eBay Review

I have bought and sold at Ebay. I used the service a lot more early on. After someone ripped off my kid on some baseball cards (purchased on his dad's account), I have not been very inclined to shop at Ebay.

What happened was that my kid bought a set of cards. When they arrived, the two rookie cards had been removed. The seller suggested that the Post Office took the cards, the company forgot to put them in the box, and/or one of my kid's buddies stole the cards. Come on. The box was opened and checked immediately when it arrived. The seller ripped us off. A second set was later purchased  from a different and honest seller - no problems.

When the bad seller was emailed, he replied with profanity - a lot of F you stuff. His solution was to send a couple of worthless random cards to make up for the rookie cards. Then he said he would refund the money with my kid paying the overpriced $10 shipping he'd already paid, the shipping back and $10 for this inconvenience we caused the seller by being unhappy with an incomplete set of cards sold as a full set.

In addition to all this, the seller insisted that he be given positive feedback.

This seller got the negative he so very much deserved, and he, of course, returned a negative feedback. Big whoop. But, some people do care very much about that feedback.

After this mess, I read up on feedback. If you go to the Ebay home page and click to Community and then Discussions and Feedback (several clicks I know), you will find sellers discussiong feedback. I'd encourage you to give that a look.

Some interesting things you'll find is that sellers encourage other sellers to WAIT to leave feedback. Do not leave feedback until the buyer is "satisfied" is how that is often worded. Spell that - hold feedback hostage. Put the buyer over a barrel. He or she may hesitate to be honest knowing that a big return negative can be posted in retaliation - just as happened in the case I mentioned.

Sellers also encouarge one another to set up separate accounts and buy on one and sell on the other. Or, if someone gets a negative - just set up a new account with a new email address and start over. In addition, a lot of the sellers also use yet a different name to post on the discussion boards. You tell me why they need to hide their identities.

I know there are plenty of honest sellers at Ebay. No lectures on the plight of sellers (I've sold too). Good sellers should be just as concerned about these kinds of things as buyers. When someone gets ripped off, they are less likely to buy. That hurts the good sellers.

Ebay is about to put in a new feedback policy. Here's a short clip about that:

"But overall, the current feedback system isn't where it should be. Today, the biggest issue with the system is that buyers are more afraid than ever to leave honest, accurate feedback because of the threat of retaliation. In fact, when buyers have a bad experience on eBay, the final straw for many of them is getting a negative feedback, especially of a retaliatory nature.

Now, we realize that feedback has been a two-way street, but our data shows a disturbing trend, which is that sellers leave retaliatory feedback eight times more frequently than buyers do ... and this figure is up dramatically from only a few years ago.

So we have to put a stop to this and put trust back into the system."

Starting in May, sellers won't be able to leave neutral and negative feedback for buyers. Sellers will use other channels to remedy problems. This is unfortunate in cases where sellers were honest, but Ebay has not been growing. Part of the problem is that buyers get dinged and then dinged again (neg feedback) when they mention it. Certainly Ebay does very little to assist. Try to follow up and enjoy the form emails. I've got a little stack of those here on the baseball card collection.

Frankly I'm suprised that Ebay ever had the "rate the buyer" system. Can you imagine going to a restaurant (where they sometimes survey or have mystery shoppers) and the employees fill out a card about your behavior as a diner? Come on. That would never fly. "Mandy does not put her napkin in her lap."

In the meantime, I would suggest that if you're buying on Ebay, check the listings. Watch for sellers who will not leave feedback until they receive feedback. You can see the dates on the comments left.

Also, go to toolhaus.org (put the www in front). You can put in any Ebay user name and see the negative and neutrals (both given and left). Ebay should have a button to sort that anyway, but they don't. If you want to find the negatives at Ebay, you have to page back and back and back. Sine a 97% (which sounds good) is actually not good at all, it's important to check the negatives. Some are nutty. Most are on target. And, remember that it takes some gutts to give out those negatives as the system stands at the moment.

When you have problems at Ebay, some sellers will be quick to say that you should have done this or checked that (see those discussion boards). That's what the rating system is supposed to be all about. It's flawed. If you've not bought at Ebay or not much, then be aware that the 90% is not an A like at school - it's like an F. And even someone with really high sounding rates may be getting those by withholding rates until they are rated or refusing valid refunds unless a positive is checked.

Yeah. Ebay is a great idea. Yeah. You can get some great stuff at great prices (but double check and look at some of those greatly inflated shipping charges). But, it really is buyer beware at Ebay. There are some mediations and such - but they're more trouble than they're worth, unless you're talking a high ticket item. We just ended up buying another set of ball cards.

I'm glad Ebay is changing the rating system. The way it is now - it means little to nothing. It could work, but there are too many people who have figured out little tricks like the ones I've mentioned to game that system. Also, Ebay is in business to sell stuff, so they are not real inclined to make it easy for you to see the flaws. They want you to buy. That's how they make money. The sellers like to point out that Ebay makes money off sellers, but no one makes anything if folks don't buy. And, there are lots of places to buy stuff.