ebay feed back

Too bad about your less-than-positive experience. I hope the seller has previously posted positive feedback for you. Increasingly, the seller simply refuses to post any feedback at all until the buyer leaves feedback first. Implicit is if the buyer leaves less than perfect feedback then the buyer will get one in return. This is a broken system. The solution is to use two separate ebay accounts, one to sell with (that one you care about the feedback total) and the other to buy with. Point is, not many people care much about how many feedbacks you have as a buyer. If you snipe and win then they're stuck with you anyway, even if they say some garbage like "you must have 10 positive feedbacks to bid". Using two accounts is "dirty pool" but then it isn't a fair poolroom, is it?

I frequently see auctions that have inadequate descriptions. Skill at technical writing isn't that common. I wish ebay hired editors that had to approve listings.

Grant

Eric R Snow wrote:

I think the 'warning' comes up in case you haven't selected the right check box. It's not easy to change the feedback once you've sent it, so I suspect the warning is more a way to ensure you post the feedback you intended, than to prevent you from posting neutral or negative feedback when you mean it. I've only had to post neutral feedback once, when the item was as described but they buggered up the shipping.

Pete

I bought a dewalt cordless drill that was "Very good condition" from ebay. The carring case was spattered with white paint. the battery clips were so worn that it would barely stay in. There were dents in the chuck from a pipe wrench. The whole drill was scratched up beyond belief. It had many hours of use and was plain worn out. I emailed the guy stating I felt it was poor condition and wanted my money back plus shipping. He did just that and I left him positive feedback.

Collecting antique carved ivory items is one of my other hobbies. I sometimes pick them up on eBay. I always ask the seller whether they will warrant that the item is made from one solid piece of genuine elephant or mammoth ivory.

I do that because fake ivorylike materials have been around for at least a hundred years, and some of them are damn realistic looking, but almost always fail the simple test of touching the point of a red hot sewing needle to them, 'cause real ivory (or bone) will stand that without suffering more than a microscopic pinprick while plastic based fakes will get a small crater melted in them and emit a chemical smell while that's happening.

I frequently get an answers from the sellers like, "I don't know, the person who sold it to me said it was "ivory". I usually avoid bidding on those.

If the seller gives me an enthusiastic positive response and maybe even volunteers to take it back if I'm not satisfied I'll take a shot at bidding on the item.

*************

I've only left negative feedback on eBay once in the four years I've been bying stuff that way. That was when I bid on and won a software version of an AMA medical procedure codebook for SWMBO, paying about $50 for what was selling new for about $120. The seller displayed a a photo of the actual CD in his eBay auction ad, but sent me a home-burned CD copy which wouldn't even work because one of the necessary files was corrupted.

When I pinged him on it he replied, "No returns, how do I know *you* didn't make your own copy and are trying to get away without paying for it." Adding yet another dimension to the definition of Chutzpah.....

I hit him hard with negative feedback and also sent him a letter telling him that if I didn't get a full refund toot sweet I was going to bitch to the publisher of that software as well as to the USPS. He caved and sent me a refund and a letter saying he was only doing it because he didn't want to go to jail "again." (So help me, that's what he said.)

*************

You can get a lot said in eighty characters of feedback if you use some creative abbreviations. But, before leaving negative feedback you should let eBay ping the seller for you once, if they still do that for you.

*************

Metal content in all of this was using my lathe last week to turn a reasonably authentic looking little beanie shaped ivory stopper for an asian snuff bottle I picked up on eBay earlier this month.

I'm just about at the bitter end of the coffeecan of scrap bits of ivory I use for those kinds of repairs and restorations. If anyone here has some real ivory they don't need, I'm buying.

Jeff

I sold an item once and guaranteed it would work on arrival. The buyer emailed me when he received it and said it wasn't working so I told him to return it and I would refund his money. He told me that he had contacted the manufacturer and it looked like they were going to replace it free under warranty so he'd get back to me in a few days.

They sent him a brand new one and when it was all over I asked him to leave feedback for me. He said that he'd decided not to because he just didn't feel it was a positive experience so the best he could do is leave me neutral but that would look bad so he decided not to leave any at all!! I composed a message explaining why I disagreed with this but in the end I just deleted it and sent a brief message of thanks. :-(

I offered to refund his money several times throughout the deal but he refused and in the end he got a new one for about half the going price and it wasn't a positive experience for him?!

My only negative came from a seller after I left him a neutral. He sold me some software that was a CD-R copy even though his listing was loaded with lots of nice pictures of the retail package even though he never specifically stated that's what he was selling. I left neutral to let others know what he was doing and he left EXTREMELY negative feedback for me!! He evidently ran out of characters when he was typing it because it ended with "F-". Out of curiosity I just looked him up and I see that he has several neutrals saying about the same thing I said and that he also has several feedbacks that are marked as mutually withdrawn.

