posted on April 28, 2001 02:16:16 PM
I've been having some problems with a newbie buyer on eBay. Today I decided to look at her feedback, and this is the message I got:
"If you are XXXXX (private), you can respond to comments in this Feedback Profile.
"User XXXXX (private) has elected to make their Feedback Profile private so comments are not available for public viewing at
this time.
"Please contact XXXXX (private) directly for information about specific feedback comments."
Is this allowed? And for how long? (Maybe all of you know this already?) I am outraged.
posted on April 28, 2001 02:27:21 PM
What do their feedback numbers look like? The number of pos and negs is listed on that page.
Users have always been able to make their feedback private. If there are a lot of recent negs, run, don't walk and cancel their bid. If they mail you a check, make sure you call their bank to see if they have sufficient funds to cover it.
posted on April 28, 2001 03:49:19 PM
You can also use Vrane (or a similar tool) to view all of the feedback this user has LEFT for others, and from there see some of the feedback left for the user. That will likely give you an idea what the problems may have been.
posted on April 28, 2001 06:01:03 PM
Thanks to both of you. I do not understand why eBay would allow protection of feedback. Doesn't that just defeat the purpose of feedback? Well. . . . sigh. . . . back to the drawing board.
This buyer, by the way, has 9 positive feedbacks, no negs, but she used only her initials and a name from the email she's using (must be somebody else's) and her package was returned to me as no such person. I got contact info from ebay and re-sent it, this time via parcel post, after she declined to pay more priority postage. Today she asks why it isn't there yet (after 5 days!).
posted on April 28, 2001 06:31:27 PM
Some newbies are just dumb. They think private is special for some reason. Or they could have some very lukewarm positives. Like, "Paid promptly but demanding about shipping." Those subtly veiled messages from sellers warning us about potential problems.
The only valid reason for private is obscenity or private information like an e-mail addy. But eBay is much better about deleting this kind of stuff now so I don't know why you'd need private.
They can "un-private" it for you. I'd be wary of any buyer who won't show FB or can't give a good reason for hiding it.
Kathy
