WARNING: I did not know eBay were doing this.

NotArobot24

soolin said:

NotArobot24 said:

I see several issues

1. Being able to rely on Feedback when making a purchasing decision
2. Only having 60 days to leave feedback which is no time for consumer complaint (6 years)
3. Having feedback left effective in your name on your transaction

It was the ICO who called it fraud 

I am entitled to my opinion when saying I find it obscene.

All this will do is make me more prone to leave negative feedback at the slightest thing and to leave neutral feedback that whilst not negative will be detrimental, Also I will not be leaving positive feedback except in very rare situations.

I only sell for charity, for which I have a separate account, I have had these accounts for around 25 years, during this time eBay has become truly awful.  I made a post on eBay community about it and I get Kudos for that post every few days which triggers an email.

I do not care for feedback for myself, but I do want to be able to trust the eBay suppliers that it takes hours to find with no many scammers.

Ebay not only tolerates those gaming the system but it does not allow you to remove such listings from search.

Amazon tends to cost more but it takes less time and gives less frustration..

I hope Vinted improve their game to the point where I feel happy to open an account.   So far their mentions on Consumer shows suggest that is some way off. It seems scammers have found a plethora of ways to scam buyers and when this happens they take a month to sort things out and that is if they agree.

The issue with leaving poor feedback is that many (most?) sellers tend to look at a buyers feedback left for others where offers are to be made or have been made. I personally would block serial complainers, so in some ways these problem buyers self regulate themselves out of the process. Obviously that doesn't work for my items that are bought by BIN.

Any buyer that routinely runs into problems is obviously not that careful when buying, and then gets in a habit of leaving poor feedback to justify buyers remorse, or 'slights' they feel they have had from seller. Also any seller in good standard can get some poor feedback removed anyway if they can show it was not justified.

I had a buyer purchase something earlier this year, told me how to pack it with one of those rather nit picking cut and pastes that they said  they felt obliged to send sellers as people no longer know how to pack things in a correct manner. Told me how to address package, told me exactly when I should post it etc. It arrived a day after the EDD and buyer left me a neutral stating that 'my courier' did not deliver in time and that I had used clear packing tape when I was told to use brown parcel tape which was stronger. I could have got that removed, but I have left it, my only neutral, as I think it showed more about the buyer than it did about me, I also of course blocked the buyer. Buyer has since messaged me saying that I have dome something to my settings as it is not allowing them to buy something else from that set that they want, and could I sort it out. I never did respond. 

You are way more patient than me and I think that was a very smooth way to handle them.

I had a selling account which I only used for charity, I had to leave a few percent because of some change with paypal which meant I would be out of pocket if I donated 100%. I just don't bother anymore, I gift stuff to charity shops or gift it on Freecycle, the latter requires some discipline but I have figured out who the time wasters are.

I try to give two positive feedbacks on Trustpilot for every negative, on Amazon I gave a positive review to a seller before even buying from them, because they sent me a PDF of an instruction manual pre-sale.  I have since bought half a dozen items from them. 

On the issue I raise here with eBay it comes down to Not In My Name.

Now when buying I will give neutral feedback every time, albeit that some time has to pass before I forget how bad they are.

Spoonie_Turtle

NotArobot24 said:

soolin said:

NotArobot24 said:

I see several issues

1. Being able to rely on Feedback when making a purchasing decision
2. Only having 60 days to leave feedback which is no time for consumer complaint (6 years)
3. Having feedback left effective in your name on your transaction

It was the ICO who called it fraud 

I am entitled to my opinion when saying I find it obscene.

All this will do is make me more prone to leave negative feedback at the slightest thing and to leave neutral feedback that whilst not negative will be detrimental, Also I will not be leaving positive feedback except in very rare situations.

I only sell for charity, for which I have a separate account, I have had these accounts for around 25 years, during this time eBay has become truly awful.  I made a post on eBay community about it and I get Kudos for that post every few days which triggers an email.

I do not care for feedback for myself, but I do want to be able to trust the eBay suppliers that it takes hours to find with no many scammers.

Ebay not only tolerates those gaming the system but it does not allow you to remove such listings from search.

Amazon tends to cost more but it takes less time and gives less frustration..

I hope Vinted improve their game to the point where I feel happy to open an account.   So far their mentions on Consumer shows suggest that is some way off. It seems scammers have found a plethora of ways to scam buyers and when this happens they take a month to sort things out and that is if they agree.

The issue with leaving poor feedback is that many (most?) sellers tend to look at a buyers feedback left for others where offers are to be made or have been made. I personally would block serial complainers, so in some ways these problem buyers self regulate themselves out of the process. Obviously that doesn't work for my items that are bought by BIN.

Any buyer that routinely runs into problems is obviously not that careful when buying, and then gets in a habit of leaving poor feedback to justify buyers remorse, or 'slights' they feel they have had from seller. Also any seller in good standard can get some poor feedback removed anyway if they can show it was not justified.

