Ebay Feedback

I both buy and sell on ebay and am proud of my 100% feedback.

When I do sell, I usually give the feedback after posting the item in the mail. It's sort of a process I go through, but if I recieved prompt payment and good communication, then I don't feel the need to hold back the feedback as a threat. I guess this due to my confidence in having advertised the item as honestly as possible.

That said, I have been burned by this "logical" approcach twice. Once by a customer supposedy who did not read the posting accurately, still got a deal for his money, but wanted me to then give him some money back because of his error or to pay back all his shipping, handling, item fees AND for the cost of shipping the item back to me.

I politely told him I would reimburse his money, but not the second shipping fees, because the item was as described and shipped in a timely manner. But I lived in fear weeks after that he was going to leave negative feedback. In stead he left none.

Another one was a woman, who again didn't read the notes in the description and even after I compromised and agreed to take a money order, she posted a positive with a negative comment about my shipping charges being $0.50 more than the actual postage. I try real hard to keep my shipping down and reasonable, but you have to buy boxes sometimes!!

The last example does at least have a bright spot for those who worry about it. The fact that regardless of positive, neutral, or negative feedback, you can respond to feedback and it will be posted with it.

I think it's sad that a small and bitter bunch of people ruin such a fun and practical means of "yard saling" online. [img]frown.gif[/img]

I have been selling on ebay for 8 years or more.. I have left many a negative for those deserving of it.. I hvae never had retaliation negatives.. neither has either of my sisters who buy and sell regularly. I think it depends on what catagories you sell in. Generally, doll people are level headed, I have come to discover. I hate to list clothing or worse yet, DVD's.. I see a lot of buyers over there that are non paying bidders.. overall, you will have more good deals rather than bad.. especially if you are fair and decent seller to your customers. My biggest gripe with sellers is mailing things in a fast timely manner. Doll sellers seem to be the best at that.
Angie

I saw an auction earlier in which the seller actually said in his description he would leave negative feedback if you left him negative feedback. He also said he only goes to the post office every 8 days or so and not to expect your item for at least two weeks. I forgot what his shipping charges were, but they were average to high. This was someone with about 1,000 feedbacks. Come on, if you're selling that many items, surely you could make the effort to drive by a post office or shipping store every couple of days.

When I first started selling on Ebay I had a buyer purchase a $200 vintage toy from me. With in minutes of winning the auction he emails me asking if the windshield of the toy is broken. I found this quite strange as it was not broken and the toy was mint in box. Something made me suspicious and I decided to wait on leaving feedback. Sure enough a few days later he e-mails and says the windshield is cracked and he wants 1/2 his money back. I decline because I know he is full of it and he attempts to do a chargeback on paypal which did not work. He then threatens me with bodily harm and ultimately gives me a negative when he realizes he is not getting any money out of me.

That is the worst example but there are many others where I lived up to my end of the sale but the buyer was a crook and felt they could extort money out of me and keep the item. If I left feedback as soon as they paid what recourse would I have?

To me I know the auction is over and has been a positive experience when feedback has been left for me as a seller. This does not mean that I leave a negative or neutrel just because I get one. For example I received a negative from a lady who was upset because the post office broke her unisured item but I did not retaliate against her. While I felt it was not my fault as it was packed well I am not a vindictive person.

Most buyers are good people and most sellers are as well. The rating system is just broken and not so nice people know how to manipulate it.

Brenda

I am one of those sellers who leaves feedback after the buyer has left feedback, but that habit developed out of neccesity. Here are my feed back stories:

I sold something on half.com and found out that the isbn number on the back was the same (a sticker from my school bookstore) as was the text book... so when I was asked by half.com if i want to complete the sale... I said no... and even emailed the buyer the reason. Technically... I could have taken their money and run because mine wasn't the only workbook under the same listing... but knowing how i'd feel if I bought the wrong book for school... I wasn't going to pull that. Well a month goes buy.... those two emails that i did send out came back as undelivered, but I wasn't really worried about it as I'm sure they'd figure it out when it wasn't deducted from their bank account. Well then one day I woke up and had very rude and negative feedback!! For an item half.com gave me the choice to sell or not to sell!! What the ****!! Well I retaliated with a negative because she did not have a valid email address or phone number. I reported it to ebay and the negative was taken off because she was unreachable to even them... but it was a pointless hassel that wrecked my feedback for a week or so.

The next story is that I sold a wrist watch. I listed it in Ladies and Ladies was even stated in the item discription (those boxes that ebay lets you click) I sold it for about 5 bucks no big deal. Well the dude gets it and he leaves me a neutral (could have been a negative) accusing me of not listing it was for a ladies wrist... and IT WAS IN THE LISTING... and on top of that I even listed it as fitting a very small wrist (so it meant a small ladies wrist). You get people who do not READ the auction listing and then want you to suffer for their laziness.

The whole idea behind the seller waiting for the buyer to leave feedback is to protect one's self from the 5% of ebay crazies out there. When the roles are reversed I do not mind being the first to leave feedback. There have been a number of sellers that I should have left very negative feedbacks with but was too afraid to... fear of retaliation... I reported them to ebay and left well enough alone because they already had enough strikes against them that happened between the time of end of auction and shipping.

I don't really care when the feedback is left. What gripes me is that it isn't always honest. A great deal of the negatives are very emotional on both sides of the deal. I think Ebay should only allow feedback about facts (ie: the package was not packed well and thus the item came broken - not this kind of reply...You have buyers remorse there was nothing wrong with the packing, you are crazy!) This isn't what happened to me it's just a made-up example.

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Originally posted by MapleLeaf:
Just to add a last bit to my experience with this particular seller. The reason he had his lawyer's name listed on his email to me was because he also wrote that if I left him negative feedback I would hear from his lawyer. He feels I should not question his shipping costs. I was charged $9.00 to ship a catalogue to me. Another seller had charged me only $9.50 shipping when I won Felicity last year.
Which is fair??
Like someone mentioned earlier, I now ask for shipping costs before I bid on any items.

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<font size="2" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">Wow, Nia! That seller sounds like a real winner! Ick. There's no reason for someone to approach ebay sales like that--was the $9 listed in the auction description, or was it one of those "I will charge shipping after the auction is over" kinds of listing? That is an automatic "no bid" sign for me.

I'm sorry that you had this experience, it sounds like one of those headache causing things that really isn't worth the worry, but is just *wrong* so you keep thinking about it! So annoying for you!

Em