Why is it no longer possible to leave negative feedback on a buyer?

[agrussner]

It's a joke now trying to sell something on eBay. Since you can't leave negative feedback for deadbeat buyers that commit to buying something and then never follow through and just ignore any emails you send them. Where is the deterrent from them doing it again? If that's the way eBay runs it now I might as well just bid on things until I win the auction and then decide after if I really want it. eBay needs to do a better job of vetting  members prevent new accounts from bidding on items the day they are created. Even the accounts that have been members for many years pull this crap all the time and just ignore the invoices and they can't get a negative mark on their account.

[buyselljack2016]

@agrussner 

one reason why is that some sellers abused the negative feedback.

Where do you purchase things that shows feedback for you as a buyer???

for non-payers. On day 5 you can cancel for buyer non-payment, and the buyer will get a strike on their account. Many sellers set buyer requirements to block buyer with 2 or more strikes.

I very seldom do auctions. I do fixed price with IPR.

[soh.maryl]

"No longer possible"? 

You make it sound like this is a recent and sudden change.  It's been at least 10-12 years since sellers were allowed to leave negative feedback for buyers.

Do you know what takes place if/when a buyer hasn't paid by the 5th day after the end of the sale?

Seller cancels sale, gets his fees refunded, buyer gets a strike and seller is free to relist if he wishes.

And most sellers have set their requirements so that they do not have to deal with buyers who have two strikes in twelve months.  

Why bother to email buyers to remind them to pay? Use the tools eBay gives you.  

How would preventing new accounts from bidding on items the day they are created eliminate non-paying bidders?

How do you suggest that eBay "do a better job of vetting members"? 

[chapeau-noir]

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@agrussner wrote:

It's a joke now trying to sell something on eBay. Since you can't leave negative feedback for deadbeat buyers that commit to buying something and then never follow through and just ignore any emails you send them. Where is the deterrent from them doing it again? If that's the way eBay runs it now I might as well just bid on things until I win the auction and then decide after if I really want it. eBay needs to do a better job of vetting  members prevent new accounts from bidding on items the day they are created. Even the accounts that have been members for many years pull this crap all the time and just ignore the invoices and they can't get a negative mark on their account.

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Actually, they can, and where it really matters - if the seller follows through on the non-payment process, the non-payer gets a strike on their account - many sellers have their preferences set to deny bids from buyers with 2 or more strikes on their account in a rolling 12-month period.  Feedback is subjective and sometimes abused (and doesn't really count in metrics), but a strike on one's account for nonpayment is objective.

[fashunu4eeuh]

Leaving negative feedback for buyers is not an effective way to manage non-payers. Such warnings left in feedback are useless to sellers since they rarely get to vet their buyers before the purchase. And since feedback is voluntary, arbitrary and subjective, it is also not a reliable method to measure a buyer’s activity. 

Savvy sellers use Buyer Requirements to block non-payers from any ability to purchase their goods. This is a far more effective way to handle the problem than an arbitrary warning left in feedback that few will see. But giving a non-payment strike to a deadbeat buyer has a serious impact on that user’s buying privileges from thousands of sellers who know how to use their blocks in Buyer Requirements.

[jameshen1]

If instead of worrying about feedback, you used the non-paying bidder process and set your account to block bidders with 2 such strikes in the last year, you would have a lot more success and less problems with non-paying bidders.

[momdadsstash]

Non paying ones aren't the biggest problem. The scammers  that don't send back what you sent  them  should absolutely , not only get negative FBs, but get thrown off the site.

What do they get instead? Rewarded.

[eburtonlab]

Actual scammers were never deterred by the threat of negative feedback even when it was possible to give it to them.

Even the threat of getting kicked off eBay does not do much to someone who is willing to lie to register a new account.

Users committing fraud by filing a return on eBay, returning something else and then pocketing a refund should be referred to law enforcement by the seller.

[femmefan1946]

You can't leave negative feedback and have not been able to for years.

You can open an Unpaid Item Dispute and give them a Strike which makes it harder to bid or buy on eBay.

This is actually now automatically done by eBay if the transaction goes unpaid for four days.

[skeletonstore]

I've posted twice since last year about the most egregious default buyer on the site.  Many sellers left him false positives.  On his 1st account he would sometimes be able to buy but other times was blocked.  He eventually couldn't use that user ID and started a new one and picked right back up where he left off. He was able to agree to purchase if he was sent an offer,  an ebay glitch they have never addressed that i pointed out.  I'm not talking 3 or 4 or 10 or 11 defaults,  I'm talking many dozens if not hundreds between the two account over the course of say a year and a half.  That buyer is still active as of this past month with a 147 positive reviews in the past month, half of which are false positives.  People are giving him negatives and he just keeps trucking.  They haven't stopped him and I doubt if his feedback was in red he'd be stopped either.  There was a time on ebay if a seller got too many negatives they were booted or a buyer who left too many negatives.  That was ages ago from what I remember.  I don't like that immediate payment on best offers is only for certain sellers.  I get defaults all the time or buyers who buy,  pay and then say cancel my order.  Ebay should do something but they're desperate for sales and most of their sellers(big ones)are amazon chinese sellers dropshipping out of amazon prime warehouses.  They don't care about problems that come up.  That is why you're being replaced by them.  

[dryophelia]

@agrussner 

We haven’t been able to leave negative feedback for buyers since George W. Bush was president. 

[nobody*s_perfect]

LOL, sellers have been unable to leave negative or neutral ratings for buyers since May 20, 2008.  How fortunate you are to not have had occasion to notice this sooner.

[inhawaii]

What?

We can no longer leave a negative feedback for a buyer?

When did this happen?

[eburtonlab]

He eventually couldn't use that user ID and started a new one and picked right back up where he left off.

Ebay should do something

What can eBay do in practice beyond restricting an account or closing an account?

Given that the user has already demonstrated the ability to create a new account to get around an existing restriction, all that kicking the user off the site does is ensure that the user creates another new account with a new name that is not yet on any current blocked buyer lists.

If eBay is allowing offers to be made in circumvention of the blocked buyer list then eBay should close that loophole, obviously.

Beyond that, eBay's ability to sanction people (as opposed to sanctioning accounts) is extremely limited.

[vintagecraze50]

They behave badly too many times on here and they get their account closed. Yes, they can open another one, and when they repeat the behavior again gone again. I suppose that if they could identify the actual user of the account this stuff would not keep happening over and over with the same person but I believe the tech is not there to totally prevent the reopening of another account, not entirely sure though.