Don't give feedback to sellers until they give it to you.......

[wlkngdshbg]

Time and time again, I buy something on Ebay, I pay immediately with PayPal, and the seller does not give me any feedback until after I leave it for him first.

This is agains Ebay policy I am almost sure. A bit ago Ebay changed policy so sellers could not leave "retalitory" feedback, that is giving a buyer bad feedback who paid quickly, just because they gave well-deserved bad feedback for a good reason.

This ruined the feedback system for ebay, making it useless.

Now, apparently most sellers simply hold off on giving feedback as long as possible. Are they hoping the buyer gets tired of waiting? Are they hoping the buyer simply slips up and leaves it before they are supposed to?

Whatever the reason, there is no GOOD one for not leaving positive feedback for a buyer that pays lightning fast with PayPal. The buyers job is done at that point, and done very well.

Then it is up to the SELLER to pack the item well, ship it promptly, and have the item be as described in the auction.

If the seller screws up or sells something that is not as advertised, then they damn well deserve bad feedback so that the next buyer can be informed of the bad apple.

So in a nutshell, if you are a buyer on ebay, lets start holding that feedback back until the seller does what they are supposed to for a prompt-paying customer. And if they do not leave feedback, lets report them to Ebay so the feedback system is not compromised as it once was, and so buyers can be properly informed of a sellers performance when they are shopping.

Thanks

[calkovsky-cinema-worldwide]

Correct, about 20% of buyers don't leave any feedback because they don't care to say thank you. Just self-serving entitled people.

[calkovsky-cinema-worldwide]

YES! WELL SAID!

[sarahfromdallas]

I'm not really sure if this has been addressed (didn't have time to read the whole thread), but I have seen several sellers outright say in their listing that they won't give feedback until the buyer leaves it. One from tonight: "Positive feedback is left, when positive feedback is received." Umm, what?! That's blatant manipulation of the system. Why the heck is this **bleep** allowed? 

[deanna11623]

I have the same problem as a seller. I am new and trying to build my reputation. I have had no issues. I ship my products out right away and give the buyer feedback right after I print my postage label. I watch the tracking on my orders to make sure they are delivered. Yet I hardly receive feedback.

[deanna11623]

That seems rude and unprofessional. I would never do that. I do wish there was a way to nicely get the buyers to leave feedback. I read that eBay emails buyers if no feedback has been received after one month. I'm not sure if they do that or not. I have not received any feedback from buyers that was not right away and then only a few.

[acxfog]

I made a big purchase (over $500) seller shipped the item but never communicated with me that it was shipped or it needs a signature nor updated the order status (it was showing not shipped for awhile) I only found out when USPS was trying to deliver to my house 3 times. I contacted seller to give me the tracking number so I could just pick up the item at the post office & seller did & apologized for the confusion due to some emergency which I am very understanding. I paid & took care of the payment promptly & was also inconvenienced for the understandable miscommunication. Am I expected to initiate leaving the seller a feedback?

[sarasdad91]

I sold an smartphone just the other day. As soon ss I recieved payment I left good feebsck for the buyer, asking him to do the same coutesy for me. Its been 4 days since he got item, has not filed aganst me with paypal, no resson to, and still no feedback from him. So its a 2 way street!

[downtimeguy]

Sounds pretty much like the way things are supposed to work. Buyer has the signal to engage in feedback and may or may not do anything about it.

Although I certainly think eBay could incentivize buyers to engage with more regular feedback in some manner or another. Even a quarterly $5 ebay gift code reward for persistent feedbackers would probably do the trick.

[gencollacch-0]

If from a sellers point it's useless then why do a lot of sellers require a buyer to have some level of feedback before buying or bidding their product. That is why the buyer needs the feedback from the seller. The buyers are simply trying to build their own reputation so when they come across a seller that is demanding positive feedback they are covered. I've had this happen to me. I purchased a product and paid immediately and the seller 4 days later decided to cancel my order and refunded my payment because I had no feedback. So that is why I think once the transaction is complete and the buyer leaves positive feedback then the seller should return the same feedback to the buyer as well.

