New eBay Feedback Policy
 

Just wondering what everyone thought of the new eBay policy that states that sellers can leave only positive feedback, no negatives, to buyers.

woe. thats strange. what the hell...

does it say why?

Apparently, too much revenge feedback was scaring buyers away. This is on top on the final selling fees going up over 60%. Also, all feedback is good for only 12 months, then good and/or bad, it is removed. The final straw for me is that in a dispute, your Paypal funds can be frozen for up to 21 days until the buyer leaves positive feedback.

When buyer pays, he has fulfilled his part of the contract. Therefore they should only get positive feedback. I think it is a great idea, and I have had so many sellers wait to give me feedback until after I left them feedback.

I agree John. All buyers will now have 100% perfect feedback. Now, when I buy I don't have to worry. Of course, I feel sorry for the sellers that have worked for years building a rep only to have it shattered by the few idiots out there. I understand that there are quite a few people who will take advantage of this. Any big time sellers here?

I have had unreasonable claims made on something I sold once. Not only was the item better than it was represented in the auction it was an absolute killer deal the guy got. The buyer left negative feedback for me after one email that said he wanted his money back and he would ship the item back to me IF I paid him extra to ship it. He was basically extorting money from me.

The only way I was able to get the negative removed through mutual agreement was to leave negative for him calling him out for what he was. A SCAM artist. Had I not been able to leave negative feedback I would have had no recourse and had a perfect feedback rating ruined by a very dishonest person.

SO my opinion of the policy!!!! IT SUCKS! I guarantee there will be allot more extortion claims on ebay now from buyers since there is no risk at all for them. NONE! Negative feedback was the only way to call out the bad ones.

But, jhautz, think of the fun you can have now. Demand a "partial refund" with a threat of a negative. Tell them that you want a free shipping upgrade or there will be a negative left. Just make sure you send any demands through their regular e-mail, not through eBays message center. That way the threat doesn't exist and is not recognized by eBay. Shoot, with some smaller sellers even 2 or 3 negatives will shut them down (another part of the new policy. fall below a certain feedback % and your account is suspended). Man, think of the RC bonanza we can reap with no repercussions at all! If worse comes to worse, just open a new account and buy a few small, cheap items. Your feedback will be 100% from the get-go and start the demands all over again. Let the good times roll!

Exactly my point. They just took away the only tool we had to know who we were dealing with. So basically set up a buying account that has perfect feedback and then set up a selling account and every time it gets scared start a new selling account. Stupid freakin policy IMO.

I DON'T like the feedback changes. 95% of all buyer's are on the level. Most of my dealings on Ebay have been great.

Now let's talk about that other 5%.

I once sold an item to a person, he was the winning bidder but did not/would not pay for his item. He left me negative feedback saying "I will Never buy here again, buyer's beware" or something like that. He didn't "buy" from me to begin with, because he didn't pay for his purchase. This kind of thing shouldn't be allowed.

Another time, I sold a Mamba Max Motor, the guy paid for it. I quickly shipped it. The item was confirmed delivered to his address. He comes back saying his package was delivered empty! :surprised: He files a dispute with Paypal. In the meantime, I'm ringing the Post Office's bells trying to get them to check all the waypoints between me and him. The end result was, after getting turned away from the Post Office many times, the Postmaster sits me down and says "It's gone". Paypal first locked the funds in my account, then later pulled the funds from my account, and handed this guy his money back. This is wrong! If the package was torn open and empty, the Post Office's policy should be to return it to sender! Even if postage is due!

I sell Lipo's on Ebay. (Very Good ones I might add. LOL) Anyways, one guy was claiming he had a DOA pack. I told him the only way that could have happened was if the package got wet or mutilated, But send it back to me and upon inspection, if it was a factory defect, I would either refund or replace it. I check voltages on everything before I ship. I started looking through this guys feedback. He's an E maxx guy, purchasing all kinds of upgrades for the E, which is cool, I do this too. The ONLY motor system that I see is a Novak HV4400. This gets me suspicious. I'm thinking "uh - huh" No LVC will quickly ruin Lipo's, but that's ok. I will be able to tell. All Lipo cell voltage are shipped at 3.87 volts per cell. When he see that's I'm not just gonna send me his money back, no questions asked. He gives me this story about how his Post Office won't allow him to ship it back. That's funny? Hmmmm............so who knows on this one? Could have been a legitmate claim, but might not have been.

Another Lipo Customer repeatedly ran a pair that he purchased from me on a Novak 4400 with NO LVC. Then a few weeks later, wrote me claiming defective batteries because they no longer had the punch that they used to have. :whistle:

On the Lipo subject, For all you new guys just starting out. Educate yourselves on them and take care of them. Follow the rules concerning Lipo useage and they will perform like no other. In the worst case scenario, a careless person is going to suffer property loss.

