A comment on the new eBay feedback system

[PhilipCohen]

24 July 2008

Another un-brilliant idea from eBay: the barring of sellers from lodging any negative feedback against buyers—supposedly because some unscrupulous sellers have used such negative feedback as retaliation. I wonder what the real reason is? I have never seen a system change accompanied by so much complication and confusion and objection thereto by the affected users: has eBay no understanding of the KISS principle?

The fact is if a buyer receives previously sight-unseen goods and they are not “as advertised” the buyer is entitled to be dissatisfied, but that stage of the transaction comes after the buyer has completed their part of the transaction by making payment to the seller and the seller should be “satisfied” at that point in time and should post feedback to that effect. What subsequently happens regarding any suggested “breach of contract/warranty” regarding the description of the goods should probably be treated as a separate level of “warranty” feedback.

Certainly, some unscrupulous sellers seem to think that they are entitled express dissatisfaction with the buyer because the buyer is dissatisfied, and then use retaliatory negative feedback as a pay-back or more usually as a blackmail device to obtain the withdrawal of the buyer’s negative. I doubt that that is the way Wal-Mart works.

Sellers should never have been waiting to see whether or not a buyer was going to communicate dissatisfaction with the goods before posting feedback. If a seller has so little confidence in the good/service they are offering they probably should not be trying to sell it on eBay; certainly not in any ongoing commercial sense.

As predominantly a buyer I have received three such feedback negatives from sellers (3/184); all have been received in retaliation for negative feedback that I had lodged against two sellers after all attempts to communicate were exhausted or the response from the seller was not satisfactory to me. So, I think that the feedback system definitely needed some attention in this respect.

Unfortunately, eBay uses a totally different form of logic to me; I would have thought that, to stop such unscrupulous sellers from using retaliatory negative feedback as blackmail, instead of barring sellers from posting negative feedback—if and when such feedback was truly deserved (a non-payment being the principal reason)—the simple answer would have been to require sellers to lodge feedback first, before there could be any system-generated request for a buyer to lodge feedback, as surely the transaction is “satisfactory” for the seller when they receive payment for the goods (credit card purchases from Nigeria always excepted!).

Clearly, positive feedback is of much more value to a seller than it is to a buyer: for a buyer a retaliatory negative is little more than an irritation; but the fact that unscrupulous sellers could attempt such blackmail was inappropriate.

Those sellers who, in the past, habitually delayed lodging feedback until the buyer had done so are potentially the unscrupulous ones who will retaliate with negative feedback blackmail—not that a buyer knows that prior to buying. Maybe eBay should consider publishing that statistic (ie, how many of a seller’s supposed “sales” have not had any feedback for a buyer lodged for them by the seller) on the Seller’ Feedback Profile page; better still, on the primary auction page. A large number of supposed “sales” sans feedback could indicate dissatisfied buyers; it could also indicate the possibility of the seller being involved in failed shill bidding.

I accept that it may be difficult for sellers to protect themselves from unreasonable buyers and there should be an effective mechanism to deal with that problem, but, I still think it was inexcusable that sellers were able to use such retaliatory negative feedback as a blackmail device—and that has been the source of the only negative feedback that I have ever received.

A simpler solution to the problem

A simpler and fairer solution to the problem would have been to require sellers to leave feedback for all “sales”, subject to there being no eBay messaging system activity regarding any particular item, within a specified period of time of receiving payment therefor (with a suitable provision for the recording of “no pays”) or after such specified period receive a feedback “negative” in lieu thereof by default (with suitable system-generated warning notices beforehand). That is, even if the buyer has not yet lodged feedback the seller must still do so within a specified time frame.

Where the seller has so lodged feedback for the buyer, but the buyer, for whatever reason, still does not bother to lodge feedback for the seller, then eBay could, subject to the same condition of there being no eBay message system activity on the particular item, after a similar period simply give the seller a feedback positive by default.

Now, what’s wrong with that as the basis for a fairer solution?

Instead we get a “solution” that involves a complicated mathematical formula that few understand, everybody appears to dislike; and that unscrupulous and unreasonable buyers can take advantage of to blackmail sellers, and sellers apparently now have no way of defending themselves from such buyers.

eBay’s concept of the “KISS” principle appears to be “keep it stupid simple”; eBay, read your own forums; there are some “nutters” on both sides of these auction transactions; but this crazy new feedback system seems to be designed to destroy the whole auction platform!

Regardless, users should understand that notwithstanding any statements by eBay to the contrary, no action taken by the current management team at eBay has anything to do with benefitting eBay users: eBay’s every action is purposed solely towards improving eBay’s bottom line, and eBay users should be aware that if at any time there appears to be some benefit to consumers, that is purely coincidental.
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Clearly, the lunatics at eBay have taken over the asylum and are bent on burning it down.
“The difference between genius and stupidity is that genius has its limits.” ~ Albert Einstein.

[Magpie]

There really nothing we can do. Myself I'm moving on from selling. Nothing last forever.
Its there business they do what they want. Its not like there a utility that can be government controlled.

My biggest mistake was thinking I could depend on eBay or any company pretending to try and be good for the community. There all the same make people think your out for there good when you really just want there money. The world sucks nobody wants to help others for free.
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