Oh I do agree with you!!!!! Ben there & hated it.quote:Originally posted by gusfirefly:
While I agree completely that excellent service as a seller is the best way to avoid negative feedback, I disagree just as completely with the concept that the buyer's only job is to pay. Not so! The buyer is also responsible to handle any questions, concerns, issues in a reasonable way. When buyers BEGIN to express their dissatisfaction with negative feedback, they are not doing their job. When they first email with threats, obscenities, insults, and more, they are not doing their job. Given that Ebay and Paypal give all the power to the buyer, the only power I have left against such obnoxious individuals is that I do not have to add to the false impression that they are wonderful customers with lots of positive feedback. I can't tell you how many people include in their emails things like "after all, I have 100% positive feedback." How meaningless! I have discussed with my Power Seller rep at Ebay that at the very least a buyer who does not pay, as documented by the unpaid item process, should be subject to negative feedback. Other sellers deserve to know that the buyer is a risk.
quote:Originally posted by csblue:
Danna,
You have written a wonderful article here. This should be required reading for every Ebay seller.
I am a seller, but mostly a buyer. I remember well the terrorizing by sellers in feedback. Sad as it may be, ther ARE dishonest sellers out there. When I was burned and left negative feedback, the seller always left scathing feedback on me. It just seems that they were always part of that 2% of dishonest sellers, and those are the ones who cannot stand to have anything said critisizing them. But how could you warn others without leaving honest feedback?
So, I am glad for the new feedback policy. As far as the responder who said buyer feedback is useless, don't listen to them. Buyer feedback is important and as a buyer I used to resent it when a seller would wait to leave feedback until I did. You are right. When a buyer pays, they have done their job. They deserve feedback. If a seller is honest and doing their best, they have no reason to fear.
If I have a problem with a purchase I always contact the seller first, before leaving feedback. I will never leave negative feedback for a seller who deals with me honestly and sincerely. 98% of sellers do. They are usually anxious to resolve any issue the buyer has. 98% of buyers are honest too, and just want what the auction description says they are getting. There is, I admit, an occasional seller that I am compelled to leave negative feedback on still. There are just always some who are unreasonable and not willing to deal fairly with you. Usually they are abusive and dishonest (as I said before) and you can usually tell with a little research on them, because other buyers will have been unsatisfied as well and left negatives on them.
All in all it is a more fair system now on Ebay.
Again Danna, I would like to thank you for a detailed and insightful article.
Steven
I have to say, you haven't been on ebay very long, or you are just blind, or maybe you are a plant.
If a seller is dishonest, you will know it by the feedback left on the seller's account.
If the seller is honest and the buyer is a liar, you will see the seller called dishonest on his UNCHANGEABLE FEEDBACK and the thief buyer will have NO appropriate feedback AT ALL>
IF the Seller can prove to ebay and paypal's satisfaction that they have done no wrong, and that is a paper trail that would satisfy Congress itself, then just maybe, in a year's time the thief will no longer be a registered member of ebay.
You will never see the fraudulent feedback removed from the honest seller's account.
You will never see a single not of warning of fact of theft on the buyers account.
You will never read an article like this one that defends, or upholds the honest seller, AND MORE THAN 90% are HONEST HARD WORKING PEOPLE, or which even says a small word of "Thank you" for selling on ebay and making ebay POSSIBLE in choosing eBay for your sales vehicle".
Can I ask if you have paid any fees today to be able to buy anything on ebay?
Did it cost you anything to surf into a store to look for the great deals you get when people are forced to sell $100 items for $35 (Less than their own cost which is a hemorrhagic loss of a downward spiraling business)You probably came out pretty good.
And maybe your whole heart and intention was only to look for all the good service you got from a seller just barely staying afloat.
OR MAYBE, you scrutinized the lats letter and held the seller in your mind as a hostage as you looked to see if he or she DESERVED your POSITIVE FEEDBACK.
Every Buyer who even asks the question, "did the seller do a GOOD ENOUGH JOB TO PLEASE ME?"
should be made available for negative feedback and I'll tell you why.
It is THAT mentality that easily steps over the line of honest buyer who knows what it takes to sell on ebay, and the dishonest buyer looking only for a reason to flex his or her muscle of hormonally over grown power of influence that can make of break a seller, our lives on ebay in your unworthy hands.
No buyer who has NO CLUE what it is like to get feedback undeserved and have NO recourse and NO visible protection and NO viable support from ebay when they all know the they is in the RIGHT and that the FB was undeserved and WRONG and NOTHING can be done to make ebay remove it... NO BUYER who has the experience, or no compassion for when this does happen , has any right to leave Negative Feedback for any Seller ever.
\
Now... as I have said MANY MANY Times, I can count on one hand and have digits left over, the buyers that have been a problem for me.
NONE of their complaints were justified.
EBAY never removed the comments. I have had only one issues I really needed to leave Neg FB over, and THAT as a warning to other Sellers.
I hvae know about problems from friends, and know that ebay will deal very quietly with a crook buyer faking Non-delivery reports, or damage claims, and eventually, even a year later, that person will just not be on ebay any more.
but let a seller, be falsely accused, the retribution is allowed to remain on the FB board and the seller, may loose the account. And it bill be all over his or her account and no matter what the stigmata and reputation stays, justified of unjustified.
