Left a Buyer Negative Feedback and Rating But They Are Showing 100% Positive Feedback

[cminichiello0528]

I left  negative comment and a negative rating for a buyer who did not pay AFTER I cancelled the transaction per the policy and AFTER eBay requested the feedback.

I did not violate policy as others originally stated by some in the "now deleted" post. My rating matched the comments. The buyer did not ask me to modify the comment nor the rating. 

The user had other feedback that was similar (negative comments but a positive rating) so there is obviously something off.  They only had 3 feedbacks - all negative comments but 100% positive rating. 

Unfortunately, I was not able to see the feedback prior to sending out an offer since I am not able to see who is a watcher on an item. 

Has anyone seen this before? 

[cminichiello0528]

Thank you for providing a plausible answer because I do believe this must be what happened. Thanks for being kind unlike others. 

[cminichiello0528]

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@bonjourami wrote:

Sorry, but you wont get any 'support' when you are not following Ebays guidelines for buyer feedback. The rules are the same for all of us. No exceptions, sense of entitlement or not.

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Entitlement? Wow. 

Here's the policy from eBay:

"Any misuse of feedback isn't allowed. Feedback content should match the positive or negative rating that was given in both buyer and seller feedback. For example, a negative comment should not be left with a positive rating. "

Key words: feedback content + positive of negative rating. 

Whether you believe me or not, I was asked to provide a rating. My feedback content matched the rating I provided. End of story.

[fern*wood]

Maybe an ebay rep can pop in to clear this up.  Is there a new test for sellers to give non paying buyers feedback, along with star ratings?  Does this also allow false positives?

 devon@ebay                 

[cminichiello0528]

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@aproudparent2010 wrote:

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@cminichiello0528 wrote:

You didn't read my other responses where I added more information. You're only repeating what others have already stated and I provided additional information. I now the difference between a pop-up and not a pop-up - not only as a former developer but as a normal web user. 

What's a shame is that I came here as part of a seller community to share my experience in hopes that others sellers would be aware and to read feedback regardless of the positive rating. I truly assumed that this was a scam account or some other odd activity that I stumbled upon.  

I would have NO other reason to believe that I would be violating a policy if eBay provided an opportunity to provide a star rating in addition to written feedback to user who did not pay and AFTER I cancelled the order due to non-payment. This was NOT a pop-up and not the regular "leave feedback" screen. I know what I saw and I know what I did. 

Fellow sellers could have simply responded with "Huh? That's weird...." or "Nope, never saw that before..." but instead its either I am hallucinating or I am "violating" a policy.

Besides, if you read the policy itself, it does state a "rating" along with a "comment" in the same sentence. If all buyers including those who did not pay, why write the policy as if someone could deliberately post a negative comment with a positive transaction rating? 

• Sellers must not leave buyers a negative comment with a positive transaction rating

Maybe this should be followed up with "By the way, we default all buyers to positive." ?

Seems that eBay relies on the community to interpret policies rather than spend time to clarify their actual policies. 

Anywho....I'll say it again. I know what I did and I know what I saw and I definitely will think again before I return to this community for any future support. 

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You are positively wrong. I did read your additional posts, and as a seller with over 50,000 feedback I know very well how it works. You did not actually leave a negative feedback, you left negative comments but for around 16 years you can only leave a positive (green) mark for a buyer.

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I could care less if you had a million feedback ratings. You are positively wrong. I KNOW that you can only leave positive feedback ratings for buyers however, technically this person was not a buyer of MINE. Oy. 

[cminichiello0528]

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@lacemaker3 wrote:

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@cminichiello0528 wrote:

...

Besides, if you read the policy itself, it does state a "rating" along with a "comment" in the same sentence. If all buyers including those who did not pay, why write the policy as if someone could deliberately post a negative comment with a positive transaction rating? 

• Sellers must not leave buyers a negative comment with a positive transaction rating

...

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But you did leave a negative comment with a positive rating, which is what you're not supposed to do. See the screenshot below. eBay doesn't have AI that scans the comments to identify whether they have a negative or positive meaning. They enforce this policy when the user who received it makes a complaint about it. Apparently, your buyer is not aware of that, or doesn't bother.

