I buy and sell on eBay and being at the mercy of buyers doesn't make me comfortable. I've run into more bad buyers than sellers. I hope this will help competitors like uBid and Amazon after sellers get frustrated.

And Ebay JUST NOW thinks of changing this system? Such crappy management in such a profitable business. Amazes me the lazyness of lucky white people.

Wow, and it only took eBay, what? 6 years to figure this out?

Sellers ROUTINELY hold buyers hostage for feedback. "Once you leave positive feedback for me, then I'll do the same for you" is the M.O. of 90% of the sellers.

So, as a buyer, I win an auction and pay instantly, and then the seller treats me like crap. I leave negative feedback, and get slammed with retaliatory negative feedback, even though I have done nothing wrong.

eBay hasn't enforced proper feedback rules, and as such, the entire site is declining in honesty and popularity. eBay seems to have no clue that one of the major things that made it popular in the first place was the feedback system! Before eBay, you took your chances on Usenet, and there was much distrust.

Well, thank you eBay--you're just several years too late in waking up to the problem.

I know retaliatory feedback is a problem - I even received one myself before. However I still have a 99% positive feedback rate despite that. If you're an honest seller, retaliatory feedbacks aren't going to dominate your profile.

The problem is, there are a lot of deadbeat buyers out there and forewarned is forearmed. Removing feedback on buyers goes against so much that eBay was ever about, and I have lost a LOT of trust in the system now due to this boneheaded move.

So now we should see an increase of dead beat buyers. Awesome, can't wait! If buyers know that the sellers can't leave feedback it would seem to me more buyers will start pushing the limits on what they can/can't do. Increase of false bids, non payers, retracted bids, etc. I hope ebay figures out a way to still tag these guys so that sellers can be aware.

I absolutely agree with this. It is ridiculous that for whatever reason the seller is lousy and you leave them a negative feedback. So they do the same for you, just because they either had poor shipping, a poor product, sent you the wrong item, or tried to cheat you out on the shipping charges.... So what about previous feedback? You know, they should keep the feedback from sellers, but make it so that it does not effect your rating. Unless eBay is going to police the system on non-payers... Never ran into that situation, so do not know how they handle it.

I can see both sides of this argument, being both a seller and buyer before. I've had sellers screw up, and I've had buyers re-nig. I think the change will do more good than anything, since the seller has control of the transaction by using the standard "pay me first then I ship" method. However, now people who don't sell (only buy) won't have any feedback at all.

Make it so the buyer can't leave feedback for the seller until after the seller has left their feedback for the buyer. Makes more sense to me anyway.

Ebay's market share of online auctions has fallen on hard times recently and this looks like one of the tricks they've devised to get some of that market. As a long time seller on ebay, and a good one at that, I am now going to be punished even when I do everything right with no recourse against the supposed buyers. One of the biggest issues with being a seller on ebay is deadbeat buyers, they bid, they win and then you can't collect payment. So you have to go through ebays little cycle to get your listing fee refunded and then list the item again and hope the next time that the buyer is a decent human being. If you sell a lot on ebay, just the continuous costs of dealing with deadbeats is a strain on the slim profit margins. Thanks ebay for looking out for us.

It is not the buyers who won't have feedback but the sellers. Buyers can still leave feedback but the sellers won't be able to retaliate by leaving negative feedback for the buyer.

I've committed to buy an item. I pay for the item. My part of the agreement has been fulfilled. The seller should now give me feedback. But as stated earlier, often the seller says "after you leave feedback for me...". Horse Hockey! I've met my side of the agreement. I'm entitled to my feedback now. If eBay did as P suggested, game over. Everyone wins.

I think its sweet az! How many times have you impulsively bought something on ebay and then changed your mind and decided you didnt want it, or youfound it cheaper elsewhere.... sweet az! now you can bid, bid bid, win the auction, if its higher then you really wanted to pay, then not pay for the item.

Tupac once said - "Find a weakness in the game, then exploit it!"

Peace...

eat STIH sellers!

