I fully agree.. My buyers use to get paypal note and one other from me that item shipped. Was getting lower ratings in communication, so now paypal sends and I sent 2. Total 3. When someone sends me 3 of same note, I am like give it a break I KNOW!!
Let's face it.. in reality ebay does not want us to get all 5 stars in every field. WHY?? YOU ask? Because then they pay out more of the 20% discounts.. so the more they encourage by their wording lower stars the less people get the discount. Sure they do not have to give discount but they do. They could even put question as something like, pls. look at postmark was item shipped in a reasonable amount of time (say 3 days).. or whatever. The system is set up for sellers to fail.
One of their people called me one day and during conversation I mentioned feedback and he said, well, yeah, it is unfair but it "only" stays on a year!!! I then said DO YOU SELL? He said yeah, I just started. I said, OK call me back in 6 months and we'll discuss this "only a year!"
Also, most ebayers unless they sell do not have any earthy idea what a 8 ounce package costs to ship and insure. Some do not even know cost of a postage stamp (not that they are stupid, but that people do things online so they do not use stamps much). I had one question ship rate on something the other day BEFORE she bought I sent detailed explanation showing figures with ship rate, delivery confirmation, insurance and expenses for envelope, etc., I was actually losing about 10 cents on shipping. (I immediately blocked her.. as I find when they are hostile and her note was that best thing to do is just block them. .period). She is still writing offering me less for shipping after detailed note.
Obviously like everyone I could go on and on with ebay feedback. I would like to see a grading system for THEM when we send in a question:
Like:
How quick did ebay respond to questions? (i am waiting on answer from about 3 weeks ago).. so Rating 1 star for that one.
How satisfied were you with our answer? the canned answer you got that totally did not relate to your question and always no matter what tells you to clear your cookies and cache.. that is solution to EVERYTHING!! Rating 1 star again.
How quickly did Ebay Respond? 3 weeks plus Rating 1 star for that one too.
How reasonable was our answer to your questions. Rating 1 star since it did not relate at all.
I think ebay would be SHOCKED if we were asked to rate them.
Auctiva.. while I have had some issues with you at times, I do have to say that 99% of the time I get reasonable answers that at least look like question was read (now I went through a short period of time that I thought they were not being read.. but that was only short period). My answers are always answered in what I consider a reasonable amount of time with auctiva.
Later fella Auctiva users!!