize what they have done. The answer to the problem, is to do away with the "way to personal" feedback system all together, and use the DSR program for both buyers and sellers, that would be the smart thing to do. PS: I won't even tell you what I think about PayPal (EBAY's evil little clone brother)

[webmz]

re: "Lieberman says some sellers have been abusing the system, retaliating against customers who leave them negative feedback."
so their solution is to punish ALL SELLERS because some sellers abused the system??
Why didn't eBay punish ,warn, restrict or handle the abusers themselves rather than
this ??

[darrenforster99]

There was a better solution, only allow sellers to leave negative feedback BEFORE the buyer and vice-versa! That would have been a lot more fairer than a full ban on negative feedback. That way also no-one can leave retaliatory negative feedback. Ok there still would have been a bit of abuse of the system, but at least it wouldn't have left the entire system wide open to abuse as it is now.

[webmz]

Meanwhile, eBay is offering more solutions to protect sellers when customers don't pay.

Yes, its allowing non paying bidders to leave negative feedback still. (How this protects sellers, I'm unsure) I've seen no more solutions from ebays to protect sellers.

[MinuteDesigns]

eBay are just money hungry retards, they take all your money and when a dodgy buyer comes along, they remove them and say sorry your item didnt sell, and expect you to cough up the final valuation fee and THEN the listing fee, oh sweet, thanks, lets pay £20 because they fail.

Have you noticed something else?? PAYPAL, ROBBING SCUM!

Sold my iPod touch just before christmas, do you know what, I didnt get the funds clear in my PayPal account until the guy left positive feedback, yeah they "FUNDS ON HOLD" till I had posted it, and they had received the item and left positive feedback, if they didnt I would have had to wait 21days to get my money... So seriously that is like so wrong its unreal... /spit on eBay and Paypal - they are a bigger evil than microsoft ever was.

[darrenforster99]

Microsoft wasn't too bad, just slightly misunderstood, didn't really help that their main leader has the same condition I have, Asperger's, we can quite easily be misunderstood.

However eBay are just a really evil monopoly that needs bringing down. I'm always amazed that the monopolies and mergers commission allow eBay to hold such a monopoly by owning the major auction site, and also forcing people to pay using their own system (didn't Microsoft get in trouble for intergrating Internet Explorer into Windows?) and banning all other online payment systems from their site (at least Microsoft allowed you to install Firefox, Opera, Chrome, etc if you wanted on Windows).

I know they come up with some rubbish excuse about the others not being as secure as them, it's more like on the others they can't charge people 4 times over, once for listing, once for selling, once for receiving payment, and once for exporting payment into bank account.

[helpme777]

I left a negative feedback with this seller because he was selling something he didn't have. It's been over a month and he called me 3 times and emailed me more than 10 times to tell me to change my feedback to positive and even offered me $20 to change it.
Today, my friend at work recieved an email from him saying I am a scam and stop working with me and he will complain on the net wherever he can about our business. It is a threat . He found my profile on Face Book and sent me a message too. I bet he just googled it and found my name. I reported eBay and called local police but they say it's a civil matter...
He still calls me but I won't answer it. eBay gave my personal information which you can request and he knows where I live... not far from here. I was just trying to buy one simple item as a consumer and he brought this to my work which is crazy. Any advice?

[darrenforster99]

I know now eBay has kept this rubbish "new feedback system" but I got to say it really is appalling.

It has lost a lot of trust that sellers can't leave negative feedback, twice I've been screwed thanks to eBay over this.

The first one - I got one guy buy an item from me, he had 25 100% feedback, buyer only and only joined since eBay introduced their new rules. I sold him the item, the PayPal payment went through and was "Seller protected" apparently. The guy reversed the payment 1 day after, luckily I'd posted by DHL and they'd not managed to deliver the item and I got them to hold delivery for a few days and got the item back.

The person kept sending me messages through eBay saying he had a problem with his card PayPal wouldn't let him pay for the item. Luckily DHL returned the item to me as it was a quite expensive item. Eventually PayPal decided that the payment was fraudulent, cancelled the transaction. I tried to claim from PayPal for the cost of the postage that DHL had charged me to send the item, PayPal told me that I wasn't covered, even though I had "Seller Protection". Then I left a non-paying bidder note on his account. I then got another message from him going mad about his non-paying bidder and saying if I didn't withdraw it he'd leave me negative feedback.

I also got another message from another person he'd tried to rip off, however it seemed they hadn't been as lucky as me. They lost their item and was trying to reclaim the item from him.

Unfortunately as sellers can no longer leave negative or bad comments in the feedback now about people like this no-one can tell who that person is, ok if he gets enough non-paying bidder marks against his name or gets caught using fraudulent credit cards enough he could get kicked off, but by that time he's ripped off loads of eBay sellers and all of them have no way of telling each other who he is. I broke eBay policy and mentioned his name on one of the forums, for other sellers to be aware of him, and guess what? eBay deleted the post for breaking their rules. Thank you very much eBay for not protecting the sellers, we'd all like to know which buyers are using fraudulent cards on eBay then we can ban them from buying items. eBay seem to have forgotten who pays their bills, forget all this "we have given you a number you can call anytime for help" rubbish that you've offered sellers now, we want a decent feedback system back that we know we can trust.

Also the second time, I sold a job lot of items, sold as seen, no returns, it was a few boxes of used clothes that my sister had worn and was clearing out. I sold them as used clothes, suitable for a car boot sale. One of the buyers who bought most of the boxes sent me a message complaining because she wanted to sell them as new items in her shop and wanted a refund, otherwise she'd leave negative feedback. All of the other boxes that were sold, I received positive feedback on, and all the other buyers were well and truly happy with their purchases. I had to pay for the item to be returned to keep her happy so she didn't leave negative feedback. In the old days you could deal with people like that and just say well you bought the item as stated, no returns, tough (or even offer to take the items back at their expense), and if they leave negative feedback about you, also retaliate and leave them negative feedback to warn other sellers about their actions. But now you've got to accept it back, the seller has no protection whatsoever, even if they list the item perfectly and yet you've got people like that person who has a shop and is willing to attempt to pass used clothes off as new, without any fear of negative feedback, and after going through all the effort of accepting the clothes back, despite the auction stating no returns, the buyer didn't leave any feedback.

To protect my feedback I'm thinking as to whether to add to my terms and conditions that people agree to pay a £1,000 charge for attempting to leave malicious feedback. That might just help get eBays feedback back on track, or would charging someone for leaving malicious feedback be against eBay's rules? If not eBay probably will alter their rules to make it illegal, and make sure they keep doing over their sellers.

What we need is a new auction site starting up that is fair that works similar to eBay and has the power to do over eBay. I would really love it if Google launched an auction site, I think if they did eBay would suddenly find itself a very empty place. I know there is eBid but that one really doesn't get as many hits, or have as much advertising power as eBay. eBid and Google should join forces they both have very similar ethics.

[vexxev]

No posts here in a while, but I couldn't pass up the chance to post....

In the last 2 months I've had quite a few non-paying auction winners. Yes, I can file a dispute, and get my final value fee refunded, but that isn't the point. There is absolutely no logical explanation that eBay will ever be able to come up with as the reason for not allowing me to leave negative feedback on these non-paying bidders.

DON'T BID IF YOU'RE NOT GOING TO PAY!