Software developers are responding to the demand for buyer feedback data after eBay announced it would change the reputation system on the auction site. Beginning in May, eBay will take away the ability for sellers to leave negative or neutral feedback ratings for buyers.

At the same time, eBay is expanding the number of buyers sellers may block from 1,000 to 5,000, an acknowledgement that, just as with sellers, buyers may cause trouble on the site. Responding to such concerns, three websites have recently launched to help sellers detect problem bidders, and one longtime feedback tool has responded to the changes as well.

LeaveAuctionFeedback.com is a free website created by college professor Benjamin Bishop. Sellers who register with the service may record negative feedback for buyers, and any visitor to LeaveAuctionFeedback.com may look up a buyer's feedback by entering their eBay User ID. Seller IDs will remain anonymous, according to the FAQs. "We understand that no seller wants pressure from their auction site to not participate in this open information exchange so to protect sellers we will only display Buyers IDs and the feedback left for them."

BidBlocker.com takes a different approach to sellers' concerns about bad buyers. BidBlocker's "Buyer Feedback Rating" is not the number of negative feedback ratings buyers have received. Rather, it is the percentage of total feedback a buyer has left for sellers. The site states, "The only way sellers can protect themselves from unwarranted negative feedback is to block problematic Ebay customers. Customers who have left negative feedback in the past are more likely to do so in the future."

BidBlocker, created by Daniel Derkacs, gives sellers information about how many negatives a buyer has left for eBay sellers, and lets sellers make decisions about what constitutes a reasonable percentage, a reasonable option given that there are legitimate reasons for leaving sellers negative ratings.

The third buyer feedback site, Ebuyer-feedback.com, appears to be a work in progress. I was unable to successfully send an inquiry for more information through the Contact Us form. The site states it will allow users to leave feedback once eBay's new policy change goes into effect in May.

All three tools rely on individual sellers to input accurate data in enough volume for it to be useful to all sellers wanting to use the tools. While no third-party service may be able to record buyer feedback for all transactions, sellers appear to be eager for any tools that can help them avoid problem buyers.

One site that publishes eBay feedback tools has been around for years at Toolhaus.org. The website's "Negs" tool has generally been used by people to research sellers, to see complaints their buyers have left and the responses from the sellers. In preparation for eBay's feedback changes, Toolhaus has added a "false positive" search. This lets users search for keywords such as "NEG," even if that word is in the comment field of a Positive feedback rating.

Toolhaus founder Win Bent said that the Negs tool is useful for checking feedback. "In particular, sellers can look at the negative, neutral, and withdrawn feedback left by their bidders, and identify possibly "troublemakers." I know of many sellers who have used it to identify (potential) bidders to put on their Blocked Bidder List."

It's important to note that users should never reveal their eBay passwords to a third-party website. We checked, and none of the four sites above ask for eBay passwords.

For more information on upcoming changes to eBay's Feedback system, read the AuctionBytes Blog entry from January 29, 2008:
http://blog.auctionbytes.com/cgi-bin/blog/blog.pl?/pl/2008/1/1201611437.html

You can leave a comment about this article on the February 24, 2008 AuctionBytes Blog entry:
http://blog.auctionbytes.com/cgi-bin/blog/blog.pl?/pl/2008/2/1203906121.html

Buyer Feedback Tools for eBay Sellers

LeaveAuctionFeedback.com (aka, AfterTheGavel.com)
http://www.leaveauctionfeedback.com

BidBlocker.com
http://www.bidblocker.com

Ebuyer-feedback.com
http://www.ebuyer-feedback.com

Toolhaus.org
http://toolhaus.org

Editor's Note: Win Bent submitted occasional articles to AuctionBytes between 1999 - 2001, and Toolhaus participates in AuctionBytes' EcomAdNet ad network.