We need eBay to add a "bad seller" tool!

[techgrh]

The career seller can pretty much be compared to the career politician. They have a perverted sense of honesty. You will notice that they they go to every extreme NOT to directly lie, but instead try to lead you by omitting the truth.

I tend to trust the infrequent sellers with great feedback a lot more.

And eBay is like the media, they will take the side of whoever they think will increase their profit.

There are bad buyers also, but it is rare, as the profit margin is very low.  Usually they break even with a refund, and the seller is upset that his scam failed.

Both sides are guilty of "fake news" in the forum. So let's just take the forums out of the equation. I have attempted to add really blatant scammers to my saved seller list, with notes of the scam. But it is passive, and I have to manually check.

I'd like to see a feature where you can privately mark a seller as "bad", and it reminds you whenever you look at one their listings in the future.  The seller would be completely unaware of the action, unlike the ability of the seller to ban buyers.

[lex-talon]

On my purchase list, if a certain seller gave me problems or was dishonest, I make a note of it. Some people are old school and use a notepad.

[mr_lincoln]

@techgrh

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@techgrh wrote:

The career seller can pretty much be compared to the career politician. They have a perverted sense of honesty. You will notice that they they go to every extreme NOT to directly lie, but instead try to lead you by omitting the truth.

I tend to trust the infrequent sellers with great feedback a lot more.

And eBay is like the media, they will take the side of whoever they think will increase their profit.

There are bad buyers also, but it is rare, as the profit margin is very low.  Usually they break even with a refund, and the seller is upset that his scam failed.

Both sides are guilty of "fake news" in the forum. So let's just take the forums out of the equation. I have attempted to add really blatant scammers to my saved seller list, with notes of the scam. But it is passive, and I have to manually check.

I'd like to see a feature where you can privately mark a seller as "bad", and it reminds you whenever you look at one their listings in the future.  The seller would be completely unaware of the action, unlike the ability of the seller to ban buyers.

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Actually, if you read enough threads on The Community you will see that there are many about Buyers who know how to work the system and get their items for Free or scam a Seller (especially new ones) out of their item.  The whole issue here is that anything coming from anybody about anybody else is subjective ... nobody can interview the source firsthand & in person.  Sadly, the Feedback System is titled towards Buyers and Sellers are not permitted to leave the same kind of Feedback that Buyers can.  Sure, they used to be able to but not since 2008. 

I do however agree with you that there should be some kind of a system in place that helps to identify repeat offenders on BOTH sides of the "coin" (money pun intended).

[techgrh]

Yeah, but purchase history tends to disappear with time. Saved seller is slightly more convenient than notepad.

That's why I think it would be cool to have it automated. I suppose a third party  programmer could launch a script where a popup appears when certain text appears on the screen, using a list as reference.

[techgrh]

It appears that you stopped reading at the section you highlighted, so I will clarify.  I HAVE read hundreds of posts on the forums. I discount both sides as sour grapes, or "fake news". That is why I took the time to preface my suggestion with a few details. But I guess I wasn't clear.  I do not want a "system" to encourage more fake news, I just want a tool for my own reference.

I'm sure there might be at least one buyer out there who has developed a system to scam  thousands of sellers at the same time, but it is RARE compared the the high rate of career sellers doing the same thing.

Reminds me of an episode of Big Bang Theory poking fun at this. I forget the exact details, but one guy suggested selling  broken electronics on eBay as "slightly used"!

[randomstore]

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@techgrh wrote:

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Sadly, the Feedback System is titled (tilted-sic) towards Buyers and Sellers are not permitted to leave the same kind of Feedback that Buyers can.  Sure, they used to be able to but not since 2008. 

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The feedback problem before the 2008 change, was that some sellers would frequently use feedback to flame buyers. Often this was to cover up for the seller’s misdeeds. eBay noticed that many of the flamed buyers never bought anything again.

      So eBay silenced all sellers They should have just limited the amount of negative and neutral feedback a seller could leave, to some low percentage of their number of individual sales.

        This led to other problems and may have contributed to eBay’s decision to change to the defect method of gauging seller performance. It would be better to have defects, DSRs and feedback all considered for seller performance. 

[smenkveld]

Looking at your feedback left for sellers it seems like almost everything you buy your disappointed in. Why are you still buying here if you have so many problems with the items you buy here?

[myboardid]

So I, as a "career seller (on a different ID)", am automatically a crook?  Really?  I have 2 neg feedback in almost 100,000 and 20 years of selling, and both of those were undeserved.   

I see that almost all of your eBay purchases are bad, according to the feedback you have left sellers.  Thank you so much for posting!!!

Oh, yes, and if you discount the forums completely, why did you bother to come here? 

[ebuycdn]

Here's one:

https://greasyfork.org/en/scripts/8334-ebay-custom-page-controls-and-seller-block-list

[techgrh]

Let's see. 182 feedbacks in the last year, absolutely none of them were negative or neutral. You must be really paranoid to see that. My feedback is fact based, not emotionally based. If that upsets you, let me know if I ever buy from you, and I'll add a smiley face!.

[misfitfun]

Buyers have a choice in who they buy from.Sellers do not get to choose who buys /bids without some tools that block known problem buyers.

[techgrh]

Thanks a lot, I'll check out the link!

[techgrh · Accepted solution]

Unfortunately it appears from his feedback that Firefox updates "broke"it last year.

But that does indeed seem to be exactly what I'm looking for! I'll change my search wording and see if I can find a more recent one. Thanks!

[mr_lincoln]

@techgrh  I did read the post but I just wanted to delve in to that one point for starters.  I agree that there should be some kind of a system that can  alert BOTH Buyers and Sellers of problem members on the opposite side of a transaction ... the current system they have in place falls woefully short of that. 

Bad Sellers could best be described as con artists and Bad Buyers as thieves.  Shoplifters who are caught stealing from a brick & mortar store can be prosecuted but those who steal online (and NOT just on eBay) go unpunished.  I suppose the same is true for Con Artist Sellers, huh?!?

[mr_lincoln]

@randomstore

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@randomstore wrote:

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@techgrh wrote:

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Sadly, the Feedback System is titled (tilted-sic) towards Buyers and Sellers are not permitted to leave the same kind of Feedback that Buyers can.  Sure, they used to be able to but not since 2008. 

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The feedback problem before the 2008 change, was that some sellers would frequently use feedback to flame buyers. Often this was to cover up for the seller’s misdeeds. eBay noticed that many of the flamed buyers never bought anything again.

      So eBay silenced all sellers They should have just limited the amount of negative and neutral feedback a seller could leave, to some low percentage of their number of individual sales.

        This led to other problems and may have contributed to eBay’s decision to change to the defect method of gauging seller performance. It would be better to have defects, DSRs and feedback all considered for seller performance. 

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Thanks for that post and this and many other posts about the Feedback system continue to point to it needing to be replaced with something else.  Without anyone being able to be part of a specific transaction other then the two "Trading Partners" (eBay's phrase) how can they really know where the truth lies ... I have 2 Nuetrals in the past 12 months, one from an inexpereinced Buyer who thought they had to leave it right away and then messaged me with a issue which wound up not being their real issue and the other was for adhesive on the item AFTER the tamper band was removed!?!  That one fried my gord because 1) the manufacturer applied tamper band put is on products for good reason and 2) how is hard to remove tamper band adhesive a Seller problem?  If anything THAT should be on a product review ... plus the way the FB was written my first thought was they weren't in their right mind when they wrote it LOL!