posted on November 22, 2000 09:51:06 AM
I guess I am looking for suggestions on how to "code" a Positive feedback. The reason is that the feedback system is a joke when it comes to really knowing what happened in the deal. A neutral is the same as a negative; a negative gets you a retaliatory Neg.; and Positives range from robotic to lovefest.
Since an honest neutral or negative is tantamount to an act of "feedback war", does anyone have any suggestions for "keywords" or "symbols" to put into a Positive to tip off other users that the recipient is "less than perfect"?
I thought of using someting like in the 80 character limit and was hoping you all could point out the benefits, pitfalls, or even help with better 'code' words, or symbols.
thanks all.......
Woops !!!...my use of the above semi colon and line triggered an automatic AW smilie. I didnt mean the 'smilie' cause ebay won't allow html or such in the feedback.
[ edited by feralboy on Nov 22, 2000 09:55 AM ]
posted on November 22, 2000 10:03:48 AM
try saying things like--"the item was worth the wait" or "despite a few problems,the deal was eventually done" or "finally got paid, everything now o.k.", etc.
posted on November 22, 2000 10:06:44 AM
On occasion I have been dissatisfied with a transaction even though I have received an item more or less as described. It could be the result of sloppy e-mails, slow responses, less than adequate packing or just a lack of decent service.
In such cases, I "damn with faint praise", Item arrived,e.g. I imagine the tactic is lost on anyone but myself, but it does give me a small measure of satisfaction.
posted on November 22, 2000 10:19:09 AM
I am almost afraid to leave any kind of feedback any more untill feedback is given. I just had one lady who bought 2 dolls, paid well and I gave her feedback, she wrote demanding that I refund her money in exchange for not leaving a negative. She has refused returning the items saying the items were not worth the time spend mailling them back. She said if I didnt refund her money plus shipping she was leaving a negative feedback, all over 6.00, 10.05 with postage. I feel I am buying her feedback in a way. Had I not left feedback I would have some recourse, but now feel I have to abide by her rules, she has a total 3 feedbacks and a new buyer recently registered. There was noithing wrong with these dolls as they actually belonged to my doll collecting Mother!! And she knows her dolls! If I dont refund and she gives a negative , it will soon be buried and all will be seen by potential customers this that big fat negative!! My 1st I might add, out of close to 200 !!
posted on November 22, 2000 10:26:27 AM
don't forget that you can post a response to the neg. with almost 200 positives, your first neg may hurt, but almost everyone gets a neg eventually if you do enough transactions. don't be held hostage. if you know you are right, just forget about the threat and go on to the next deal.
posted on November 22, 2000 10:27:00 AM
"Item Arrived" is the one I use...Oddly enough the "sellers" have all returned my comment with glowing feedback...I guess they did not get my point...
posted on November 22, 2000 10:42:50 AM
Hello Jfpnatl,
Your buyer made those demands via email? I would suggest you forward the email(s) to [email protected] as they amount to feedback extortion which is definitely against eBay's rules.
Then, if the buyer proceeds to give you a negative you would have laid the groundwork for having them warned/suspended and for having the negative removed from your profile.
posted on November 22, 2000 10:42:55 AM
Doesnt matter what sarcasm you use.. I got your maney and ChaChing its a positive... NEXT! Once its off the page its just a number amoung 500 others
posted on November 22, 2000 10:55:46 AM
I wrote to safe harbour and they have said that leaving feedback is ones right, whether not deserved, its the buyers or sellers opinion, once left couldnt be retracted. Appeals would have to be arbirtrated by a non biased party as to if it could be removed or not, and there are fees for these services ; )if arbitator agreed they should be removed, they would be, costs less to just refund the &&^%*& money!
posted on November 22, 2000 10:59:48 AM
kyms, I just got one of those this morning - on an item that nothing really could go wrong. Then reading this thread, I got paranoid, and checked to see what kind of feedback this person usually leaves. Yep, he's left about 15 feedback comments; all are basically, "item received." For me, he added, "promptly."
posted on November 22, 2000 11:12:26 AMOddly enough the "sellers" have all returned my comment with glowing feedback...I guess they did not get my point...
Not necessarily. I received one of these "negative positives" a few weeks ago. And I deserved it. I had screwed up. Not too badly, but enough.
I still left an extremely positive feedback for the buyer because they had paid immediately after the auction. I don't use feedback as retaliation, I use it to evaluate the transaction.
Well, the next day the buyer bought another item from me. So now, just above the first feedback is a second extremely positive feedback from the same buyer.
posted on November 22, 2000 02:52:23 PM
Great Ideas!! I loved the methods to express a "problem Positive".
I wonder if using the tilde symbol, the little sideways squiggle on the top-left corner of the keyboard, ie ~ ,could be placed somewhere in the Positive comment and used as a "red flag".
Anyway I am going to copy and paste some of these feedback phrases you folks have provided and tape them to my monitor. I know I will surely have to use them to survive on ebay island!