Best Regards, Keith Marshall snipped-for-privacy@progressivelogic.com

"Even if you are on the right track, you'll get run over if you just sit there." - Will Rogers (1879-1935).

Apparently you didn't read his feedbacks before buying, eh? :-) - GWE

the buyer will get one in return. Too bad about your less-than-positive experience. I hope the seller has

You're very fortunate to have dealt with an honorable person. We can't say the same.

Susan bid on a piece of art glass that was advertised as not having any repairs or other damage, and even went out of her way to ask before bidding if the piece was, indeed, in good condition. The sleazy sellers, Michael J. Myers, and Mary Dowd, his wife,

Myers Antiques & Fine Arts

1600 4th St N Saint Petersburg, FL 33704-4302

lied about the condition and made sure that the multiple pictures in the listing avoided showing the repaired area, so it looked like a reasonable piece on which she should bid. The repair is very distracting and obvious and diminishes the value tremendously, as attested by a report from a certified and accredited appraiser.

For those that aren't familiar with art glass, damage has a dramatic affect on value, and repairs do nothing helpful , especially when the repair is more noticeable than the damage was, like in this instance. Stands to reason that a piece of glass that has survived, unscathed, 100 years of the ravages of time is, and should be, worth more than one that has not.

These underhanded people managed to sell a piece worth roughly $250 for over $1,000, and refused to make a full refund, although they claim they offered to do so. In truth, they told us by telephone that they would not make a refund of any kind. Just like the lies they told when they offered the piece for auction, they lied about the condition.

Ebay awarded Susan the maximum amount ($200, less $25 fee) for being defrauded, but that still leaves her short by a long shot. The interesting thing here is that these skunks had a feedback record of over 600 positives, with no negatives. Can't help but wonder how many people they've screwed and gotten away with it for fear of getting a negative posted to their feedback record in retaliation. For us it didn't matter. We posted a well deserved negative for them, and they returned the favor.

We've learned our lesson and no longer bid on anything of value on ebay. When the only system available is broken, it's time to abandon ship, and we did. Perhaps when enough honorable sellers lose enough business because of the actions of the pond scum of sellers, ebay will make some changes. One of them should be to void the opportunity for a seller that has been found to have violated not only the terms of ebay, but their own policies, to not be able to post retaliatory feedback. In our case, the only thing we did wrong was to do business with crooks.

Yes, Michael and Mary, you're crooks. You're guilty of fraud and should be behind bars. Too bad the wrath of the recent hurricanes wasn't concentrated on these folks instead of the good and decent people of Florida.

Harold

Is *that* why Fla keeps getting pummelled by hurricanes? Maybe of those folks would make good on their deal, the weather would stop coming down from above....

:^)

Jim

Grant sez:

"Increasingly, the seller simply refuses to post any feedback at all until the buyer leaves feedback first. Implicit is if the buyer leaves less than perfect feedback then the buyer will get one in return. This is a broken system. The solution is to use two separate ebay accounts, one to sell with (that one you care about the feedback total) and the other to buy with. Point is, not many people care much about how many feedbacks you have as a buyer."

Damn right, it is a broken system! I liken it to a "goodie" system set up by a kindergarten teacher: Mary says you are good and she has repeated it so many times, we all believe you are good. Little Johnny keeps reporting you are bad and we shouldn't play with you. So it is with ebay. Ebay's "feedback" is a system set up to please the responder, as if, "Hey! I sure told them, Mary is good; now everybody will know Mary is good." And little Johnny believing it will compromise Mary's reputation and keep all the other little kiddies from playing with her, keeps on with his bad reports.

Ebay appeals to the greed and naivete of buyer and seller alike. The feedback reporting system is designed to make buyer and seller feel like they have some definitive input, whereas in reality, they do not.

If I am to be impressed by Ebay it will be because the majority of sales are genuinely "below market"; not at some price that floated long enough to be accepted as the norm. And if I am dissatisfied with an item, I can expect Ebay to enter into a guarantee process, other than letting me post warnings to other suckers.

In my opinion, if Ebay is ever to become an equitable and realistic auction house and not just a mercantile dumping ground they will:

Eliminate an opening bid price, eliminate the "buy it now" price, and eliminate any reserve pricing. All auctions would start at zero value and the item would sell above or below fair market value, as dictated solely by the bidding process. Sellers would have no guarantee of profit (as they do now). The "selling" side of the equation would come into balance with fair market supply and demand rather than being driven by profit potential. Who's to say - even the pawnbrokers might stop selling on Ebay for guaranteed prices and return to quibbling with their customers.

Bob Swinney

Greetings and Salutations...

On Tue, 28 Sep 2004 08:02:15 -0700, Eric R Snow wrote:

Yea...that kind of irks me, too. There are a lot of vendors on Ebay whoe simply do not bother to send out anything but an invoice. Since UPS will automatically send a notification Email when one creates a shipping label, if one puts an email address into the software, it seems like it should be easy enough for them to do. Yet...they do not.

