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So I ordered some extra Battle Wagon wheels on eBay from someone I had not dealt with before. They feedback was very high (99.6%) and when the auction ended, I paid within 24 hours. Now a week had gone by and I hadn't heard anything about this. No email stating payment was received, that the item had shipped or anything. Not a huge deal, but I am used to some pretty regular communication on auctions. Everyone I had ever dealt with in the past had always sent some token email stating thanks for the payment or that the item was shipping (and I am very anal about being very communicative in all my auctions where I am the seller).

So I sent this individual 2 messages in a few days span and no response. The item did arrive and all was fine a few days after. So today I leave NEUTRAL feedback. Stating the item was fine and arrived, but I thought communication was poor as I didn't receive any indication payment was received or item was shipping.

I get this message from the seller soon after:
"ARE YOU SERIOUS DUDE? i got you your item faster than 99% of other sellers, arrived in perfect condition. do you know how impossible it would be to contact over 150 people a week and let them know when i receive payment, then contact them again and let them know when i ship it. it makes no sense dude. you arent supposed to leave neutral over a clearly perfect transaction. take it back dude or i haveto ban you and you cant purchase from me again."

Wow. I am honestly surprised that this person is this worked up over that. I thought the point of feedback was to be honest and accurately represent your feelings on the auction. What have your experiences been like with this? I know eBay changed a lot of the Feedback system in the past year, and I have to say this is a very sad state of the nature of using it if Neutral feedback causes people to act like whiny little children.

Just wanted to vent

Yeah, it's interesting, right? I had a similar experience from the opposite (seller) viewpoint. I sold a guitar for just over $1000, and the person paid me within an hour. I sent an email saying I'd received payment, and updated when I was about to ship, and an email with a tracking number.

I checked the tracking number myself, saw it had arrived, finally had my funds released from paypal (I didn't realize that now they hold it until the buyer gives feedback or until a certain time has passed... even though I submitted the tracking number) but never EVER heard from the guy.

It looked like he might be a power-seller or something (~750 or so feedback) but who spends $1000 on something and never returns an email about it?

I also never got a feedback from the guy about the transaction assuming he even exists!!! He did pay, though... which is what mattered the most to me at that point I guess

No, evidently the purpose of feedback is to give people a virtual blowjob when they have performed acceptably and shoot their children when they are late and don't answer their email. People take it very seriously, especially once they realized they'd tied their livelyhoods into eBay and eBay is in a deathspiral.

Given the culture as I recall it from my very brief days on eBay, I think Neutral was a lil harsh. You make very good points in that his comms sucked, NO doubt. But you got your bitz, the price was right, and you recieved them within a "few days" which could mean a lot of things but none of which sound like you were put out by the wait on them.

I would sure as sand in a desert let ol' Dude know that HIS problems with communicating with customers are HIS damn problems, not yours; and that if he cannot handle the volume he should list less and not send people weak emails with excuses like some lil Nancyboy.

The guy is worked up because you are right, eBay's feedback system was a steaming bowl of fecal matter when implemented and has done naught but get worse. He's not so worked up at you personally I would imagine, as he is at a system that forces him to aggressively and vigorously defend himself against any possible slight recorded against his electronic "integrity".

I would also sya feth him and purchase my bits elsewhere. eBay is a BUYER's market, last I read; and while all the protections may suck this dude would do well to remember that.

I guess what I really don't understand about the system is how Neutral is considered harsh. I thought that should be just that, neutral! Accurate info given, not overly happy, not overly ticked off. Just kinda neutral.

I guess what they are really going for is Positive and Less Negative, and Negative. They should make Neutral be exactly what it is! Middle of the road.

I can understand where your coming from, JHall and tbf you are totally justified in your response, when i've been selling i always make sure that i send a couple of emails to the buyer for payment received and the item is shipped, sometimes i've been a little slow on delivery thanks to other commitments but i always inform the buyer and apologize, no one seems to have a problem with this as at least they have been informed.

I am like you when using ebay I like to keep in some form of communication with the seller/buyer, if he can't do this then he shouldn't be selling on ebay at all, I wouldn't feel bothered by it, at the end of the day its his problem not yours.

As a seller and buyer on ebay I never give nor receive payment confirmations.
Paypal sends you a confirmation e-mail (to both parties), and for me this is enough.
I will however usually send an e-mail to know your item is shipped. The last time I shipped though I forgot and simply marked the items as shipped in ebay.

