Is it me, or are buyers on eBay getting dumber by the day...

[bjybjy]

I've sold on eBay for like 5 years. My feedback is almost to 800. I had 2 negatives (both undeserved) back like 2 years ago. Then clean up until now. In 3 weeks I've gotten 3 negatives, all for stupid things. 2 of them were because I didn't contact the bidder.... only I did! Even after re-forwarding the message to the people they still say I never emailed them. And another thing broke in the mail and I got negative feedback. I've sold for many years, and I've never had the problems I've had as of late. Has anyone else noticed this?

 

Tad

[Adrian M]

I've sold on eBay for like 5 years. My feedback is almost to 800. I had 2 negatives (both undeserved) back like 2 years ago. Then clean up until now. In 3 weeks I've gotten 3 negatives, all for stupid things. 2 of them were because I didn't contact the bidder.... only I did! Even after re-forwarding the message to the people they still say I never emailed them. And another thing broke in the mail and I got negative feedback. I've sold for many years, and I've never had the problems I've had as of late. Has anyone else noticed this?

       

 

Tad

 

While I've been an eBay member for 3 years

I've not once had a problem back in 1999 when I started

(95 positives and counting) and have not had any recent

problems either, both as buyer and seller.

 

I have noticed, however, that it is definitely not a

seller's market at the moment. Items that routinely

sold for $300+ on eBay last year, now sell for approximately

half that, on average (ie: Supergrafx consoles). I've seen

this on many other items as well and as such, have been

reluctant to sell many items due to this. There will be an

upswing. Mark my words.

[Mayhem]

I've managed to stay 100% positive for now... I do wonder though from time to time...

[Sylentwulf]

I can't IMAGINE how people manage to keep all positives. I would say appx. 95% of my negatives are abosolutely LUDICROUS, anything from "didn't contact me" to "oops, I should have looked at the auction better" to "Charged $.50 shipping too much"

 

The other 5% consists of a few times where things didn't work out, 2 times someone tried to charge me like $35 for 20 atari games, or one system with no games, etc... and the rest are mostly retaliatory negatives.

 

But to have ZERO negatives with over 200 positives is QUITE a feat. I have around 99% positive, but with 5000 positive, that still adds up to QUITE a lot of negatives ... 50

 

But I guess I can't complain at 99% positive, since I DO leave negatives for non-paying bidders, which gets me a retaliatory half the time...

[Albert]

I have 295 positives, 3 neutrals, and 0 negatives, and I've been on eBay since early 1997. I haven't been very active on eBay recently, but I do plan on selling a lot of classic-gaming items in a few months so I'll have to work hard to keep my clean record. When selling items, I always clearly describe the items I'm selling, take good pictures, and make sure all the terms are plainly spelled out (especially shipping-related items). I also send out notices promptly after auctions have ended, and communicate as quickly as possible with sellers. And it's very important to package anything you sell very well, and to ship out items when you say you're going to.

 

As a buyer, it's pretty easy, especially with PayPal. When the seller sends me an email with the amount due, I send it within 24 hours via PayPal, or a postal money order if that's what the seller wants.

 

And I always leave feedback promptly when my end of the transation is finished. As a seller, this means once I receive payment (I don't want for the buyer to leave feedback first). As a buyer, as soon as I receive the item. If at that point I haven't received feedback from the seller, I will usually kindly ask the person to leave me feedback when I send them an email saying I received the merchandise and have left them feedback.

 

Even if you get a negative feedback, you can get it removed if you take advantage of the mediation service eBay provides. I've never had to do that so I don't know how difficult it is, but I do know people who have had feedback removed in this fashion. Also, I wouldn't hesitate to get a lawyer to write eBay a nastygram if I felt I unfairly received feedback from another eBay user.

 

..Al

[smile_walle]

I have been with Ebay buyer and seller myself, my total postive feedback are 68. 5 most successful times as Ebay seller myself, I have no problem with other bidders who bought my stuffies, they are very happy about me, very good package and take care of shipping....

 

I can show you my feedback's history at Ebay:

http://cgi2.ebay.com/aw-cgi/eBayISAPI.dll?...rid=smile_walle

 

My feedback showed that there is no negtives posted!!

 

 

Take care

 

Jason

[MrRetroGamer]

I have 468 positives. 358 are from unique users. ZERO neutral and ZERO negative. Mostly as a seller. I guess the idiots stay away from my auctions!

 

[Adrian M]

I have 468 positives. 358 are from unique users.  ZERO neutral and ZERO negative.    Mostly as a seller.  I guess the idiots stay away from my auctions!  

