eBay to Drop Negative Feedback on Buyers

Trip Ericson writes "ArsTechnica is reporting that eBay plans to drop negative feedback on buyers. It's just one of a number of changes eBay will be making in the near future. 'eBay's data shows that sellers are eight times more likely to retaliate in kind against negative feedback, a figure that has grown dramatically over the years. In an attempt to mollify sellers, eBay will initiate a handful of seller protections to offset the inability to speak ill of a buyer. Negative and neutral feedback will be removed if a buyer bails on a transaction or if the buyer has his or her account suspended. Buyers will have less time to leave feedback, and won't be able to do so until three days after the auction ends. eBay is also pledging to step up monitoring and enforcement of its policies around buyers who behave very badly.'"

Comments

Good Change

[zulater]

I've had issues with two sellers like this. One sent me a game without a CD key and then furnished me with the first quick google search for one. The other sent me an item that wasn't what I bought. Neither would return my emails until I left negative feedback and of course I got negative feedback and a withdrawal request the same day. The bad sellers were using negative feedback on a buyer to push for a withdrawal to keep their record clean. I have quit purchasing from ebay for other reasons but it is a good change.

I used to like E-Bay

[Sturm]

Way back in the day, E-Bay used to be a great place to find and buy some pretty neat stuff. I bought several Sega GameGears, a complete C64 with original TV "monitor" (all in the original boxes), several "vintage" PC games and other odds and ends you couldn't easily find in other places.
Unfortunately, for the last several years, E-Bay has become a haven for scam artists and people who try to sell crap in bulk. It feels more like a cheap flea-market than an actual auction.
I hope E-Bay can turn things around by focusing a bit more on the individual buyer, but I'm not optimistic.

I heard somewhere

[techpawn]

That since eBay was losing the social aspect of the site to mySpace and Facebook that it had in the great long ago. It was going back to the core of it's business and that was to make sellers happy to move more stuff and generate more clicks. If people don't know they're buying from a troll they're more likely to try to buy from them and this would fit with the business of eBay... to make the Seller happy and get ad revenue.

Or am I thinking eBay is just being an evil corporation or no reason?

Re:Huh?

[macbuzz01]

I had a seller refuse to combine shipping after I had purchased two items. He said he would have if I had asked before purchasing. The package arrived with $1.00 of postage for which I had paid $12.00 I didn't think highly of this and left him two neutral feedbacks. He left me a negative and a neutral to "teach me a lesson". After a month of back and forth emails he agreed to remove the negative feedback, but never once thought he was in the wrong. This is the scenario where the feedback system falls apart.

Re:Simple Solution

[alexgieg]

Keep both parties feedback hidden, until both have left feedback. Zero chance for retaliation. Problem solved.

This is how it's done on MercadoLivre, the Brazilian auction site purchased by eBay some years ago (but for some reason not integrated into the eBay ecosystem): both the buyer and the seller have 'x' days to rate each other and write comments explaining the reason for the rating; neither can see the rating received before both rated each other (or the timer has run out if one preferred not to rate, at which case the rating is automatically set as "neutral"); once both can see each other granted ratings and comments, they both have 'y' days to write a reply to their respective ratings/comments, so that 3rd parties can judge based on the whole set of rating, comment and reply (if any). IMHO, it works fairly well.

I don't know how the US version of eBay works, but if it really allows one side to see the other's rating/comment before requiring him to also rate/comment, it's utterly broken. For me, however, the proposed solution doesn't seem to make sense. Adopting MercadoLivre's system would have been better.

Oh well...

[SharpFang]

I look at a seller's negatives, skip the ones which seem dumb, then check the comments of buyers who gave negatives that sound reasonable. If they get negatives from the seller, I label the seller "vengeful asshole" and pick a different one.

Once I took the risk and got screwed by such one. He never got a comment from me. He paid up by court order, 1x the sales value for me, and 20x to a charity of the jury's choice.

Good riddance

[77Punker]

The people with 20,000 feedback are the hardest to deal with anyway. They always have the crazy descriptions that are borderline unreadable, take minutes to load, and have the shipping price buried in something that looks like a legal document.
You won't be missed by the buyers during your silly little boycott.

