Giving negative feedback.

[lunamadrilena]

I've just found out that I've been blocked from using a seller - again.   It happens when I give negative feedback.   If I get an item which is nothing like the description/faulty, I feel justified in giving negative feedback, especially when the seller doesn't even acknowledge that I'm unhappy with the item.

Often, rather than give negative feedback, I don't give any feedback at all.   So the next buyer will be as disappointed as me. 

[jonatjonatjonat]

Given it is a feature available on eBay, they are welcome to block you.

we don't personally do this unless the negative feedback is unjustified and they may be a problem buyer.

other sellers might just approach a blanket ban for negative feedback. The argument on the flip side is if you had a bad experience would you want to buy from them again?

[plpmr]

One must ask, if the transaction was so bad as to justify negative feedback why would you want to deal with that seller again?

[jckl1957]

If a buyer left me a negative, I would block them.

I can't speak for everyone, but I guess most sellers would do the same.

Sellers have to tolerate false returns, cancelled bids, stupidly low offers, unpleasant and potentially unjustified feedback.

They can choose not to deal with particular members via the blocked bidders list.

If Ebay take that away, I think private sellers particularly, who do take things personally, would leave in droves.

[m25jet]

Although I can understand that you may feel a bit cheesed off if you've been blocked from buying from a seller who you want to buy from, try thinking about the situation from the seller's perspective for a moment.

Imagine you're selling your own items on eBay and somebody has purchased something from you and left you some negative feedback in relation to the transaction, thus leaving you with an account-damaging defect and a negative comment that will remain stuck on your feedback history forever.  When a seller receives too many negative feedbacks it can cause problems, such as affecting visibility of their listings in the search results, a loss of their status as a top-rated seller (if applicable), and in some instances a seller could end up with their selling account being closed down for good by eBay.

In light of the above, if you take into account the potential penalties that a seller can receive from eBay as a result of receiving negative feedback, would you be willing to welcome back customers who have left you with an account-damaging negative feedback, or would you block them from making further purchases so as to prevent them from causing you any further problems?  I suspect that if you were on the receiving end then you would not be so enthusiastic about doing business with them again...

[department28]

Surely if a seller was worried about receiving negative feedback, they would have made contact with the buyer, to see if something could be done? Then the buyer could have revised their feedback, or if the situation had been satisfactorily resolved before feedback was left, it would be much less likely to be a negative.

[lunamadrilena]

Thanks for your reply. I didn't realise it was the same seller.

[lunamadrilena]

Thank you for your reply. I contacted the seller 3 times to ask for a partial refund, or whatever.
On the 3rd time, I said I would have to give a negative feedback if they did not resolve the issue.
They still did not reply.

[lunamadrilena]

Thank you for your reply. I contacted the seller 3 times but they never replied to me.

[jckl1957]

That is called 'feedback extortion' and is not allowed.

[237ben]

I can sympathise with the OP here, and I can equally sympathise with the genuine sellers who may sometimes receive unfair feedback. The problem is that eBay encourages huge reliance on the notion of feedback, but the whole feedback system is entirely unfit for purpose. One could probably write a book on the many, many things that are wrong with it.

Unfortunately, a seller’s feedback score is seen as the sum total of their 'reputation'. It can also unlock certain privileges on eBay or, conversely, result in sanctions. This results in practically all sellers becoming extremely defensive and protective of their feedback score. Couple this with the fact that many (not all) sellers believe too deeply in their own infallibility, and you have a situation where 'managing' one’s feedback score becomes imperative. It’s not uncommon for this 'managing' to amount to blatant manipulation of the scores by various means. 

I imagine the reaction which the majority of sellers would have to negative feedback is shock, anger, and feeling affronted. I doubt many would pause for thought as to whether the feedback might actually highlight some room for improvement in their service. This is odd, since 'real world' sellers (i.e. retail shops, restaurants, hotel chains, etc.) go to great lengths to obtain what amounts to negative feedback from their customers using mystery shoppers, customer satisfaction surveys, etc. They do so because they can only improve and remain competitive by making a realistic assessment of what people think of the service they deliver. 

