Buyer is leaving a lot of negative feedback for sellers, including me, and it hurts sales.

[dhaga]

I have been with ebay for over 25 years and I don't understand why ebay is allowing buyers to leave negative feedback because they found me to be "uncompassionate". It is my first negative feedback received ever.  Of course I appealed and ebay says that sort of feedback does not violate policy. Ebay shows zero loyalty for those in my position and allows abusive buyers to leave damaging remarks based on a how they feel. This seems plain wrong. Is there anyway to communicate with ebay concerning policy change requests? 

[spreadlovelikefire]

It looks like you are a long time seller so I would think you would know that digging into every single buyers address and verifying it on your own is a waste of time.  Ebay requires a seller ship to the address provided, period.  If there is a problem with the address (the carrier can't verify it) then you can cancel the order based off of that.  If you are cancelling orders because you think someone has a fishy address and you don't like the feedback they leave others then you should know that this is against policy.  And if you are cancelling due to those reasons then you would cancel for being out of stock, not something wrong with their address provided.  If you have to many of those cancelations eBay will eventually kick you off, it's a big deal.  I looked at the feedback you received and one of them is a neutral and you replied stating that you cancelled it and didn't understand how they were able to leave feedback.  Well, eBay allows feedback even on cancellations.  The buyer could have left you a negative also and it would have stuck.  I would not be telling other sellers to do this as a seller can get in serious trouble cancelling items this way.  Plus it's just a waste of time and stress.  

[gurlcat]

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@sextons-sweet-deals wrote:

You are wasting my time trying to help you for future sales along with others who have posted comments. 

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If anyone takes the advice you gave, you will have done the opposite of helping.  Since we have no way of pre-screening buyers for BIN items, when one with an ugly feedback history buys an item, there is nothing we can proactively DO to prevent them doing something ugly to us, without violating eBay policy and getting a defect.    The best defense is having free returns on the listing, so as to qualify for Seller Protections, but it's too late to edit the listing after the purchase is completed.  The only option is to ship and hope for the best.

And talk about wasting time -why waste time posting replies about what a seller did wrong during the transaction, when that's not what they asked about?  

I'm especially baffled by the Google maps thing.  -Why would a buyer history of negative feedbacks about item condition prompt you to seek satellite imagery of their home?  Sounds kinda weird to me, but maybe you know something I don't.  

[dhaga]

How, exactly, am I wasting your time? I am not telling you or asking you to spend any time on me or this forum. 

[gone.c-33]

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@gurlcat wrote:

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@sextons-sweet-deals wrote:

You are wasting my time trying to help you for future sales along with others who have posted comments. 

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If anyone takes the advice you gave, you will have done the opposite of helping.  Since we have no way of pre-screening buyers for BIN items, when one with an ugly feedback history buys an item, there is nothing we can proactively DO to prevent them doing something ugly to us, without violating eBay policy and getting a defect.    The best defense is having free returns on the listing, so as to qualify for Seller Protections, but it's too late to edit the listing after the purchase is completed.  The only option is to ship and hope for the best.

And talk about wasting time -why waste time posting replies about what a seller did wrong during the transaction, when that's not what they asked about?  

I'm especially baffled by the Google maps thing.  -Why would a buyer history of negative feedbacks about item condition prompt you to seek satellite imagery of their home?  Sounds kinda weird to me, but maybe you know something I don't.  

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I don’t get it either. Unless the buyer has a sign in their window that says “I try to scam eBay sellers and leave them unjustified negative feedback when it doesn’t work”, Google mapping buyers’ houses is an exercise in futility.

[chapeau-noir]

I'm surprised that the suggestion to investigate the buyer on Google maps was presented as a normal and essential component of selling - "did you not...?" - when it's no more than a subjective and rather stalkerish exercise.

[gurlcat]

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@gone.c-33 wrote:

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@gurlcat wrote:

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@sextons-sweet-deals wrote:

You are wasting my time trying to help you for future sales along with others who have posted comments. 

