And This is Why I Hate Ebay

[AbigailL]

I had the worst story ever. I did a buy-it-now on a guitar pedal, for about $450. The guy wasn't selling it with an adapter though, so I separately bid about $75 on an adapter, which I won.
After I won the pedal, the seller messaged me that he's sorry; he already sold it offline but "forgot" to unlist it. (I ended up finding a slightly different model pedal with an adapter together for about $500.) So I left negative feedback on the seller's page, stating very clearly how he made me lose 75 bucks by purchasing an adapter which I no longer had a use for; not even as a backup adapter because the other pedal took a different adapter.
Anyways, he left negative feedback right back on my page, stating (in all-caps, as is the usual with morons like this) "WARNING BUYER IS A SCAMMER WHO CHANGES HIS IDENTITY". Um... what?! I'm a scammer? Whatever. Anyways, I actually just checked back on that and apparently eBay says he is "no longer a registered member". Yeah. Understandable.

[PepperElf]

What did Will do to you?

To be honest... there's been quite a few times where I wish they would Fire at Will!

I buy on ebay but have never sold. I had no idea that sellers couldn't even leave negative feedback for a buyer. How stupid is that??? That policy is only going to encourage repeat, multiple sc's. Makes me really feel sympathetic to the sellers.

that happened because some sellers abused the system and started flagging buyers in revenge for complaining - even if it was a valid complaint.

i think you can publicly respond to the feedback but whether that works for or against you depends on what you say, and how readers interpret it.

She then bid on a bunch of maternity clothes I had, I was able to retract her bid. A week later she tried to bid on the fertility monitor again.

and i cannot figure this one out. why would she big on items only to return or cancel them... and then bid on them again? unless of course she's crazy? or just trying to punish you for something?


but yes... blocking the bad ones is a good idea. because once you block them, if they make new accounts to circumvent your block ... you can contact ebay with a harassment claim iirc. if some of the whines - i mean letters - over at PFB/M3c are correct, ebay does disable your account for doing this.

[wagegoth]

I used to sell on eBay fairly regularly, but I only do it now when I have to sell something quickly. I have gotten screwed a few times, and I'm sick of it. eBay won't back you up.

I still buy some items on eBay, but they've become the last resort.

And they wonder why their business is way down.

[foodservicesucks]

eBay is really starting to suck.

We should all pool our money together and start a competing site.

Do you want to design the web interface?

...for free, of course. What? It's not like it takes much effort!
(sarcasm, obviously. )

[Juggler]

I buy on ebay but have never sold. I had no idea that sellers couldn't even leave negative feedback for a buyer. How stupid is that??? That policy is only going to encourage repeat, multiple sc's. Makes me really feel sympathetic to the sellers.

It is a sound policy. They used to allow sellers to leave feedback about buyers and far too many of them would leave retaliatory negatives. This left too many sellers afraid to leave genuine negative feedback.

The anonymity of eBay selling attracts a lot of sketchy people. When selling there you are going to be tainted by that. The same applies to Amazon.

What I'd like to see is for these sites to use an algorithm that adjusts the weight of a customers rating by the average of their ratings. This way chronic complainers wouldn't count much on a sellers overall rating.

[Dave1982]

Ok folks, let's keep to the original topic and not turn this into YET ANOTHER debate about ebay policies.

[Mongo Skruddgemire]

Frankly I wouldn't worry about the negative feedback. Anyone who is an intelligent buyer *reads* the feedback and sees what is there.

So if I see someone with a mostly positive feedback and see one or two negatives, I can get a feel that the seller is likely a good one and this is just a case of the poor seller having to deal with yet another person who has champagne tastes on a light beer budget.

[cinema guy]

Add into that, limits on P&P for small items such as DVDs (it costs around £2.46 to send an item, yet I can only charge the customer £1 for P&P?) and it really isn't worth it.

I quite like ebay and use it quite a bit. But minimum postage sucks.