PS; I especially will look for ...Item arrived....and its counterpart.....Payment arrived.
posted on November 23, 2000 09:20:54 AM
just yesterday i recieved an item that i paid for back on nov 5. this is the third item ive gotten from this seller and the previous times it was shipped quickly and there were no problems. i left her positive feedback like this: "great item as always, slow shipping, but would do business again, aa++ ebayer". i think it points out to someone reading her feedback that (perhaps) this difficulty with shipping was just a fluke thing.
posted on November 23, 2000 12:55:41 PM
Neutrally or negatively worded positives are just a waste of time. People, generally, don't read positives. They might see them when the feedback is at the top of the page, but once it's buried it's just another positive comment.
Retaliation is rare. Just leave the appropriate feedback. If there is retaliation, then just respond factually to it and forget it.
posted on November 23, 2000 04:09:14 PM
jfpnatl, please resubmit your complaint to Safe Harbor and clarify that the buyer is using the threat of negative feedback to extort a refund without return of merchandise, and direct the responding staff member to the Ebay policy on "FEEDBACK EXTORTION". <SIGH> Apparently there must be a bunch of new staff members over there who didn't bother to read the policies again. Just saw a post on another thread where a complaint had been sandbagged by the Ebay staffer that handled it.
As far as "lukewarm" feedback, I've only left negatives for NPB's. I tend to criticize by omission, i.e. if it doesn't say "quick pay", assume the bidder took a month to cough up the cash; if it doesn't say "great communication", I probably had to email and ask if they got their merchandise. The one time I was going to leave a neutral or negative for a seller, he'd already managed to string the transaction out past the feedback deadline.
posted on November 23, 2000 07:00:56 PM
Well.....I just can't keep this to myself any longer.
A secret feedback code has existed for quite some time now. Sellers need no longer be puzzled by the strangled syntax and gross misspellings in their feedback. It all has a clear and informative meaning to those in the know.
The only sellers to be trusted are those with not only positive fedback but grammatically correct feedback as well.
posted on November 24, 2000 07:22:28 AM
when I have a very slow payer, my positive feedback says, "Thank you for your business." Not exactly glowing, but at least they paid for the item.
posted on November 24, 2000 01:37:53 PM
birdwatcher, I do the same thing! I have always assumed that lots of other sellers did too because I see that phrase repeatedly in customers' feedback profiles.
I leave lukewarm positives for sellers also- or none at all- or occasionally if I'm really dis-satisfied I neg. I have luckily never recieved a retaliatory neg, but I do use a separate ID for buying just in case.
I have recieved a few deservedly lukewarm positives. Once a buyer's payment sat under my couch for about a month. (We have a mail slot in the front door instead of a mailbox, so the mail carrier throws the mail directly into our living room.) Somehow her payment landed directly under the couch & I never saw it. You know, these things happen from time to time. The minute I found her envelope I emailed her apologizing & asking why she hadn't emailed wondering where her stuff was. She never even answered my email. I sent her her item plus a few other freebies as well cuz I felt really bad. She left me a positive that said "good communication". I had to laugh. Luckily for me some people out there do choose to look on the bright side!
I think that if you've been selling awhile and have no negs at all it really is a reflection on your customer base as well as on you. If you don't have cool customers you're gonna have some negs no matter what you do, y'know?
posted on November 24, 2000 09:26:53 PM
Well, speaking from experience. I will tell you for a fact that any hidden messages, symbols, etc..., lukewarm comments, lovefest comments, ETC... all boil down to 2 things.
POSITIVE AND NEGATIVE !!!!!!!!!
No one cares what you write in a positive. You can right the most horrible stuff in a positive and no one will ever see it (except maybe like right after). People will view your feedback whether you have 1 or 1,000 , and they will only look to see how manys negs you have. THATS IT, THATS ALL !!!!!
1 negative kills 50 positives !!! People will focus on that ratio. 2 negs out of 100 pos, 4 negs out of 200 pos, .....20 negs for 1000 pos.
Do you see how bad that looks ?
Any comment, no matter if it is mean spirited or true, if left as a positive is good. Only negatives get looked at, so if you want to say something and you want people to see it, leave a NEG.
If not then don't even worry about it and post a POS and be on your merry way. Stop wasting your time thinking of ways you can get super secret squirrel codes to get your point across.
posted on November 24, 2000 10:14:25 PM1 negative kills 50 positives !!!
I can't agree with this. If you have 50 positive feedbacks to 1 negative feedback, it wouldn't bother me a bit. That gives me 50 to 1 odds of having a successful transaction. I'll take those odds any day!
What the negs and positives say do matter. If I am a stickler for quick shipping and the seller has several negs for slow delivery, I would probably not purchase from him/her.. However, there is also many positives praising quick shipment it would tell me that the person sometimes gets behind and chances are shipment will be timely... Many times a negative feedback is probably just a mis-understanding, and some people are just plain hard to deal with and quick to neg...
To get the true picture about what a seller or buyer is really like you need to consider both positives and negatives. It works pretty well.
posted on November 25, 2000 06:18:50 AM
I have left "Deal completed" on auctions that the buyer strung out forever, but still managed to pay - I at least got their money was how I looked at it.
in the 80 character limit and was hoping you all could point out the benefits, pitfalls, or even help with better 'code' words, or symbols.