There are crooks on both sides.
But only the crooks who sell are lime-lighted.
The crook Buyer... he's a big secret, he is clandestinedly dealt with, and he is given time and again the opportunity to victimize again and again, before he is causing enough problems that sellers finally get a break from his damage, in negative feedback, charge-backs that cripple and bankrupt businesses and FAMILIES, damage irreparable, long before ebay ever see fit to deal with them.
meanwhile a seller can be swiftly devastated by a crook buyer making false claims of non-delivery, damage, item not as advertised and many other easily claimed lies on the part of one in a hundred buyers.
I am thankful for the majority of buyers who buy with integrity, who know what it is to eek out a living on a vehicle like ebay, and who become loyal returning customers and often good business friends. They are never the problem.
But the fact is, the buyer has devastating power, and some are wicked enough to bend it to steal and destroy.
When the Seller was denied the right to leave appropriate feedback, the balance of fairness was removed. Sellers suffer.
Not buyers.
This article we respond to was very likely a paid-by-ebay writ.
It sounds like everything else on ebay.
It is SAD SAD evidence that Autiva is now or soon to be OWNED by ebay, just like PayPal.
beware.
don't be duped.
Without sellers there is no ebay.
quote:Originally posted by tubagurl:
I just received my first negative feedback in my 8 years at ebay... no hostages involved, just take no prisoners. I'm not a big seller, I'm mostly a buyer... I sell things for my kids or, in this case, some extra balls of yarn... A newbie just negged me because they bought 2 balls of yarn and I mailed 1. Was it a serious error, yes. Am I sorry, yes. Did they contact me? NO! I would have expedited their ball of yarn so they'd have it tomorrow! I did that anyway after an ugly worded neg and no contact... will they revise? Most likely not. What's an honest, but human seller to do?!
I am the one who was quoted in the newsletter...
My buyer did revise feedback... after I refunded the total cost of the order AND reshipped the item that was missing. Was I out a ton of money, no not really, but as others have said, this is the only income I have and it hurt to do so.
New buyers may not know what the original feedback said, but they know I had a negative and will wonder what went wrong. If they are of the dishonest ilk, they will see that I fixed the issue to the point where my buyer left a glowing feedback (of course she did after what cost me to give her my stuff) and will know that they can push me to "make it right".
Again, in my case, I DID make a mistake... I don't want to down-play that fact... but I did have to go to unnecessary measures to get the feedback revised. Do I want to give this buyer a negative feedback? In this case, no... BUT there are instances where it should be allowed.
You should NEVER HAVE been awarded Neg FB!!!
I hope you kindly educated your newby advising them that ebay takes a dim view (albeit late and often long after damage is done to the seller) of excessive hair trigger neg FB.
You should never have had to even take the steps and I know it was like getting an act of congress passed! t.. to get justice.
It was your mistake.
yep.
did they email you?
or did the buyer just slap you hard with neg fb JUST BECAUSE THEY COULD?
I personally knew a kid who ordered something on ebay and left Neg FB the NEXT DAY when the item had not arrived like a pizza ordered in his own town.
He was left neg fb and was eventually kicked off of ebay,
IF ONLY BUYER would read the rules and understand that leaving neg fb is NOT the first course of action if anything is ever wrong.
I hope you so educated the buyer so it won't happen again with you or another seller.
The best thing WE as SELLERS can do is post a notice to this effect, "NGE FB IS NOT THE WAY TO LET ME KNOW SOMETHING WAS MISSED OR WRONG. Please contact me with any problems.
These are extraordinarily rare, as my FB shows, but I am willing to make right any problem within my control and my responsibility for all my buyers."
I see more and more sellers doing this, but usually only after there has been a problem with a newby or a crook.
We have to protect ourselves and do what we can to make our communicativeness on ebay safe for honest sellers by helping buyers learn better manners in spite of the invitation ebay seems to offer to punish any seller on any whim of discontent.
God bless and hang in.
I hope you kindly educated your newby advising them that ebay takes a dim view (albeit late and often long after damage is done to the seller) of excessive hair trigger neg FB.
You should never have had to even take the steps and I know it was like getting an act of congress passed! t.. to get justice.
It was your mistake.
yep.
did they email you?
or did the buyer just slap you hard with neg fb JUST BECAUSE THEY COULD?
I personally knew a kid who ordered something on ebay and left Neg FB the NEXT DAY when the item had not arrived like a pizza ordered in his own town.
He was left neg fb and was eventually kicked off of ebay,
IF ONLY BUYER would read the rules and understand that leaving neg fb is NOT the first course of action if anything is ever wrong.
I hope you so educated the buyer so it won't happen again with you or another seller.
The best thing WE as SELLERS can do is post a notice to this effect, "NGE FB IS NOT THE WAY TO LET ME KNOW SOMETHING WAS MISSED OR WRONG. Please contact me with any problems.
These are extraordinarily rare, as my FB shows, but I am willing to make right any problem within my control and my responsibility for all my buyers."
I see more and more sellers doing this, but usually only after there has been a problem with a newby or a crook.
We have to protect ourselves and do what we can to make our communicativeness on ebay safe for honest sellers by helping buyers learn better manners in spite of the invitation ebay seems to offer to punish any seller on any whim of discontent.
God bless and hang in.