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so I was leaving some feedback for some crap I bought.
I wrote (because I am a bad typist) - "inexpenisve item"
ebay detection spotted the word "penis" in my mistyped word.
really ebay? it's that bad?
eBay - censorship in feeback regarding "not permitted" words
altomic on 15/10/2013 - 22:40
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Ebay just errrs on the side of caution for pretty much everything
Yep, I just got $1.8k worth of funds frozen because someone bought an item twice off me within a few seconds.
I gave positive feedback, because you can't leave negative feedback for buyers, saying "Bad ebayer, no payment, no communication" and that too was removed. I was not the only seller who wrote similar comments for a buyer who purchased numerous items and did not pay. Ebay is all about attracting buyers, good or bad !
As both a buyer and seller on Ebay,i have to say that the whole system is screwed up.If you are a seller,you can't leave -ve feedback for a buyer (get item home i sold you,break / damage it then tell Ebay & Paypal that's how it was sent)and i can do nothing to warn others (or dispute when Paypal gives buyer funds back) then as a buyer,if you don't receive item,and the seller gives any kind of tracking number (i've had false ones given )you are not entitled to any compensation.Add to all that,the fact that Ebay and Paypal's fees have gone up…so much so that any sale you make is hit with so many fees that it's just not worth it.Yep,Ebay really is a "great" way to buy & sell.
The problem is, what alternative is there. Gumtree (attracts) attracts all sorts of weird people to your items, tradingpost is near flat. I am a seller as well and have raised a couple of my prices to offset the fee hikes but see a slowdown lately….
Why is Amazon not available here, that would solve a lot of problems?I fully agree SolarEvents.The fact that they have the monopoly makes it impossible to go elsewhere.I have a few things on Gumtree,and weird isn't the word for what we have had contact us (no to mention people calling,wanting a look or saying they will meet somewhere to buy…and then never show,leaving us with wasted time and other buyers knocked back.Ebay knows the situation and so they act like a petrol station in the middle of the Nullabor….where else you going to go,so pay what i'm asking or good luck.
I thought I'd say it nicely, weird is not the right word indeed…..I have to put on my listings, no timewasters, penny offers no showers etc. and still most people do not read half the listing, asking what colour is the paint, in the listing is says clearly what the colour is.
If Amazon would enter the scene, Ebay would be in trouble for a lot of products……untill then we are stuck with Ebay (and they know it)
That's what happens when u use ebay lol.
Why can't sellers leave negative feedback to buyers?
God i wished i knew.It is a very,very one sided system.A buyer can rip you off just as easily as a seller could,but there is no way for a seller to warn others about a buyer (or system to quickly look at to ascertain a buyers reliability or trustworthiness as is the case with sellers…in the % scale used and visible to all).I wish a rep from Ebay would give us all a heads up as to their logic in all this.
I as wondering the same, the only reason I can think of is that they will loose many buyers who are going then to be blocked by a lot of sellers. I have got blocks as well on idiots who buy stuff and then vanish and people with 0 feedback can't buy from me but still I get non payers sometime.
Agreed, this system is not correct for us sellers. I got a couple of months ago a guy who bought something with 5 good ratings. I checked who left it all and it was all 5 sellers saying "don't sell to this guy, rubbish, doesn't pay" etc… I checked him again 1 month ago and now he has 12 100% ratings with people who tell you NOT to buy from him,……crazy!
from memory ebay, in their great but flawed wisdom, stopped allowing sellers leaving negative/neutral feedback because they thought it allowed sellers to coerce(blackmail?) the buyer seeing as the seller has more to lose getting bad feedback than the buyer, i thought the system was strongly in favour of the buyer from the start(many buyers don't leave feedback and it skews the %) what they need is to do away with voting altogether, have something like a % of successful sales figure
OK morpheu,homework for today…mention that idea to Ebay.I know one person won't make an impact,but if one person starts a discussion on their forums page,that will start the ball rolling and many others will think the same.If enough people say it,Ebay will have to listen (as it is a very real issue that really does need to be addressed).I agree morpheu that yes,some sellers may think along the lines that "hey,coerce this buyer into this contract,or i can leave -ve feedback",but i think that the majority would be simply wanting to use this ability to warn others off buyers who don't do the right thing.