With the Economy being what it is as of late, I think the dishonest people will be trying more and more underhanded things. Ebay's policy change does not bode well for the honest seller's that sell things there. During the slow times, it's all I can do to afford the fees to keep those auctions up there for sale. They continue to charge fees weither things sell or not.

I believe it's almost time for me to build my own website. I think this would be a good answer for honest business people who are sincere.

As a buyer, I like the new policy better, since it gives you more power. But as a seller, this sucks. I sell on ebay from time to time, and am proud to say that I've kept my 100% after over 430 transactions.

This makes it a lot tougher for the "little" guy trying to sell something. Even if he/she is the most honest and caring seller in the world. Now he/she has got to kiss the a** of the buyer no matter how ridiculous his/her claim is or suffer a neg feedback. If my perfect rating gets ruined by someone trying to take advantage of the system, I'm going to be irate. Its taken me years to get this rating, and I already make sure that all my buyers are happy.

I understand what ebay is trying to do here, but I don't think this is the best option.

Yo sike,
someone can leave you a neg, even if they don't pay???? That's messed up. They NEED to change that.

About your other issues, I always require insurance and delivery confirmation on all items above $10 to cover my butt. It is legally out of our hands once the item is given to the post office. From there it is supposed to be the buyer's responsibility to buy insurance and what not. Unfortunately most buyers don't realize this or just ignore it. I make sure that I put this in writing on my auction, so people understand that I do not work for the post office, and don't control delivery times, or deal with lost packages.

As far as returns go, I give people 7-days to decide.... even on my used r/c parts, which is unheard of... (like I said, I stand behind what I sell). Having a defined return window is good, since if a buyer comes back after two months, you can just say your 7 days are up. This way its the buyer's responsibility to review the item within a reasonable amount of time. If a buyer starts complaining after a month, then you know its just b.s. I also put in writing, that return shipping costs are on the buyer, and if the item is found to be "as described" or "damaged by user", it will be shipped right back to them.

I mostly buy on ebay and its been hit and miss with sellers leaving feedback. It ticks me off cause I always paypal within minutes of winning an auction that I sometimes don't get feedback even after leaving it for the seller, which is something I view as their responsibility and part of the deal.

I can see this fixes only some of the probs though and opens up avenues for more scammers. For a small seller, this seems to have no advantages at all.

I don't think this new policy will go long without changes, too ripe for potential abuse. Most of the people I've encountered have been great, but there have been a few of the other kind.

I guess I don't care about it because I refuse to sell on ebay. New hobby market goods are not commodities for bidding on, and the fees with listing on ebay are ridiculous.

No problem anymore. Just let them know in your Paypal comments section that feedback must be delivered within 5 minutes of payment or you leave a big fat negative! Get a few friends together and have them buy some cheap items and leave negatives. After getting stung like that 4 or 5 times the seller will learn their lesson. I am actually thinking of building up a pool of buyers and offering a "revenge" service. For a small fee, we will crush any seller you want. The fee will vary on whether the seller is a small time 85 feedback seller or a 1000+ powerseller. The same could be done with your fellow competitor sellers. Have competition for your products? Neg them into a black hole. We could also get together and force a seller to give members of our group a ten per-cent discount on everything we order or else, the whole group negs the seller into suspension. The possibilities are endless!

The problem I see with this is that you cannot leave negative feedback for a non-paying buyer now. In those rare cases, the buyer certainly deserves for others to see that they're a deadbeat and may not pay.

Although, it looks like the cost of selling on eBay has grown to that of a retail store, where at times, you just may have to eat the $ if you don't want someone leaving you negative feedback.

What's your eBay user name so I be sure and block you from ever bidding on anything I sell, ok?

I'm sorry, but it's thinking like that that is just completely unethical. For every honest person you try and screw over on eBay, I hope karma bites you in the ass.

lol.... I was thinking the same thing.

Knotted, I must admit, that's pretty funny. Perceptive, but very messed up. Its like an online hit squad. You should only hire female hitmen and call it "Knotted's Angel's". Then you could be like charlie, and no one has to ever see you. Just call in the missions from a voice box.

Thanks for proving our point of buyers taking advantage of this new policy.

