Feedback on e-bay. Fair or not?

[Spitfire]

Just won an item on e-bay. Payed the seller within 10 minutes after I won.
Then I waited for the item to arrive from UK to Denmark.
(Should not take more than 2-3 days. 4 at the most)

I waited a week and then I emailed the seller asking him (very politely) when he planned to ship the item out.
Got the answere: This week.
Waited till the end of the week - Still nothing.
Another email from me asking again - and again very politely - when I could expect my item to arrive.
No answere.
A new email the next day triggered an answere, that his system had been down but the item was on its way.

When I left my feedback I said "Neutral" and wrote "Nice items - slow postage"
And then I had a feedback thrown back at me: "Neutral" - "Below average buyer".
Is it "below average" to pay within 10 minutes?
Is it "below average" to ask for your item two weeks after the deal is done?
Or is it just a seller who can not accept a neutral feedback?

 

[Samsa]

Or is it just a seller who can not accept a neutral feedback?

Yep, I'd say that's it.

 

[Vintage Betty]

I agree. The seller is spiteful and should just be placed on your blocked list. You can appeal the rating, or simply explain yourself with a comment below his.

Something like: Spiteful seller: Paid in 10 minutes, seller didn't ship for 3 weeks.

Your call.

Vintage Betty

 

[Tomasso]

.When I left my feedback I said "Neutral" and wrote "Nice items - slow postage"

I probably would have left a "positive" with "Nice items - slow postage". That is if he had an otherwise stellar history.

.
And then I had a feedback thrown back at me: "Neutral" - "Below average buyer".

Now I'd be wanting to change my feedback to a big fat NEGATIVE. :rage:

 

[Feraud]

The feedback you received was extremely unfair.
I was in the exact same position last December. I paid within minutes of the auction closing. The seller took three weeks to ship the item and never bothered to reply to my two emails asking if the item had shipped.
Ebay can be a childish place to do business.

 

[ScionPI2005]

Or is it just a seller who can not accept a neutral feedback?

That's definitely it. I know that there have been several discussions on here about sellers on ebay that seem to use the feedback system as bribery for positive feedback.

In other words, some sellers will NOT leave a buyer positive feedback unless positive feedback is left for them first. Obviously, once the buyer pays for their item promptly, their obligation as a buyer is done. That's just plain wrong and goes against good form of integrity. I always try to avoid sellers that seem to operate on that principle.

 

[Vintage Betty]

That's definitely it. I know that there have been several discussions on here about sellers on ebay that seem to use the feedback system as bribery for positive feedback.

In other words, some sellers will NOT leave a buyer positive feedback unless positive feedback is left for them first. Obviously, once the buyer pays for their item promptly, their obligation as a buyer is done. That's just plain wrong and goes against good form of integrity. I always try to avoid sellers that seem to operate on that principle.

There's always two or more sides to every discussion.

I used to always leave feedback first...until a buyer tried to extort me. Now I just wait and bide my time. I have enough feedback that I don't care if someone leaves it for me or not.

Vintage Betty

 

[PrettySquareGal]

Some of these reasons are why ebay will only allow sellers to leave a buyer positive feedback. Not sure when that starts, or if it has started.

 

[Dixon Cannon]

My strict rule on eBay is, never, never, ever leave feedback for a seller until they are courteous enough to thank you for your patronage by leaving positive feedback for you. Any seller that doesn't thank me for coming into their "store" gets no feedback from me at all.

Leaving anything but positive feedback for a seller first only leaves oneself wide open to retaliatory and spiteful remarks from ungrateful sellers who are only fishing for positive feedback despite the quality of their service.

Beware sellers - the customer is King!

-dixon cannon

 

[Vintage Betty]

--snip--

Any seller that doesn't thank me for coming into their "store" gets no feedback from me at all.

Out of curiousity, what forms of thank you are acceptable to you? Is a pre-printed Paypal invoice with a thank you acceptable? Is positive feedback acceptable? A hand-written note? It's hard to convey a "tone" via printed word, but I am sincere in wanting to know this.

I have sent out hundreds of hand-written thank yous over the years, but not once did anyone say anything. I stopped doing the hand-written thank yous, and found the feedback was exactly the same.

Just curious-

Vintage Betty

 

[pgoat]

That's a shame, spitfire. You really did the right thing; that was a neutral transaction.

But I'll be honest, I usually leave a positive unless someone really does me over.

One nice thing is you can now rate the xaction with a five star system - it's anonymous so there's no back-stabbing. In this case you could have left a positive for the seller, but then anonymously gave separate ratings in categories such as merchandise (where you'd probably have given five out of five stars) and shipping speed (where you'd zap them with one of five.).

This should work out better because the seller will get the message that people are not happy with certain aspects of their business, while they are not getting a bad feedback rating for that one aspect.

Again, I give negatives very sparingly and then only for egregious transgressions - broken or grossly misrepresented items, no payment, etc etc.

