posted on March 27, 2008 04:47:17 AM new
Email from Ebay yesterday:
Feedback Protections
Also in January we committed to a plan that will restore the original intent of the Feedback system — to facilitate trust between buyers and sellers. Since announcing our plans, effective in May, it has become clear through conversations with many of you that eBay needs to do even more to protect sellers from dishonest buyers who use the Feedback system as a weapon. To make it perfectly clear, let me say that there is no place on eBay for anyone who abuses our community, flouts our marketplace policies and willfully harms other members.
As a result of our conversations with many of you, we are adding two Feedback policy changes to be rolled out in May to better protect sellers from this kind of behavior. First, while threatening to use negative Feedback to force an unfair deal is both extremely rare and grounds for permanent buyer suspension, we recognize it has happened in the past and will be tried in the future. If you experience this sort of behavior, please report this to eBay by using Contact Us from this page.
http://pages.ebay.com/help/policies/feedback-extortion.html
When we identify a pattern of abuse, or the evidence is clear from your report, we will remove the negative or neutral feedback — retroactively. But, we can't identify those patterns without your help and reporting. This is a call to action for every seller.
Second, we have listened to your thoughts on Unpaid Item (UPI) reports and our decision to remove negative or neutral Feedback from a buyer who fails to respond to a UPI. And what has become clear from our conversations is that we need to build in more flexibility for what happens when a buyer responds to a UPI report. What we have determined is that if the buyer does not specifically call out poor seller performance, item condition or transaction problems during the UPI process, eBay will remove the seller's negative or neutral feedback — retroactively.
Finally, let me close by saying that we're pushing hard on these and other changes because of how much eBay means to you (and to us) but we expect to be judged by our actions, not our words. It is my intention to earn your trust and respect by making eBay a more responsive organization that is unafraid to take some risks and move more aggressively while always striving to do right by you, our customers. I look forward to the continuing dialogue.
Sincerely,
Lorrie Norrington
President, eBay Global Marketplace Operation
I guess they are hearing the noise after all. The boycott is working!!
Howdy
posted on March 27, 2008 06:52:43 AM new
I just read this as well. I got an email last night with a link to it.
I guess there is a little bit of hope for sellers regarding the FB but not much IMO.
posted on March 27, 2008 08:16:32 AM new
Interesting... to say the least. Of course, the seller has to do all the leg work to get feedback removed, prove their case, and so on... How many sellers can jump through the hoop mentality.
I have to say, there are a few things sellers have to consider during the upcoming changes... 1) How many bidders know that bidders won't be getting feedback, which will create a second wave of backlash. 2) This backlash will come in at least 3 ways... a) bidders complaining to ebay b) bidders complaining to sellers and possibly holding it against sellers (see below example) c) the lost sales from motivated bidders working to create feedback history.
The second one is the most frustrating in that I have had this type of bidder before. I have spent alot of time explaining how ebay works, how paypal works, etc... if the bidder doesn't believe you, you may end up with a negative feedback b/c they think you are blowing smoke up their... I had a china bidder who thought I was lying that I couldn't accept his Paypal payment b/c there was no confirmed address. He left negative feedback, even though it was noted in my auction, I sent him links directly to Paypal and even suggested he contact Paypal. He didn't care that he didn't follow my terms. All he cared about is that he tried to pay, and felt that b/c he attempted payment I should mail him the item. This is a rare instance of this type of behavior, but it will happen time to time for others as well. I think we'll see ebay bringing back the bidder feedback as well. Bidders have a sense of pride and want to know they earned their stars just as much as sellers do.
posted on March 27, 2008 08:56:57 AM new
When checking out bidders on my auctions, I don't pay much attention to how many feedbacks they have. I look for neutrals and Negs.
How does it help a seller, if there are no more neutrals or negs given?
What criteria can we as sellers use to determine who we want bidding on our auction?
posted on March 27, 2008 11:21:44 AM new
There will be no criteria for determining bad buyers from good. That's exactly the point. Ebay doesn't want sellers cancelling bids due to a buyers poor feedback. Ebay wants sellers to sell to whomever bids regardless of whether or not the buyer will pose a problem.
This accomplishes three things for ebay:
(1) Sales that would normally be blocked will now go through thus more fees.
(2) Ebay no longer has to kick potential buyers off because of poor feedback.
(3) Bad buyers leave negatives thus keeping the Powerseller pool lower and ebay doesn't have to give up the discounts they've been promoting.
These changes have absolutely nothing to do with satisfying buyers or making ebay a better place for everyone. This is just a shell game. The deck is stacked and ebay will always win.
posted on March 27, 2008 12:36:34 PM new
I am sure it has to do primarily with what I sell, but I have managed to hang on to 100% all these years, and have never had any customer issues as a seller.
I don't think the feedback system was ever perfect, on either side, but when I am looking to buy, I will look at the feed back ratio (feedbacks/percentage) and feel that anything 97% or higher (assuming at least 100 feedbacks) is ok. If there is anything bad showing recently, I will look to see what is going on, but how many people can say any business makes ALL of their customers 100% happy?
If sellers can't leave negative, I would like to see eBay monitor rates of negative/neutral feedback left by buyers, and over a certain percentage, make them get pre-approved to bid on an item.
If sellers are getting a lot of negatives, it has to more than a bad run of customers, and more to do with their line of merchadise attracting these people, or the way the are conducting business. However, it seems that most people here go into a panic if they get even one neg.
posted on March 27, 2008 12:38:49 PM new
From Meggy:
"""Whitman said she and McCain share a philosophy of scaling back the role of government, a point of view partly shaped by her EBay experience.---->> "The EBay model is very Republican in its essence -- it's about making a small number of rules and getting out of the way" while not "overtaxing the community," she said. <<------
posted on March 27, 2008 12:46:05 PM new
Damariscotta,
I once had a request from an Israeli woman to be added to exemptions list. As I usually do in those circumstances, I checked the feedback she left for others. It turns out that 15% of the time she left a negative or neutral over hundreds of transactions.
I denied her exemption, telling her that she either had the worst run of luck, or was very difficult to please. She threatened to tell eBay that I was discriminating against her. I laughed.
posted on March 27, 2008 03:27:23 PM new
Merrie,
You are right but ebay's plan takes away any of the seller's right to neg. Paypal always sides with the buyer, no two-way street there either.