 

   

 

Be careful with your proud display

of your selling successes. Evil people

such as NESDESTROYER and FIRESTONE

can seek out those with flawless ratings

and immediately tarnish your hard-earned

rating. Just ask our friend Mr. Tim Atwood.

 

Be vigilant and immediately place blocks on

any of these dishonest bidders when their

names are mentioned. While I despise such

black-hearted people, they are a fact of

doing business on the internet and as such

precautions must be taken. Luckily for me

my feedback has been untarnished thus far.

[Andrew]

The funny thing I've witnessed at eBay regarding the whole feedback thing is that it is sorta meaningless. Yeah, it's great to get a good glance at people's track records, but they're misleading. For instance, and I can only speak for myself (but I'm sure that others out there have had similar cases), but I've found that people are less likely to leave negative feedback for fear of undeserved retalitory feedback. So the feedback rating itself is flawed.

 

Although I do get a kick out of "neutral feedback" because people seem to be more upset in getting that than a negative one. Anyone else have that same experience? I think it's funny. I leave sellers neutral feedback when they overcharge shipping by more than a couple bucks. Like when you pay $9 for priority shipping and it comes three weeks later parcel post for $1.54.

 

Even saying that, I do check feedback, but I'm not afraid to purchase stuff from new sellers unless it smells real fishy.

 

What I would like to see is that anytime there is a non-paying bidder or whatever, that mark against would get displayed automatically on their account by eBay without repercussions.

[Lost Monkey]

I didn't get my first negative until this spring.. and I have been on eBay since October 1997. I was on vacation in Europe for 3 weeks, and had set up my email to reply to all inquiries with an automated response...

 

The negative I received was from a guy who had been pestering me almost daily from the time he paid for his item... then I didn't hear from him in the 2 weeks prior to leaving for Italy ...of course it was HIS package that was lost... I would have gladly replaced it for him anyway if HE HAD JUST WAITED UNTIL I GOT BACK... In the end he did a charge back through Billpoint as well.. but that doesn't bother me nearly as much as the negative... Once he left that negative, (especially since I had replied to him several times before leaving and that my computer had responded to him automatically while I was gone).. I was done with him...

 

 

http://cgi2.ebay.com/aw-cgi/eBayISAPI.dll?...erid=super-x-ii

[Mayhem]

428 positive, 316 uniques, 0 neutral, 0 negative since Jan 99. Guess I get the intelligent sellers/bidders

[jahfish]

Is it me, or are buyers on eBay getting dumber by the day...

 

it's just that that there is more and more of them

 

 

i had similar problems in the last weeks ..... people that won't send a mail or try to solve anything, but instead immediately post neg. feedback .....

[tomyou]

I have 8993 pos 12nuet and 9 negs so I have been pretty fortunate in my years on e-bay so far. I Think the key is good contact. those automated e-mails don't work for me. I like to have "personal" contact after the auction, when I get payment and when I ship. As long as your are polite and easily accessable most problems will work them selves out to everyones satisfaction. Of course you will always have your occasional wacko too

[MrRetroGamer]

I have 8993 pos 12nuet and 9 negs so I have been pretty fortunate in my years on e-bay so far. I Think the key is good contact. those automated e-mails don't work for me. I like to have "personal" contact after the auction, when I get payment and when I ship. As long as your are polite and easily accessable most problems will work them selves out to everyones satisfaction. Of course you will always have your occasional wacko too

 

I agree - good contact is the key to a smooth transaction.

[Philflound]

I have paypal automatically contact my winners. This is great if you set it up to have paypal email you at the same time. If you don't get the emails when the auction is over, then your winning bidder also didn't get it. I've seen it flawed many times, so I added something to my description in blue letters. "Paypal will email you with all information within one day of auction end. If you do not get this, email me IMMEDIATELY".

 

Of course I have the dummies who wait 2 weeks, and things have been so crazy around here that I haven't followed up on many of my unpaid auctions for 3 weeks now. What I'll do is send an invoice through ebay if not paid for. I will write in the extra box on this invoice to contact me with address immediately. This will get the buyer's attention. If I don't hear from the buyer in 2 days, then I will go ahead and start the refund with the non-payer bidder alert. You have to wait 10 days to do this option, but it wakes them up even more. Then you can apply for your credit in another 7 days. The thing that gets me is that you get cheated out of your listing fee. I think if someone does not pay, you should be entitled to get your relisting fee done for free a 2nd time.

 

Ok, gotta run for lunch. I'll follow this up later.

 

Phil

[Philflound]

Ok, here is my follow up. I have exactly 1 negative. Early on, though I got one from a guy who didn't like me helping out a fellow Atari collector. These were the days when you could leave a feedback for someone regardless of whether you ever had dealt with this person. Nevertheless, they were booted and the negative became a neutral.

