eBay to 'ban' negative seller feedback

no way, that has to be a joke. It will make selling on ebay a horrible risk, they say the seller can contact ebay if the sale goes wrong but since when did ebay ever side with the seller?

There have been a few occasions where I may have given negative feedback to a seller, but didn't because it would just result in getting negative myself.

Not sure an all-out ban on negative feedback is the right solution though, possible something as simply as requiring sellers to leave feedback first would do the trick

This is bad.

My solution is that the feedback cannot be viewed until both feedback from both seller and buyer have been left.

Originally Posted by KMS-oul
This is bad.

My solution is that the feedback cannot be viewed until both feedback from both seller and buyer have been left.

And no increase in feedback rating for both until they have, that way it forces you to leave the feedback

Should make buyer identity invisible in seller feedback instead of banning negative comments.

or simply force the seller to leave feedback as soon as payment is received?
it's what i do - as far as i am concerned the transaction is over on my end after i've received payment and sent the item.

what Fod said, as soon as I've received payment I leave feedback.

^ What they Said ^
They shouldn't stop sellers leaving feedback about buyers, they should make the sellers leave the feedback before they let the buyer have an oppurtunity to leave feedback.
If a seller sells something crap, and get negative feedback because they took a month to post it, or it was not as described, then they leave negative feedback on the buyer, even though the buyer has completed his end of the deal.

I just sold my Canon EOS 350D on eBay for £240,-- on the 3rd of February. So why am I doing a Price Check here? Because the buyer has not paid yet, that's why. Nor has he responded to any of my messages. He just bid and vanished, and thus screwed up for several other serious bidders who were committed to buying -- and for me, the seller. I now have to relist and go through the whole song and dance again.

I'd like to reserve the right to leave some feedback about this timewaster. Else what is the point of selling on eBay? And eBay will conclude the same if all their sellers, who are their source of income, walk.

I also think that it is perfectly OK for people to respond to negative feedback left for them. Best get both sides of the story before making any judgements.

I've opened this discussion out to the front page!

http://www.bit-tech.net/news/2008/02/06/ebay_to_ban_negative_seller_feedback/1

This is so stupid! The whole point of negative comments is to inform other people that you weren't happy with the service/goods you recieved. Of course it slows down trade, but surely it would be good to get rid of th real sheisters on there selling dodgy kit at knock down prices.

The flip side to this is that ****-stirrers can buy low cost items expect unreasonable service and now not worry about a retaliatory neg. Unreasonable service for me would be expecting next day delivery delivery but paying for first class, not reading the listing and then getting upity when the item is not what they thought it was, seller being let down by the Royal mail (lost in post) etc.

im sorry if what i mention, is what ebay does (i dont know, and was to lazy to find out). What trademe does is allows each participate to change there feedback (comment and different smiley face which reflects there number feedback) once, i dont know how succseful this is as ive never needed to change mine. They also allow a response to allow you to explain your side. I know its not perfect but im yet to see anyone complain about it

I can definitely see the problem there, having received retaliatory negative feedback (on another platform) before on a transaction that was fine from my side of things (paid instantly). But I don't agree with the solution. How is a seller to know how trustworthy a buyer is if the only feedback others can leave on them is positive?

This is why I have almost stopped using ebay - I tend to buy most of my stuff from specialist forums and Yahoo Auctions Japan, At least they are honest.

Seller should leave feedback on payment as the buyers contract is then complete. If they dont pay ebay's NPB system should neg them for you and allow sell to previous winning bidder or re-list quicker than current system.

Wow that sucks, my gf just re-sold some jeans (bought them, didn't like them so sold them on for about twice the price she payed) and one of the bidders was a new eBayer who had not paid on two items. She asked the bidder if they were actually going to pay for the item, she received no reply so retracted the bid because it seemed they were a time waster.

If the negative feedback had not been left she would have never known, the buyer wouldn't have paid and she would have had to wait for a week to file a NBP complaint.

I think Fods idea is a great one, force the seller to give feedback before the buyer once payment has been made. If the seller doesn't leave feedback before the buyer does, they lose the opportunity.

the thing is noone like being forced into anything

This is a big mistake. As a buyer I have never left negative, however as a seller I have chosen to do so twice. Once when the bidder never responded for weeks, I finally left negative and relisted.... found out later that after bidding they had been in an accident and spent 3 months in the hospital! I offered to go through the "remove negative" process with them but again never heard back. In the other case, buyer bid and was top bidder for the last 4 days of the auction, then after winning tells me that he changed his mind, doesn't want to spend this much and isn't going to send me the money. Had to go through the current relist process (a real pain) then left them negative.

