Feature request: Disable buyer automated feedback
I do not like that eBay can leave buyer automated feedback on my behalf on a seller's account after I purchase something. I leave feedback for almost all sellers EXCEPT a very few that I argue with. In those cases, I cannot be sure whether or not the seller is lying to me and so I give them the benefit of the doubt and don't leave them negative feedback. I don't want to leave anyone anything negative or neutral unless I'm absolutely sure. So under this new system eBay will automatically leave positive feedback for these sellers. I don't want that. I don't want to leave them any feedback. I just nothing them and move on with my life. eBay should offer some way to opt-out of leaving buyer automated feedback on the seller accounts.
38 comments
ed8108
·8 months agoebay sellers receiving transaction feedback is no longer optional ? , while sellers posting buyer feedback is still optional
ed8108
·8 months agoIs this buyer safe to sell to ?
Perhaps It would also be appropriate that a seller receiving positive feedback from their buyer be required to post that buyer with positive feedback, increasing the buyer's positive feedback transaction score.
bdmh-enterprises
·8 months agoA lot of people don't seem to understand that the automatic feedback is only left under certain circumstances.
Seller ships late, NO auto.
Item is delivered late, NO auto.
No tracking, NO auto.
Return filed, NO auto.
Other FB left, NO auto.
I have a hard time imagining a situation where the seller has met all the criteria but wouldn't deserve the generic feedback..
yo0339
·8 months agoYes, the eBay automated feedback (which doesn't even identify the buyer with a munge) will disappear when an eBay request or a payment dispute is filed on that transaction, whether or not the buyer then leaves feedback.
post2forum
OP8 months agoThanks for the great discussion so far. I have read all of your replies. It hasn't changed my opinion that eBay should offer an opt-out. One point brought up in several replies is that buyers often don't leave feedback on their own. I totally get that, it's happened to me. Yes, with this new system I have benefited from automated feedback as a seller. But as a buyer who is active in leaving feedback for most sellers, I don't like it.
If there is a problem and I am not certain then I would rather say nothing than be neutral or negative. If there is a problem and I am certain, like a confirmed scam etc, I would leave negative feedback and have in the past. (Note my account shows no negative feedback in "left for others" because I think the scam sellers must have been removed from eBay).
yo0339
·8 months agoHow @sltom6 @emptygraves7984 (kudoers) @stainlessenginecovers (responder) would
either of those have left any eBay automated Feedback, which says:
"Order delivered on time with no issues"?
Nothing was delivered.
reallynicestamps
·8 months agoYou can leave a Neutral .
The most neutral FB I ever got was "."
Actually no quotation marks and it was a positive, but you should get the picture.
Neutrals neither reward nor punish the receiver and do not change the FB rating, but will prevent the automatic positive.
bonanza125
·8 months ago"eBay should offer some way to opt-out of leaving buyer automated feedback on the seller accounts."
No they won't and shouldn't. If you didn't want to leave feedback for the seller then you wouldn't want to leave feedback now. All the feedback provides is that the transaction has been reported as arriving on time with no issues. If you have an issue with the item and have a feeling of leaving negative or neutral contact the seller and return the item. Ebay made this change because majority of buyers don't leave feedback. Around 70% of my buyers didn't leave feedback at all.
airsheep
·8 months agoI just went back and left neutrals for 2 sellers I would have not left anything for previously. One found the 'free' shipping was too high but refunded quickly, the other lost a Priority Mail package and kept asking me to wait for it to turn up (it didn't, they refunded eventually.) Neither of them deserved an automatic positive, and if ebay is going to make me leave feedback, neither I nor the sellers will be happy.
stainlessenginecovers
·8 months ago@airsheep and that is what is wrong with feedback. Buyers have no clue how and when to use it.
The 'seller' didn't LOSE a Priority Package- the USPS did.
Asking a buyer to 'wait' is not unheard of, in fact, many 'tracking' shows 'running late but still in transit' right on the USPS website tracking.
'Then you were refunded'- even proving more that you had a stand-up seller and you rewarded them with a neutral??
Disgusting!!
sltom6
·8 months agoI agree with you but "order delivered on time with no issues" isn't quite true either. Buyer should have had the choice to leave no feedback at all. That was their point.
evry1nositswindy
·8 months agoThis was the chosen response out of a multitude of them. Trust me, this was the least offensive, generic, and neutral.
house*of*paws
·8 months agoDoes anyone know whether eBay will pull an 'automated positive' if the buyer files a NAD return request AFTER 7 days have passed?
I just received an item that I think will turn out to be NAD ... but I am waiting for a response from the seller on the chance that they can tell me a way to make the item 'work'. [It's a wireless keyboard that I believe was sent with the wrong dongle. It doesn't currently work, but MAY work if the seller can either send me the correct dongle OR tell me a workaround.]