I don't know that eBay is in a death spiral but it's a lot worse than it was a few years ago and I don't use it as much for buying or selling.

I don't like the changes they made to the feedback system.

There are too many professional sellers now as well.

What makes it in a deathspiral?

I've only used it once recently (the afore-mentioned large sale) but I was rather disapointed. I couldn't access the payment for about two weeks after the item had arrived, due to waiting for paypal to "release it"- again this is because the buyer didn't leave a positive feedback (he left none) and for some reason the tracking number also didn't release it, so it just had to time out.

Ugh

I don't put much stock in the level of communication between buyer and seller, I can be bad at myself at times, with sometimes a day or two going by before I can log in and flip status on item that I've sent out, for me it's all about the product, is it what they say it is, did it get here okay...

Given that Ebay tilted the deck by not allowing sellers to give negative ratings to buyers I can see where the guy's a little upset...

A neutral feedback causes your score to take a hit like a negative, doesn't it?

yup

also ebay is terrible and full of stupid systems like VERO, its much more preferable to pay a bit more than have to deal with that crap.

JHall wrote:So I ordered some extra Battle Wagon wheels on eBay
I paid within 24 hours.
So I sent this individual 2 messages in a few days span and no response.
The item did arrive and all was fine a few days after.
I leave NEUTRAL feedback. Stating the item was fine and arrived, but I thought communication was poor as I didn't receive any indication payment was received or item was shipping.

I get this message from the seller soon after:
"do you know how impossible it would be to contact over 150 people a week and let them know when i receive payment, then contact them again and let them know when i ship it. it makes no sense dude. you arent supposed to leave neutral over a clearly perfect transaction. take it back dude or i haveto ban you and you cant purchase from me again."

If I sent 2 messages and the seller didn't have the courtesy to reply, I'd be pretty agitated myself.

If he's too lazy to confirm transactions, that's his problem.

I suggest that you don't back down on the Neutral, and if he bans you, meh, so what. You got along fine without him before, you'll get along fine without him later.
____

FWIW, I always confirm and notify, and I expect that as standard business transactions.

JHall wrote:
I get this message from the seller soon after:
"ARE YOU SERIOUS DUDE? i got you your item faster than 99% of other sellers, arrived in perfect condition. do you know how impossible it would be to contact over 150 people a week and let them know when i receive payment, then contact them again and let them know when i ship it. it makes no sense dude. you arent supposed to leave neutral over a clearly perfect transaction. take it back dude or i haveto ban you and you cant purchase from me again."

I'm sure if he would have sent something like this

"I'm sorry that my service was inadequate to your tastes. I thought that I sent your order in a timely fashion and its safety is proof of my concern for your order. Unfortunately due to the amount of business I undertake in being an ebay "Powerseller", it is quite impossible for me to send multiple emails to each buyer in order to achieve my current level of speed. I take your recommendations under advisement and in the future I hope to provide a more sociable business transaction with you in the future."

Both of you would have had a completely new outlook on the situation. You would be happy for his concern, and he might earn more business with you.

I agree with that! If he'd sent you a courteous reply (rather than threaten to ban) maybe that would sway your mind... after his current reply, I don't see how you could change the neutral to a positive (it would be based on a threat... rather than on a more positive experience resulting from his email explanation).

Just my $0.02

JHall wrote:
I get this message from the seller soon after:
"ARE YOU SERIOUS DUDE? i got you your item faster than 99% of other sellers, arrived in perfect condition. do you know how impossible it would be to contact over 150 people a week and let them know when i receive payment, then contact them again and let them know when i ship it. it makes no sense dude. you arent supposed to leave neutral over a clearly perfect transaction. take it back dude or i haveto ban you and you cant purchase from me again."

Recommended Response wrote:BOTHERED?

Actually, a neutral can hurt a seller a lot. If a seller can maintain a really high rating, they get a lower fee structure from eBay when selling.

I had an issue recently that led to a negative feedback.

Sold some Grey Knights right before X-Mas. Guy paid on the 22nd and I shipped on the 23rd. I also put delivery conformation on all auctions.

Well, January rolls around and he hasnt recieved the product. So I give him the tracking number and we both check the package. Turns out its still at my local post office. I go there, and they reship, priority, and he recieves it immediately. He then leaves me a negative for it, despite having great communication and providing all the needed info that proves it was the post office.

And now you can no longer dispue like you used to. SO I have a glaring negative on my feedback that I cant do anything about.

