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EBay to Ban Negative Buyer Comments

Bob2002

ULTIMATE Member
I heard about this a while back and now the BBC have picked it up -

Online auction site eBay has said it plans to overhaul its feedback system and will ban sellers from leaving negative comments about buyers.

EBay said problems were occurring, and slowing down trade, when buyers left negative comments about sellers who then retaliated with their own views.

From May, those selling on eBay will not be able to leave unfavourable or neutral messages about buyers.

The move, which will affect users worldwide, has angered many sellers.

Sellers say it will leave them unprotected.

...

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/business/7228460.stm

Personally I think sellers should be allowed to leave negative feedback about buyers. There are too many dodgy types on eBay - which makes reputation crucial. :hrmph:
 
what about when the buyer leaves a negative comment regarding something that was a concern? l did that once and the buyer retaliated by smearing my real name over the feeback telling everyone he sent the item and l didnt pay for it... he was promptly banned tho and l did get my money back for the severely scratched games he sent me..

seems the guy contacted every person who left bad feedback and made threats unless they removed it... bare in mind this happened 4 or more years back.
 
its certainly time ebay DID do something to prevent dodgy sellers leaving negative feedback, maybe a restriction to leaving neutral feedback (would still let the seller leave complaint for slow payment) that does not count in the ratings. one exception that negative could be left for would be if the seller submits a successful non-paying bidder report to ebay. ive been there myself, some clown does not pay and you get negative feedback left by them.
recently ive bought five items with problems ranging from not recieved (buyer was making a habit of it it turns out) to seriously damaged (described as in new condition) ,each one merited a negative feedback, but no doubt i would have recieved five negatives back myself for being blameless.
so i reckon its definately time for change.

ps: my feedback is over 1000 positive (384 as a seller with not 1 negative, except a non payer) with 5 negative unfairly gained from duff sellers
 
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I have being with ebay 4 years and I have never left negative or neutal feed back for any sellers or buyers. In my time with ebay I find that both sellers & buyers fail to leave feedback when you have left yours so hence your minus one & they have gained theirs?:smilet: I think TAZBAR are changing their feedback system too:shrug:
 
I hope they do, I got conned out of £8 recently.

It was only an old Athlon XP 1800+, but I know the seller lied about it coming from a working PC due to severe burn marks on the underside which I noticed the second I opened it. The seller insists "it was OK when I sent it". (Right! :rolleyes:)

I'm not too bothered about retrieving the money, but I know if I leave negative feedback, the seller will almost certainly do the same to me.
 
lm pretty sure thats reportable... if its working then it should work burn marks can not be caused by the trip from his door to yours.

on that note lm pretty sure l have both a spare 1800 and 2600 somewhere :D
 
I sell and buy stuff on eBay and think that there should be more rules governing what you can and can not place in feedback, but not an outright ban. Both sides deserve a say and if you’re going to remove comments from one side of the argument then you might as well do it for the other too and just have a rating system.
 
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I have no doubts that ther are faults with the current system, but to ban one side of the transaction from leaving negative feedback just skews the the whole thing completely.

It means that a buyer can act however they want, safe in the knowledge that there isn't much the seller can do.
 
I reckon that many sellers have bought this on themselves by refusing to leave feedback once they have been paid in full, that is, as far as the buyer goes, the end of their contract which they have duly completed.

The majority of sellers will only leave feedback once they have received it, which leaves the door open to retaliatory comments.
 
Well, there are two sides to every fence (except in Hackney where one side will have been nicked ;)), and although I am only a buyer, have never sold anything on e-bay, so unaffected personally, I'm not at all sure that I like this idea.

I am a pretty careful (and consequently well satisfied) buyer, I don't, for example, fall for the "was working when last used but can't test it as I don't have a battery" type of story, I am careful who I buy from, and have never had cause to complain. Nor have any sellers ever had reason to complain about me - I don't bid if I don't have the money *now*, not in a week's time, I click the "pay" button as soon as it's mine.

