Is private feedback an invitation to scammers?

fred7777

I recently sold an item to a buyer who is now claiming it arrived broken.The buyer refuses to send pictures to prove this and has a feedback score of:
"Positive feedback: 0%|Feedback score: 4"

Theyare telling me that they "will be raising my issue with paypal as they are usually quicker in dealing with problems"

So a buyer can now only be left positive feedback and even then they can make sure than nobody ever sees the comments left about them. Also there is no way to block buyers who don't want anyone to know about what others think of them!

Is this not an open invitation to scammers?

lovinituk

If they have 0% positive feedback then they must have got 4 negative feedbacks for selling. Tell them you will refund once they have returned the item to you - thats exactly what ebay/paypal will insist they do anyway.

cestlavie

private feedback is a dumb idea, allowing people to hide all history. i wldn't buy from anyone who masked themselves with this - and can absolutely assert that scammers are using this facility

chemical.galaxy

Yes I wish I could block all private feedback buyers. Recently got scammed out of £50 by one of these buyers! Not happy!

soolin

lovinituk wrote: »

If they have 0% positive feedback then they must have got 4 negative feedbacks for selling. Tell them you will refund once they have returned the item to you - thats exactly what ebay/paypal will insist they do anyway.

It might just mean it is older than a year , so they have 4 positives but no feedback for a year.

shaun_from_Africa

cestlavie wrote: »

private feedback is a dumb idea, allowing people to hide all history. i wldn't buy from anyone who masked themselves with this - and can absolutely assert that scammers are using this facility

The thing is, you can't buy from someone with private feedback.
It must be public or you are unable to list any items for sale. It's only buyers who can make their FB private.

lovinituk

soolin wrote: »

It might just mean it is older than a year , so they have 4 positives but no feedback for a year.

But then it would show as 100% rather than 0%. If its less than 100% it must have been caused by negatives within the last 12 months.

porto_bello

lovinituk wrote: »

If they have 0% positive feedback then they must have got 4 negative feedbacks for selling. Tell them you will refund once they have returned the item to you - thats exactly what ebay/paypal will insist they do anyway.

After a year of inactivity, feedback shows 0%, but the lifetime score of 4 remains permanently, hence 0% and +4

shaun_from_Africa wrote: »

The thing is, you can't buy from someone with private feedback.
It must be public or you are unable to list any items for sale. It's only buyers who can make their FB private.

As to the concept of private feedback, yes, I've found it's a licence to covertly scam under threat of negging. It is patently unfair that buyers who hide their own feedback can publicly hurt the reputations of others.

At the very least, eBay could prevent those with private feedback leaving any for anyone else.

QuackQuackOops

lovinituk wrote: »

If they have 0% positive feedback then they must have got 4 negative feedbacks for selling. Tell them you will refund once they have returned the item to you - thats exactly what ebay/paypal will insist they do anyway.

Not at all. The negatives would still be visible if that were the case.

This is more likely to be someone who hasnt used their account in over a year.

QuackQuackOops

fred7777 wrote: »

I recently sold an item to a buyer who is now claiming it arrived broken.The buyer refuses to send pictures to prove this and has a feedback score of:
"Positive feedback: 0%|Feedback score: 4"

Theyare telling me that they "will be raising my issue with paypal as they are usually quicker in dealing with problems"

So a buyer can now only be left positive feedback and even then they can make sure than nobody ever sees the comments left about them. Also there is no way to block buyers who don't want anyone to know about what others think of them!

Is this not an open invitation to scammers?

If the item is broken, and you dont know that it wasnt broken in transit, he is entitled to a refund but only after he returns the item to you, if thats what you want.

Depending on how much the item cost would be the deciding factor on how to deal with this.

Having a low feedback score means nothing. We all started out at 0 and we all have to build that up slowly.

As for his Private setting, if hes a fairly new user which it seems that he is, he might not even know that the setting is set to 'Private' and a polite note from someone like you saying how Private feedbacks can be seen as not so good might be enough for him to change it. So dont assume hes up to no good because of that.

You can not leave him a negative anyway....nor can you say anything bad under a positive because Ebay can just remove that, so its not something to worry about.

See if you can some to some amicable arrangement so that you are both happy. Its much better to work at things calmly rarther than be worked up thinking bad thoughts.
Quite often those bad thoughts can be wrong.

lovinituk

porto_bello wrote: »

After a year of inactivity, feedback shows 0%, but the lifetime score of 4 remains permanently, hence 0% and +4

Thank you for this clarification - I didn't know it worked like that.