posted on April 2, 2001 07:07:59 PM
The current high bidder on one of my auctions has made his feedback private. They've been a member since Spet. 98 and have 21 positives, 1 neutral and 1 negative. And none of it is in the last 6 months. I don't understand why someone with just one negative would make their feedback private. It makes me think it must be a doozy. What use is a feedback system if you can make the comments private?
posted on April 2, 2001 07:32:36 PM
I agree with you 100%! Also, when I see private FB I immediately back away and if I had a bidder with private FB, I'd probably cancel the bid and state the reason as "can't read the FB"!
Rightly or wrongly, when I can't read the facts, I assume the worst! I probably am not alone in that line of thinking.
I follow a seller who has quite a high FB. Within a week, they had quite a few NEG's left for non-performance. They replied there had been a medical emergency. A few days later they made their FB private. I think they would have been better off leaving it public and let people read and decide for themselves if they wanted to deal with the seller. As it is, when you click on their FB page all you see are the totals and the fact that all the NEGS have happened recently! It seems to have killed their sales.
posted on April 2, 2001 07:36:38 PM
This **USUALLY** works when I see someone with a private feedback.
Go to the feedbacks that person LEFT. Chances are, you will find the NEG that he left. Then, if you find that NEG, click on that person's feedback LEFT and look for the one he left your bidder.
posted on April 2, 2001 07:47:15 PM
I would never cancel a bid if the feedback is private unless it had a high ratio of negatives. Last year I sold an item for quite a bit of money to someone who chose to have his feedback private.
He was a businessman who telephoned me to make arrangements for payment and shipping. He had his reasons for doing things a certain way and it was my business to handle it confidentially.
Remember, just because the feedback is private it does not mean that the person is doing something wrong or trying to hide something.
posted on April 2, 2001 07:51:22 PM
Well, the chances are EXCELLENT that the bidder has something to hide that would make me think I'm not interested in his/her bid...
Sounds like the scenario that surrounded a bidder for whom the neg I left was that he used a stolen credit card. Now nobody else would know that until they get scorched by him. It's a shame.
posted on April 2, 2001 08:37:31 PM
There are several reasons a person chooses to keep their feedback private and it doesn't always mean that they are a bad buyer or seller.
Example: The person may buy adult items and doesn't want their children, parents, etc., to know.
posted on April 3, 2001 04:29:20 AM
One reason to make feedback private is if someone has personalized a response to you using your first name. I have had people beg me NOT to use their real name when posting feedback. Since that time, I never do. Some people are sensitive for whatever reason. It is a personal privacy issue. I respect that.
posted on April 3, 2001 07:24:57 AM
I have e-mailed sellers who have private feedback, and told them, I would really love this item, but I cannot, in good judgement, bid without seeing your feedback. I NEVER get a response. That tells me, immediately, EVERYTHING I wanted to know.
posted on April 3, 2001 08:57:38 AM
private feedback... You can always email someone with private FB and ask them to expose it to you. If they refuse you can do a cross check by looking at the feedback they have left for others. Often when someone get a neg they return the favor.
Besides poor feedback, one of the most commmon uses of private feedback is to hide the auction numbers within feedback to prevent others from seeing items bid on beyond the 30 day limit.
April 4, 2000 ebay made it harder for someone to hid their feedback (for whatever reason). Previous to that date a user could make feedback HIDDEN and another user might bid on their auctions without a clue that the other User had FB private, now it says (private) next to a User ID with hidden feedback.
There is a user on eBay that has the ID of (private) and he/she has private feedback. It is displayed as (private)(private).
[ edited by JettBoy on Apr 3, 2001 09:01 AM ]
[ edited by JettBoy on Apr 3, 2001 09:02 AM ]
posted on April 3, 2001 09:30:19 AM
IMO, if someone has 21 postive, 1 neut and 1 neg, it would not bother me at all if they made their feedback private.
> Maybe, they think that the one neg is slanderous and it is embarrasing to them.
> Maybe, (as already mentioned) they purchase certain types of items that they would be embarrased to have people know about.
> Some sellers (that sell certain items) run private auctions and have private feedback to protect the reputation of their customers. Private auctions and feedback would also discourage bottom feeders.
> Maybe, they don't want someone using eSafe2Bid to check up on them.
> Maybe, they are just paranoid....
"Assuming" the worst without considering all of the posibilities is not a smart practice. Would you assume the worst if they had 21 positives, 0 negs and private feedback?
[ edited by outoftheblue on Apr 3, 2001 09:31 AM ]
posted on April 3, 2001 04:19:37 PM
Having had a *real* bad experience with a seller who had private feedback, I will never go that route again regardless of the ratio of good/bad. If I see the feedback is private, I move on.
posted on April 3, 2001 09:24:11 PM
Everybody thinks that a person might want their feedback hidden because they want privacy about what they are buying, but I can tell you what a person has bought for the last month to 35 days with a simple search. By going through feedback (if available) I can see the last 90 or so days.
Private feedback was an idea designed for companies that already have made a name and are Fortune 500. Disney and the Rosie Charity auctions use private feedback (before the system cross referenced auction numbers to users, people could neg anybody they wanted, and almost neged both groups out. People would also leave unrelated FB as they thought it was a message board.)