EBay won't listen, they already have a 'corporate entrenched' mindset, when was the last time eBay listened to users? When they tried to make PayPal the only payment on eBay people in the thousands complained to ACCC, and backed down, but that was only because eBay was dragged kicking and screaming! If I'm wrong please do refresh my memory
Yes morpheu,you are right,but they DID back down when thousands complained.I think this is the trick.They may have a "corporate mindset",but the people who keep them in business….US,are still their employers for all intents and purposes.I don't mind them coming kicking and screaming.
I'm a former PowerSeller on FeeBay I remember the Paypal Backdown well and I think there was a legal angle to it when Consumer Affairs became involved. Both the feedback and the Paypal issues arose I think because FeeBay was frustrated with getting involved adjudicating in millions of petty disputes. There were plenty of folks threatening neg feedback as a way to get back at others or to threaten. There were plenty around that would offer a discount for good FB or sellers that wouldn't give buyer's feeback until they had received a +ve from the buyer. FeeBay didn't want to have an Army of magistrates to play parents over the squabbling so they changed the rules. In the end FeeBay is after sellers that generate large fees for them, this is the volume sellers, not the single mums cleaning out the kids old clothes etc. The big volume sellers are all about throughput and margins, they don't care about feedback etc until it starts affecting their listings (by placing them lower in a search result etc).
The closed Power-sellers forum used to have a thread for everybody to post up the usernames of bad buyers, I, like many others used to do a weekly dump and copy them all across to my banned list! When the FeeBay overlords found out it was taken down. In the end though, what use is feedback if it can only be positive. Depending on what you are selling there might not be another good alternative. I am selling some swiss watches soon and I will be selling via the Watchuseek Forums 'sales' threads. Better targeted audience and no fees at all!
Well thank you 2ndeffort…that explains an awful lot.I can see why now,but that doesn't make it fair really does it ? I am more the "empty out the closet,get rid of that dress that cost enough to feed us for a month but never wore..let's get some money back for it" seller rather than a "i have 10 pallets of stock,i need to clear those to make room in the warehouse and Ebay is my store" seller,so between the fee's and the inability to defend oneself when buyers go bad,it has become a place that is less and less for the little guy,and more and more for business type sellers.I know that recently it has been said that Ebay wants to "do away" with Mum and Dad type sellers to concentrate on business sellers….but as Ebay is such a well known,international platform,and sometimes you have an item that may just be viable on the international market (and here too obviously),it sucks that the fees,the unregulated buyer feedback platform and whole "for profit" thinking of Ebay and Paypal make it Unprofitable for us.
Unfortunately, eBay is at it's core a big corporate American public listed multinational. They might have paid millions to a global ad agency to portray them as the champions of the little guy and that might be where they came from originally but have no doubts, they are now run by corporate types whose remuneration is based upon the extra income they can generate to raise the stock price etc. This is why they tied up the value chain by buying out Paypal etc. If they can help some mums and dads I guess that's a good thing but just like Amazon, Apple, Google and Microsoft, profit is the key. In fact the CEO of Yahoo was formerly the CEO of FeeBay.
I feel sorry for some of the sites that have come along and tried to challenge them. During the heights of the Paypal fiasco I, like many others opened up shops on some of the other cheaper alternatives. It cost me a bit of money and a lot of time re-doing all my adverts. Fees were loads cheaper and some of the features were great but, in the end there were no buyers. When you are selling stuff, internet features mean nothing if buyers don't know about or visit the site. In the end I closed my shop and begrudgingly went back to FeeBay because frankly there wasn't any other good alternative.
Penis item. LOL