 

The only negative I have to date is from someone who was not happy with a grade of a comic book. We offered a full refund for 10 days and he was overseas. So because I did not get back to him immediately (within 1 day of his email) and he didn't want the refund, he left me the negative. And so I still have it to this day. I think this was about 1 year ago. I don't know exactly how many positives I do have with all the duplicate buyers/sellers, but my fb is up to about 730+.

 

Feedback I feel does not do justice most of the time. My friend has around 190 negatives, about 3500 positives with an overall rating of like 2800 or so. And most of the people who left negatives (some were justified) were people who did NOT read the auction. In his auction, he states delivery between 1-3 weeks. He would get a negative fb within 2 weeks of people complaining they didn't get their stuff. STUPID BIDDER!

One negative he got from selling a 1978 Star Trek 12" Klingon SEALED and the buyer opened it up, and played with it and the leg came off. DUH! And the guy wanted a full refund because of this. So when he didn't get it, he left a negative. That would be like selling a brand new sealed Atari game, and the buyer opens it up and for whatever reason, it just doesn't work and you hold the seller responsible. Then of course there was the idiots similar to NESDESTROYER who wanted to ruin him so he used BIN and then left negative fb immediately.

 

I do remember one time that he had one Ghostbusters suspender. The auction stated ONE SUSPENDER! The lady got it, was pissed there was only ONE SUSPENDER, and left him a negative. Later on he found its mate buried in storage and guess what, SHE WASN't GETTING IT!

 

Oh, one last STUPID buyer story. Picture this. 200-300 auctions on in a week. Most are set at the same price, $9.99 or so. And if you only get one bidder, you end up with MANY $9.99 auctions. Let's move on to a winner of an auction sending a money order. The money order is the standard $9.99 plus the shipping listed in the auction. Now we review the list of auctions with $9.99 and come up with MANY!!! So we look, NO ITEM #, NO ITEM NAME/DESCRIPTION! NO EMAIL ADDRESS NOR ANY OTHER PAPERWORK! Hell, possibly no return address (yes this has happened), but in this case there was. WE HAVE NO CLUE WHAT THIS PERSON WON! So my friend spends 34 cents and WRITES this person a letter. In the meantime, he gets a negative fb from this buyer (don't know who this is but figures it out after the negative was left because then he could email this person) before the buyer gets the letter stating that the money order was received but there was no info on which auction was won. So there is a follow up under the negative "hastily left negative fb" but Ebay hasn't removed the negative and now it stains his feedback.

 

I dealt with one dealer who only sold with half.com. This person had a fb rating of like 8000. They sold cds and dvds and videos. They had at the time like 700 negatives and like 500 neutrals. Because of the fact that once you confirm an order YOU MUST SHIP WITHIN 24 HOURS OR NEXT BUSINESS DAY!!!! This person happened to ship my dvd 17 DAYS AFTER CONFIRMATION!!! I left him a negative. I reported him to ebay/half.com. HE STILL SELLS DESPITE BREAKING THE RULES SET BY HALF.COM!!!

 

These people don't care because with like 10000 transactions, they are making a fortune. Money vs rules. GREED WILL RULE OVER ALL!!!

 

The problem was that Ebay came first and dominates the market. Unless they do something really stupid to screw the customers, they will probably always dominate the market. 'nuff said.

 

Phil

[jaybird]

I got my one negative from an idiot as well. When I got it I felt like closing that account & opening another even though I had a rating of close to 200 at the time.

 

I've been a member since July of 1998, and have 405 positives, 1 neutral & 1 negative. I actually have 4 neutrals, but 3 of them were when eBay had the stupid rule of making any comment a neutral if the user who left it was suspended. So 3 of my positives turned into neutrals as a result.

 

Ironically, the guy who left me a negative is now suspended & I'm wishing that rule was still in effect so it'd get changed to neutral

[King Atari]

I'm threatened with a negative myself, although my other feedback is picture perfect. I listed every single thing that was in my auction, but when the buyer gets it, he expects there to have been more than what I listed! What?!?! What you read is what you got buddy! you can't ASSUME. You have to take it for what was described, or e-mail before the auction ends (I'm always fast on my e-mails, too). He's the one at fault, anyways. He didn't e-mail for 2-3 days after the auction, and then he waited to get the money order out, I e-mailed that postage went up that morning, and he mails me the old payment later that day! I had to take money out of the the actual auction price to ship it!

[nashnooga]

I've got 55 positives, but I was the buyer on all of them... It sucks because if I have a bad seller, I can't leave him negative feedback, because then I will get negative feedback, but luckily I've only had bad experience with one seller (that I can remember).