Removal of Negative Feedback from eBay.

[Flying10uk]

Have any other Forum members had a bad experience with an eBay seller, left negative Feedback, only to have it removed later by eBay? I ask because I recently had a bad experience with with a eBay seller and without getting into details, which I don't wish to do, I ended up leaving negative Feedback in an effort to warn others. The seller then contacted me and offered me incentives if I was to remove it but they didn't say exactly what they were prepared to offer me. They went onto say that if I didn't accept their offer they would get in touch with eBay themselves and get the negative Feedback removed. After a little thought I contacted them to say that I would be declining their offer because I wasn't happy with the level of service which I received from them.

I looked on eBay today and low-and-behold my negative Feedback has disappeared and eBay hasn't contacted me to ask me for my side of the story. What is the point of having Feedback if the other party can get it removed without the person who left it being consulted on the matter?

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[#1oilman]

I always ask buyers to contact me to resolve any issues before leaving negative feed back, I recently sold a vintage shot shell box on e-bay,I take great pains with photos and in giving accurate descriptions yet I find many readers don't get beyond the first line.The buyer contacted me to say the item was not as described, I told him no problem,refunded his money and told him to keep the item.He still left negative feedback, once an a hole always an a hole. There are more nut cases on e-bay than in al the asylums combined

[Flying10uk]

I only left the negative feedback after waiting for more than 3 weeks to receive everything that I had paid for and got countless broken promises from the seller.

[cipherk98]

I had two my entire eBay career. One was very early when a guy attempted to scam me by swapping parts on a very expensive camera... back then I was too new and scared to press the issue or escalate the situation with eBay, and as he hadn't made a SNAD claim I just took my lumps and left it alone rather than go down that road; their feedback record with a long list of negatives for people they bought from told me all I needed to know (literally half their transactions), the sooner I was done dealing with them the better. That negative was very damaging as I only had about 40 transactions under my belt at that time but I recovered quite nicely.

The second was an alleged screw up by their global shipping program. I used to do a ton of business to Russia (when the exchange rate was good) and SEA, particularly China. I used to just ship it to whatever forwarding service the customer wanted but went to use the GSP to make it easier for them. Ship it to eBay, they repackage, handle customs, and cover the item from there. All I have to do is get it to them as described. Well I sold a real nice, rare Fujica that was mint and practically new to a buyer in China, shipped it off as normal. Had actually used it a few times myself before selling it. Three weeks later, 8 days after they got it, they open a SNAD claim saying it was damaged in shipping and showed some picture of it in a box with paper wrapping, a ding on the pentaprism and dent on the filter ring. If eBay GSP packed it that way shame on them. At any rate, despite my claim this was GSP's fault, they ruled against me, and he neg'd me anyway saying I lied about the condition and didn't pack it right (hmm, see where this is going?).

I flipped out when I saw I lost the case (and $200, immediately), and spent 90 minutes on hold with eBay waiting for a rep and then another half hour with a person, but in the end they agreed it should have been covered under GSP terms from the start, should never have been allowed to escalate to a SNAD, removed the negative feedback, and refunded the refund... weirdly the camera showed up at my doorstep about 3 months later, with obvious signs of it having been dropped onto pavement or hardwood but whatever. I doubt eBay tried to maliciously make me eat the cost of this scam rather than themselves just because I don't think they had anyone familiar enough with the equipment to evaluate from a photo it was fall damage and not shipping. Still had the fact the claim was opened count against me for a year though.

So long and short, yes you can get it removed. They SHOULD only do it if it is a TOS violation. The first case would likely have not been removed as it was "he said she said". The second was removed as the seller left me a negative due to the item being damaged in shipping by GSP, not me, which is not something they can leave a negative for as it was GSP's fault it got "damaged in shipping", not mine. In theory any attacks on a person's character should be removed... I've seen creative ways around that rule. I sold probably 1000+ items and if I only ever had two people that unhappy I guess I did okay - I can think of two instances where I ate the cost of an item because I missed up and didn't check something and it was DOA but both times the people left glowing feedback. Main reason I stopped selling was I couldn't get stuff at good prices anymore and it was just too hard to make enough for it to be worth my time when eBay and Paypal are eating up 13.5%

As my buying time, only two times I ever left a negative: first was an item that just never shipped, not sure what happened but seller stopped responding after a week. Other is when I bought an obscure computer part as new, and not only was it obviously used but it had a broken serial connector from being removed improperly. Seller wanted me to ship it back to China at my expense despite it shipping to me from Cali. Yeah, no. Got eBay involved after they refused to budge and got a rather nasty email back after eBay ruled in my favor. I will say in general I don't buy optics on there anymore, I was winding up a bit disappointed way too often but never enough to bother dealing with it. Still buy other things though.