I will first say I thought you were talking about Hoard * Bits, but I dont see this being him, he is usally responsive although I would not expect him to, he deals with too many items.

So I do not know who this is but you really went overboard.

JHall wrote:
So today I leave NEUTRAL feedback.

Oh my god. I literally said this under my breath when I got to this part. There is nothing neutral about neutral feedback on ebay. It is a scar it just isnt a huge wound like a negative, and here you went and did it after a perfectly good transaction? All because several days later, after getting the item you bought, he didnt email you to tell you it shipped? Seriously?

JHall wrote:
"ARE YOU SERIOUS DUDE? i got you your item faster than 99% of other sellers, arrived in perfect condition. do you know how impossible it would be to contact over 150 people a week and let them know when i receive payment, then contact them again and let them know when i ship it. it makes no sense dude. you arent supposed to leave neutral over a clearly perfect transaction. take it back dude or i haveto ban you and you cant purchase from me again."

I agree with this guy 100%. In fact he is being a lot more lenient than I would be, and if it were me you would be very lucky you could hide behind ebays terrible feedback system where you couldnt recieve neutral or bad feedback for being a lousy and anal buyer.

I would seriously reconsider this if I were you.

I'd have given him negative feedback for calling me "dude" twice. The guy needs to be put in his place. What an arse.

This argument is evidence of what's wrong with eBay.

Because it grew up as a kind of virtual car boot sale, most users are in the mindset that it is not as reliable as a professional company like Amazon or Interflora. AND THEY ARE RIGHT! There are plenty of dodgy sales done on eBay as we all know.

Proper companies like Amazon usually send emails when the goods are despatched. Maybe they have clever automatic systems to do it.

Powersellers are stuck in a hole. They may be selling too much stuff to make it easy to keep up with the emailing, but eBay does not offer auto-emailing on despatch.

That is a problem between the sellers and eBay in my opinion, and the buyer should not be blamed for worrying about it.

Kilkrazy wrote:Powersellers are stuck in a hole. They may be selling too much stuff to make it easy to keep up with the emailing, but eBay does not offer auto-emailing on despatch.

Actually, it does. But you have to subscribe the the Selling Manager application to get it.

You can set it up to automatically handle end of auction emails, payment confirmations, shipping confirmations and even to leave feedback for you.

I don't generally send a seperate email confirming receipt of payment, but notifying them when the item is posted is a must, in my book. If you don't, you just wind up fielding endless "Has my item been sent yet?" queries...



As was mentioned back up a ways, neuts are generally seen as a 'negative-lite' simply because they still drag down your overall percentage, so many sellers do get a little worked up over them. If the item arrived in good time, I would have left a positive and simply marked him down on communication on the DSR.

PanamaG wrote:

JHall wrote:
So today I leave NEUTRAL feedback.

All because several days later, after getting the item you bought, he didnt email you to tell you it shipped? Seriously?

I agree with this guy 100%. In fact he is being a lot more lenient than I would be, and if it were me you would be very lucky you could hide behind ebays terrible feedback system where you couldnt recieve neutral or bad feedback for being a lousy and anal buyer.

I would seriously reconsider this if I were you.

No, it's because he sat on the buyer's money for several days without acknowledgment of receipt or tracking number *BEFORE* getting the item he bought.

*snicker* Yeah, what would you do? Waste your time with e-mails after the fact?

You should reconsider. eBay isn't amateur hour anymore. Slack selling processes deserve to be slammed.

PanamaG wrote:I will first say I thought you were talking about Hoard * Bits, but I dont see this being him, he is usally responsive although I would not expect him to, he deals with too many items.

I agree with this guy 100%. In fact he is being a lot more lenient than I would be, and if it were me you would be very lucky you could hide behind ebays terrible feedback system where you couldnt recieve neutral or bad feedback for being a lousy and anal buyer.

I would seriously reconsider this if I were you.

As others have pointed out, I don't think that communication or common courtesy is something I should be chastised for expecting. I am by no means a huge eBay user, but I have bought and sold 60-70 times on the service and I have never had a problem. I have also never had a buyer send me a nasty email for what I consider to be fair feedback. I can't help that a Neutral is not really "neutral" according to eBay. That is a problem with the system. I am not going to reconsider, especially since he flipped out on me. I will simply not purchase from this seller again and move on. As for being an anal buyer, I certainly am! I don't consider that to be a bad thing. In this day and age, there are lots of choices and I am always going for the service I feel I deserve in all my dealings. Case closed.