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...

Anywho....I'll say it again. I know what I did and I know what I saw and I definitely will think again before I return to this community for any future support. 

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I think that @bennotbill may have been right, in this post here:

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@bennotbill wrote:

Maybe there is some new ongoing trial aimed at non paying bidders.

Who knows? There seems to be different tests and trials going on every other day.

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And if so, you probably did see the 5-star rating that you reported. eBay has been making a lot of changes lately, including changes to feedback. Buyers can now include a picture in their feedback for a seller, for example.

eBay may be testing out a kind of DBR or detailed buyer rating, like the 5-star DSRs or detailed seller ratings. They may or may not implement it, eventually. I would not be surprised if they don't display the DBRs publicly, although they might use it behind the scenes, perhaps to enable a bidder-requirement block.

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This has to be what happened.  It appears that there were 2 other sellers that left similar feedback and when I saw that, I wondered if they knew that their rating had changed, assuming they went through the same process. This is why I came to the community because I thought maybe scam buyers found ways to hack the system! From my perspective, this wasn't a buyer of MINE so I didn't think twice that the feedback screen looked different. It was also done after I cancelled the transaction and most of the people on here are stating that its not even possible to do that yet I did. So this is the only plausible explanation. 

[cminichiello0528]

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@reallynicestamps wrote:

@farmalljr 

I have reported two sellers in the last month, neither false positive was removed. Both were problem sellers. Neither false positive was removed

Buyers can leave negatives or neutrals for sellers.  There is no reason to leave a "false positive" which is a negative comment disguised by a green positive FB.

Leaving honest but unhappy feedback for a seller is not a false positive, even if the blow is softened by a green dot, and would not be removed.

Sellers cannot leave "false positives" for buyers, and it is pointless to do so.

It does not affect the sellers rating nor do future buyers usually read positive Feedback Left For Others to see if there was a problem.

Exactly! Sellers aren't going to read positive feedback which is why I had come to the community since I thought the buyer may have been hacking their feedback meaning changing negative ratings to positives. And if this was possible, then sellers should also check all comments. I sent out an offer to watchers so I didn't know who the potential buyers were going to be. I only saw this person's feedback after I cancelled and saw the other sellers' feedback (green dot with negative comments) along with mine knowing I left the "1 star". 

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[cminichiello0528]

"Reason: Unpaid Order" And was still able to leave feedback. 

[broto_64]

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@fern*wood wrote:

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@broto_64 wrote:

In all fairness the OP did state "I left  negative comment " in their original post, they did not state they left negative feedback, I think we may have read too quickly, ran with it and got carried away?

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Actually, they did---in the title and the first sentence of the first post.

"I left  negative comment and a negative rating for a buyer who did not pay AFTER I cancelled the transaction per the policy and AFTER eBay requested the feedback."

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There it did not state left negative FEEDBACK, it stated negative COMMENT and negative RATING, nothing about negative FEEDBACK there but yes I do see the title it stated but not the first sentence no sir.

[fern*wood]

We'll just have to agree to disagree.  You called me a sir---I'm offended!!!   oh wait--wrong thread😋

[iamalwaysright]

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@bashort wrote:

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@iamalwaysright wrote:

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@bashort wrote:

If you are going to leave feedback to warn other sellers you may need to get creative.

A+ A+ A+ A+ Thank you so much for not paying !!!!!!!! I sold it for more the next time!!!!!!!!!!!

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Lol I think that'll still be removed if the buyer reported it. Might I suggest typing it in pig latin?

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It would be interesting to know if AI could determine that this is a false positive or not.

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Only one way to find out.

[krazzykats]

Part of BBE (Bad buyer experience) on a cancellation? 

My best guess.

[lacemaker3]

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@cminichiello0528 wrote:

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@bonjourami wrote:

Sorry, but you wont get any 'support' when you are not following Ebays guidelines for buyer feedback. The rules are the same for all of us. No exceptions, sense of entitlement or not.

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Entitlement? Wow. 

