Give Sellers The Ability To Block Buyers Who Leave Excessive Negative Feedback

[albany_sellers]

Time and time again, sellers are getting dinged by buyers who make it a hobby to leave negative feedback to every person they buy from, sometimes in the hundreds.

Anybody who has been around for any amount of time can tell you about those buyers who can't be made happy no matter what, and those buyers who seem to enjoy using negative feedback to get free items or discounted items. It's bad enough that we have lost the ability to give buyers negative feedback. It's an epidemic and eBay for the most part just looks the other way.

I think many of us have seen the familiar pattern where a buyer seems normal, no problems and then almost overnight it becomes a sea of red negative feedback on their profiles once they realize how easy it is to get discounts and free stuff. You can see this going on with individuals for years and years in many cases without eBay stepping in to try and see why these people seem to have such bad luck all the time.

Seriously, eBay, how hard is it to put a system in place that flags users for review after they leave a certain amount of negatives? If you don't want to do it for your sellers, do it for yourself so that you can find out why these buyers are so unhappy all the time and fix it.

If you really did want to do something to gain some good will from your sellers, you would put in place an option to block buyers who leave a certain amount of negatives, similar to the option to block buyers with so many unpaid item strikes.

Think of how many sellers have had their feedback wrecked for no real reason other than a buyer thought it would be a good way to get something for free or to punish someone who wouldn't give them a discount. If you guys really want to show us that you take seller protection even halfway serious, start giving us some tools to protect ourselves instead of giving the same tired excuses and scripts.

We need to be able to be proactive instead of reactive. Blocking someone AFTER they rip us off or after they ruin our feedback does nothing for us. It's time to step up to the plate and be responsible for what happens on your platform.

If you guys are the landlords and if eBay is a building, then hire some security, maintain the building and fix the locks on the doors if you expect us to keep paying rent, anything else is just being a slumlord.

[slippinjimmy]

Define "excessive".............

[lunalapin1912]

I prefered when Ebay got rid of sellers who had too many negatives. Nowadays it's a gamble whether you receive what you ordered, or you don't. If you get the right item or not. If the item is as described or not.

[shop_giftworthy]

If the negative is truly undeserved, call ebay's customer service and tell them to remove it. They've removed them for me. I won't put up with it. If you did something wrong, that's another matter. But if there's no reason for the buyer to leave a negative, if you did everything you said you would, ebay's customer service will look into it and remove it.

Don't forget, ebay sends you a bill, not a paycheck. They work for you. Not the other way around. I don't mind reminding them of that when I have them on the phone, if they get a little snooty.   🙂 Although they're usually pretty nice about it.

But you're right, there should be a private record with a score for each buyer and their shopping experience, like a credit report, that could take into account all behavioral factors, like unpaid items, bid retractions, negative feedbacks, etc... And we could block anything under a certain score.  I would rather they do that than have to leave feedback for buyers. I don't understand why we're still having to leave feedback for buyers. It was different years ago when the people on ebay policed themselves for the most part. Now it seems silly. If I buy on Walmart's website, they don't rate me! lol  How embarrassing would that be? I'm the seller, the one expected to provide the service, therefore I should get the feedback rating. One buyer's money is no greener than another's. I love all my customers, so I just leave a thank you note as the feedback. Except for the lady that told me to eat dirt for promptly refunding her money. She was promptly added to my blocked bidders list with no questions asked. ;-D

[gew6463]

I completely agree with you. If I can block a buyer due to the number of non-pays they have in the last 6 months, I should be able to do the same with buyers who leave regular negs. 

While I understand it can be a bit dicey when buying (as mentioned), I still don't think excessive negs are needed (calculated by buys; when you go into feedback, and 1 in every 3 is a neg or neutral...well, that is a bit suspicious in my book). With the Ebay MBG, you do have options for resolving bad transactions. I'm NOT saying negs are not neccessary. But getting a neg because "seller did not answer my email fast enough" or "item took too long to arrive" (though within the USPS quote time; you don't get Priority ship time on a first class package). 

I want to make one thing clear: I love the majority of my customers. I think I have an above-average number of very nice people that come my way. But on the rare occasion, you get a neg that just doesn't make sense, only to find upon checking that the buyer has a looong history of giving these type of negatives. Often not for SNAD issues, but for the examples I gave above. That is abusing the system in my opinion. Honest SNADs are not.

I doubt Ebay will change it (they want any & all buyers/purchases) but i think it would make it a big difference for sellers overall. 

[parkersparrow]

I kind of agree but ther are so many variable to consider and how would it really be policed? I try and make a habit now of checking the feedback left for others. I had one buyer leave a negative saying the zipper didn't work. So I did some research and found out they were a seller of handbags themselves and left similar negative feedback for other handbag sellers.  I reported them, tried to get the feedback removed, called customer service several times. I eventually got a superviser to investigate and they put in a report for "attemting to disrupt" I thought nothing would really come of it then a few months later the negative was gone. 

[twnpopcards · Accepted solution]

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@gew6463 wrote:

I completely agree with you. If I can block a buyer due to the number of non-pays they have in the last 6 months, I should be able to do the same with buyers who leave regular negs. 

While I understand it can be a bit dicey when buying (as mentioned), I still don't think excessive negs are needed (calculated by buys; when you go into feedback, and 1 in every 3 is a neg or neutral...well, that is a bit suspicious in my book). With the Ebay MBG, you do have options for resolving bad transactions. I'm NOT saying negs are not neccessary. But getting a neg because "seller did not answer my email fast enough" or "item took too long to arrive" (though within the USPS quote time; you don't get Priority ship time on a first class package). 