I want to give the seller time to respond to my message and clear up the problem ... but I may need to file a return request in the near future if it's not possible. My 'normal' response would be to leave NO feedback in this case ... but I wouldn't want an automated positive to stay in place IF it is left before I can file a return request.
sltom6
·8 months agoMy comment stands nonetheless.
airsheep
·8 months agoIf you think waiting for 3+ weeks for a Priority Mail package to reappear beyond 'dropoff at post office, awaiting acceptance' somewhere - anywhere - with only a seller asking me to wait is fine, well... AFAIK the package is still in postal limbo, and it took significant prodding for a refund. You find my attitude disgusting? SMH.
I am, OTOH, glad to hear that the automated 'all is well' feedback would not have been left in this instance.
airsheep
·8 months agoAnd as a followup it appears that the feedback stainlessenginecovers was worried about has been removed anyhow, so 🤔
jonathanbrightlight
·8 months agoeBay would not have left automatic positive feedback on either of those orders. One was canceled, the other one was not delivered on time, therefore neither qualified for the automatic feedback.
kibble-net
·8 months agoAnd I don't like that 95% of the sales I make didn't count toward my feedback score. Boo freaking hoo.
If you have a problem with a seller, leave feedback and let the world know. You can still do that. Ebay has not removed or restricted this functionality in any way.
yo0339
·8 months agoWhich causes the annual increase in spewage?
gosimus
·8 months agoNot necessarily. There's a Latin phrase "post hoc, ergo propter hoc" which means "after this, therefore because of this". It describes a fallacy in logic where one assumes that because event B occurred after event A, then event A must have caused event B. It falsely confuses correlation with causation.
gosimus
·8 months ago@post2forum
< Disable buyer automated feedback >
eBay is trying to compensate for the buyers who simply don't leave feedback for their sellers . . . not the buyers who deliberately withhold it as a matter of minor displeasure not worthy of a negative, but rather, the buyers who just don't bother. eBay's thinking is that a higher positive feedback number makes sellers look better, and thus more attractive to buyers. More buyers means more sales, which is a desirable outcome from a seller's viewpoint; and consequently more fees, which is a desirable outcome from eBay's.
mudshark61369
·8 months ago@post2forum ,
"I do not like that eBay can leave buyer automated feedback on my behalf on a seller's account after I purchase something".
As a seller you have benefited from receiving automatic feedback so I do not understand your dislike of the feature. You are an occasional seller and if you received a negative feedback those automatic feedback would limit the effect to your feedback percentage.
"I leave feedback for almost all sellers EXCEPT a very few that I argue with. In those cases, I cannot be sure whether or not the seller is lying to me and so I give them the benefit of the doubt and don't leave them negative feedback".
It would be interesting to know what the "arguments" you had with seller's were about, and if they happened before or after a purchase was made.
Do you check seller's feedback profiles before buying from one to see what the negative and neutral comments say? If not then you might avoid arguments by doing that. One of the last 3 sellers you bought from has a profile that would have had me hitting the back button immediately.
While as a seller myself, I too try to give other sellers the benefit of doubt. However, if I message a seller about an issue, and they argue with me about it, I feel at the very least they deserve a neutral for their lack of customer service. Not leaving a feedback in those instances could cause future buyers who check profiles to run into problems because of the lack of warning, which defeats the purpose of feedback profiles.
ed8108
·8 months agoeBay leaves automated positive feedback for
sellers, ebay 'does not bestow feedback upon it's buyers.
Buyers are depended upon the kindness of their seller to leave them with positive transaction feedback.
Is eBay effectively encouraging buyers to post more neutrals & negative transaction feedback when experiencing an unhappy transaction ?
ccomic
·8 months agoYes, the one sidedness of it is ridiculous. I even read a comment sometime back from a seller that said they intentionally don’t leave feedback for the buyer so they can use it for revenge if something goes wrong, leaving a negative comment in a positive slot. I set my feedback to private for other reasons, so that part of it doesn’t affect me, but its a bit odd that there is no auto positive for buyers. Just convinces me all the more that the system is intended to deceive buyers, not make up for lazy comment givers.
roccotacodad54
·8 months agoI don't like it either but...
I as well always left no feedback if I was not happy but not unhappy enough to leave a nrgative feedback. Since eBay has forced my hand (so-to-speak) sellers may get negatives from me instead of nothing.
Haven't done it though. I'm careful who I buy from and don't get upset over things like shipping time etc. that are pretty much out of a sellers control.
Unless they outright lie to me or try to scam me they will still get a positive from me anyway.
lady_madonna
·8 months agoBuyers can still leave their own feedback within 60 days of delivery, in which case the automated feedback will be replaced with theirs.
christworks
·8 months agoI don't understand the entitlement argument from buyers.