The threat of negative feedback is one of the few things that help to keep the participants honest. If this really is implemented I'll disallow any bidders that don't already have a lot of positive feedback or find a different service to sell on.

What a stupid idea :(

Looks like everyone will be tightening up their buyers requirements, good luck buying anything if you have no feedback

This is an ill-conceived move by the higher-ups @ eBay. Having been a user since its inception, I have seen the fees and costs skyrocket basically through the roof from practically nothing within the first couple of years, and this just gives yet another reason to stop trade on eBay. For shame! >:(

I think there has been some confusion here. I've read in several places that when a user is banned from Ebay or suspended, THEIR negative feedback will be retracted from whoever they gave it to.

Step 1) How to kill eBay

this is terrible, sombody brought somthing off me, didnt pay, left negativ feedback then i contacted ebay and after weeks of messageing they said it wouldnt be removed

Pritty dumb move by Ebay I feel :(

One thing that crosses my mind is that possibly a rogue site could pop up, not run by ebay, where some form of feedback system would be in place, one that Ebay has no control over, one where the sellers could add a user to a database and add feedback, which other sellers would be able to check against. Tho that idea is a bit far out at present.

Is there an alternative to ebay?? that is credable and safe? I have 100% record on both my accounts but I see this move will increase the amount of negative feedbacks from buyers.

I admit as a seller, I hold back from giving feedback until the buyer is happy with the item and confirms so in their feedback. You wont be able to defend yourself now if there is no seller neg feedback option.

Originally Posted by Delphium
One thing that crosses my mind is that possibly a rogue site could pop up, not run by ebay, where some form of feedback system would be in place, one that Ebay has no control over, one where the sellers could add a user to a database and add feedback, which other sellers would be able to check against. Tho that idea is a bit far out at present.

I thought of this a number of years back as a way to leave longer feedback. Sometimes it takes more than 80 characters to explain just what the person did (or didn't do). But it might have life as an alternate feedback system... problem is you have to go check another area (site) to see if the bidder is legit and with most bids coming in the last few minutes...

I agree that there should be a need to improve or expand the feedback system... but banning?!

Another nail in the coffin. Probably thought up by paypal, as they'd be loosing out on sales, thus fee's.

Wow... has ebay lost it? This is a really stupid move...

"The number one reason buyers cited for decreasing or ceasing their activity on eBay was negative unwarranted retaliatory feedback they received from sellers,"

A responsible seller, that is actually trying to turn a profit on ebay, is actually protecting themselves (and other sellers) from bafoon customers that waste sellers time and money. It cant be a one way street on ebay, it completely takes away that "open market" feel that it has. I, as a seller, have left negative feedback about buyers because they were irresponsible and didnt adhere to the terms of the sale. It isn't wrong!

The entire feedback system is to weed out the bad, irresponsible and deadbeat crowed that has flooded ebay.

The interesting thing is that the seller community is just going to give a + and leave a bad comment anyway.... it just makes it harder now to actually see a real unbiased comment..... *sigh*

FOD has a good idea about forcing sellers to leave feedback once an item has been paid for. One way to ensure that they do this would be to prevent the buyer from leaving feedback until the seller has done so first. This way if the seller wants feedback then they have to comment first.

I don't use ebay much, but I have had a crappy seller leave bad feedback when I have left constructive criticism (I gave him neutral feedback so he gave me neutral feedback and all it was was some crappy ASCII text saying neutral feedback).

Might as well get rid of feedback altogether then. Without negative feedback stats, there's absolutely no way of comparing ebay users. A feedback rating of 1000 might look impressive but that means nothing if there's been 5000 people who've been unhappy with the user.

It's not fundamentally a bad thing - just done wrong. IMO, it should be done any of a couple other ways:

*Feedback isn't posted until either both the buyer and the seller leave it or the time runs out for feedback. This way a seller won't leave revenge negative feedback because they won't know anything other than "feedback has been left but you can't see it yet" or something like that. Feedback revision (if the buyer/seller rectifies the error) can only go up.

*Seller feedback is limited to paying/nonpaying buyer. For paypal transactions, it'll be set automatically (and find some way to deal with chargebacks). Once again, anonyous until both sides have posted so angry sellers who got a neg review don't leave false non-paying bidder feedback.

*keep it how it is now but have a 'this was unfair negative' button. Rather impractical as it requires human intervention in (nearly) all cases.