However, in rummaging through feedback for sellers, I have come across some really unreasonable comments by buyers at times, e.g., something is clearly labelled "no software with it" and "will not work with Vista", and some stupid prick who can't read buys it then moans that he didn't get the CD... and it won't install in Vista. :rolleyes:

If the seller is not allowed to retaliate, what is he/she supposed to do?
 
I reckon that many sellers have bought this on themselves by refusing to leave feedback once they have been paid in full, that is, as far as the buyer goes, the end of their contract which they have duly completed.

The majority of sellers will only leave feedback once they have received it, which leaves the door open to retaliatory comments.

I am one of those sellers (occasionally). The reason being that I don't know whether the ransaction has been SUCCESSFULLY completed until the buyer says so.

As a seller, if you leave feedback early, then there are problem which the buyer attributes (rightly or not) to you, then you are stuffed. Or alternatively, if the seller gives + feedback straight away, what's to stop the buyer aying they never recieved the item, or accuse the seller of not even sending it out?

The vast majority of transactions go smoothly, but I don't think any feedback should be left until the transaction is complete - and the buyer is the first to know it has been completed.
 
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I don't think any feedback should be left until the transaction is complete - and the buyer is the first to know it has been completed.
Indeed. Surely, the buyer leaving feedback is the normal way of letting the seller know that it arrived safely etc., and I wouldn't expect a seller to leave feedback *before* I, as a buyer, have posted mine.
 
There is, from the buyer's point of view, another angle to this too.
If a previous buyer leaves negative feedback, the response from the seller allows me to judge which of the two is being thick/unreasonable/dishonest/whatever. If the seller is not allowed to fight back, I can't see from the feedback how he/she deals with complaints, can I?
 
It beggars belief that Ebay can't see the issues this will raise.

Whether as a buyer or seller, I would rather look at the comments associated with a neg feedback from both parties that not know of a neg at all.
 
as long as theres still a complaints system for the seller l guess it isnt all bad because at least if problems ensue there is at least some come back through ebay staff
 
i still reckon honest decent sellers dont have too much to fear, it's the skip fodder merchants passing stuff off as gold who are the real problem.
perhaps if there was more space to fully explain why a comment has been left would help to give a clearer picture all round.
 
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Yes, there are some dodgy sellers around, but consider this.

I've just bought an old book on the history of a small town in Arizona, featuring some of my disreputable emigrant relatives (not for nothing was Jerome labelled by a newspaper of the time as "The wickedest town in the West"), from a USA seller, and on going to leave feedback, I see that e-bay have now implemented the system.

Their listing stated that they would despatch within seven days, normally within four days.
The book itself is fine - but it did seem very slow to arrive compared to what I'm used to. However, looking at the USPS postmark, I see that the seller sent it only three days after I'd won it, well within the advertised time, so I wouldn't even mention the delay in my feedback, because it's not the seller's fault!

But how many impatient buyers will take the same attitude? You can bet your life that 50% of them won't have read the "within seven days, normally within four days" bit in the first place, so will expect it to be posted next day, and 50% of the remainder won't think to look at the postmark, so that seller will probably get negative feedback to which they cannot respond negatively to put the record straight.
 
Its stupid however you look at it. Yes there was a problem before, I had expirenced it. I sold a mobile, but the guy never paid. No response, until I started a NPB strike. At which point he gave me bad feedback saying I was at fault.

Even though he got a NPB strike, I still got the negative feedback, and of course I left some for him.

But in that scenario, the new rules would be unfair.

Since ebay are making money hand over fist, they should be getting more staff to be able to look into these matters a bit more personally.

It was always going to be a stupid decision, because stupid/unreasonable people both buy and sell.
 
Since ebay are making money hand over fist, they should be getting more staff to be able to look into these matters a bit more personally.

The eBay anti-fraud dept are a complete joke. A seller sent me a fake eBay invoice, from an AOL account, for about £1500 asking me to send him payment by MoneyGram. I reported him to eBay but was unable to send them a copy of the fake invoice because they only took complaints via a web page form. They never came back to me to request a copy of the fraudulent invoice and surprise, surprise, a new seller popped up on eBay offering virtually the same goods a couple of days later. Pathetic !! :mad:
 
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