EBay Feedback Changes

No I don't find that odd. I don't believe that a seller who was blackmailing buyers to get good feedback would have 100% feedback because there would probably be at least one person who wouldn't fall for their blackmail threat. I think most sellers are not like that. I have bought off eBay many times and not once was I blackmailed.

I think the feedback change is a good thing. There are sellers selling useless wholesale lists and they have 100% feedback, isn't suspicious to anyone? The only thing a seller should care about is if he gets paid or not. Most buyers are honest and they pay so it's all good. Few don't pay and very very very few are scammers. In those cases, you can always report to eBay. You can blacklist them. You should automatically blacklist buyers with 0 feedback in the first place. If the buyer is really bad, you can even submit their ID's to www.rottenbidders.com - a site where sellers share their bidder blacklists.

An alternative recommended site is elfingo.com for online auctions. They are the new ebay. Many smaller sites like this offer buyers far better deals than ebay ever could. Buyser also save a ton because this site charges little or nothing depending on the day. One more reaso I like elfingo.com is because they don't take a part of the sale at all. No commissions or final value fees. A+++ http://www.elfingo.com

This provides great, detailed information. I have read other comments that generally there is a bad feeling about ebay changes. I don't use them, so I wasn't aware of the impact of the announced changes. No wonder folks are upset!

eBay fee changes are an increase for me. I resent the news stories that are promoting the fee changes as decreases. Did eBay write those stories themselves? As for the feedback changes, they are the death knell for eBay as far as this 10 year veteran is concerned. I am one of the small old timer sellers who specializes in the cool, unique, collectible, hard to find stuff, and I will be out of here in short order. I've been hearing more and more reports of buyers leaving neutral or negative feedbacks for sellers or threatening to do so. Same people are shocked when the feedback they leave is reciprocated by the seller. Apparently many people think the feedback policy change is already in effect and don't realize it won't be until May. Then they threaten to report the seller to eBay because "seller's aren't allowed to leave neutrals or negatives anymore". 2/3's of my activity is as a buyer. I have never withheld feedback from a seller after I got the goods and was pleased wi

Ebay violating it's own policies http://pages.ebay.com/securitycenter/rules_policies.html To promote a safe trading environment for all members, eBay has rules and policies that are enforced. eBay's policies are intended to: Support government laws and regulations ***Minimize risks to both buyers and sellers - Feb. 20th will be increasing a sellers risk while eliminating buyers risk. ***Provide equal opportunity to all buyers and sellers - Will be changing this on Feb. 20th - we sellers will no longer have the opportunity to leave neg. feedback for buyers. Protect intellectual property rights Provide an enjoyable buying experience Support the values of the eBay Community

Shannon, I think your article is exceptional... Unfortunately, Ebay does not care about the little guy... These changes were made with only Ebay's ceo's pockets in mind... It will cause item prices to increase and wonderful honest sellers to leave... They want to cater to the larger and more money making producers... The lie of saving people money on listing fees was the most outrageous ever... They actually get you bigger in the end... It is not profitable anymore to sell on this venue for the average person who is trying to make a few extra bucks on the side... The one's who will survive are the major sellers who make mega bucks for Ebay and they will soon be the only sellers left on there except for the unsuspecting newbie... So sad...

Ebay also just announced that there will be no more listings for under 1.00... The sellers will have to go through their stores and re-list their items at a higher price... I see a total collapse to this Ebay... They are a company that is driven by greed... They have changed the feedback policy so that the buyer is the only one who can leave a negative comment to the seller... This gives the buyer the edge and gives him the ammunition they need to hold over a sellers head to get them to reduce shipping charges, or say they receive an item they don't care for and want a refund, they can request that the seller refund and if they refuse, then leave negative feedback... When a sellers feedback score goes down (as Ebay is counting on) then the sellers FEES GO UP!! This will encourage all kinds of crooks to bid and then not pay, with no recourse what so ever for the Seller... The fees were already too high from the hike they added last year, but this whole new system takes the cake.

Nice job on the article. I hope these changes benefit the little guy. Well have to wait and see. :-)

But to lend some balance to this, I wanted to add that 99% of all the people I dealt with were wonderful and Ebay taught me that most people there were good and paid quickly. Still, there were unscrupulous buyers and what protection is there for sellers when it comes to a feedback record? I would not sell to buyers who had terrible feedback. That was allowed, to block buyers with high negatives. Now we won't know who is a bad risk anymore! Those buyers used to just give up and go away but now they won't have to, will they? Maybe I'm missing some key point here.

Eric - I once sold a rare book on Ebay and the buyer had bought something like 50 similar books and not paid a single seller! Only by networking with other sellers were we able to do anything about it and give her negative feedback. I understand that sellers have a responsibility but she threatened me with a negative feedback if I reported her. I still did. Now she'd be able to simply leave a negative. How fair is that for a seller? Sorry to be so emotional but I worked so hard and my kids hauled boxes of items to the post office with me and it just seems unfair to take any feedback rights away from sellers.

Shannon- I wrote two articles that linked back to you. You covered the feedback issue so well! The fee changes had me seeing red, too. I couldn't believe it, giving a discount to Powersellers and then charging more for smaller sellers, more commission for items that sell! Maybe it wouldn't be profitable but I think Ebay ought to let sellers list for almost free and then take a percentage of any items sold....but the fee structure is not "almost free". It used to be cost-effective to list there.

Its been forever since I used ebay, looks like I'll have to relearn the system if I go back!

I'm sorry to hear that. Not all sellers do that though... It sucks that the bad sellers ruined it for the good.

Actually, I'm thrilled at the changes because as a small-time buyer and occasional seller, I felt eBay didn't care about my concerns. I actually canceled my account because of it. I started buying regularly from people who had very positive ratings -- if it wasn't 99% or above, I didn't look at it. Yet I kept getting misrepresented items: rampage items sold as anthropologie, smelly v. faded tablecloths (despite having personally messaged the lady beforehand to say I wanted to use the material for a skirt), books with writing in them (this was a 'very few comments' and it was covered) and so on. If I left neutral or negative feedback, guess what? The seller left the same. Since I was small time, my rating was affected more than theirs. It basically meant unscrupulous people could get away with misrepresenting some things if the vast majority of their stuff was good. I agree the policy is too stringent, but it's a start in the right direction. Maybe I'll even reactivate my account.