Negative seller feedback

[kabilab]

I sold a factory sealed PS4 game. Checking today, I received a red neg, so was preparing to contact the buyer. For an unknown reason, I checked his record and discovered he has made 43 purchases in 5 1/2 wks. and given 42 red negs. Why e-Bay has permitted his account to stay active is most definitely a puzzle.

I have accepted that e-commerce has its unique problems and that sellers must roll with the punches, but this is too much to stomach. 42 other sellers have been faced with this male bovine manure in 5 1/2 wks. Is this what the platform has come to represent?

[buyselljack2016]

Would be even worse if the seller gets caught by USPS shipping games by MM

[kabilab]

Thank you ckim. Your words brought me to mist and that rarely occurs. Irrespective of whether I succeed or fail in having this mark removed, I am here until my stock has been liquidated. The sad part is that the e-Bay scales have tipped sooooooo far in the buyer's favor, that many excellent sellers have abandoned the platform.

[kabilab]

Mary, if I only sold $5.99 items, I would agree with you. Last week, I had nine sales, grossing $86, with a true net of $31. My shipping costs were from $3.66 to $4.13 each and my product averaged 25 cents a piece. In addition, I factor in 25 cents for a mailer, paper and toner.

I am strongly considering separating the more desirable stock and selling the remainder in the store for 50 cents a DVD. The most expensive DVD I have sold on e-Bay was $279; I paid $5 for it in a pawn shop. That, however, was several yrs. ago when I had a vision of becoming a seller oriented toward profit. I planned on listing my comics from the late 40s & early 50s and my 33 1/3s, 45s & 78s from the 50s. I dropped that idea approx. five yrs. ago.

[mam98031 · Accepted solution]

@kabilab 

That is what is known as Feedback Abuse.  If you want it removed, you need to contact Ebay and report the Feedback abuse.  Heck you might even be able to help some of those other sellers, who knows.  But the buyer needs to be reported.

I would suggest that you contact Ebay for Business on Facebook, Instagram or Twitter for the better trained CSRs.

Here are your options for contacting Ebay Customer Service.  Please be aware that for social media CS, you send them a Private Message and briefly explain what your problem or issue is.  Feel free to leave your Name, address, phone number and/or your email address in this message.  It is private and secure and it may help to speed up the response for you.

https://twitter.com/askebay

https://www.facebook.com/eBay/

https://www.instagram.com/ebayforsellers/

Your options will be on the left.  If you use the link below you can only get to the Automated Assistant or Chat box type AGENT in the box and hit enter. You will then get more options.  Not all options are available 24/7.  It will depend on staffing available.  So sometimes you can request a call back and sometimes you can't.  Sometimes you have the Chat option available and other times it won't me.  If it is important to you to use one of those options, just try back later.

If you use a cell phone or other mobile device, you may need to turn off your Spam filter so that Ebay can call you.

If you are a seller outside of the US or Canada, you will need to use the Chat Option.

https://www.ebay.com/help/home

[kabilab]

Mam, thank you for the Facebook link. I was assisted by Daniel, who reviewed the buyer's record, then informed me he had sent the problem to a Risk team for review. He also commented that he was unable to remove the neg, as it did not violate policy. If, though, the Risk team acted, the neg would be removed. Even if the team decides the buyer should remain, although I would vehemently disagree, I also understand their decision would be business.

e-Bay has been an excellent platform for me as a buyer.

[kabilab]

Jack, I am only able to comment for myself, but the ability to mail a game by Media Mail is not an option I could select. There was a time, several yrs. ago when that was possible, but I do not recall seeing it in quite some time.

[downunder-61]

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@kabilab wrote:

Mam, thank you for the Facebook link. I was assisted by Daniel, who reviewed the buyer's record, then informed me he had sent the problem to a Risk team for review. He also commented that he was unable to remove the neg, as it did not violate policy. If, though, the Risk team acted, the neg would be removed. Even if the team decides the buyer should remain, although I would vehemently disagree, I also understand their decision would be business.

e-Bay has been an excellent platform for me as a buyer.

---

If the neg stays, your reply to it was awesome and would not stop me purchasing from you at all.

Sorry you had to deal with such a waste of space buyer.

[georgiagenes]

Buyer is not always right. eBay has settled plenty of cases in my favor and often they just pay off both sides to de-escalate. Fraud accounts and buyers leaving all negatives definitely need to be dealt with ASAP. Undeserved bad feedback reduces the number of transactions. Follow the money. Importantly, many sellers have left or are demotivated to list more / grow after getting a spat of bad feedback that use to qualify for removal. It was a good thing when agents had the power to remove it. Some sellers would call in multiple times before getting a "gray area" feedback removed. Their time and effort was rewarded and they pay it back with listing more and growing. If the feedback removal tool was more lenient in actually removing any gray area feedback (I don't know anyone that it has worked for) then sellers would be happier and buyers would quit reading bogus feedback. A damaged seller from my recent neutral buyer had 3,000 positive and 1 negative in the last month. What does a potential buyer click on? That one negative of course. FAIR would be that the potential buyer has to scroll down through pages of positives to find that one negative. And this is a damaged non-profit big seller as well. You would think if any seller could get a bogus negative removed it would be them. Buyers on poshmark don't even see a seller rating!

[mam98031]

It has been my observation that some sellers come to the threads because they are upset by some feedback they have received from buyers that are Negatives or Neutrals and they are mad that Ebay won't remove them.  

Each of these complaints must be looked at one by one.  They are not all the same but some are trying to make it seem that way.  

Just because a seller doesn't like the feedback or feels it is undeserved is not a valid reason to have FB removed.  It never has been.  Even before Ebay tightened up on the removal of FB.

The best approach for a seller when trying to get the FB removed is do some homework.  Find the Ebay policy that the buyer breached.  If you can do that, the chances of getting it removed increases a great deal.

But all the complaints about FB that does not breach any policy has nothing to do with Ebay tightening their belts on this.  They would not have been removed before the changes either.