I had a buyer purchase something earlier this year, told me how to pack it with one of those rather nit picking cut and pastes that they said  they felt obliged to send sellers as people no longer know how to pack things in a correct manner. Told me how to address package, told me exactly when I should post it etc. It arrived a day after the EDD and buyer left me a neutral stating that 'my courier' did not deliver in time and that I had used clear packing tape when I was told to use brown parcel tape which was stronger. I could have got that removed, but I have left it, my only neutral, as I think it showed more about the buyer than it did about me, I also of course blocked the buyer. Buyer has since messaged me saying that I have dome something to my settings as it is not allowing them to buy something else from that set that they want, and could I sort it out. I never did respond. 

Now when buying I will give neutral feedback every time, albeit that some time has to pass before I forget how bad they are.

What a strange decision, to take out your frustrations with eBay on individual sellers who have no control over what eBay do or who eBay let trade on their platform.

sonearandyetsofa

Thinking about it, actually, as a seller I like the idea that eBay are more effectively communicating what the different types of feedback mean. If all goes as expected, that's a positive experience and should count as such even if it's not super fabulous enough to warrant taking the time to write glowing positive feedback, add photos and write a small essay. Most people don't bother leaving actual feedback just to say "I paid for the item, it arrived when expected and that's okay". Neutral feedback is for when it didn't go as expected or things go badly and are resolved but it's not a great experience, or a problem that isn't worth making a fuss about. That should require a little input from the customer to convey, because it's not the "normal" experience. I don't think most people are subscribing to OP's opinion that not leaving feedback is de facto a neutral, because neutral on eBay means they're not happy. 

I don't agree that it's fraud or anything else negative for eBay to do this. When I look at feedback, I see this:

1. All automated feedback is clearly labelled "eBay automated feedback" next to it where you'd normally see the buyer's username

2. There's a box to tick that, when unticked, hides all automated feedback from the page

3. At the top of the page under the ratings it states how much automated feedback the seller has (mine is 14 apparently)

NotArobot24

Why would you do that? Why would you not just leave positive feedback where it's due, and negative feedback where it's due, like you were presumably doing already? You're punishing the small businesses and private people who trade on eBay, for the actions of a multinational corporation, does that not seem wrong to you?

If you want to avoid poor performing sellers it's very simple. You can choose not to buy cheap Chinese knock-offs. Do an image search on the item you're considering, don't buy it on eBay if it shows up on Alibaba or Aliexpress or Temu. Don't buy from sellers who have feedback ratings under 99.8% minimum (if it's high value, stick to 100%). If you can see there are negatives, read them to see what they're for.

jon81uk

NotArobot24 said:

goodfella66 said:

NotArobot24 said:

Yeh that is in the image I posted but for me it is not about filtering it, it is about them doing it on the transactions I chose not to leave feedback on as if I had left positive feeback. It distorts feedback even more than existing policies and I agree with the ICO that it is fraud.

Once Ebay leave feedback, you can still leave feedback yourself and that will override anything Ebay have left. 

Very few buyers leave feedback nowadays and I suspect that is messing with the service metrics that Ebay have put in place for sellers, hence they have done this so the feedback reflects a more genuine figure of items sold.

I can see it's a very slight annoyance to some people but I don't think it's a big deal in the grand scheme of things.

Not according to the customer services woman who called me back, she said it is applied after 60 days if I do not leave a review and I am not allowed to leave feedback after 60 days.

All of the obfuscation in getting to see negative feedback was bad enough, this just makes a farce of the whole thing.  Currently I don't think eBay is a safe place to trade.

It appears to be full of scammers including all of the Chinese fake Battery Cells with impossible mAh, fake USB Data sticks claiming terabytes of space.  Iphone cables that last barely a week.  LED bulbs that rarely last more than 30 days with some DOA.  I found it cheaper to buy a new lightfitting.  Plus the clone fakes of kit where the manufacturer of decent hardware that moved their manufacture to China only to find a clause in their contract that said they had right to clone the device with a lower quality model.

My impression of Chinese products is that they simply do not operate quality control or if they do they knowingly sell goods that fail quality control.  

I have to ask myself why does eBay go to such length of coding to HIDE the negative feedback and invest this system of creating fake positive feedback?  They are complicit just as as complicity as advertisers on social media and YouTube selling junk products.

Feedback is not a product review, it is a review of the service provided by the seller. Did the item match the description, was it delivered promptly or any other similar issues. This is why it has always needed to be left fairly soon after delivery of the item because you are giving feedback on the sales process, not the item.

powerful_Rogue

As a buyer I love this implementation. Well done eBay. I don't have the time to wade through long lists of purchases to leave positive feedback for a normal service I expected.

Like the majority of people, we only provide feedback when we have a bad experience. So to highlight the sales that have had no feedback left as positive is a bonus.

I think the person you apparently spoke to at the ICO was speaking out of turn. This isn't fraud in the slightest.