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If anyone takes the advice you gave, you will have done the opposite of helping.  Since we have no way of pre-screening buyers for BIN items, when one with an ugly feedback history buys an item, there is nothing we can proactively DO to prevent them doing something ugly to us, without violating eBay policy and getting a defect.    The best defense is having free returns on the listing, so as to qualify for Seller Protections, but it's too late to edit the listing after the purchase is completed.  The only option is to ship and hope for the best.

And talk about wasting time -why waste time posting replies about what a seller did wrong during the transaction, when that's not what they asked about?  

I'm especially baffled by the Google maps thing.  -Why would a buyer history of negative feedbacks about item condition prompt you to seek satellite imagery of their home?  Sounds kinda weird to me, but maybe you know something I don't.  

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I don’t get it either. Unless the buyer has a sign in their window that says “I try to scam eBay sellers and leave them unjustified negative feedback when it doesn’t work”, Google mapping buyers’ houses is an exercise in futility.

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There is a use for it, but it's rare and only after-the-fact, like something delivery-related has gone wrong (or the buyer claims so).  For example to see if the address is a commercial facility versus residential, to see if it's an apartment complex when the address didn't include an apartment number/letter, etc.  But before shipping, based on feedbacks that have nothing to do with delivery .... LOL, nah. 

[chapeau-noir]

As someone here rightly pointed out, trying to evaluate whether someone should be purchasing something or not by googling their address will probably lead to outdated information, anyway. They are not continually updated.

[theteamsetguy]

@dhaga ,

In my opinion one negative feedback comment when you have 703 feedback score is not going to hurt your sales one iota.

[gwens*4saleitems* · Accepted solution]

@dhaga 

 I'm surprised, even shocked, that no one has told you to go to eBay for business on Facebook and send a message to talk to a real person aka service rep. 

There's a LOT of threads on here as to how to go about using FB for this kind of situation.

[southern*sweet*tea]

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@dhaga wrote:

I have been with ebay for over 25 years and I don't understand why ebay is allowing buyers to leave negative feedback because they found me to be "uncompassionate". It is my first negative feedback received ever.  Of course I appealed and ebay says that sort of feedback does not violate policy. Ebay shows zero loyalty for those in my position and allows abusive buyers to leave damaging remarks based on a how they feel. This seems plain wrong. Is there anyway to communicate with ebay concerning policy change requests? 

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Just skimmed the thread, so all this may have already been pointed out, but don't sweat it.  The first one hurts the worst.

The buyer's feedback they left makes them look REALLY bad.  They may have already lost their MBG privileges, which is why they didn't open an Ebay case.   Do they leave lots of negs?  If so, this may be the case - that OR they are very successful in extorting money back after the sale.

Your feedback left to the reply was just fine. I would have no issue buying from you.

[dhaga]

I don't think they lost their MGB privileges yet since after I told them I would not refund unless they went through MBG, which they eventually did. My guess is they are fearing they will lose the privilege because they have a recent pattern of leaving a lot of negs (7 negs out of most recent 14 feedbacks left). In message 35 of this thread I posted some PM's showing how they got upset with me by making them go through the MBG process. 

[dhaga]

You are a rock star! After a few minutes using the chat and explaining what happened this is the reply I got.

Success! We see this is actually an eligible submission and the feedback has been recommended for removal. This should reflect in your account shortly. Please allow 48 hours for the changes to reverberate through the system. We appreciate the chance to get this straightened out. ~Mark Y

They were quick, the feedback is already gone!

[jameshen1]

Glad this got taken care of for you.

[dhaga]

Thanks, pretty amazing reading through all the replies seeing how many are putting up bad information and advice. Several were actually hostile toward me and claiming I was wasting my time or wasting their time. This "win" really helps restore my faith that there are some voices of reason in both ebay CS and the community. 

[gurlcat]

Congratulations!  That is awesome news.  

But to be fair regarding the replies, your question was about how to get eBay to change their policy on feedback removal, not how to get the existing policy correctly handled for this one transaction of yours.  

There is (somewhere) a feature where you can submit an idea for the platform, and I guess that could include a request to change a policy, but it would be a pointless gesture if just one random person did it.