When you sign up for an account, you agree to play in eBay's sandbox. It is their platform, and they have a right to run it however they see fit. In this case, the change was prompted by a rule change made under Joe Biden's administration. It's a rule that the Trump administration should have tossed out, because it takes us a step closer towards the EU's treatment of sellers. Nevertheless, the rule went into effect. In essence, the rule requires platforms to have a transparent feedback system.
This rule makes it much more difficult for a seller to have negative feedback removed in certain circumstances. The result is that sellers, particularly new ones or those who sell less frequently, will end up with more negative feedback that may not be deserved. New sellers and ones who don't sell often fall into a group that are more likely to make genuine mistakes. eBay had already started leaving automatic positive feedback up to the first 10 sales a new seller has. They simply expanded this to all sellers.
eBay has not taken away your choice. You can still leave positive, neutral, or negative feedback, which will override eBay's positive feedback. If you have a complex or are afraid of bad karma or whatever it is that prevents you from leaving appropriate feedback if it isn't positive, well, that's on you. What I find odd is that many (not all) of the people who seem to have this issue suddenly want to pivot to the other extreme and leave vindictive feedback. As far as I'm concerned it says a lot about those people, and it isn't good.
kathiec
·8 months agoOh for pity's sake, let's inject politics into it. Because that's always fun. 🙄 But hey, let's boil it down to "hav[ing] a complex or [being] afraid of bad karma". 😅😂 Because you know me so well.
frugalmarketplace
·8 months ago@christworks
Come on…do you have to put the political card in the mix. You appear to be trying to make a totally unnecessary innuendo here. 🙄🙄🙄
grann-4629
·8 months agoIt's always political, eventually.
Biden put in the feedback thing.
Trump should negate the feedback system.
And on and on about feedback when the solution is so simple ...
😎
ccomic
·8 months agoI agree that it is deceptive for what it’s worth, but it is in eBay’s best interest to portray the eBay marketplace as a more positive experience, so good luck convincing them to go back.
martin2001
·8 months agoYou can opt out by leaving feedback. Ebay leaves FB after 7 days of the confirmed delivery, the delivery being on time and the buyer not reporting any issues. If you leave FB within 60 days of delivery, your FB will replace ebay's FB. The 7 day window is the theory, so I can't say from my own experience if ebay does leave FB after 7 days or later.
kathiec
·8 months agoThere is a huge whole in this theory. I almost always leave feedback for sellers. But sometimes when something goes wrong that makes it a not positive transaction, but not falling to the level of a neg, I make the conscious choice to leave no feedback. And that should be my choice to make.
The one saving grace with automated feedback is that it's only left if the seller met their shipping and delivery deadlines. So the last time I opted not to leave feedback auto feedback wasn't left because the seller missed those deadlines.
grann-4629
·8 months agoHow does eBay know that the seller met their shipping and delivery deadlines before they post an automatic feedback?
I got an email from eBay yesterday asking me to post a feedback for a recent buy. The item hasn't even arrived yet ... it's a couple of days past eBay's guessed delivery date, probably because of bad weather. So, if posted a feedback for this item when eBay wanted me to, I would have to post a neg. If I say nothing, the seller gets a false positive from eBay.
Very strange, very strange indeed. Another reason the whole feedback system should be dumped.
😎
post a feedback when asked
frugalmarketplace
·8 months ago@post2forum
There is a seller who has developed a large business in a short time because of the brand they sell and the prices. However when I order there is always something wrong with an order. My last one I ordered 5 items and 3 were missing. If you contact them you get a generic AI response.
On this last order I left a neutral as I didn’t want to have them continually getting positive feedback when they have done a poor job. It was removed automatically. So I called eBay and said I should be able to leave honest feedback. the response from eBay was “leave a negative†I did. It was not removed.
Now it frosts me that this seller is now top rated. Not because they do a great job, but because many people don’t bother to leave feedback and the “system†leaves it.
I still believe that feedback is important and I agree with you…To anyone who asks “why do you buy from them†and I repeat “the prices are dirt cheapâ€
kensgiftshop
·8 months agobeing a TRS doesn't have anything to with feedback.
frugalmarketplace
·8 months ago@kensgiftshop
I am aware of that, however most people who are buyers are not.
mtgraves7984
·8 months agoI just nothing them and move on with my life.
@post2forum
^^^ I used to do this, too. Now... I make sure if it's to be personalized at all, it'll be by my hand. Rules change and all...
Edit to add: The eBay automated feedback, "Order delivered on time with no issues" covers a whole lotta ground. Heck fire, the sellers I used to "nothing" were the ones with some issues. Now, they'll get (at least) neutrals. Hmmph!