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The change in feedback that only allows sellers to give positive feedback is the most outrageous and dumbest thing eBay has ever done! And I'm a BUYER only. What is the point of sellers giving buyers any feedback at all if it can only be good? My reputation as a buyer is just as important to me as it is to sellers, and now that's all been put in the trashcan. This must be changed and very quickly! Buyers can be protected from retaliation in other ways. This is infuriating. eBay may think boycotts will never be effective -- give it time. People can't change instantly, but they will be looking elsewhere and so will I.
137 commentsWednesday, May 21, 2008
By Mike Sachoff
Online auction site eBay has begun to introduce changes in the feedback that sellers can leave about buyers. The changes were first announced in January.
Sellers on eBay are no longer allowed to leave neutral or negative comments about buyers on the site. eBay has also changed the way it calculates a member's positive feedback percentage score.
eBay told users on Monday that as it continues to update its database, some sellers would see a temporary difference in their scores displayed on their Item pages and on their Feedback profile.
eBay says the feedback change was necessary because of an increasing number of sellers leaving critical ratings for buyers who gave them negative ratings.
"What we discovered through research was that any negative feedback that the buyer gets reduces their purchasing or willingness to purchase within the marketplace," Brian Burke, eBay's director of global feedback policy told CNN. "The goal behind the changes is really to make sure that we've got buyer accountability and seller accountability."
Sellers on eBay who want to leave feedback now see a new page that gives them the option of leaving positive feedback or leaving feedback later. The page has a link to another page where sellers can report problem buyers over the following issues, unpaid item, feedback extortion, feedback abuse, malicious buying, and customs fraud.
Some sellers are not happy about seeing changes to their percentage score. eBay Australia has a pop - up box that says,"Buyers, you can no longer receive negative or neutral Feedback from sellers. You should leave honest and accurate Feedback without the fear of receiving negative or neutral ratings."
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ebay system
The original intent of the feedback system according to eBay was to initiate a feedback system that was fair, therefore the fair system that was put in place was for sellers and buyers to be able to leave feedback for each other which would help keep both in check as to seeing both sides of the story, In all fairness to buyers and sellers there are many cases where buyers leave negative feedback against an honest seller that did nothing wrong. For example the buyer fails to provide the address change and the seller sends the item to the address the buyer gave them which was the old address and the buyer takes it out on the seller due to their mistake. Another example is where the buyer does not read the compatibility or description properly and the seller sends the item ordered as described, again there are many cases where the buyer then leaves negative feedback.
The point here is that the system as originally intended effects the buyers and sellers ratings. Now that the system has changed it only reflects against the seller which means this is not the original intent of the system eBay set up which they say was fair. Thus eBays changes using their own logic makes this system unfair.
EBay may make it seem to some as if this is actually rewarding sellers? Now the harder part for sellers to grasp is that Neutral feedback according to eBay shows deep buyer dissatisfaction and now eBay therefore counts what is suppose to be called Neutral as Negative as it now reflects against the sellers ratings also. See if you think all of this sounds fair if you were an honest seller on eBay?
In my opinion the system should be changed to reflect just one system that is again fair, it can be star rating system like Amazon that does not involve one side of a story against someone else.