Actually guys, I was using it all to prove a point. I am a large eBay Seller. That is how I finance my RC habit. I sell stuff I don't need to buy more stuff I don't need! I have over 300 positives and have been selling for 3 years. In that time I have been amazed at the unbelievable demands buyers come up with. I have 100% because I worked hard and bent over many times to make customers happy. People have tried to scam me many times with "no delivery", need partial refund, want refund and want to keep the item. The list is endless. Most are newbies who don't read the terms in the description and hit you without even a single contact to make things right. Now, anyone can give a neg for any reason and you can do nothing. Paypal can even freeze your account with no evidence of wrongdoing, just a buyer complaint. Anyway, it's the end for me. I closed my account and will try other avenues. The sad thing is that soon all eBay will have is huge powerselling stores with junk, the whole auction idea will be gone. Sad.

I have one negative feedback, from a non paying bidder I filed against. the person did it to a few people and had his account suspended. Even though this person was proven to be a bad person, to remove this bad feedback, I would have to pay the fair trade fee to remove it. I think that is assinine having to pay to remove a negative because someone didn't pay in the first place.

I do dislike the sellers that wait for you to leave feedback first though. I always leave feedback as soon as payment is done. That is the way it should be. Their part is to pay. If they have, you leave feedback. Too many sellers use it to retailiate when they have done the wrong thing. I bought some brushless stuff, the guy takes off camping and delays shipping to me for 2 weeks and then still waits for my feedback? so if I leave a negative for waiting forever for my products he slams me even if I paid within minutes.

I think a better solution is a seller can't leave negative feedback if he waits until after the buyer leaves feedback. the option for a seller to leave negative feedback after the buyer has done so gets disabled, but also, a buyer should have feedback disabled if a npb file has been claimed for the flip side

Bottom line is if you arent able to be honest in your comments to/about buyers then the whole premis that Ebay works on will be lost. The system works basically on the honesty and integrity of the people buying and selling on there and if you are not allowed to place negetive comments when they are desreved then the whole system crashes down.

Ebay has gotten out of control anyway. Between the Ebay listing and final value fees and the Paypal fees they are taking a huge chunk of cash. They are taing way more than they desrve anyway. Its about time they did something stupid to knock themselves down a few pegs.

I dont sell much on ebay but I really think there fee's have goten out of hand. They lowered the insertion fees but increased the final selling price fee. How does that help? Also on reserve auctions you use to get that money back if reserve is met but you wont after the new changes.

Between there fees and paypal you are lossing a lot of your selling price. I think I will start selling most of my stuff on forums and just go to ebay as a last resort now.

I'll tell you what that does. It allows the mega sellers to flood the place with crap products and it hurts them less if they dont sell. That is purely a move to pander to the mega sellers of commodity junk.

I agree, The whole ebay system is getting messed up, and the fees are crazy!!

jhautz, that is true. Kinda meant how does that help us(the little people selling things they dont use anymore). But I guess since they make most of there money off of the power sellers it doesn't really matter to ebay.

I haven't sold anything on Ebay in some time now, although I buy fairly often.

This new Ebay policy sounds like sh**. knotted came up with a nice idea of how easy it is for something to go totally wrong, and to me it sounds completely possible. Somebody should contact Ebay with this scenario, just to see what their response is.

knotted... do you have a link to this policy somewhere on Ebay? I cant seem to find it. I want to read the entire policy. This just seems so wrong that it cant be possible. I'm not saying your wrong, but I feel like there has to be more to it than just sellers cant leave negative feedback. Why would they even bother keeping the feedback from sellers then. It becomes effectivly meaningless if the only feedback you can leave is positive.


I guess you could always leave a green "positive" fedback that reads.

"This guy is a rip off artist. DO NOT SHIP TO HIM OR YOU WILL BE SORRY!"

Its still techincally positive cuz its green. They can't control the text. But what a PITA having to read all the text for someone.

Jhautz,

PM me with your email address and I will forward the email to you that I received from Ebay concerning all the changes.

There's a pretty long list of changes actually, not just feedback.

There ya go. Lots of reading. :whistle:

Here is another interesting tid bit from that email.

"In a small number of cases (fewer than 5% of all payments on eBay), PayPal will hold payment funds until either the buyer has left positive Feedback or 21 days have passed without a claim."

So not only cant you leave negative feedback, but you may have to wait until the buyer leaves positive feedbck before they relese your money to you. Thats just wrong!

X 2 man

I have stopped using fee bay also, using the rc forums for sale sections is so much easier!

And guess whose making the interest off all this money while they're holding same? Looks like Ebay has invented a new way to make more money.

I did some more reading on this last night and ebay did add some features to help sellers, but it still doesn't outweigh the bad changes.

- Ebay will remove neg feedback from a buyer if the seller wins a dispute claim.

