mam98031 • Volunteer Community Member • Buyer/Seller since 1999
I know that it is generally accepted that Ebay took away the ability for sellers to leave anything other than positive FB for buyers in 2008 because of some sellers that misbehaved with the priviledge. Afterall it was part of what Ebay was saying at the time. IMHO it was mostly because it was the easiest excuse to use at the time that most sellers would buy into.
But in reality it was because it made good business sense. What other site or company allows negative FB to be posted about the customers, whether that is of the company or a similar site to Ebay? The answer is none. That isn't because they don't desire "honest" FB, it is because it is a quick way to ruin your business.
What many forget is the transactions on Ebay are NOT personal transactions but business transaction.
That doesn't mean there are not problematic customers/buyers. There are as we all know. And they aren't just here, they are everywhere. Fortunately for all of us, the majority of transactions go off without issue.
Returns and problematic customers are just a part of doing business whether it is here or on another site. However I firmly believe that Ebay could and should do a better job at supporting Sellers in these regards. They could if they really wanted to. They can't get in the middle of a he said she said situation, but when sellers have clear, concise proof, the sellers should have the ability to present their case to someone with the authority to do something about it. A review board of sorts.
everything you say only enforces the fact that professionalism should be first and foremost when dealing with customers and I fired off that topic without taking into consideration this buyer could very well see this and that kind of confrontation could be more damaging then anything eBay could hand me,
one must be cognizant of the damage a community board such as this could do to their bottom line.
This is highly unlikely to affect anyone that posts on the threads. While some buyers and some sellers come her to post, it is important to remember than in the scheme of things it is an extremely small percentage. There are millions and millions and millions of buyers and sellers. So it isn't likely that the person you had a transaction with will find you hear. Obviously possible, just not likely.
but I disagree about no other place allows negative comments about buyers.
i may be mistaken but doesn't ETSY run a Facebook thread for customers and buyers to interact?
I don't do Facebook so I can't comment to what goes on there. But on Etsy they don't even allow sellers to leave FB at all. It is a one sided system. Only buyers are allowed to leave FB. And it works just fine.
the one unfortunate side affect of the reborn doll industry is the artists do not interact well. One misstep can start a volcanic eruption of epic proportions with fake bidding, false newly created identities just for that purpose, bulk purchasing only to get PP involved in false chargebacks and the list goes on.
Sounds like a very hostile envoironment that I'm glad I'm not in.
That is why a large percentage of artists will not accept bids from buyers with less than 5 FB. There are artists that truly resent new blood and will gang together to run the new artists off. So the abilities like what we are talking about here would be tools for them.
Well if you can prove all that, report them to Ebay as this is a breach of the selling rules.
As I mentioned to a prior respondent there is a "no fly" list of buyers considered to be a problem. i keep getting offers to have it sent to me but i have declined.
So report whomever is sending it to you. Ebay will stop them and they don't have to say it was you that reported them. They aren't suppose to be doing that.
Best Wishes
@bdbq_reborn wrote:the more i think this through the more i believe buyer FB should be eliminated
it is nothing but a contentious subject and since seller input is staged it serves no purpose
i did have a buyer who never paid so I went to her eBay to see if she had any recent purchases ... was she just ignoring ME, maybe she was one of those that got on eBay once in a blue moon and maybe this was an impulse bid she forgot and I should give her more time
she only had ONE feedback and it was from a seller . it said "nonpaying bidder "
i wish I had seen that earlier
Looking at a buyer's FB can tell you a little bit, but not a lot normally. You certainly can't tell how active of a buyer they are unless they regularly leave FB for their sellers as often times sellers don't leave FB until after the buyer does. Then there are many sellers that feel strongly about the unfairness of the FB system and they don't leave FB at all.
What is more telling is to look at the FB they leave for sellers. You can sometimes learn a lot from that.
Various sites do things differently. On Etsy and on Amazon buyers do not get FB at all, only sellers do. What I see is that when buyers don't get FB per the site's rules, they only rarely leave FB for the seller. Now that can be good and it can be bad. When you don't have most of your buyers leaving FB, then you get one leaving a negative, it really screws up the numbers for the seller. Personally I think the FB numbers should be divided by the total transactions that a seller has, not just the number of transactions that get FB left. That to me would be more truthful.
