Too much power can be a bad thing, buyers can now extort far more in their threats of bad feedback, to the sellers’ detriment should they refuse to give in.

I had a buyer wanting me to send free goods in return for good feedback rather than return an item she was unhappy with, she had already purchased the second item before she asked. PS support gave advice throughout but they could not guarantee to remove bad FB if she left it.

I totally agree with Whirly simplicity is key.

In this case Paypal were not involved as he never claimed anything, JUST A NEG for us as we stood up for our rights.

However, Ebay did nothing to to assist & allowed the feedback to stand. Even though what was written was factually incorrect!!……….

* NEVER thought I’d see myself write that

A customer said to us recently ‘don’t tell me your T&C, I don’t care, I will not return the item for credit, I just want my money back. I don’t care if you don’t believe me, as I know how ebay works’.

Sadly, that about sums it up…On ebay the buyer is king & is wholly supported by ebay. The seller is treated as the ‘less than honest trader’ and although paying good (and High) fees to ebay, support is not really there when needed.

Banging up the profits eh, ebay!!!!

ebay can do these things if they have the will
such as paying in cash is just about a thing of the past now

leaving a neg for a buyer never acheived anything ,other than the possibility ,that buyer never spent its money on ebay again

Remove sellers ability to set out there own T&C’s, make a standard T&C rule that applies to all sellers based on the DSR rules that apply in the UK. Paypal only or checkout with CC payment facility. Standard return rules across the board.
i.e every purchase that is made on ebay uk has the same T&C’s. Buyers cannot be arsed with all this nonsense.

The reason why I ask it that I recently felt obliged to refund – in full – a buyer from Belarus, who first claimed that they hadn’t received their item (sent Royal Mail International Signed-for) then once that didn’t work, left outrageous feedback about the item being in poor quality, used condition.

I was flabbergasted when I saw their remarks, but they almost took my arm off when I said, “Look, I give you the item for free and refund your post if you remove those comments” (This was an Amazon sale, by the way).

Do you think that there are a lot of buyers in Eastern countries trying it on?

Indeed, simplicity is the ultimate sophistication

IMHO, getting rid of negs for buyers was a necessary move (unfortunately). Once they’d done that, they should have stopped.

The old Positive, Neutral , negative with a short comment worked well for years. it took no time to do as little more than a thank you between seller and buyer.

As long as the buyer knows they can have the money back if they aint happy then the battle is won.

While we have a situation where a seller’s livelihood can be fatally damaged by subjective, arbitrary feedback, the niceties of statistical analysis are a distant second in sellers’ minds.

Feedback was suposed to be all about transparency – to enable buyers to make informed decisions. That’s still valid but is now largely being ignored in eBay’s rush to cull any sellers that don’t fit their latest business model.

It was always unwise for any seller to rely on ebay for the majority of their income, now it’s more akin to posting an assisted suicide note.

I say this even though we’re currently TRS, which demonstrates just how precarious selling on eBay has become.

eBay are fixated on this “buyer rating the seller” thingy and are trying to be too clever by half to come up the ‘optimum’ rating system – their holy grail. It’s just far too detailed and anal for most web savvy regular online buyers! This is like death by a thousand MBA’s …