While the two are unrelated, in addition to writing about beer, I’m also an active seller (and buyer) on eBay. In fact, I’ve been a user of eBay for over 20-years, so I’d say I have a pretty good sense for eBay buying and selling techniques and issues.
With that in mind, I do get a lot of questions from friends, family and readers of this site about eBay…and one of my most asked questions is relative to feedback. People ask all the time if the eBay Feedback System works, and I’m here to say that unfortunately, eBay feedback has become pretty worthless. If you’re asking yourself why I say eBay feedback is worthless, then stay tuned.
If you’ve been a buyer or seller on eBay for any length of time, you already know that it can potentially be a minefield. And by that I mean that the more transactions you do on eBay, the more likely that you will step on a landmine buyer or landmine seller. Poor communication, slow shipping, unresponsive to questions, lack of payment, feedback blackmail and many more landmines exist, and in my over 20-years of using eBay, I’ve seen them all.
You’d think that checking a buyer or seller’s feedback before transacting would be helpful, but if you read on, you’ll see why the eBay feedback system has become tainted and even corrupt.
History of Feedback on eBay:
In 2008, eBay removed the ability for sellers to leave negative feedback. This was done to “encourage positive transactions” but that wasn’t the result for some. In the end, the inability for a seller to leave negative feedback for buyers only allowed buyers to hold sellers hostage with the threat of negative feedback. Over the years I’ve had buyers demand discounts or partial refunds with the threat of negative feedback if I don’t comply…and while you can report feedback blackmail to eBay, it simply doesn’t work. Prior to 2008, sellers had the ability to refuse to sell to bad buyers that have poor feedback. Now buyers that don’t also sell can’t have negative feedback, so there’s no protection for sellers to help identify landmine buyers.
But that’s not the worse part of the eBay feedback system and my recent experience was pretty awful.
On Jan 2nd of 2023 I bid on and purchased an item from seller mur_2978 (store name Divamama714) and made payment via PayPal just minutes after the action closed. I patiently waited for my shipping tracking info, and two weeks later, the seller had not shipped. I messaged the seller three times with no response to my question about my item not being shipped. I waited another week, and still no response form the seller and no shipping of my item. Thinking that the seller had some personal or technology issue, I had a friend message the seller on a different eBay account and topic, and the seller answered within minutes. Clearly, for whatever reason, this seller was trying to take my payment and not ship my item or respond to my messages.
After waiting a few more days, I filed the item not received complaint with eBay and ultimately they refunded my money. As a buyer and seller on eBay for over 20-years, I have probably left negative feedback only 2 or 3 times over thousands of transactions, so I do take feedback very seriously. Clearly this seller deserved negative feedback, but that’s not what happened.
Just a few days after posting my negative feedback, eBay removed it. I’ve reviewed their policies and my feedback didn’t violate a policy, so I asked eBay support why my negative feedback was removed, and here’s what they said:
Here on eBay, we take feedback very seriously, and we want our buyers to have the best experience using eBay. This is why we have implemented statuses for sellers with high credibility, and offer them protections for them to stay in compliance with our policies. One of these protections is from negative feedback. When the seller appealed for the feedback, there is a ground for removal that is why the system allowed it to be removed.
In other word, eBay is protecting sellers from negative feedback, and they appear to be especially protecting higher volume sellers. In the end, more sales equates to more income for eBay, and negative feedback, discourages sales….hmmmm….
In the meantime, I watched in disbelief as this seller received three more negative feedback in just two weeks. These feedback messages ranged from stained clothing not mentioned in the description, issues returning an item and issues with the lack of communication from the seller. All appeared to be honest complaints by buyers treated poorly by the seller.
To my shock and surprise, over the next few days, all three negative feedback messages were removed! (go look for yourself)
I can say that I did witness a family member selling on eBay last summer who received negative feedback because the buyer didn’t like the color of the sweater she purchased. The item was returned, the money was refunded yet eBay refused to remove the negative feedback. The point of this story is that either something has changed on eBay making it really easy to remove negative feedback, OR eBay is protecting this seller (and likely other sellers) for some reason.
In the end, I can only conclude that the eBay Feedback System is at best worthless or at worst, corrupt. If high volume (or any) sellers are “protected” from negative feedback, how can we avoid landmine sellers? If the eBay Feedback system isn’t open, transparent and consistent, then what’s the point of even having such a system.
Your mileage may vary, but please consider this to be my Negative Feedback for eBay seller mur_2978 (store name Divamama714). Unfortunately, unless buyers find this article, this seller will continue to be immune to negative feedback and continue to be a bad seller with no consequences.
UPDATE: After several messages with eBay support asking what specifically was against their policies in my negative feedback, they stopped responding. Ironically enough, they also sent me two links to “Report A Seller.” One link generated a “bad redirect” error. The other link allowed my to put in the seller name, type in my details, and then when I hit Submit, it tells me there’s nothing to report with this seller.
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