Here's the policy from eBay:

"Any misuse of feedback isn't allowed. Feedback content should match the positive or negative rating that was given in both buyer and seller feedback. For example, a negative comment should not be left with a positive rating. "

Key words: feedback content + positive of negative rating. 

Whether you believe me or not, I was asked to provide a rating. My feedback content matched the rating I provided. End of story.

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@cminichiello0528, I understand where you are coming from, but I'm afraid that you are mistaken about this.

The policy does not refer to the buyer star-rating that you saw, which appears to be some kind of test that eBay may be conducting. The policy refers to the visible feedback that you left on your buyer's feedback page (and your own feedback-left page).

By eBay's definition, any user who wins an auction or commits to purchase a fixed price item is called a "buyer", whether or not they have paid (yet). So the user is still considered a buyer, in the eBay policy, even if they don't pay.

Sellers are not allowed to leave anything but positive feedback ratings for buyers (by eBay's definition), and they are not allowed to leave negative comments in a positive feedback.

I understand that your feedback was truthful, but the truth can still be negative, and the feedback comment you left was negative. eBay policy doesn't allow sellers to do that.

If your buyer reports that feedback comment, it will be removed. Like this feedback comment has been removed, which you left for another buyer sometime in the last 10 days, since this item was sold. What happened with this one?

[cminichiello0528]

I’m not sure which feedback comment you are referring to that was removed. In the 10 years I’ve been on eBay, I’ve only left negative feedback for the one user for non-payment which is still listed, I believe. 

[cminichiello0528]

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@lacemaker3 wrote:

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@cminichiello0528 wrote:

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@bonjourami wrote:

Sorry, but you wont get any 'support' when you are not following Ebays guidelines for buyer feedback. The rules are the same for all of us. No exceptions, sense of entitlement or not.

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Entitlement? Wow. 

Here's the policy from eBay:

"Any misuse of feedback isn't allowed. Feedback content should match the positive or negative rating that was given in both buyer and seller feedback. For example, a negative comment should not be left with a positive rating. "

Key words: feedback content + positive of negative rating. 

Whether you believe me or not, I was asked to provide a rating. My feedback content matched the rating I provided. End of story.

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@cminichiello0528, I understand where you are coming from, but I'm afraid that you are mistaken about this.

The policy does not refer to the buyer star-rating that you saw, which appears to be some kind of test that eBay may be conducting. The policy refers to the visible feedback that you left on your buyer's feedback page (and your own feedback-left page).

By eBay's definition, any user who wins an auction or commits to purchase a fixed price item is called a "buyer", whether or not they have paid (yet). So the user is still considered a buyer, in the eBay policy, even if they don't pay.

Sellers are not allowed to leave anything but positive feedback ratings for buyers (by eBay's definition), and they are not allowed to leave negative comments in a positive feedback.

I understand that your feedback was truthful, but the truth can still be negative, and the feedback comment you left was negative. eBay policy doesn't allow sellers to do that.

If your buyer reports that feedback comment, it will be removed. Like this feedback comment has been removed, which you left for another buyer sometime in the last 10 days, since this item was sold. What happened with this one?

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Oh - sorry. I see that last part of your comment for the bracelet. I always leave positive feedback for my buyers who pay. In that person’s case, you can’t see any of their feedback (or at least I can’t). I left positive feedback for that particular buyer. 

[lacemaker3]

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@cminichiello0528 wrote:

I’m not sure which feedback comment you are referring to that was removed. In the 10 years I’ve been on eBay, I’ve only left negative feedback for the one user for non-payment which is still listed, I believe. 

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Oh - sorry. I see that last part of your comment for the bracelet. I always leave positive feedback for my buyers who pay. In that person’s case, you can’t see any of their feedback (or at least I can’t). I left positive feedback for that particular buyer. 

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Ah, you're right. eBay has changed how they are showing feedback (again). They didn't use to block feedback that way, when it was left for a private feedback buyer. They used to let the feedback comment show on the seller's feedback-left page, because there's no way to get from there to the buyer's profile page. But I just checked on one of my accounts, and that's how they are doing it now.

When eBay removes a false-positive feedback, they normally just remove the negative comment, and leave the positive feedback rating (the green plus-sign).