The only time I've gotten a bad deal on E-Bay was some "power seller" that sent me a radio with a bad tape player and then tried to take me to arbitration over the bad feedback!

eBay Abuses its Monopoly

[Doc Ruby]

The problem is that when sellers get negative feedback, they retaliate against the buyers. So eBay's solution is to prevent negative feedback? Why doesn't eBay prevent seller retaliation? Prevent a seller from posting negative feedback against any buyer who posted negative feedback to that seller in the past month. Investigate claims from buyers of mere retaliation, and stop sellers from posting any negative feedback for a month on the first violation, stop for six months on the second, suspend their account for a month on the third, suspend for six months on the fourth, and shut them down on the fifth confirmed retaliation. Or some other aggressive policy that shows everyone that mere retaliation isn't worth it.

Instead, eBay will stop all negative feedback. Which is the only feedback that I ever look at, to see what will go wrong (things going right is the expected default, until I look at feedback). That will turn all eBay transactions into uncertainty, which is bad for the entire market.

But I guess eBay can rely on its monopoly (look it up, it means "market controller", not "sole marketer") to keep business roaring. Remember that eBay also controls PayPal, the unregulated Internet global banking monopoly, and Skype, the unregulated Internet global telco (not yet a monopoly, but gaining...). While eBay was protecting the consumer, those global market dominances in retail, banking and telephony were not such a threat. But now that they're showing the corporate bias towards secrecy to "solve" problems of abuse, they need a hard look.

Someone's got to protect the consumer, even if it means just forcing eBay to allow consumers to inform each other what sellers and eBay are working against them. It doesn't have to be a government. Something like Froogle's reviews could harness people power around the world to do it even better.

Sellers need protection too

[sjbe]

As someone who both sells and buys on ebay, I have to say this is a change I welcome. Most of the bad sellers out there use retalitory feedback as an essential part of their scam. And what about the good sellers? Do we no longer care about them?

I made my living off eBay for 2 years and trust me when I say there are at least as many crooked buyers as there are sellers. Arguably more in fact because the way eBay is set up its easier to be a crooked buyer than a crooked seller. Yes, we left retaliatory feedback for buyers who gave us unjustified negative feedback. Nobody is perfect but there are way too many people who will try to screw sellers over if the sellers have no means of redress. Want to get something for free of eBay? Buy with PayPal and use the magic words "not as described". Send back an empty box (for proof of return) and PayPal will automatically give the money back. Happened to us multiple times. Oh, and "not as described" works for cases of buyers remorse too, even if it was completely accurately described and you have a no return policy. After all, eBay doesn't know and doesn't give a shit.

In disclosure I'm quite bitter against eBay. They raise rates every six months like clockwork. Some of their (and especially PayPals) dispute resolution policies are insane. They screw honest sellers in a variety of ways (I'll enumerate if anyone's interested) and basically make it nearly impossible to make any money selling on eBay. Being a Power Seller is nearly worthless. We sold literally millions of dollars of products on eBay, they made hundreds of thousands of dollars on our work, had a 99.6% positive feedback and eBay treated us like garbage the whole time.

Some folks have suggested that feedback not appear until both parties have left feedback. Not a bad idea but unlikely to be a panacea either. High volume sellers simply don't have time to leave honest and accurate feedback for every transaction. There just aren't enough hours in the day and the cost/benefit just doesn't justify spending the time. Plus I guarantee that some people will leave negative feedback no matter what (think "feedback trolls") without any redress if it is unjustified. At least until recently sellers could make a case that they were being unfairly treated.

Re:Probably a good move.

[RareButSeriousSideEf]

So I contacted my bank and they reversed the charge.

Wait, did you actually get your bank to undo a completed PayPal transaction? ...and PayPal in turn to pass the chargeback on to the bad seller? If so, wow... I didn't know this was possible. How long after the transaction was it, and did you have to plead, beg or yell to make it happen?

Re:Well Duh

[WNight]

Auctions need to be extended 5 minutes after the last successful bid. Then sniping and snipers go away.

Maximize *this*.