With all my accounts over the years, I've never received one negative (or neutral for that matter), because I'm very discriminatory towards who I do business with. As a buyer, if someone has a rocky track record I tend to steer clear of them. If someone bids on my item that has significantly rocky feedback, I remove their bids. Simple as that. I know I may have upset potential buyers in the past by doing this, but I'm within my right as a seller to do so. I even state it on my auction screens. 'If you have significant negative feedback, don't even bother bidding.'

This idea seems terrible on eBay's part.

I don't think that the option of forcing the seller to leave feedback before the buyer does is a good one. The main problem here is that sometimes you will have a buyer that leaves negative feedback because they had unreasonable expectations about what you were delivering or how long it would take you to deliver it.

Or for example you could send out a brand new product, but it turns out to be faulty. As the seller you are more than happy for them to send it back so you can send a replacement. For some reason the buyer does not find this acceptable and leaves negative feedback.

very very lame, i hope they retract this decision....

I hate being held to ransom over a positive review.

When I use ebay I check neutral and negative ratings they tend to give a more accurate description of the ebayer. You can tell if the negative feedback was out of spite/stupidity on the commenter's side or if the trader is a bit dodgy. Positive feedbacks are generally useless information; "A++++++++++++++++++++" tells me what exactly? anyone?

I like the 'hidden until both feedbacks placed' solution. I'd also add an anti-negative-feedback-asshole system...

Negative feedback would be automatically discredited and be counted as neutral feedback based on the trader's positive feedback after the negative. It shouldn't be easy to have a negative discredited perhaps 50 positives after a negative will discredit the earliest (least relevant) negative

These would show up on traders profiles as discredited negative. eBay would be able to lock a negative as a negative should a complaint be filed and found to be true.

If a trader is a good trader (or turns good) then negative feedback will be automatically discredited as he builds up more positive feedback after the negative.

If a trader is not a good trader (or turns bad) then negative feedbacks will remain as they won't receive enough positives to discredit their negatives.

Ebay just seems to be full of crooks out for a quick buck, I have used it a few times successfully but have had people try to con me so negged them only to recieve a retalialtory negative in return, annoyingly you don't sse the full story when someone checks your profile so a quick glance at my feedback makes me look like a crook if someone has put something bad about me, its a real crap system, much prefer to use the local free ads now, you meet the person and do a deal, less likely to go wrong and you don't have to give commision to a website.

Others have suggested it, but the only fair way is to "blind" each party to the other's feedback until both have completed it.

Making sellers leave feedback as soon as they're paid won't work, because some buyers are unscrupulous and will try to cancel the sale, or change demands after making payment.

How they should have fixed it:

-Buyer pays
--48 Hours aloud for Seller to post feedback on the buyer.
--No feed back permitted after this time has passed
-48 Hours +1min
--Buyer can post feedback
--Locks after 30days

-Users can only make a post if they had a transaction
-Only during the alloted times and only once.
-Users can opt to not show there info in feed back making it autonomously.

Another idea would be to also allow users to post comments about a feedback message. This way if they got negative feed back or something they could at least try to defend themselves and let the public decide what they want to believe.

Crazy idea if you ask me,ebay will have nothing but trouble.

What Fod said makes a lot of sense.

And this is something i've had experience with. The only negative feedback I have - I'm mostly a buyer, not a seller - is when I left negative feedback about a seller who then retaliated by giving me negative feedback, for no reason other than the fact I wasn't happy with him.

As far as what eBay have decided to do, i think it's not as good as Fod's suggestion but better than what's there at the moment. And funnily enough I'm tempted to leave somone i bought from recently some less-than-positive feedback, but i probably won't for fear of retaliation - quite as eBay describe

Originally Posted by Fod
or simply force the seller to leave feedback as soon as payment is received?

Without a doubt, that's the best solution. I can side with sellers in this issue (no feedback at all seems too much), but OTOH, I'm fed up with multi-sellers that don't leave feedback until you have posted yours, even when payment has been immediate, or forget to leave it at all.

This said, I much prefer eBay's solution to the current system. I've met more sellers that abuse it than the other way around. I hope eBay enforces some policies to protect the many honest and likable sellers that use it but at least I'm glado they are doing something.

So just leave positive feedback and ad a negative comment. I've sold stuff before and never received feedback at all from the sellers. It ticks me off when I pay promptly and then have to wait for a month or more to receive feedback from the seller. In my opinion a buyer who pays promptly deserves to get immediate positive feedback.

if that change goes through it will just piss off even more ebay users, honestly, the prices for many products are exactly the same as in retail, the variety of products is allready shrinking, you cant use it to dodge the vat anymore as in its early years because the government is watching closely, they are regularly increasing the fees for the sellers (which those try to recover with inflated postage fees) and so on. ebay is really going downhill...

