Ebay sellers can no longer give negative or neutral feedbacks to their buyers

I think it's bad. Some buyers are a real pain to deal with. I had one that I kept giving my mailing address to, because she kept asking for it to send my payment. Of course anyone familiar with ebay knows when you buy an item the invoice has where to send your payments right on it. They had some setting messed up that blocked emails from ebay. Then after five emails that I returned and only 2 days since the item ended that person left me a negative feedback stating they couldn't get my mailing address to send my payment and I gave no response. I had to put my phone number as the response to her feedback and stated I had been sending emails and to call me. She called and we got it straightened out, but that negative haunted me for a long time until ebay recently made it so negatives that were from so long ago would be deleated. She said she would tell ebay to take out her negative feedback but she didn't know how I guess so it stayed. It was when I only had about 50 so It really messed up my business and I did have a decline in sales for a while after that. I didn't leave her negative feedback...It was neutral but I was been nice thinking she was going to get my negative deleted. I think that if the buyer doesn't pay it should definately be a negative feedback. I have had a couple that never paid, but I do think that there should be a wait for the person to pay before they are allowed to leave negative feedback on both sides. Give it the chance to work it out.

Hello Jemina, It takes two to Tango. It also takes, at least, two to enact a sales transaction. Buyers and sellers should be able to rate each other, since one is powerless without the other. While there are seller abuses, there are also buyer abuses! This change leaves future sellers 'blind' to be able to avoid scam buyers. Bad move, Ebay!!!

I just noticed that a day or two ago, and I think it makes it difficult for buyers to spot when there's a bad seller. I agree, you do need to know their reputation, as before. I suppose it tempts mischievous people to stir up trouble for sellers at times, but just the same, I do like to know who I'm dealing with. I guess that in future, I'll stick to the ones I've used before, and whose reputations I'm aware of. Brightest Blessings, my friend.

Well to me it is kind of a bad idea. Espically if you have never recived the product that you payed for or if you couldn't get it to work. Or if it was a book that you ordered and it is marked through. I started buying more from Amazon myself. The items that I have ordered from there have seemed great so far.

Hello Jemina. I think the changes that eBay did are unique. For example your feedback percentage is done by the transactions that you received positive feedback in the last twelve months. And sellers can no longer leave negative feedback. That's good because some sellers reply back when they receive negative feedback. The idea of it is to provide good service and if not they'll get negative feedback. It's always good to leave a note with the item when shipped "if you're not happy I'm not happy. Please contact me before leaving negative feedback". I would imagine that would help a lot, plus some people don't pay the auction so it's not good in that way the seller can't leave negative feedbcak. Have a wonderful day. Pablo

This is very interesting. If a person does not pay in advance they should not receive any merchandise. There really should be no need for a seller to give negative feedback to a buyer though.

It is not bad. I suppose nobody should be entitled to mark a customer as 'Good' or 'Bad'! After all why will customers visit eBay when there are so many alternative eCommerce websites offering similar services with the fear that they might be awarded with negative feedback!!!

Personally this could be an Excellent idea as there were many people tending to abuse the system there just like in here, and if people are not wanting to be Honest then why should a site like that have that feature. Now it could hurt when someone is not following up to the end of their Auction but at the same time this way no one can just rate you, etc. just because they do not like you as well.

Personally I feel that it is important to be able to know the history of either party wherever possible. The last thing a seller wants to do is unknowingly deal with a buyer that has a history of non-payment or something! A buyer has this right so should the seller! All I can assume is that the ratings system was being abused?

A few years ago I was ripped off by a woman I bought some clothes from. She ripped me off with postage so I gave her a 'neutral' said why in the comment and praised other points of the transaction. She not only gave me a negative but she went off her brain at me in her comment and warned eveyone not to deal with me. That really spoiled things for me and I have since had some other negative experiences mostly involving excess postage so now, I rarely go there. I used to really enjoy checking things out on eBay too.

I'm not so sure I agree with this tactic. I never give out negative feedback unwarranted on ebay, though I know many do. As a seller, one way I protected myself from buyers who were quick to hit the negative button was to NOT post my feedback until they posted theirs. One of the reasons was because I didn't know they received an item until they posted feedback. That way, also, if someone posted a negative, I had at least some power to say something. I hope that if a buyer is unhappy, they will email me, and I can follow up and make them happy. But sometimes they go right to the negative. Giving me that last say offered me some protection from that. Now I have nothing to go on. Any buyer can drop a negative and I have no last word, except to refrain from feedback at all. It puts ALL the power into the buyers hands when it comes to feedback, and I don't think it's really fair.

I really think that this is a bad idea. It would cause a lot of buyers to renege on their bid which is disadvantageous to the seller. Its a reality that there are just very bad buyers out there and I have been with ebay for sometime to really know this. However, this maybe be ebay's way of protecting the buyers and upholding the 'the customers always right' principle in customer service. Ebay is indeed trying to be more buyer friendly.