I've bought tons of stuff on ebay and I've never sold anything on ebay, and even I think this is a wrong move. I think the idea above of making it so the buyer can't leave feedback for the seller until after the seller has left their feedback for the buy would work better. Its all a she said he said thing anyways. This will probably drive sellers prices up in the long run because they will have to deal with more deadbeat bidders so I might as well quit ebay as soon as they change it.

Buyers need to have feedback so that you will know if they will follow through on their transaction. In selling I have met some deadbeats and I think that this is a step in the wrong direction. Overall I have become more dissatisfied selling on ebay because they have significant fees 12-14% of the sale when all the numbers are added up and they are anal retentive about what you can and can't sell. They will even can your listing if you use certian words in your item's title.

Ebay is becoming more user unfriendly by enacting stupid policies.

Regarding the better solution of having the seller leave their comments first before the buyer can.

There are two problems with that:

1. The reverse will start to happen. i.e. The seller will leave bad feedback for the buyer, so the buyer will then leave retaliation feedback for the seller.

2. If the seller knows he has done wrong against the buyer then he just won't leave feedback, therefore stopping the buyer from being able to leave bad feedback.


In my opinion, and not knowing much about the way ebay works, they have only addressed the concern of the buyers and not the sellers.

They need to now resolve the concerns of the sellers, which may be something to the effect that there is an automatic 10% deposit to be able to bid, and they lose it (to the seller) if they either don't pay the full amount or cancel their bid and they were the last bidder.

Anyway, just my thoughts on it.

Cheers,
Davo.

I'm an eBay buyer and I've never received negative feedback. However I've seen the results of a seller's retaliatory negatives. It's usually obvious if you look at the feedback. If a buyer only has one hit, it's probably retaliatory or the result of some misunderstanding. Bad seller's have multiple hits and it's usually (although not always) obvious.

eBay is having several serious problems with their auction system. I recently received a retail Vista Home Premium with the COA torn off and the disk so scratched it would only run after trying it on several cd drives. I finally got it to load and it seemed to work OK so I gave positive feedback. About a week later it informed me that it could not activate because the key was already in use. I asked to return the merchandise to the seller for a refund. He refused. I submitted a PayPal dispute and he immediately escalated it. After about 2 months waiting for resolution with no opportunity to explain the issue any more than my initial paragraph (I had emails from the seller that proved my point), PayPal denied my claim. Now I understand the only recourse I have is to file a fraud dispute through my bank...

Serious problems...

Great Idea Davo!
Ebay should levy a 5% "down payment" fee to bid on items that you have to pay if you win the auction and flake out.
They could do this through paypal, although I'm not sure how international paypal works.

I stopped e-bay and yahoo actions because I was marked as bad after sellers who didn't follow rules were given bad marks by me. They retaliated and gave me bad marks, even though I paid in full in time and followed all rules. That was unfair, and now I refuse to use these services. I sent requests to e-bay and Yahoo in both instances requesting bad marks be removed, and had proof as to my situation, but both times they refused. I'll never use another auction site again.

We'll, just think creatively. Buyer bids, wins, doesn't pay. Seller goes through the paces, and at the end is given the option to leave an automatic negative feedback (from eBay) stating "This Buyer Did Not Pay for Item Won". The Buyer will not be able to give a retaliatory feedback because the seller didn't leave the buyer feedback, eBay did.

Buyer bids and wins and then pays for item. Seller leaves positive feedback. Item arrives in bad shape/is a fake/broken. Seller won’t give a refund, so buyer now gives a negative feedback. Seller can’t retaliate because they've already given feedback.

Now it would be tricky if the buyer pays, but takes a week to send payment or is rude to the seller, or anything bad, and the seller leaves negative feedback for that. Not sure how eBay could eliminate the buyer leaving retaliatory feedback in that situation.

I don't know, just seems like there are better solutions than just taking buyers feedback away completely, but eBay doesn't want to spend the time/money/effort to find one.

How about this scenario, I have a competitor that I want to make look bad. Using my buying account, I buy an item and regardless of the condition I get it in I leave a negative. What's to stop me from doing that? It could be even worse with the digital delivery/ebook area. I do like the idea of an automatic "buyer did not pay" from Ebay directly though.