 

[pgoat]

My strict rule on eBay is, never, never, ever leave feedback for a seller until they are courteous enough to thank you for your patronage by leaving positive feedback for you. Any seller that doesn't thank me for coming into their "store" gets no feedback from me at all.

Leaving anything but positive feedback for a seller first only leaves oneself wide open to retaliatory and spiteful remarks from ungrateful sellers who are only fishing for positive feedback despite the quality of their service.

Beware sellers - the customer is King!

-dixon cannon

I agree. I have a 100% rating, mostly for sales (except for a few old hats purchased here and there ) and I have Worked at it! Pretty much any problems can be ironed out with a little effort and concientiousness.

 

[pgoat]

Out of curiousity, what forms of thank you are acceptable to you? Is a pre-printed Paypal invoice with a thank you acceptable? Is positive feedback acceptable? A hand-written note? It's hard to convey a "tone" via printed word, but I am sincere in wanting to know this.

I have sent out hundreds of hand-written thank yous over the years, but not once did anyone say anything. I stopped doing the hand-written thank yous, and found the feedback was exactly the same.

Just curious-

Vintage Betty

I should add I have bent over backwards to be courteous - maybe a third of the other half will respond, let alone reciprocate, but I won't let it stop me. It does get discouraging at times, though. I now have less than 400 ratings while I have given over 500 out. Something is wrong with that picture. I basically never forget to leave feedback.

 

[Josephine]

I'm opening a can of worms, but what the hey...

Leaving anything but positive feedback for a seller first only leaves oneself wide open to retaliatory and spiteful remarks from ungrateful sellers who are only fishing for positive feedback despite the quality of their service.

The other side of the coin:

Leaving anything but positive feedback for a buyer first only leaves oneself wide open to retaliatory and spiteful remarks from ungrateful buyers who are only fishing for free/inexpensive merchandise despite the quality of a seller's goods.

It's a no win situation.

 

[cookie]

Leaving anything but positive feedback for a seller first only leaves oneself wide open to retaliatory and spiteful remarks from ungrateful sellers who are only fishing for positive feedback despite the quality of their service.

Beware sellers - the customer is King!

-dixon cannon

Aint' that the truth

 

[Spitfire]

I agree. The seller is spiteful and should just be placed on your blocked list. You can appeal the rating, or simply explain yourself with a comment below his.

Something like: Spiteful seller: Paid in 10 minutes, seller didn't ship for 3 weeks.

Your call.

Vintage Betty

Thank you all - that's exactly what I did. (Add a comment, that is) Not that I really care about the ratingsystem - just do not want to be yelled at.:rage:

 

[Smithy]

Sounds like the other person got sour grapes when you were honest Spitty.

Adding a comment like Betty suggested would be a good idea.

And you were totally in the right to email the seller and ask what was going on. You had the decency to send payment immediately to the seller, the least he/she could have done was repaid your promptness by getting off their chuff and sending your item to you as soon as possible.

 

[SarahLouise]

Leaving anything but positive feedback for a seller first only leaves oneself wide open to retaliatory and spiteful remarks from ungrateful sellers who are only fishing for positive feedback despite the quality of their service.

Exactly. It's unfortunate that when sellers (or even buyers in some cases) receive neutral or negative feedback due to bad service feel the need to be catty and give the other person the same feedback. It's pathetic and shows you what type of person they are. I have also heard of the "no negative" feedback policy that Ebay are going to introduce but don't know much about it.

Many years ago I had a buyer leave me negative feedback after a few days of winning an auction when she hadn't even PAID for it yet! It's irritating to have your positive feedback tarnished but in most cases that person will have lots of negative feedback and you won't so that speaks for itself. You also have the option of mutually withdrawing it which doesn't affect your rating but still remains on your profile.

I'm weary of leaving negative feedback now because of this situation. I'm making a point of not leaving feedback for a particular auction I won a while back. I was stupid for buying from this person as their feedback wasn't great but I was after a certain Carmen Miranda print and I couldn't find it anywhere else so took the risk. Again, this seller kept lying as to when they had posted it but didn't answer emails the majority of the time and when they did it was literally one word answers. They didn't post it until 2 months after I bought it (from the UK which is appalling) but I've noticed that whenever they receive negative feedback they "return the favour" by giving a negative back. It's so ridiculous!

 

[BAZ]

Ebay's NEW rules are that sellers can ONLY leave POSITIVE feedback for BUYERS!!
Now, THIS is unfair IMO.
I sell quite a bit, but I also BUY a lot!!
I'm fair, and in some cases if I feel I CAN'T leave positive feedback, then I just WON'T leave feedback.
Why would I put myself in spitfires position?
Some of the "ebay" community, are the LOWEST of the low: ill mannered, rude, obnoxious etc.
If a seller CAN'T warn OTHERS about them, then "they" will win in the end!!
I say boycott ebay after May.

 

[pgoat]

I say boycott ebay after May.

I hate to say it but I am leaning that way too.

I had had pretty good luck on there for several years, but I've had lots more deadbeat buyers in the last year or so. It's getting to be more trouble than it's worth lately....