ok,,i am slightly annoyed...

since ebay changed their policies,,i have had two buyers flake on payments for record auctions...

in the five years that i have been on ebay,,this never happened previously...

i think their new policy of not letting sellers leave negative feedback is bullshit....it lets flakey buyers get away with tons of shit...

part of me feels like leaving negative comments on a positive feedback,,but in reality,,most people will not read feedback comments (they only look at percentage & numbers) & eventually it will just get buried....while the flakes feedback number increases....

what can i do outside of filing for an unpaid duspute?? IS THERE ANY JUSTICE????? rant over

I agree it's lame as dogshit on your new sneakers...the only recourse sellers had was the option to leave neg feedback

I completely agree. I think this was a terrible move by ebay.

not being able to leave negs as a seller is really stupid and equally as stupid is ebay converting neutral feedback to negative

Yea, that was bullshit.

ebay took an excellent, self-executing system based on peer feedback and completely fucked it up. I'm sorry this happened to you and everyone else, dude.

I am totally baffled as to why they did this. From one side I can see it stops people leaving unecessary negative feedback (which I have seen people do, just to be wankers), but the primary thing is that it gave potential buyers an insight into the kind of seller they would be dealing with. Who is going to want to deal with someone who gets constant negatives for poor service? I know I wouldn't. So what safeguards do we, as buyers, have now? I think it should be all or nothing, either have feedback, good,neutral, negative or non at all. It looks ridiculous, because we all know there are bullshit artists out there. Did they even give a reason as to why they did it? Maybe they have some other way of dealing with bad sellers or something, but one thing's for sure, they haven't made their intentions particularly clear about their decision.

buyers can still leave positive,,neutral or negative feedback....so your selling practices will be reflected....

but sellers can only leave positive feedback,,,wtf!!! if your buying practices are lame,,you are free to go on without any reprimands...

You're right, of course, I've only sold stuff for a while now, haven't done much buying. I have had some real flakes with some stuff i've sold, but yeah, there should be a way to alert people if they bid on stuff then don't cough up. That really pisses me off, such a waste of time (and money!)

I've sold tons of stuff on the bay and have had dozens of flakes. Not much you can do except follow the non-paying-bidder procedure, then ban the user from your auctions. If they fuck up 3 times and all 3 sellers follow the procedures, they get kicked from Ebay.

Another thing I've been doing is not allowing bids by users with no feedback or negatives unless they email me before bidding. I can't even count how many bids I've canceled, followed by adding them to my ban list. I actually enjoy it when they email me afterwards... "why the fuck did you cancel/ban me???" to which I respond "because you're a fucking Fresh Meat and didn't read my auction rules". Try it, I guarantee it takes the burn off relisting/selling to the next highest bidder.

Lol! i'll keep that in mind, cheers!

Hard to grasp why ebay keeps inventing new seller rules. Keeping the downward spiral economy and rise of internet sales in mind, this sounds rather fishy. But as they say, consumer is king right ? In the land of the blind perhaps...

What do you do if they come in at the end and win your auction? How do you cancel their bid if the auction has ended?

Do they let you use purple?
perhaps you can leave sarcastic positive feedback.

I can see a whole vocabulary of code phrases that look positive on the face of it but
convey negative feedback.

crazy.

If it's a user w/0 feedback, all I can do is immediately ban them from future auctions then let them know they're not getting shit because they didn't follow my auction rules. Nothing sucks harder than a 0 feedback sniper

I'm not a big seller on ebay,
but I'd never had any flakes till my last auction:

2/8 items !

Ebay gives some BS about hoping it increases buyers' confidence.
IMO, if they had any serious competition,
sellers would be leaving them in droves right now.

ironically,,i have never had problems with 0 feedback buyers..it has happened about 10-15 times and they have always come through...

it has always made me nervous when they win,,but i figure give them the benefit of the doubt..

the flakes all have atleast 30+ ratings....

But you see, I think this is the deal:


I can feel your pain. I had one person flake and then a second person flake later on only to come back when I filed a dispute.

But that's the key. If they flake on payment, ultimately nobody is seriously hurt. You still have the item... And it could be worse. But you have the power to file a dispute with eBay and if it sticks and they do it enough, they get suspended.

In my case, the first flaker never contacted me or disputed my claim against him. So he has a strike. The second flaker did dispute but I had the power to say "I don't want to deal with them anymore..." Not too sure what the eBay policy was before, but now it seems that the seller has the upper hand in any dispute claim.

Also, all sellers can set their auctions to block bids from people who have non-paying strikes. So while flakers can still bid, you can block them and not deal with them.

So ultimately what eBay has done is move the frustration of these knuckleheads into a system can truly affect them. A negative might look bad, but in the long run if you show you are a good seller, that one mark on your record will seem like an anomaly.

I still don't understand why I have to go through the motions at all now, if I can only leave positives. If it's only positives, writing "Great Ebayer!" a million times makes me sick!

I recently had this same crap happen to me ..i sent someone something+ extras after letting them know i would be a week late and the guy left negative feedback stating poor communication and other crap ..when I had been in contact the whole time..and i could'nt leave him a negative feedbasck due to ebays don't the scare buyer policy...so I just wont leave him any and I'm staying away from ebay as much as I can..i had to send the guy an email letting him know how much of a dick he was and I'm thinking about mailing him a box of poo

I don't like ebay...!!!

Ebay is the new yelp!

yup, real stupid move by ebay.

I have someone right now claiming that my package (non vinyl toy) arrived damaged...but they received it 11 days ago!!!

Negative feedback from their part is inevitable as I am not issuing a refund. But I feel that this is a definite lame buyer tactic and warrants negative feedback from me.

That really sucks.

I think setting your seller preferences to block those with an unpaid item strike, and canceling those with less than 10 feedback are your best defences against this kind of crap. But, yes eBay has certainly cut sellers off at the knees.