I had a bit of a root around on eBay looking for more info on the feedback changes and dug this up, it looks its not all bad news :

What changes are being made to the eBay Feedback system?

There are five key elements to the new Feedback system being introduced in the first half of 2008:

1. Beginning in February, buyers and sellers will be able to earn up to one Feedback per week from the same trading partner. Today, members may only affect each other's Feedback scores one time, regardless of the number of transactions between the parties. This change will both encourage repeat transactions and reward good service.
2. Sellers will no longer be able to leave negative or neutral Feedback for buyers. This change will occur in May, 2008.
3. Removal of negative and neutral Feedback left by members who are suspended or who fail to respond to the Unpaid Item (UPI) Process.
4. Positive Feedback percentage will be based on the past 12 months of Feedback, rather than lifetime, since it is most indicative of the seller's recent performance.
5. Restrictions on when Feedback can be left:
* Buyers must wait three days before leaving negative or neutral Feedback for sellers with an established track record
* Instead of 90 days, members will be able to leave Feedback for 60 days

source : fleaBay

Looks like eBay have taken some notice of what people are concerned about and made some changes, or that most of what is floating around on the web is concentrating on point 2 and the restrictions in point 5, I'm not too sure about point 4 but I can see why they've put it in there.

i think its sort of a good idea, but sellers should be able to leave both positive and neutral feedback
This way, they can sort of leave bad feedback, but it wont necessarily count (and if they don't get paid or whatever, they can still complain to fleabay)

I know Ive definitely felt like leaving negative feedback before to a seller, but its pointless because the seller just leaves you negative feedback, I also usually don't give feedback until the seller does

First of all, I know this will meet with a lot of complaints, but anyone who thinks the seller should have to leave feedback as soon as they are paid is dead wrong. The transaction is FAR from over. Getting paid is not the last thing the seller has to care about. I won't bother listing all the other things that have to happen and if you don't know what they are, then you either don't sell on eBay, or you are shortsighted.
This IS the way it HAS to be, to be fair - Buyer wins auction, Buyer pays, Seller sends item, Buyer receives item, Buyer and seller work out any problems, BUYER leaves feedback FIRST, then seller leaves feedback.
I feel qualified to make this statement because I both sell and buy on eBay.

And yes, I agree that buyers are afraid to leave negative feedback because of retaliation, but there is no way around it. Both ends have to have this power (AND THIS FEAR) so that everyone behaves. If I feel strongly enough about it, I will leave negative, knowing that I may get retaliated, but I feel that the feedback responses (which most people do not use and can go 3 levels deep) should help explain the situation to any feedback reader enough to see who really was at fault.

The best suggestion I saw in this thread (and it would have been better if eBay had done this instead of what they did), was that no one can see the feedback until they are both left. This would really expedite the feedbacks since there is no reason for anyone to "wait" and see what the other end left them. And it would stop someone from leaving retaliatory negative feedback. The only problem (and it should be easily fixable) is that the only way many sellers know that the buyer is happy is from getting positive feedback. The fix is this: If the buyer does not send an e-mail (it would have to be a form thru e-Bay that would officially trigger an indicator to eBay that it was sent) to the seller telling them that everything is OK (or not), the buyer can not leave feedback. If the buyer is not happy, a good seller should respond in a reasonable amount of time and tell the buyer what will be done to fix the situation. If the buyer is still not happy, they will leave a negative and so be it.

The onesy twosey seller is dead (that is what I was) with this feedback change. I do not have a customer service department to bend over backward to keep an unreasonable buyer happy AND if I do have to spend money to fix the situation, I will probably lose money on selling the item since I did not sell 100 of them. That is what it is, but onesy twosey sellers and buyers was why eBay was created and why it grew and thrived. Now it will become somewhere for people to buy stuff from people who are in the business of selling things. That is not a bad thing at all, but the onesy-twoseys are left out in the cold. I would love to know how the person who initially started eBay feels about this...........

Another suggestion. eBay classifies sellers based on volume. Sellers that less than a set amount of things a month (and I am talking SMALL numbers here 2, 3, 4) CAN leave negative feedback. They would be clearly marked as such next to their ID, and YES, I know that may buyers would shy away, but these sellers are usually the only ones that you can get something from that's rare, or used and not needed, at a great price. And as always, they can look at the feedback to see if this seller does right by the buyers and describes things properly.