- Ebay will remove neg feedback if the buyer is ever suspended or banned. Retroactively....
This somewhat counters the idea Knotted came up with, but the downside is that, you are stuck with the neg until they are suspended. A "hitman" would eventually be suspended, but it may take some time.

there are other changes too. You can see them all if you go to the link below:(Titled: "A message from Bill Cobb - New Pricing and other news" Jan 29, 2008.) Look under the "evolving feedback" section. http://www2.ebay.com/aw/core/200801....08-01-29054823

I was just thumbing through my Ebay purchases and noticed something new.

I bought a couple of E maxx trucks several weeks ago and forgot to leave feedback for them.

Now beside each transaction Ebay has added this note:

"Ebay Note: You haven't left feedback yet. Problem with the item? Don't miss the deadline for filing a dispute."

:surprised:

The last part of the sentence "deadline for filing a dispute" is a hot link that takes you directly to the "Item Not Received or Significantly Not as Described Process" page.

I'm starting to believe it's time for me to pack up my goodies and go elsewhere other than Ebay. This is getting rediculous for sure!

my whole prob. with the no bad feedback is what if the buyer doesn't pay? or pays in a untimely manner? we can't leave neg. feedback for that?
phil

http://www2.ebay.com/aw/ca/200801.sh...08-01-29092134

I found the section in community about this stuff.

When are these changes going into effect? I left neg. feedback for a buyer 5 minutes ago. The problem with eBay is that everything is based on individual opinion. I just sold 2 Emaxx bodies and 1 revo body in the same auction. I felt there was nothing wrong with the Emaxx bodies but the Revo body was beat. I never hide any info in my auctions. I stated in size 24 font “used bodies” not new bodies. But the buyer’s opinion is different. He thought he was getting new bodies. He left me negative because he received 3 used bodies. Who is at fault? Me for selling exactly as described bodies or the guy who could not read the auction correctly? You are reading my opinion about this auction but I am sure the buyer feels cheated by me. What does he think of the auction? The feedback system is based on 2 peoples opinion about the same auction. Really eBay is biased toward sellers anyways. I have sold items where there was a delivery confirmation. I had a signature of the item being delivered to the correct address to the correct person yet Paypal sided with the buyer and gave them there money back. I lost the item and the money because of a scammer. If I could not have left feedback showing the scammer for who they were then what other way can I tell others about this scam???? :surprised:Knotted- if you are really the kind of person that would follow through with your ideas then you are no better a person then the scammers themselves. You don’t get anywhere with fighting fire with fire. It only cause’s a bigger mess and the downfall of eBay altogether.

Ok first, the people who are dissing knotted, he (i assume? :P) was just illustrating a point, not letting everyone know his evil plan.

Second, if the buyer doesn't pay, file a dispute and they get an unpaid item strike and you get ALL your fee's refunded (not just final value like it is now).

I still thinks is very poor form with the holding money thing. People usually auction off goods because theyre selling old crap coz they need money. I get paid next week, what good is it if my ebay sales $ doesnt come through for 3? I need it now! bah, I wish someone would start another decent auction site... edit: just read it a bit more thoroughly, and they will only hold the money if you, as a seller, has an extremely bad track record with unsatisfied customers... so it won't apply to me..

Just a funny note on this... I bid on and won a set of used FLM savage arms a couple days ago. When I went to pay the seller had already marked the item paid so I couldn't paypal him the $$. So I emailed him and asked what was up and there must be some kind of mistake. His reply was "Ebays price hike and stupid new rules put him out of business" and that my sale was his last official sale and that he had left me positive feedback and the arms were FREE!

I guess the new ebay rules worked out for me. :lol: I just thought I would share this cuz it was funny based on what we have been talking about.

The unfortunate part is he is probably not the only one thats gonna fold up shop cuz of these latest changes.


I wish I had played the lottery that day. This kinda stuff doesn't ever happen to me.

not really related to the changes but I'm pissed off at ebay right now. I just sold 2 nicd's that went for their opening 0.99 (annoyed enough at this... they both had a heap of watchers) to the same person. give them a shipping quote, which included an estimate of the fees (didnt bother calculating it to my annoyance...) Now I was payed 11.98 into paypal. Postage and fee's cost me $14 :( so I'm down $3 and two batteries... shouldve just kept them...

I stopped selling on ebay long ago. I was selling servo extensions and Y cables for quite a bit. the amount of money it cost me I had to hike the prices to cover the fees. I just sold on rcu, rcgroups and such and people got much better deals and I didn't have to pay the huge fees.... I did have to pay the sellers account fee on rcu but it was minimal. I think I sold around 10,000 cables with a very low profit margin. it just gave me paypal to buy other stuff lol. we bought containers of them.