[237ben]

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@plpmr wrote:

One must ask, if the transaction was so bad as to justify negative feedback why would you want to deal with that seller again?

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Two possible reasons:

I might hope the seller would take genuine criticism on board and use it to improve what they do. In my business I don’t give notice to client families the moment they point out something I could be doing better: I genuinely value such criticism. 

I might have nowhere where else to buy a particular sort of item from. Perhaps I really want/need that item again, but that doesn’t mean I can’t criticise the seller if the service is poor (eg. rubbish packaging; delay in dispatch; wrong item sent; any number of reasons.) 

[m25jet]

@lunamadrilena wrote:

Thank you for your reply. I contacted the seller 3 times to ask for a partial refund, or whatever.

On the 3rd time, I said I would have to give a negative feedback if they did not resolve the issue.

They still did not reply.

As @jckl1957 has already pointed out to you earlier on in post number 10, this is feedback extortion.  This is not allowed under any circumstances and if the seller were to contact eBay to ask for your negative feedback to be removed, drawing their attention to the clear example of feedback extortion provided in your message to him or her, then eBay may well decide to remove the feedback that you left for the seller.

In addition to the above, if you have been reported to eBay by the seller for feedback extortion, then it may well be the case that eBay are now monitoring your account very closely for a recurrence of this kind of behaviour in the future...

[fotherbale]

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@lunamadrilena wrote:

.......I've just found out that I've been blocked from using a seller - again. It happens when I give negative feedback.......   

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And you are surprised? 

Seriously?

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[lunamadrilena]

Most of the time, ebay sellers are great to buy things from. And when I'm really pleased with an item, I tell them so.
I thought negative feedback was for when someone is not happy with an item because it's broken, or whatever,
But he seller just doesn't offer any degree of customer service.
>From now on, I'm not giving feedback.

[lunamadrilena]

Two very good reasons. Also, in my case, I didn't recognise the seller's name. I realised later.
Thank you for your reply.

[lunamadrilena]

Thank you for your comprehensive reply. It's a more complicated issue than I realised.
Thank goodness for all those ebay transactions which go without a hitch and I get something I'm delighted with!
Lyn

[lunamadrilena]

I really didn't realise that. I just couldn't understand why the seller didn't get back to me.
I will not do that again.

[department28]

I'm sure there are a lot of buyers like the OP, who genuinely don't realise mentioning their dissatisfaction to an unresponsive seller by saying something like, 'I feel I have no option but to leave negative feedback' is, in fact, 'feedback extortion'. 

Many sellers who amass loads of negative feedback often have lots of revised feedback, too; sometimes a seller will be perfectly justified in asking for feedback to be revised, but when there is so much, surely that is tantamount to 'bribery'? eBay doesn't seem to be doing much about this, or there would not still be so many sellers with this sort of feedback on the site.

As the OP said, 'it's a more complicated issue than I realised...'

[237ben]

Another thing a lot of buyers don’t realise is that the feedback rules don’t permit the mention of eBay cases/rulings. So a lot of genuinely bad transactions go unnoticed because feedback can be removed if it mentions, frinstance, “I had to get eBay to force a refund” or similar. This is just one way in which feedback can be 'managed' (ie. manipulated) to hide bad transactions. 

Its been said that ebay are often willing to remove feedback on request, perhaps for some 'top rated' or previously 100% positive sellers, though it’s hard to verify that idea. The only thing I would say is that eBay have vested interest in making sure everything looks rosy in their garden, so they have an incentive to make it appear as if (nearly) everyone is happy (nearly) all the time.

Most members have exceptionally high positive ratings in the high ninety percents. When you compare that with properly conducted satisfaction surveys (eg. the kind done by Which?) you begin to realise how utterly ridiculous that is.

At the end of the day, this hurts genuinely great sellers. That’s because the poor ones look ok; the ok ones look fantastic; and there’s no way for the genuinely great ones to stand out.