I think it was stupid move on the part of ebay. It makes things too one-sided. There can be problems with buyers and sellers. I think given the fact people can't deal in person for these items, all grounds should be covered to protect everyone involved. Taking away the feedback about a buyer, takes away some of the protection for a seller and for future sellers who may deal with a problem customer.

I am getting sick of eBay with all the fees and format changes. I agree that seller's should be able to leave negative feedback. Luckily, we (my husband and I both sell off of one account) have only had 1 negative rating and that was before the change in the rating system. I think there are a lot of bad buyers out there. We had one buyer that didn't want his item insured over the amount that ups offers with the paid shipment. We shipped the item and about two weeks later there was a paypal claim, the buyer claimed the item was broken. Buyer never contacted us about it, yet there was not a return policy offerred (it was when I first started selling and didn't fill that part in). Paypal told the buyer to ship us back the item and do it with 10 days. After 10 days we contacted paypal and they closed the claim because the buyer had stopped contacting them as well. The buyer left negative feedback. We had the exact same problem with another buyer, and it ended the same way, but the buyer was contacting us before the auction was over asking us to pull the auction and let him rent the item. At the time we didn't know we could easily end the auction. Do I think it's good for sellers not to be able to leave negative feedback? NO!!! Because now buyers can leave negative feedback just because they want to, not because the transaction was bad, and there isn't anything that the seller can do to let other sellers know. Sorry just wanted to rant about eBay since you brought up the question.

I've often seen sellers withhold feedback until the buyer leaves it first. If the buyer is unhappy and leaves negative feedback, then the seller retaliates and leaves negative too. If the buyer doesn't want that negative feed back it leaves them in the position of either leaving NO feedback on the seller or making up something positive. The other side of that is now sellers cannot forewarn other sellers of a buyer that does not pay or they otherwise have problems with them. The feedback system is good in theory but it's not working very well. I'm not sure blocking sellers from leaving negative or neutral feedback is the answer though.

I frequent the ebay uk forums and i've noticed a trend starting on there, since this stupid idea was put into place buyers have started placing bids for auctions but then telling the seller " sorry i no longer want the item " and the seller can do nothing about it just accept it and put in a npb, there are also buyers who are not blackmailing sellers into giving money back for goods and getting to keep the goods and they are coming out of the woodwork by the hundreds. What ebay have done is hurt the small sellers, people who maybe sell a few items from their house that they no longer want or old toys that the kids no longer want, the powersellers and business sellers will be able to take a few negs each week because 10 negs compared to 90 positives is nothing to them and if 9 of those 10 negs are fraudulent or blackmail anyway they don't care but the little sellers can not take hits like that and when ebay are suspending you for 30 days if you get too many negs and you dsr's are not great then your stuffed. I have read somewhere that someone from ebay has said they want to get rid of all the hobby sellers so that eventually they can just have business sellers on there, now to me that is the most stupidest thing that ebay could possibly do the small sellers are what made that site and if they kick them out the small sellers will also kill the site, there are other oportunities out there and other sites for sellers to go and sell on so once they are kicked off they will go elsewhere and so will the buyers. Ebay really are being run by a bunch of idiots

it's a bad,bad idea. i think they did that because some people were just leaving bad messages to be trolls,but that leaves no way of warning people when they do have a legitimate gripe.

I don't think it is fair. What if the transaction was horrible? Even if the buyer has a good reputation, there's always a possibility that he would make a bad transaction this time. And to be able to give an honest feedback is crucial for other ebay members, to notify them about certain members that they should look out for.

I do not think it is fair and I buy and sell on ebay. I once had 1 negative feedback from a buyer who bought from me, he took forever to send his money order to me - past the time I stated in my auction, but I left him positive feedback anyway. Well, I shipped his item, packed it securely, bought insurance and all that. It arrived broken on his end and he contacted me. I issued him a refund and he kept the item. Really all he had to do was glue the foot back on the figurine - a woman that was a planter, and then you would never even be able to tell that it had been broken. Well, he still left me negative feedback after all that. I think that buyers should definately be able to leave negative feedback if it is warranted. That has been my only negative feedback in 8 years at ebay and now with the new system I am back to 100% positive - yay!! But, yeah still we should be able to leave negative as well.

I'm not a fan of this new system, but as a family that buys more than they sell, I like that I can give sellers anegative when it's deserved, and not have to worry about a retalitory negative. I recently bought an item from a seller that claimed to ship via Priority mail and charged $5.50 for this service. The item arrive in a plain bubble-mailer, with a $1.57 postage tag on it. The seller didn't even purchase delivery confirmation. I don't think you need more than 1 guess to figure out what kind of feedback he received and it wasn't the first feedback he had claiming to be gouging the buyers on shipping. As a seller, if the buyer doesn't pay, then they'll receive a NPB and I belive it's still 3 NPB claims and you're out. If the buyer took forever to pay, then I'll either not give a feedback or if they leave me feedback, I'll leave him a negative comment with on a positive feedback- just so future sellers are warned. I really do think that Ebay had many, many sellers leaving retalitory negative feedback and this was Ebay's way of fixing the problem.