Another problem...I just bought a used tape drive off Ebay, and, although it was described as being in good condition, and, ready to plug in and use, it is not. I hope that the massive amounts of dust in it are simply covering some sensors, and it will work fine once that is cleaned up...but I suspect not.

The feedback situation on Ebay IS broken, alas, as I have posted before, and, they have no inclinations to fix it. After all, the only folks that they make money off of are the vendors...and the vendors do not want to fix it. My suggestions (in short) to fix it were these: 1) Expand the feedback from one (too short) line, to three catagories (Accuracy of Ad, service during the sale, and overall satisfaction for example). 2) allow a score in the range of 1-10 for each of the catagories. 3) Require that Vendors post feedback for step two at the point that they ship the item out. 4) Strongly encourage all folks to leave feedback by adjusting their final ratings by the percentage of feedbacks they leave. that seems clear as mud, so let me give an example. If a person has 100 positive feedbacks, but, only has left feedback for 80% of their transactions, then, the displayed feedback percentage should be 80. It needs a bit more refinement, but, that is the basic plan. Of course when I posted this to the feedback forum on Ebay, I got a chorus of protests from the vendors, and, a chorus of support from the buyers. The staff at Ebay ignored the whole thing (as they do with MOST issues brought up by buyers). I fear that the only way to change them is for the sellers to start getting negative feedbacks because of the way this is handled..so the sellers get behind the plan. That, though, is unlikely to happen. As for the current situation...of COURSE Ebay is designed to make it hard (or at least scary) to leave anything but positive feedback. After all, THEY want to make the sellers look as good as possible, and, negs are not good. If the sellers lose business because of negatives, then, Ebay loses money. The fact that a given seller may have accumulated negatives because of poor performance or illegal practices means nothing to them any more. (if it ever truly did). Regards Dave Mundt

In article , snipped-for-privacy@progressivelogic.com says... I asked him to verify

He needed 9VAC so he tried it with batteries??? I think I see the problem...

Hmmm...maybe a good place to make money on ebay.....start selling 9 VAC batteries. Should work about as well as some of the cutting tools and hole saws one can buy there for a buck or two. :)

Koz (who imagines the seller saying something to the effect of "it works just fine if you follow the directions to change the wires every .01667 seconds....no refunds because you refuse to follow the usage instructions")

I don't think the eBay feedback system is perfect, but I never understand why some folks make it sound like some kind of disaster. At least in my experience the feedback a member has usually reflects the quality of transaction you're going to get. For buyers and sellers.

I think the biggest problem with it is the recently introduced "mutal removal" system. This now gives folks who received (justified) bad feedback a reason to leave crazy negatives for the other party. Before all they'd get out of it was kicks. Nowdays they can extort someone to cleanse their record. _This_ is broken.

And I still have to take issue with thinking sellers should be required to leave feedback as soon as the item was shipped. The folks who usually float this argument don't do much selling. Buyers on eBay are not faceless cash machines. They can make almost as much trouble for a seller as a bad seller can for a buyer.

GTO(John)

problem... > I asked him to verify

Actually I did but this was a few years ago and his feedback number was fairly low. Now it's something like 2400+ so his tactics are quite a bit more obvious. :-)

Best Regards, Keith Marshall snipped-for-privacy@progressivelogic.com

"Even if you are on the right track, you'll get run over if you just sit there." - Will Rogers (1879-1935).

I think the biggest problem is that ripoff artists log in under 100's of names and leave positive feedback for themselves. Just last week a buddy was going to buy a new 72" Exmark zero turn mower for $4200 (retail $12000 I'm told), lived in the Czech Republic, would ship the mower to the US for free, wanted only Western Union and the guy had

109 positive comments.

I agree with just about everything that you propose here Dave but I think you may be mistaken in your last sentence. I think that sellers suffer far more greatly under the current eBay feedback system than do buyers. As such they have a greater desire to improve the feedback system.

In reality, a buyer's feedback is nearly meaningless. As a buyer I can (and always do) snipe in the last few seconds of an auction. The seller has no way to prevent me from doing that. If my buying feedback is horrid, there is nothing practical that the seller can do to block me as a buyer. eBay has no provision to block a -2 buyer nor one with a 70% rating.

As a seller my feedback is very important. A potential buyer can read though my feedback at his leisure and decide whether he wants to buy from me or not.

As a seller, I'd love to have the kind of feedback system that you propose below.

I'm not sure if you are saying that you want the seller to post all his feedback at this point. If that's what you are saying then I think that is a mistake. Maybe you mean that you want the seller to post partial feedback at that time. Perhaps a score for the buyer's promptness in making payment. If that's what you mean then I really don't care.

George.

Sounds like a hijacked account.

This is becoming more and more of a problem because people keep falling for the fake email that tells them to log into their eBay or PayPal account and verify their account information.