I may have been a little vague in my post to originally prevent a huge wall of text.
Well just for the record, I understand the problems sellers have. I agree to some too. However, ebay didn't just make it so sellers cannot leave buyers negative and that is that. They changed other things as well. Such as no more lifetime feedback.
One thing they should get rid of though, is the listing fees. If the item sells, then they can collect that fee along with the others. That will also increase the amount of items up, and also increase transactions done, which I think can balance things out.
[quote name='elmyra']
What happens when the buyer pays, then tries to scam the seller after the item has been mailed? Or when the buyer sends emails flipping out and cursing at the seller because the package took a whole 5 days to get there? Or flips out because they didn't like the packing material the seller used (even though it did the job and protected the package)? Does the buyer still deserve their positive feedback just because they sent the payment on time?[/quote]
A real buyer will never buy from you again if they are unhappy.
As a seller, you are like a store. Even stores with exceptional service like newegg do not have 100% on rating sites. But almost everyone on ebay seems to be pretty close. Sellers shouldn't be too different than stores since the concept is the same.
That is sort of what I think ebay is trying to accomplish. Stores cannot leave customer ratings, but customers can leave store ratings at various sites.
Also, don't confuse buyers with scammers. They don't care what happens and will do whatever it takes anyways. Regardless of policy changes or not, they will try to screw you. I never said anything about scammers. I said buyers. You do know new accounts can be made right? So if they really wanted to scam you, they could very easily. It is just unlucky if you are the one to be scammed.
It is unfortunate that there are more and more scammers these days. But do you think being able to leave a negative will affect them?
You're arguing that the buyer should get to base their rating on the whole transaction, but the seller should only get to consider the criteria of whether or not the buyer paid. How is that fair?
But you are pretty much saying that good buyers should get no feedback until they leave a good feedback for the seller, even if they are unhappy about something. That is what you are implying. And that is exactly how it is right now.
Again, it won't have much effect to a scammer anyways.
This works both ways, you know. I, as the seller, gave a negative to a deadbeat bidder who refused to even answer my emails asking if he planned to pay. He also never responded to the non-paying bidder complaint I filed with eBay. He responded to my negative feedback with a negative of his own the very same day, of course. In the text of the feedback, he lied and claimed that I had never sent the item even though he had paid. That was the only neg I ever got, and it was undeserved.
I never argued against that. I mentioned that sellers should be able to do whatever they want if that happens. It sucks that you can't now. But now your negative can be removed.
Your argument would have merit if jerks who leave unjustified feedback were all sellers. That isn't the case.
I never said it was just sellers. I mentioned bad buyers as well. But tell me, how often does one leave a positive after receiving a negative? Even if it was justified?
So again, you think that a buyer who acts like a jerk or tries to scam a seller after the payment is sent should get a positive anyway just because they paid?
If you got your money, then everything was as planned. You sold your goods. A buyer finishes after paying, a seller finishes after delivering their goods to the buyer. Now why would a buyer try to scam you in the first place if they got their item as stated? They wouldn't. If they wanted to scam you, as mentioned before, they will. You can't really do much about it.
And scamming can also be done from the selling side too. Take the money, send a box of nothing, among other things they can do.
After I got my retaliatory negative, I chose not to leave a few well-deserved negatives for extremely rude or non-paying buyers, because I didn't want to drag my feedback percentage down. Fear of retaliation works both ways.
And that is the problem I stated. Notice the etc I used. The retaliation is ridiculous. No one leaves the feedback until the other does first. And obviously if they don't like what they got, they will make a counter. Or there will be no feedback exchanged.
And that is pretty much to summarize the whole argument. The whole system is flawed because right now, both buyers and sellers have exceptional ratings that aren't warranted. The feedback system is pretty much useless.
The only reason it has bearing is because it is implanted in everyone's mind that 97-100% feedback is the norm. Anything lower = you are a bad seller/buyer. That is the big problem. Do people not buy games if the review scores aren't that high? Do people not watch movies if the critic scores aren't that high?
Sure, there definitely should be more tweaks to it to make it better for everyone. At least they are starting to move in the right direction.
[quote name='hiamiyumi']
If you know the sellers who sell booglet items then don't buy from them.[/quote]
The problem is how would a buyer know that seller sells bootlegs? You don't. The only way to know is to have bought one or know someone who bought one. It certainly isn't in the feedback since guess what happens if the buyer leaves a negative? That's right, they get a negative back. Most just eat the loss and never buy from that seller again. So now that seller can still trick others.