eBay Negative Feedback

Zeromus

So, I recently listed an item on eBay, which was won by a bidder last Saturday. Days went by without him/her paying, and I finally receive a message earlier today (almost a week after the auction ending) simply saying "[FONT=Arial, Verdana]hello seller, I'm no longer interested in this item. Can we go to the mutual agreement so that I don't get a negative feedback, and ebay will refund you the selling fee?" [/FONT]I figure this is pretty much horse shit and that the buyer deserves a heaping of negative feedback, but I unwisely decide to be a nice guy and go through the mutual agreement process. Unfortunately, said buyer decided to dick with me again, and instead of doing the mutual agreement process properly, he merely selected the "completed transaction" option, which left me without a refunded listing fee.

At this point, I've had enough, so I leave him negative feedback. As could only be expected, he retaliated in kind and left me negative feedback stating that I had "bad communication as a seller," which isn't true given our exchange of messages. Up until now, I had 54 positive feedback ratings, and I'm kind of worried that this stain will drive potential buyers away from me. At the same time, the buyer does not have a lot of feedback ratings (two of which are negative), and I feel that he deserves to get some sort of comeuppance, so I'm wary of using the mutual feedback withdrawal service.

Even if I did use the mutual feedback withdrawal, the untrue comment about my communication would remain, which probably wouldn't look so good. How should I handle this?

IreneDAdler

I think there's a way for people to post responses to their feedback, so maybe you can make a note of it so people checking your feedback can see your side of the story. If you really want the comment gone, maybe you can file a complaint to eBay or something. I assume you can present evidence that this guy was being a total jerk? At any rate, I don't think the feedback from that one guy is going to taint your image too much, since there are ample other positive feedbacks. As a buyer, I generally trust people with profiles like you; that is, low number of sporadic transactions, high positive percentage, because you're obviously some joe-schmo like me, just selling your junk, and not some evil organization out to scam me out of my money. Also, I know that the feedbacks should be taken with a grain of salt, since negative feedback is at best he-said-she-said, and good feedback doesn't mean much, since people often leave good feedback if they get some crap that they are able to return for a full refund. Basically, the actual feedback is a lot less important to me than your activity pattern.

capnrico

Yeah, there's a "response to feedback" thing, use it.

Also, it's kind of late now, but he could have made an honest mistake choosing the wrong option to end the transaction with =/

Technicality

I don't use ebay loads or anything, but the first thing I do when I see a bit of negative feedback on a seller is check the feedback of the giver. If more than one seller has complained about them because they are an idiot I not only ignore it, but it gives the seller even more credibility in my eyes (especially if theirs is eloquent and informative, and the buyer can't string a proper sentence together).

Stupid Mr Whoopsie Name

Yeah, I used to work at eBay and while I can tell you that feedback means fuck-all to the people that *work* at eBay, it seems to be the world to the members, though they tend to only look at it in terms of black and white.

The key I always suggested was even if there is a neg feedback, such as Tech said above, scope out how the situation was handled: If it was handled responsibly then you generally have little to worry about, but if it turns into a bickering match then you should be concerned.

So in your case, just make sure you handle the situation as clearly and professionaly as possible.

tardcore

Make a webpage with detailed e-mails and of the item, and reply to the negative feedback comment with the URL.

Stupid Mr Whoopsie Name

tardcore wrote: »

Make a webpage with detailed e-mails and of the item, and reply to the negative feedback comment with the URL.

TOS violation

Cycophant

The whole feedback/eBay thing always irked me too. Right now, for example, I'm going through a similar situation. I won an auction for some shirts. Emailed the seller, asking for shipping fee confirmation. He finally gets back to me 4 days later with a price. I send him the money via Paypal, and not 1 hour later, he emails me saying "Yeah, sorry, it turns out I already sold these shirts a month ago, and accidentally relisted them. Sorry. I'm out of town for the next week too, so I'll refund your money then." WTF am I supposed to do? The guy has over 500 feedback, so one negative won't mean a thing. Meanwhile, as soon as he sees my negative feedback, he'll respond in kind, and I've only got a dozen transactions under my belt. One negative feedback and I'm fucked.

This is why I feel the eBay feedback idea is good, but fatally flawed. I guess it's better than nothing, though...

saint2e

As a seasoned Ebayer, whenever I review someone's feedback, I do the following:

1) Overall Score
2) What've they got the last 1,3,6 months? (they could've started off strong, but got shitty later, or vice versa)
3) If there are any negatives in the last 6 months, review the reasons for it. If the seller takes the time to refute the negative feedback in a mature manner, I then view the person who left the negative feedback


If I have reason to believe after these 3 steps that the seller is no good (ie- alot of negatives, no refuting the claims, or being an ass-hat in feedback) then I stay away.
Otherwise, I like to give people the benefit of the doubt for the odd negative feedback.

Zeromus

Ah, this is interesting.

I just checked the buyer's feedback page, and he just got another negative feedback after the one I left. The comment? "Non-paying bidder; wins multiples of same item then doesn't pay FVF GRANTED 7/20" And the item? The exact same thing he had tried to buy from me.

In any case, I re-listed the item and even with a few days left it's getting bids, so I guess I don't have much reason to be too concerened.

saint2e

Zeromus wrote: »

Ah, this is interesting.

I just checked the buyer's feedback page, and he just got another negative feedback after the one I left. The comment? "Non-paying bidder; wins multiples of same item then doesn't pay FVF GRANTED 7/20" And the item? The exact same thing he had tried to buy from me.

In any case, I re-listed the item and even with a few days left it's getting bids, so I guess I don't have much reason to be too concerened.

It does suck that you've lost your 100% rating, but at the same time, people are smart and won't blacklist you for having 1 unfortunate experience. Hope your item(s) go well for you.