EBay to ban negative seller views

[[R_H]]

BBC

Online auction site eBay has said it plans to overhaul its feedback system and will ban sellers from leaving negative comments about buyers.

EBay said problems were occurring, and slowing down trade, when buyers left negative comments about sellers who then retaliated with their own views.

From May, those selling on eBay will not be able to leave unfavourable or neutral messages about buyers.

The move, which will affect users worldwide, has angered many sellers.

Sellers say it will leave them unprotected.

Tricky customers

Critics of the changes argue that by taking away a seller's right to complain about a problem buyer they will have very little recourse for action when a sale goes wrong.

And they complain that by still allowing buyers to leave dissenting comments about sellers, eBay has skewed the whole trading process. When both sides have equal access and rights to leave negative comments about each other it is a well balanced trading process, they say. However, eBay counters that problem buyers can still be dealt with.

"If a buyer doesn't pay, the seller can easily contact eBay, we will review any complaint and maybe remove the buyer," a spokesman said.

The changes aim to "improve the overall customer experience", eBay said.

It added that many buyers would not leave negative comments for fear that sellers would retaliate.

As a result, buyers and sellers may not get a fair picture of what is actually happening between trading parties.

It maintains that the majority of transactions go "swimmingly".

EBay says that only a minority of sellers leave negative feedback for buyers.

[General Zod]

Oh sure, make finding reliable sellers even more difficult. How the fuck am I supposed to distinguish someone reliable from a piece of shit asshole based on their feedback score alone if there's nothing explaining why it was given?

[White Haven]

Uh....this change is about sellers not being about to leave negative comments about buyers, not vice versa. As a buyer, this changes nothing, and may be advantageous. Nobody wants to leave a negative feedback on a shady seller, for fear of getting a bullshit negative-feedback of their own to bork their record. I feel sorry for people trying to sell on eBay now, but from a buyer's perspective, this change is either neutral or slightly good.

[Xisiqomelir]

Good. Sellers are by far more likely to be shady than buyers, simply because eBay is "buyer pays first" and not "seller ships first".

[DaveJB]

It'll be good in that it'll stop sellers downgrading buyer's ratings for pedantic bullshit reasons. My mother had that problem when she bought something from a buyer who put something to the effect of "PayPal preferred, but will accept cheques or postal orders" on their auction. Because she was having financial problems at the time, she sent the seller a postal order, which apparently arrived three days later. The seller posted the item to my mother... and then gave her negative feedback, accusing her of inconveniencing him by making him wait a few days for the money, rather than getting it straight away through PayPal. Unfortunately my mother gave him some positive feedback before she was aware of what he'd done, and so was unable to do anything about it.

On the other hand, it also means that if a bunch of peeps decide to play eBay Roulette on one of your auctions, then one of them ends up with a final bid of $10m and tells you to fuck off when you demand payment, you're not going to be able to do a thing about it.

[JME2]

Not a smart move; this will only lead to trouble.

[Soontir C'boath]

If they're going to do this, they should require items for $25 or $50 or more to include insurance/delivery confirmation that the buyer has to pay. That way if the item is lost or damaged, the shipping carrier will pay for it and not out of the seller's pockets. A lot of negative feedback I've seen on sellers are usually when the buyer doesn't receive the package or it arrived damaged.

They should really be doing something similar to Amazon's method, which is to make the buyer contact the seller first before being able to leave feedback or file a claim. A lot of idiotic buyers leave negative feedback to express their anger and as a way to communicate to the seller to resolve when they should be doing it by e-mail.

[Oni Koneko Damien]

Personal anecdote, and I'm certain the number of shitty sellers far outweigh the number of buyers like this, but I've seen an example of the shit a bad buyer can cause. Basically she would purchase something, then within a day would start sending harassing calls and emails and spamming complaints, despite the fact that normal overseas shipments would take at least a week or two.

In the end a long string of sellers who had their accounts suspended and lost a large amount of business due to her dickery got together, compared accounts, and presented a case before the admin of the site in question, finally getting her rightfully booted. Yeah, this isn't nearly as much of a problem as bad sellers, but I still don't think this is such a good idea.

[DPDarkPrimus]

As long as this only affects sellers leaving feedback on buyers, I think it's a good thing. I've never left negative feedback because I was afraid of retaliation. (I have left neutral feedback with a frank statement of the problems, however.)

[General Zod]

As long as this only affects sellers leaving feedback on buyers, I think it's a good thing. I've never left negative feedback because I was afraid of retaliation. (I have left neutral feedback with a frank statement of the problems, however.)

I've never had retaliation for leaving negative feedback. As long as the comments are somewhat intelligent it's generally easy to tell who is in the right by reading them. The score alone is mostly worthless unless there's a huge discrepancy from what I've found.

[brianeyci]

Well I might as well share my story then. I bought a wireless card for my laptop. I had to buy that specific card, a specific chip, because HP is proprietary bullshit and there's only one that fits into the slot (otherwise I would have an external one and it would work like garbage, I tried.)

So I go through the process, and I wait a month. The guy still hasn't sent it, and I complain to him. I had to eventually open an investigation and threaten him, and sure enough the thing comes in the mail another few weeks later.

Why did he take so long? He spent a fucking quarter on the postage. I didn't even know it was possible to be so fucking cheap. I paid over ten bucks for priority shipping too.

"Buyer beware" is supposed to be a warning to customers about unscrupulous sellers, not a moral code. In my opinion, it should be seller beware for Internet sales. The seller has the buyer's personal information, and in most cases even his money. In the modern age, companies bend over backwards to help consumers, not the other way around. The once in a while bad apple out to destroy your company doesn't change that fact.

I would even go so far as say seller beware is better for society. A seller, if he is fucked by a consumer, runs a business. If the business is successful, the cost can be absorbed. He can jack up the price to account for the occasional bad apple. A buyer on the other hand loses his money and it is a total loss, not absorbed by other profit.

[andrewgpaul]

I think a better system would be for feedback to be held invisibly until both parties have posted, up to a certain time limit. After that, whoever hasn't posted feedback loses the chance, the other party gets negative feedback (with a comment to the effect that no actual feedback was left).