"Mutual Feedback Withdrawal Returns"

It's great to hear that eBay is sort-of listening to sellers about feedback...hopefully they will expand this to all of their sites.

I still do not understand why sellers cannot (at the very least) leave a neg feedback for non-paying bidders! Since electronic payments will soon be the norm, it'll be easier than ever to see if something was paid for or not. No more "I paid for it! It must've got lost in the mail..." excuses....Sellers should be allowed to warn others about dead-beats, don't ya think?

I totally agree Reba ! What point is feedback for buyers anyway ? Why would anyone bother looking at a buyer's feedback ? It's all going to be positive. They should have done away with feedback for buyers completely if this was the route they wanted to go. Not only do sellers need to be warned about buyers who don't pay for their purchases, they need to be warned about the ones who make unrealistic demands AFTER they make a purchase...like demanding a different method of shipping that is more expensive and not listed as an option in the ad. I have that issue all the time. They purchase something, submnit payment, and follow immediately with an e-mail stating they need it right away and want express shipping yet they don't want to pay more fir that option. So what do they do...threaten negative feedback and send some smarta$$ message about how the customer is always right and just do it in the interest of customer service. Heck no when that doubles the shipping cost and completely eats the entire cost of the item. I had another customer who kept buying the SAME item over and over and would never pay for it. They would become unregistered as soon as it was time for me to file a dispute, then I would relist the item, and BAM they would buy it over again. Did this 5 times to me. All they would do is reregister with the same e-mail adress and change only one digit in the address. Thank goodness they never left a feedback for me even tho it would have been removed. That's besides the point tho. I would have still had to go through the hassle. Over the years I have dealt with foul-mouthed buyers. For no reason. I am certainly not that way myself. My feedback attests to how I treat ym customers. I need them and I will kiss their butts as much as I can within reason. Truth is, sellers need to be able to leave negative feedback for their buyers. eBay is taking away too many of our rights as a seller. We should have the right to "refuse service" based on someones profile, and at this stage all buyers will have nothing but positives. I don't like that all payments will be only electronic either. Checks and money orders account for a small percentage of payments for me but they still count. I don't have issues with customers claiming they sent a payment and I didn't receive it or checks being returned for insufficient funds. That's a chance I am still willing to take. I should have a right to accept whatever payment options I want. I understand the issue with cash payments. There is too much opportunity for dishonest sellers with that option. Those do exist. I have several customers who wisely don't deal with credit cards...and some aren't comfortable with using their checking account online with Paypal. They prefer to purchase a money order and there is no reason that should not be an acceptable method of payment. The hassle I go through over that is far less than not being able to leave negative feedback. Usually the ones who never pay, never respond in the first place or even claim they sent a payment. My experiences may be very different from other sellers, but all sellers have a choice right now what forms of payment they accept. If you have an issue with checks or money orders then simply don't check those off as a payment option in your listings. We should have a right to accept them if we choose to deal with it. Wait wasn't this supposed to be about feedback LOL ? My final thoughts on that - eBay is trying to real in more customers. That's what they claim. I believe that. Our final value fees go up if the bids go up and it encourages to list more. The more customers the more money in eBays pockets. Not necessarily more in ours, but maybe for some of us. That's all fine. But they are using the tactic that buyers can't receive negative feedback to real them in. All that does is real in the "shady" customers anyway because now they don't have to worry about negative feedback and they can wreak all the havoc they want for a couple of weeks before they get booted. It's all a buncha hooey for eBay to raise revenues. I know they realize this isn't in the best interest of sellers. It's in the best interest for eBay and not the eBay community as a whole. The sellers with a voice, the power sellers, don't care. None of this affects them. Just look at the feedback profiles of some of those power sellers getting thousands of feedbacks a month. I looked at a few yesterday. Most of them have literally hundreds of negative feedbacks for various issues. I would NEVER buy from any of them because of the nature of the negatives even though they are outnumbered by the positives. Reading those negs you KNOW they are true because they aren't the kinds of things people make up and they aren't typical comments of difficult buyers. Some of those neg comments are harsh. And the sellers don't even reply. Because they don't care. It doesn't affect them. I can't afford one single negative in a year and some get hundreds a month ? Jeeez! Yet those are the sellers eBay wants. They bring in a lot of dough for eBay. Those are the sellers who could care less about their customers. Until they start to disappear. Then maybe they will rethink their strategy and how they handle their customers. That won't happen. I am just on a rant here huh ? I know I speak for other as well that have been on eBay since day one like I have, who are honest sellers, who survive off of eBay...but are not power sellers. I'm done for now.

And yes I know I have typos galore in the above post. Gimme a break. It's 5:30 am and I have been up all night waiting for Gustov to tear through here. So far so good, but he is on the way. Started feeling it about 2 hours ago and the winds are howling now. It's the first day of the month...I planned this to be a big posting day...so help me God if Gustov takes away my power !