[triforce9823]

The buyer should leave feedback first.

There's buyer ebay scamers who do paypal chargebacks after the seller ships their item (paypal seller protection doesn't cover chargebacks), claim item was "not as described" and ask for partial refund (discount scam), or start a return/refund for an item but return empty boxes or a look alike item with different serial number to seller, etc. If i'm a seller who's aware of these things I wouldn't want to reward scammers with positive feedback just because "they paid lightning fast with paypal" so they can fool another seller with their positive feedback and do it again.

It's just more reasonable for the buyer to leave feedback first because the buyer has the last task in a ebay transaction, to confirm their item arrived and that they're satisfied. 

[chiaretta]

The only reasonable thing would be to finally understand that feedback is, always was and in all likelihood always will be voluntary.

The difference between what I have left as a buyer as opposed to what I have received is greater than your total number of transactions in three years, and that same number, if I go back starting from today takes me to early May this year, so I believe I have than more decent grasp of the concept

[downtimeguy]

The buyer should leave feedback first. A reasonable buyer should at minimum let the seller know that items were received in good order. Although even this is going beyond what is expected of a buyer for an online purchase. When is that last time anyone remembers telling Amazon that something arrived successfully? It doesn't happen since large online sellers correctly remain focused on the next sale. Almost every high volume eBay seller I've bought from understands this and doesn't waste any time or resources on soliciting feedback first. They typically have their accounts setup to automatically provide a buyer with feedback after payment is processed. But I understand that smaller scale and niche eBay sellers do have a greater interest in securing feedback from every sale possible.

The main problem I've found with the current feedback system is that it seems to oblige only the buyer to perform a specific task, namely reporting receipt of item(s) to the seller. This reporting task should be separated out of the feedback process in order to keep it a strictly voluntary exchange. eBay should design a separate but simple confirmation step for buyers to report that item(s) were either received or not. This step could even be automated to prompt buyers via email after the expected delivery window has passed or be required to take place immediately before a buyer can leave feedback. Whatever the implementation, separating out the uncertainty for a seller to know if the buyer did indeed receive the item(s) would allow for the exchange of feedback to remain focused entirely on satisfaction with the quality of goods and services received.

At present, the only way to separately report receipt of goods without deploying feedback is to use the clunky Message Seller mechanism.

[terrytalullah]

As a seller, I use to agree with this policy. I gave positive feedback right away. Especially to those wonderful people that pay immediatey. It is no longer the case. A buyer ruined it for me. What a scam artist. She knew how to take advantage of the ystem and policies. I sold her a brand new top completely described. She paid immediately. I gave her a perfect score on feedback right away. Then the scam began. She filed an E-Bay claim. E-bay said I didn't have to refund due to her complaint. I thought it was over. The scam continued as she made a case on Pay Pal. Pay Pal said I didn't respond in time, so they refunded her money. I appealed because my original response didn't go through. I won the appeal. Although Pay Pal gave me the money back, the buyer still got to keep her refund, and she never returned the top. Can you as a buyer understand why a seller would not want to give feedback right away? I no longer want to give feedback right away.

[chfotiou]

 That's called, the price of doing business. There's always scammers.  If I bought something from you and you did not give me feedback, it would be the last thing I bought from you.   Half of the people I bought from never gave feedback and I pay immediately, so I go elsewhere.  

[downtimeguy]

In your case it is understandable why proactively leaving feedback seems like a bad decision. However, whether or not you had provided feedback to that scammer is unlikely to have altered to eventual outcome.

Almost every high volume seller I purchase from will automatically provide feedback after a sale in order to maximize likelihood of future sales. It is an unfortunate reality that the emotional disadvantage of selling online can not be mitigated since buyers and sellers never directly interact. Perhaps it will improve someday with better digital trust mechanisms.

If ebay was smart, it would continue to innovate by providing discounts for buyers and sellers who establish high levels of trust, thus incentivizing more honesty.