As a buyer I left one negative feedback. The seller cut and pasted my comments and left it against me. They didn't bother to change one word. So by way of my comment coming back at me, I became the Seller and I was the one that failed to ship - a verbatim, retaliatory comment. Ebay's Trust and Safety Department refused to delete the comment although they confirmed it was obviously retaliatory - and, therefore, fraudulent. I went back and forth with eBay to show that a FRAUDULENT comment violated their own rules. Essentially, they blew me off. They brought this on themselves.

Just another idiotic move on eBay's part, as usual. As others have pointed out, buyers often flake out, and sellers should be able to leave negative feedback in those cases.

Worse still is eBay's drastic price increase that they are advertizing as a "price cut". Do they think we're all idiots? Sure, they dropped the listing fee by a few cents...and more more than doubled the final value fee.

If you've ever tried to file for a Paypal "buyer protection" claim, you know that's a load of crap, too. A seller could send you a dead squirrel, and you'd never win a claim. They don't give a damn about the consumer.

It's only a metter of time before a better auction site knocks off eBay. And good riddance!

Both sellers and buyers should be allowed to leave positive feedbacks all they want, but once one side of the transaction leave a negative feedback the other side is locked out. This way, even the seller has the chance voice their feelings about deadbeat buyers.

That's the way to do it, the OP, then second, third and fourth RE: had it right, force the seller to leave feedback first, ending retaliatory feedback.

After reading the various comments, I am more concerned that ever that seller’s will not be in a position to leave neutral or negative feedback for the buyer. It is quite obvious from the comments made that there are some very vindictive people out there who can’t wait for the new rules to take place. SELLERS’S PLEASE TAKE NOTE OF THE FOLLOWING: Now there is a website where you can leave neutral or negative feedback for those buyer’s who warrant it. WWW.VOX-POPULI-ONLINE.COM is a site where you can list your feedback about the buyer. It’s a very clean looking site, easy to navigate and it is a free service. So stop worrying about buyer’s holding you to ransom and take a look. We are currently looking for moderators who would like and help and monitor the site to keep it fresh and to stop abuse. If you are interested, login and contact us through the contact us link.

For a long time, eBay has always sided with buyers. They have always found ways of making a sellers life more difficult with there recent 60% increase in commission fees charged to sellers, to their excuses after excuse they tell sellers when a seller complains about a buyer. Its been going on forever because eBay's view is that the seller's are the ones that commit the fraud thinking items are stolen etc.

Now with this new BS they are trying to hit sellers with only means one thing. Coming in May, buyers will have more power then ever to threaten sellers with feedback extortion. Now that buyers now that Sellers cant leave any negative feedback to warn other sellers in their dealings, your going to see a dramatic increase in extortion if the buyers demands arent met. Dont even bother to report it to eBay, because they arent going to do jack shxt about it.

eBay & PayPal both together have been a haven for buyers to initiate fraud from sellers and eBay and PayPal have dont nothing about it. Buyers will buy items, usually high priced items such as cameras and laptops, then file a false chargeback. eBay will tell the Seller to call the cops (eBay's way of saying its not our problem) and PayPal will immediately steal the funds from the seller and give it to the buyer. Basically leaving the seller out the product and the money and the buyer with a free laptop and the amount of money they paid for it.

Until sellers ban together and start initiating boycots and making stands for this, eBay is going to continually find ways of screwing over sellers more and more. Their philosphy is "lets see what we can get away with concerning sellers", and then they try it more and more. But until sellers start taking action and telling eBay that they arent going to put up with ebay & Paypals crap, its just going to continue and get worse.

eBay's way of thinking is the buyer is the one that initates the purchase and initiates the fees to the seller, in which the seller has to pay. So people who think that hey its us Sellers that keep eBay alive with the money, think again. Why do you think eBay kisses the buyers asses left and right, because again they are on the side of the buyer because its the buyer who makes the bid and its the buyer who generates the commission fees for ebay, which make up 70% of the total fee of an auction listing to a seller. So there you have it!