For those unfamiliar with what a feedback rating on eBay entails, here's a quickie. Each buyer and seller on eBay can leave feedback (positive, neutral, or negative) about the other party in the transaction. The feedback rating is the sum of all feedback transactions (one per eBayer), with positive feedback counting +1, neutral feedback counting 0, and negative feedback counting -1. The positive feedback percentage is the number of positive feedbacks divided by the sum of positive and negative feedbacks.
I currently have 100% positive feedback on eBay. This means that no one has ever given me negative feedback as either a buyer or seller. Keeping a 100% positive feedback rating is like making perfect attendance in school, though. It only takes one day sick to lose it.
I've been screwed over on eBay a few times, pretty badly in some cases. Most recently, someone bought a few magazines from my store and has not paid for them. This results in cost to me because the transaction is done as far as eBay is concerned, so they charge me the final value fee for those items. I could file a non-paying bidder complaint with eBay (which I'll probably do). I can also choose to leave him negative feedback.
However, that buyer can also leave me negative feedback. Even though he's the one at fault. Even though I would have followed through with the transaction had he paid. These things don't matter. A negative is a negative, regardless of how it's earned or not earned.
This seller would have absolutely nothing to lose by leaving me a negative. Thing is, my buyer did the same thing to another seller who does not have 100% positive feedback — it's “only” 99.9% positive. That seller dished out forty-six negative feedback comments. I've never seen that much red on one page. If I did the same to the seller, the seller might say, “Eh. What's one more?” I, on the other hand, would say, “That's my first negative!”
I honestly think something happened to the guy or something else is wrong, and I'm giving him a lot of leeway.
So I'm extremely reluctant to call out people with negative comments. I'd rather not say anything at all instead of say something bad for risk of losing my 100%. It's almost a sure thing that I'll eventually lose this, because:
- I'm not going to quit using eBay.
- I can't please everyone. Bending over backwards only goes so far. Some people can't be pleased, and some people make it SOP to complain to get a better deal.
- I'll make a mistake. I'm human, and I might screw up an unforgiving customer's transaction.
- Someone else will make a mistake. The folks that are transporting the goods could lose it. This has happened a couple of times. If the buyer can't get mad at the post office, they might take it out on me.
Overall, a negative isn't the end of the world. It happens to the best eBayers. But I'll hold onto it as long as I can. 😉
Update: The buyer was suspended by eBay today, so the feedback issue for this buyer doesn't matter anymore. Not only does eBay prevent the suspended user from commenting, it takes down recent comments from that user.
I have bent over backwards for a buyer. I bought the pin code for him to unlock a phone I sold him, that cut off the price of the my revenue, but I got really good positive feedback.
Still at 100%
Your post illustrates what I view as a major shortcoming in ebays feedback system. People do not provide honest feedback because they are concerned about receiving negative feedback in retaliation. When I was new to ebay I did business with someone who had 96% positive feedback, which sounded good to me. When he shafted me, I left negative feedback. He retaliated and I ended up with a feedback rating of negative one. I ended up starting over with a new handle.
I found that it is more helpful to me to look at the feedback a person has left for others than to look at the feedback that others have left for a person.
I now do not consider doing business with anyone with feedback less than 98% and would prefer better than 99% feedback. I also look to see whether they have a pattern of leaving retaliatory feedback and will not do business with them if they do.
Ebays feedback system would be far more helpful if they came up with a method to protect consumers from retaliatory feedback.
As a buyer i didn't have any bad deal, but as a seller i had 2 guys that won my auctions and then told me they didn't want to pay. I stroked them with a non paying dispute. I didn't receive negative feedback.
Yes, this is definitely an issue. I have maintained 100% positive so far, but I know that a negative will be coming sooner or later because some people are just jerks. But at one point I will lose my Negative Feedback Virginity, and it will sting for a bit, but from then on it won't be such a big deal.
On the other hand, I have encountered people with feedback in the thousands who are still at 100%. It seems that eBay will indeed round up to 100% if you have a couple of negatives but an overwhelming number of positives. Just looking through my own feedback, I can find people with the following scores:
7654+, 3- : 100%
2037+, 0- : 100%
3731+, 1- : 100%
2135+, 1- : 100%
So far, I've done whatever it takes. I just accepted a return 60 days after a purchase just to get good feedback.
PaulD: Yes that's an issue. I think many new eBay users don't know this, and I wonder if this is why experienced users won't allow bids (or ask for contact before a bid) by a new user.
Gaming the Credit System: Ahh, so eBay rounds up. Didn't know that!
I wouldn't worry about it so much, really.
The only time I got negative feedback was for a sale that didn't actually happen–I had some things listed on Half.com–and feedback shows up on both seller pages, despite the sales processes being nothing alike. Half.com sold my (one) CD to two different buyers at the exact same instant. When I complained about it, they assured me the transaction was a technical error and hadn't actually happened. I never received money from either "buyer", but I sent them both an email saying they were free to try to buy it again (I included the email I'd received from Ebay in response to my complaint). The CD was sold the next day to a totally separate third party.
Two MONTHS later, I got negative feedback from one of the people who initially tried to purchase the CD. She never tried to contact me, and when I pointed out that I'd never received payment for anything, she emailed "Yeah, I thought it was a little strange that the money never left my account." Yet she still expected to get the CD, apparently, and so left me negative feedback. Ebay refused to delete it, despite their original email that the transaction hadn't happened and feedback wouldn't be an issue. I've continued to buy and sell on ebay since then, and have had no repercussions for that one piece of negative feedback–my 99.9% score seems enough to convince most people I'm of my word.
One thing that novice Ebayers need to understand is that feedback is not everything–as a seller, I will not leave feedback for a buyer until they've left it for me. I have no other way to know for sure that they received their item in good condition in a way that meets their expectations. I am not holding their feedback hostage, I simply will wait until I know they're satisfied before giving up my last word on the transaction. As a buyer, I leave feedback for a seller immediately upon receiving the item (if there's a problem, I contact them first). In neither situation do I ask the other party to leave feedback for me. While feedback is something that helped Ebay become what it was, there are too many problems with the situation to justify the concern some people give it, IMO.
I bent over backwards for my clients, but it didn't matter. Neutrals turned into negatives May 19, 2008 — and was retroactive. My perfect score diminished along with my reputation. It's not safe to sell on eBay anymore. I got out. There are lots of other options like Amazon, Etsy, and RubyLane.
Best wishes!