eBay Bulls***

So I just read today on their little news flash deals that pop up before you get to your "My eBay" page that they're eliminating negative feedback for buyers alltogether. What the ****?! I'm sure there are a lot of sellers on here, and this leaves us at a huge disadvantage. If they don't pay, we can no longer threaten to or leave neg. feedback. Then you get the rude buyers, you can't leave a neutral towards them......it's only positive. If I get one more un-deserved negative where I can't do anything about it, I'm leaving eBay. They're getting ridiculous with their ******* rules, fees, etc. They're going to lose a lot of their business from sellers this way......


/rant

Actually, it makes sense to me. I think many buyers weren't leaving much-deserved negative feedback to sketchy sellers for fear of retaliation. I think that this makes the feedback system much more objective and reliable.

It's not a perfect system, but I think it's an improvement.

The fee increases, on the other hand...

Originally Posted by JohnnyLaw

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Actually, it makes sense to me. I think many buyers weren't leaving much-deserved negative feedback to sketchy sellers for fear of retaliation. I think that this makes the feedback system much more objective and reliable. It's not a perfect system, but I think it's an improvement. The fee increases, on the other hand...
+1. I always found it slightly strange that sellers had free reign to damage the reputation of a buyer as a means of retaliation. Outside of eBay I can't think of another selling venue where consumers were so wary of complaining about poor service. If you are pissed off at the service from any normal business you can free free to gripe about it in public without worrying that they might somehow damage your credibility. eBay has other tools in place to deal with the occasional lame buyer who refuses to pay, which is really the only reason I can think of leaving negative feedback for a buyer. If they make good on their promise to work more aggressively toward removing unwarranted negative feedback toward sellers, then I can't really see why this is such a big deal. But, yes, the fees--that's another matter...

Actually, it makes sense to me. I think many buyers weren't leaving much-deserved negative feedback to sketchy sellers for fear of retaliation. I think that this makes the feedback system much more objective and reliable.

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As objective as a completely one sided system can be.

Nataku, if you haven't checked out all the recent policy changes then you are in for a slew of nasty surprises. Whoever is writing policy over there has gone completely insane. They are going out of their way to knife the people who are paying the bills in the back, front, top, bottom and probably a few other places I haven't discovered. They have created a completely hostile environment for sellers. It's a sinking ship as far as I'm concerned.

Originally Posted by Nataku

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If they don't pay, we can no longer threaten to or leave neg. feedback.

Then file an NPB, like you do anyway. This is a big improvement for buyers against the skuzzbag sellers that infest that place.

Originally Posted by A Harris

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As objective as a completely one sided system can be.

Nataku, if you haven't checked out all the recent policy changes then you are in for a slew of nasty surprises. Whoever is writing policy over there has gone completely insane. They are going out of their way to knife the people who are paying the bills in the back, front, top, bottom and probably a few other places I haven't discovered. They have created a completely hostile environment for sellers. It's a sinking ship as far as I'm concerned.

I don't sell enough nor have I scrutinized the policies closely enough to notice this. What other changes have they made beside stripping sellers of feedback options? eBay is far from my favorite place to buy or sell things, but I think people are acting a bit silly over this one.

Originally Posted by A Harris

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As objective as a completely one sided system can be.

Nataku, if you haven't checked out all the recent policy changes then you are in for a slew of nasty surprises. Whoever is writing policy over there has gone completely insane. They are going out of their way to knife the people who are paying the bills in the back, front, top, bottom and probably a few other places I haven't discovered. They have created a completely hostile environment for sellers. It's a sinking ship as far as I'm concerned.

+1 I have been a seller and buyer on eBay since 1998. The original feedback was the best. Then they f**ked it all up by adding the mutual withdrawal feature. That was a recipe for the current feedback blackmail disaster leading up to this BS.

Worse still is the multiple Feedbacks counting from the same people. Like Shill Feedbacks for fraudulent buyers/sellers wasn't bad enough already!

Icing on the cake is that they calculate the Percentage positive feedback over the past year on a rolling basis. WTF like a tiger really changes its stripes?

Where the hell is Google when you really need them........

Let's see:

Average DSR (stars) rating of 4.5 or higher in EVERY category is now required. The categories are: Item as described, Communication, Shipping time, Shipping and Handling Charges. If you drop below 4.5 in any category:

1) your fees go up (no more fvf 'discount')
2) the exposure of your listings goes down (via the new default 'best match' display format which is a complete joke)
3) you lose your powerseller status which means effectively 0 customer service and no protection under paypal's new 'Expanded seller protection'.

This wouldn't be such a problem if 4.5 stars were a more attainable standard. However, on the ebay feedback form, 4 stars = "accurate", "satisfied", "quickly", and "reasonable". So if EVERY buyer feels that your item was "accurately" described, is "satisfied" with your communication, recieved the item "quickly" and felt the shipping charges were "reasonable" you would still fall well short of the required 4.5 star rating and ebay would penalize you across the board.

What this policy does more than anything is penalize low volume sellers. It is nearly impossible to maintain a 4.5 or higher rating in every category on a regular basis unless you are selling a lot of volume. Conversely, I have been watching high volume sellers who are known fraudsters and they seem to able to keep their ratings high enough through sheer volume.

Giving communication, shipping time, shipping and handling charges the same weight as "Item as described" is completely ridiculous IMO. Shipping charges are a particular sore spot. I often average a 4.3 or lower shipping charge score in a given 30 period and I am consistently losing money on shipping. Add the new postal rates increase and it's game over.

If a buyer leaves a 1 or 2 star rating in any category, ebay considers them a "dissatisfied buyer", same as if they left a negative feedback or filed a complaint with ebay or paypal. You are required to have less than 5% 'dissatisfied buyers' or else paypal can hold all incoming payments for up to 21 days (they expect you to ship before actually recieving any money.) For a low volume seller, all it takes is one or two buyers in a 30 day period leaving a 1 or 2 star rating and they drop below the 95% threshold and paypal can hold their funds.

If your feedback score is under 100 or you have been registered for less than 6 months paypal automatically considers you high risk and can hold your payments for 21 days while requiring you to ship.

The DSR system is inherently flawed in that it takes SEVEN perfect five ratings to counteract the effect of ONE unreasonable or malicious buyer who leaves a 1 star rating. ((7 x 5) + 1) / 8 = 4.5

By coupling the anonymous DSR's with the 4.5 requirement with the new no-consequence feedback policy, ebay gives a single bad buyer the power to literally grenade a low volume seller's business. And they will use it to extort sellers, believe me. They can't miss the changes either, ebay is currently requiring everyone leaving feedback to click through this message:

"Important changes to Feedback
Buyers, you can no longer receive negative or neutral Feedback from sellers.

*
You should leave honest and accurate Feedback without the fear of receiving negative or neutral ratings."


Overall feedback percentage, which is tied into powerseller status among other things, is now calculated on a rolling one year period. Meaning for instance that my first nine years of feedback don't count. On top of that, "neutral" feedback now have the exact same effect on the percentage as negative feedback. In the past year I have recieved 327 positives and 0 negatives, yet my percentage stands at 99.7% (the lowest it has ever been) because of a single neutral recieved from a true nightmare of a buyer.


And that's just the worst of it, dig through the policy for more unpleasant surprises...

Conversely, I have been watching high volume sellers who are known fraudsters and they seem to able to keep their ratings high enough through sheer volume.

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Who are these fraudsters? or is there list on this forum?