Ebay borrows Time Warner's gun, reloads, draws bead on big toe

[Eel O'Brian]

http://bits.blogs.nytimes.com/2008/01/29/sellers-give-negative-feedback-on-ebay-changes/


hahaha those greedy fucks

[Eel O'Brian]

haha this game sucks, etc

[Vizzys]

listing fees are nothing, its the overall fee taken at the end that is bullshit and needs a decrease not listing fees

shot themselves in the foot indeed

[Shuri]

Ms. Steiner said that in many sellers’ minds the changes to the feedback system are even worse. Feedback, of course, has been the center of the self-policing aspect of eBay through which buyers and sellers rate each other. Now, for the first time, sellers will not be able to leave negative or neutral feedback about buyers. (They are welcome to continue to leave positive feedback.)

Wait, what the fuck does that means, we wont be able to leave neutral or negatives?

[Eel O'Brian]

That's exactly what it means.

http://blog.auctionbytes.com/cgi-bin/blog/blog.pl?/comments/2008/1/1201611437.html#comments

[Howard Alan Treesong]

not being able to leave negative feedback for buyers is PSYCHO
the Mutual Assured Destruction of negative feedback was the only thing that made asshole people even talk to you

[Tigerriot]

Part of me loves to hear that sellers can't leave negative.  I'll tell you why.


I've had it happen numerous times where a seller treated me like shit, but the asshole waited for me to leave feedback before leaving any for me, in an attempt to blackmail me into leaving them a good rating.  Of course a couple times I said "fuck it", and left them the horrible feedback they deserved, only to have them immediately leave me negative feedback as retaliation, even though I had paid them a minute after the auction had ended. 


Yeah, the blackmailing with feedback tool was becoming too damn strong for a lot of shitty sellers and it needed to end.

[Eel O'Brian]

The one negative feedback I have came from a portugese buyer who never responded to emails (in fact, the email address given was dead), refused insurance, and evidently expected surface mail from the US to arrive in two days. This was after I had undercharged him for shipping and paid the difference out of my own pocket. So, yeah, irrational buyers also leave bad feedback in retaliation for perceived slights, all the time. As a result of that crazy person, I no longer ship overseas. Too much shipping hassle, and the communication was always dreadful.  Feedback is important to me as I don’t sell very often, and I have a small score to begin with. One bad feedback takes a lot off your overall percentage if you have a smallish number of feedbacks.   With this new system I wouldn't even have the chance to respond to idiots like that Portugese dude.  Between the final value fee price hike disguised as a lowering of insertion fees, and this removal of all buyer feedback responsibility, fuck ebay.  I'm going with Amazon for what little I sell.

[Tigerriot]

I'm completely with you guys on the fees argument.  The fees have gotten ridiculous and I haven't used Ebay in over a year now.  But I think a lot more buyers get blackmailed into leaving good feedback, than the other way around.

Think about it.  The buyer has to pay before the item even gets shipped, so 99% of the time they've already held up their end of the bargain.  It's the seller's who are often the assholes, and thus I don't mind this new rule.  It's pretty rare to have that one crazy buyer who leaves negative for no good reason.  If you the seller handle things right 99% of the time the buyer is gonna leave good feedback.

[Eel O'Brian]

I ship my stuff same or next day 99% of the time.  It's usually packed and ready to go when I list it, and I print my postage right off the Paypal site, which automatically sends an email to the buyer letting them know the item has been shipped.  And STILL,  half the time I get an email or question "WHERE'S MY STUFF" a day or so later.  I have the feeling a lot of people seem to think that once you win an auction the stuff should get teleported to them that minute.  And, I also get the feeling some of them would leave negative feedback because of that impatience.  The only thing holding them back is the knowledge that I could respond in kind.  Now no one can let others know which buyers are assholes and not worth the hassle of an exchange.  That certainly seems fair.

Buyers can certainly be assholes, myself included.  Just search around the net on the deal forums and take a look at all the threads on how to scam free/discounted stuff out of online or brick and mortar stores via ad misprints, typos in descriptions, etc.  I mean, the fatwallet bunch BRAGS about this shit.  You don't think they're going to apply those same tactics to ebay, expecially now that there is no retaliatory recourse for the seller?

Also, for a small number of these transactions paid with PayPal, when eBay suspects the transaction may result in a dissatisfied customer, PayPal will delay release of the payment funds to the seller until the buyer has left a positive feedback or 21 days have passed without a dispute.

So, basically, someone can bid, take your stuff, and ebay can arbitrarily decide to hold your money for almost a month unless you beg them to leave positive feedback.  And if there is a dispute, the buyer could end up with your stuff AND a refund.  This looks like a foolproof plan that no one will take advantage of!

Yeah, fuck ebay.

[Tigerriot]

I'll tell you when I said "fuck Ebay" once and for all.


I bought a 360 right after launch with the sole intention of selling it on Ebay.  Already had my own unit.  So I listed it, and some dude bid about $100 over the retail price.  I sent it off with tracking, but no signature required.  BIG FUCKING MISTAKE.


A week later the dude emails me asking where the item was.  I check the postal service site to see a confirmation that it was delivered a couple days earlier at his address.  It even had an exact time stamp.

I proceed to tell him this in an email, and he responds with something like "Didn't get it.  Please claim insurance".  That was his entire email response.  So I question him back "Are you sure you didn't get it?  Did you check with neighbors?"  That kind of thing.  This idiot responds with a very similarly short email saying "No, no one got it.  Please claim insurance".  I was like WTF? 


So I stopped responding to him.  He didn't email me for like 10 days.  Suddenly he emails me again out of nowhere demanding I claim the insurance again. I still thought this dude was full of shit.  So I never did claim the insurance which I had purchased when I sent it to him.  The way he responded was so weird, and so brief with the details that there was no way I was jumping though hoops for him when his behavior and the fact that the package was tracked to delivery at his house. 

So a month or two later I get a call from Paypal saying his idiot didn't call Paypal or Ebay.  No, he called his credit card company.  Once again he handled it in a weird manner.  Instead he got his credit card company to dispute the charge, which then got Paypal questioning me.  Basically when it was all said and done, because I hadn't shipped the item REQURING A SIGNATURE they sided with him.  I was fucking shocked.  In the end I ended up having to pay back Paypal for that 360 I sent him.  I lost $500.


In the end I think this guy knew what he was doing, and he knew that paypal/Ebay's policy states that if an item is valued over $250 and the shipper doesn't require a signature, they can basically claim they never got it and get a full refund.  Ebay will side with the buyer in that situation.  Even though I had a postal service time stamp saying it got delivered to his door.  That wasn't good enough.  He won.


Even crazier, a year or more later I'm playing Guitar Hero 2 and I see the name "MannyFresh 1" listed in the high scores for a song.  I recognize the name immediately as the same Ebay name of the asshole who bought the 360 from me.  I immediately send him a message over Xbox Live saying "Did you buy your 360 on Ebay"?  He replies with this incredibly short "No.  Bought it in store" reply.  It was almost the exact same kind of response I got from the dude in the emails.  Then I sent him another Live message saying "Are you sure you didn't buy that from Ebay, I thought I remember selling you one".  and he again replies "No, bought it in store.".  I was nearly positive this was the exact same motherfucker who I sold that 360 to, and sure enough he's playing it online now.  His Live profile even began right around the time I sold him the system.