I want to make one thing clear: I love the majority of my customers. I think I have an above-average number of very nice people that come my way. But on the rare occasion, you get a neg that just doesn't make sense, only to find upon checking that the buyer has a looong history of giving these type of negatives. Often not for SNAD issues, but for the examples I gave above. That is abusing the system in my opinion. Honest SNADs are not.

I doubt Ebay will change it (they want any & all buyers/purchases) but i think it would make it a big difference for sellers overall. 

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Ebay has shown over and over that they do not care about the sellers because we are a dime a dozen in their eyes.  In their eyes the buyers are their customers and we are nothing more than a fulfillment center and that is exactly how they treat us.  That is becoming more and more evident with what the did to all personalization of the stores we pay for and are processing the Managed Payments where the sellers name does not even appear of the credit card statement, Only Ebay Commerce or something like that.  Ebay also refers to OUR inventory as if they own it and that we are nothing but employees of their company, not businesses that are run by individuals.

I know they have now come out again and said they are going to do more to protect sellers from the scammers and other issues, but I pretty much look at that as nothing more than another round of promises that Ebay fails to fulfill.   Ebay is having problems as more and more sellers are either leaving or taking their good products to other sites and leaving Ebay with the dregs that are no better than the 99 cent with free shipping Chinese junk.   Ebay will not do anything to a buyer as they already have problems growing as their reputation is not all that good.  The younger buyers and even those that are older and have the money to spend give up and go elsewhere when they cannot find what they really want, only what Ebay wants to show them, which in most cases makes more money for Ebay.  The constant changes due to the CEO's mantra of Disruptive Technology has taken its toll on the buyers also, so they go elsewhere now.

I also believe that whatever help that Ebay does put into place will cost Sellers big time as they will have more requirements put in place in order to take advantage of them.  Just as Ebay only allows those Sellers who Offer Free returns to get anything back from a buyer who steals or ruins their items, and the way Sellers no longer qualify for TRS+ on their listings unless they offer 30 day returns and free return shipping, whatever Ebay comes up with to supposedly help Sellers will come at a cost to the Sellers and just deemed another Cost of Doing Business on Ebay.  Every Seller Update under the current CEO has been a take away from Sellers and I just do not see that changing regardless of what was discussed on the Webinar with answers only being given to pre qualified questions so they can have the speech already in the can and not get blindsided like Bob Kupbens did shortly after he first arrived.

I just do not see Ebay doing anything positive for Sellers regardless of what they say in a Webinar that does not even say what they are going to do.  I believe this is nothing more than a knee jerk reaction to a non stellar Holiday Season and the constant comments on this site as well as others that as soon as their subscription is up they are cancelling their stores.  Ebay needs that revenue from the Stores to maintain any type of growth and if these Sellers carry out their promises to cancel their stores Ebay will have to try and make that income somehow and for the past 3 1/2 years it has always been out of the current Sellers pockets in some shape, form or fashion, even taking half of the TRS+ discount to help promote the site without it costing Ebay anything.  Lot of good that has done them or the Sellers.

I wish all the Sellers the best in 2019 and i hope that Ebay actually keeps its promises without forcing Sellers to incur additional costs to get it.  

[siamdao]

The problem is that these folks will simply open an additional account to circumvent any policy put into place to protect sellers from miscreants.

[albany_sellers]

"Define "excessive"............."

When you look at someone's profile and out of 30 purchases, they have gave 3/4 of the sellers negative feedback. You can tell when someone is playing games like that. Obviously if someone has made 1000 purchased and left 10 or 15 negatives, that's different.

[lunalapin1912]

What if they just discovered Chinese goods and didn't know the huge amount of scammers selling from China? You can easily have 2/3s of your purchases be counterfeits, misdescribed, or simply not shipped.

[tunicaslot]

Then wouldn't you question buying said goods if you couldn't verify them? If a seller is selling imitations - his feedback is going to reflect that. If a new seller all of a sudden has a ton of high priced items up for sale - I as a buyer am going to be cautious purchasing from them until they accumulate feedback to show their items are legit and the other buyers were happy with their purchases. 

[robot-hands]

 If you don't report them nothing is going to happen.

If you get a crazy person...look them up in toolhuas, then go and message the last few victims and encourage them to report as well.

Crazies are the least of our troubles though. 

Drive-by noobs are far worse for ebay.

[coolections]

It can't be all that bad because the OP has ZERO neutrals and negatives. If the OP chooses on their own to give out freebies that's on the OP. Ebay does not require anyone to give a freebie or a discount if they choose not to.

[fern*wood]

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@albany_sellers wrote:

Time and time again, sellers are getting dinged by buyers who make it a hobby to leave negative feedback to every person they buy from, sometimes in the hundreds.

Anybody who has been around for any amount of time can tell you about those buyers who can't be made happy no matter what, and those buyers who seem to enjoy using negative feedback to get free items or discounted items...

This is only a thing because too many sellers play along to make it work.  I have never been a fan of feedback because of the blackmail ability it allows for.  I had hoped it would fade away after ebay stopped using feedback against sellers, but it seems enough sellers still allow it to be profitable.

[valuestore]

Ide rather have abilty to block high %  case opened buyers, aswell as the high percent refund buyers, the case dodgers,... feedback system was mothballed few years back.