The big thing is eBay makes nice with big volume sellers. They don't care about people like me who yeah, I was making good money at it, but at the end of the day was a tiny percentage to them. I might sell 200-300 items per year at reasonable figures, but they've always chased the big anonymous drop shippers and wholesalers who sell a quarter million $1 items a year. Since everything is percentage based they can have 100 negs a month and at that volume it doesn't matter. The service goals and benefits along with fee structure are gauged to these people, most small sellers can not sustain more than 2-3 one star ratings, cases, or 1-2 negatives at the volumes they sell. They cater to the top 10% of sellers rather than the people who built the company and made up 90% of the transactions. Wouldn't shock me if they look at requests to remove negatives a bit less critically for these people despite them being the ones who can most "afford" it again as they are the seller eBay wants and judging by what I see on there now, is mostly the seller eBay has anymore.

[CINDERS]

Been there done that, I had a tosser I tried to contact 4 times over a 10 day period over payment for the item they purchased received no reply's left Neg feed so re-listed the item he was onto me in a flash and left Neg feed but the feedback remains there it just says on your feedback "retracted by mutual consent" so like facebook it stays well at least on my account its the only one there since joining in Sept 2004

[cipherk98]

I forgot about retracting it... I can't even remember if you can still do that for any reason other than a mistake.

[Aragorn243]

Last time I wanted to give someone negative feedback, I had do jump through so many hoops I just gave up. Wasn't worth the effort. Years ago I left one or two with no difficulties, mostly for non-delivered items. Now with ebays guarantees, not much point, you get your money back no matter what. Never received a negative myself. Haven't done a lot of selling, none in years actually. Used to sell autographed NASCAR hero cards.

[RT Ellis]

I haven't had the experience of negative feedback in a long time, but haven't done much buying or selling in a long time. I appealed to eBay regarding a negative feedback that after providing the information of the circumstances three times the eBay customer service slugs couldn't figure out the issue. Anyway not long afterwards eBay scrubbed all negative feedbacks, at least from my account, apparently as a forgiveness and reset sort of program.

I've been scammed by both sellers and on one occasion a buyer, but my experience with feedback is so jaundiced I just passed it off as the hazards of doing business with people, and felt no obligation to post any comments. It is clear that some people take feedback very seriously and need to calm down.

I don't feel obligated to leave any feedback for a transaction that is completed without any problems, that's the way it's supposed to go. I get "reminders" from sellers pandering for feedback, so I guess some people like to have their egos massaged, and the more they insist the least likely I am to oblige.

Lots of collectors like to complain about eBay calling it "ePay" which I take to mean they think they are being charged exorbitantly. I was collecting long before the internet and eBay, and dealer/sellers were just as exorbitant in their prices as they are on eBay. I suppose the sniping game is collectors way of try to get a better price for material culture militaria. EBay provides a whole different convenience to traveling around to gun shows, and mail order businesses.

[Aragorn243]

I love ebay and personally think it is the most significant business tool I have ever encountered. Excluding firearms, ebay is the source for the vast majority of many of my collections. I also get most of my parts from there for the firearms. They are available there when they are not available anywhere else. I get books, bayonets, still the occasional NASCAR hero card, other collectibles, etc. I've bought over 500 items through ebay, rarely have an issue. Now I still love to go to antique stores, flea markets, yard sale, still make purchases there etc, ebay is where I find most things.

[Flying10uk]

I too like eBay and I find the vast majority of people/businesses using it are perfectly alright. I do purchase quite a few new items off eBay such as workshop consumables, not just collector's items from individuals. But personally, when deciding whether to buy a new item from a business I do rely on the company's feedback rating to decide on whether or not to go ahead with the transaction.

I did have another "eBay negative feedback incident" some years ago, without getting into details, over something which I had purchased and I couldn't resolve with the seller. I left negative feedback and a few days later I received an eBay message from the seller telling me what he thought of me in very colourful language. Having worked for an engineering shop for years this didn't worry me and indeed I found it amusing, I guess partly because the message had the eBay logo at the top. I couldn't resist printing the message out to save as a souvenir but that is all I did, nothing else, and I most certainly did not complain about it to eBay. A short time later, I happened to notice while looking through my purchase list, that the member concerned was no longer a member. I can only assume that eBay has software that can detect inappropriate language in member to member messages.