eBay Feedback

[cmaracz88]

I was thinking a bit about an item I had sold on eBay just now and a few sub-topic changes later I got to thinking about a certain aspect of feedback.

Who here actually cares that much about feedback when buying something? What I mean is, if you find a good price on something that you want to buy, will you actually care about feedback? Unless the guy has like only 10 and 3 of them are negatives, or like an 80% or lower rating in general, would you really not make a purchase?

Like, a lot of sellers with around over 100 feedback will have 1 or 2 or even 5 feedback with people saying like "Item did not work, seller refuses to provide refund or exchange" or "Item never recieved" or "Not the item that I purchased, seller refuses exchange" or such, without any resposne from the seller or whatever, and still, it seems buyable if the price is right. I am pretty sure that I've bought like this. I guess people may write it off as a calculated risk, or even just not think about it.

Therefore I'm thinking that to mass sellers feedback might not even really matter that much at all, making your only real option in case one screws you over, negative feedback, meaningless. Although this might not be the case, heh.

 

[latergator116]

I agree. I usually don't pay attention to feedback, but I get a little cautious if they are below 90%.

I once sold something to a guy who claimed he was sending me a check in the mail. After about three weeks (an many warnings), I finally left him a negative feedback. About a week later he left me a negative feedback calling me a jerk and claiming I never answered his email (totally untrue).

I noticed that all of his negative comments (about 5 out of 30) were just like mine: "buyer never paid, inflammatory emails" etc, so this guy apparently had a habit of not paying for items. Well, about a month later I was browsing through my ebay emails and realized I still had his email address. Let's just say he probably received a LOT of spam and hopefully a lesson not to f*** with me.

 

[CanadaRAM]

I will read the feedback -- generally the positives can be glossed over as it seems to be a cultural thing to say "A+++++++++++++++ super good ebayer!" yadda yadda. (When I post, I say "Good transaction, thanks" and that's it)

One negative or neutral could be a wingnut buyer, so I'll read it but won't necessarily reject the seller. A pattern of two or more that say the same general thing like slow to ship or not as described, however, will generally turn me off of the seller, or a single one claiming goods (software) were counterfeit.

Remember that someone has to be pretty riled in order to risk their own rating from a retaliatory negative.

 

[Super20]

I think that the feedback is pretty important. Even people selling things on these forums will sometimes want to see some sort of references for buying or selling (such as eBay feedback). I've almost bid on things only to read the feedback and notice that the seller had a problem remembering to send the product.

 

[cmaracz88]

"remembering to send the product"

hahahaha, that's a great way of putting it

Actually, I'm thinking that people who have had bad experiences in the past, and also those who are perhaps less trustful of ecommerce might care about feedback.

 

[r6girl]

i pay attention to feedback. a few negatives rarely bother me for mass sellers, but if there's a pattern or they've all been fairly recent and/or for the same type of product i'm looking to buy, i'll stay away. if it's not a mass seller, feedback matters more to me. i'll look at how long they've been a member, the nature of the negative feedback, and the feedback they've left for others. if it looks like a seller is really just a punk (poor service, leaves negative/neutral feedback for others just for retaliation even though it might have been their fault to begin with), i definitely stay away, of course.

feedback is what makes ebay what it is - you won't know to trust a seller unless they have a history of being trustworthy, so i try to give it the appropriate amount of attention. but you're right - not every buyer is completely reasonable and sane, so i know that there's feedback out there that was not really earned by the buyer.

 

[cmaracz88]

It's pretty much calculated risks and wishful thinking that eBay is. By using eBay you can get items cheaper and also get rid of the stuff that you personally don't need, thus saving quite a bit of money (ideally so that you can give more to charity but well that's not always the case (neveer/almost never with me actually.) However, there are lots of problems that are a trade-in for thsoe good prices.

The customer service isn't exactly award-winning for one. And the scamming, lack of ability to retaliate for wrongs, as well as the fact that the person who wronged you can reliate agaisnt you just as much as you can of them; are another set of problems. When these two come together that'd be pretty and as well.

I was reading on either a paypalsucks or ebaysucks type site (I was trying to find the ebay customer service telephone numebr, if there was one, there isn't apparantly, at least not for regular users) a story that this one guy had. What happened was that he bought like three items from one seller, and then the seller said soemthing like paypal or bidpay isn't good enough and that he shoudl e-mail the seller his credit card number. He refused, and so the seller threatened to give the guy unpaid item strikes unless he gives them the cc. He e-maield all the threatening e-mails he recieved to eBay customer service, yet none of the reps did anything. Eventually all three strikes were complete and his account was locked if I remember correctly.

But just the poor customer service can be a problem too. While trying to find the above story I read the story of a guy who was locked out of his account for not paying seller's fees. That would be reasonable if not for the fact that apparantly he had it set to automatically take the money from his paypal account. And while some might say that people should know that the first billing cycle may not be automatic and that peopel should pay their first cycle manually (even though being the same company paypal and ebay shoudl easily communicate) he said that he contacted customer service and asked, and they told him no, that the first cycle will be paid for by ebay.

(Personally I had slight difficulties with customer service, although nothing bad to my side. A while a go I had ana ccount narued for not paying seller fees. Recently I've decided that I have an obligation to pay those fees. However, I don't remember the password. And the autorecovery system won't do because most of the information on the account is made up. So I explain my situation and get this set of responses:

Response One: E-Mail telling me to use the automated recovery system.
-I reply that as I've clearly explained I can not sue that system
Reponse Two: An e-mail telling me that the inquiry ahs been forwarded to paypal and that for the future I shoudl contact paypal directly
*I recieve no response from paypal, just as well since I don't think that paypal has anything to do with it
-I send another inquiry, this time stressing the fact that I can't use the recovery system
Response Three: An e-mail telling me that I wil jsut need to provide some information over e-mail then, and he lists questions which are pretty much those on the autorecovery (that I can't remember the answer to) and more (although to be fair maybe they didn't expect all of them and were instead actually giving me more choice or something)
-I respond the best I can remember
Response Four: An e-mail saying that indeed that acount is banned and some other stuff, pretty much that they can't discuss the investigation any further with me
-I send another inquiry to the customer service address
Response Five: The guy says he udnerstands my situation and frustration and that if I e-mail from the address associated wirth the account they should be able to help
-I copy and paste the message hsitory and reply from that account
-no response, so I send another inquiry, this time from the associated address right from the beginning
-waiting on response as of now

 

[florencevassy]

Well said. I buy about 1-2 times month from ebay, feedback is important to me. If a seller has a lot of positive feedback and only 1-2 negatives I won't hold that against them.

I have known of sellers to change IDs after receiving some negative feedback and they build up new (positive) feedback pretty quickly.

feedback is what makes ebay what it is - you won't know to trust a seller unless they have a history of being trustworthy, so i try to give it the appropriate amount of attention. but you're right - not every buyer is completely reasonable and sane, so i know that there's feedback out there that was not really earned by the buyer.