As an infrequent eBayer myself I know I expect different things from different vendors. From an obvious amateur with a low volume of sales, I will cut them some slack. This is because they are obviously doing it in their spare time and have a life to get in the way, and can't be expected to be as prompt as a professional outfit. On the other hand I expect "power sellers" to offer a professional purchasing experience, and if they do not I mark them as such. This is largely because they are often asking prices very nearly as high as non-ebay retailers, and are clearly trying to make a business out of it. If they are professionals they should expect to be treated as such and take the good with the bad. If they can't take the heat...

Osbad wrote:As an infrequent eBayer myself I know I expect different things from different vendors. From an obvious amateur with a low volume of sales, I will cut them some slack. This is because they are obviously doing it in their spare time and have a life to get in the way, and can't be expected to be as prompt as a professional outfit. On the other hand I expect "power sellers" to offer a professional purchasing experience, and if they do not I mark them as such. This is largely because they are often asking prices very nearly as high as non-ebay retailers, and are clearly trying to make a business out of it. If they are professionals they should expect to be treated as such and take the good with the bad. If they can't take the heat...

Excellent point, Osbad and I completely agree. This person is a Power Seller and by his own admission, does hundreds of transactions a week. Every other seller I have dealt with that does that volume has had excellent communication and responsiveness. It appears there are automated response systems you can set-up for high volume that does this stuff for you (based on the style of emails I have received from other power sellers).

JohnHwangDD wrote:

PanamaG wrote:

JHall wrote:
So today I leave NEUTRAL feedback.

All because several days later, after getting the item you bought, he didnt email you to tell you it shipped? Seriously?

I agree with this guy 100%. In fact he is being a lot more lenient than I would be, and if it were me you would be very lucky you could hide behind ebays terrible feedback system where you couldnt recieve neutral or bad feedback for being a lousy and anal buyer.

I would seriously reconsider this if I were you.

No, it's because he sat on the buyer's money for several days without acknowledgment of receipt or tracking number *BEFORE* getting the item he bought.

*snicker* Yeah, what would you do? Waste your time with e-mails after the fact?

You should reconsider. eBay isn't amateur hour anymore. Slack selling processes deserve to be slammed.

You're quite right. He paid up promptly and then waited a week and heard nothing. Two emails sent and then the stuff finally arrived some days later.

You pay for postage and you expect it to be prompt in arriving expecially if sent first class. Look, I've bought stuff that was labelled as being 'first class mail' and it's taken ages to arrive, because it was slow being posted the other end, not because of the postal sysem. I can check by the packing label. If you're not going to bother posting promptly then there's little point in offering first class mail with is usually for next day arrival.

Waiting over a week to post the item is sloppy, especially if you're not going to explain the the buyer why there is a delay. We call this politeness and good customer service, something which a power seller should respect if they want continued custom with a clean slate. Even if eBay is informal in manner, a informative and polite email is not much to ask.

So lets see, JHall bought an item and was ignored by the seller for a week. After being prompted twice by email he finally got the items dispatched but still no communication, no explanation or apology. A Neutral feedback is perfectly reasonable in these circumstances, there's nothing wrong with the items themselves, but the feedback reflects the fact that the customer service is particularly poor, with a long delay until postage and zero communication skills.

So frankly sod him. If his solution to fair criticism for being a poor salesman is to blow his stack and ban you from his auctions then it's his loss. There are plenty more sellers on eBay who are more professional and less hassle.

Personally I like not getting a hundred emails in my inbox telling me about every step of the process. Honestly, I don't care, and I find it annoying.

However, I would get upset if I didn't receive any sort of reply to emails sent to the seller.

Neutral sounds pretty fair to me.

JHall wrote: As others have pointed out, I don't think that communication or common courtesy is something I should be chastised for expecting. I am by no means a huge eBay user, but I have bought and sold 60-70 times on the service and I have never had a problem. I have also never had a buyer send me a nasty email for what I consider to be fair feedback. I can't help that a Neutral is not really "neutral" according to eBay. That is a problem with the system. I am not going to reconsider, especially since he flipped out on me. I will simply not purchase from this seller again and move on. As for being an anal buyer, I certainly am! I don't consider that to be a bad thing. In this day and age, there are lots of choices and I am always going for the service I feel I deserve in all my dealings. Case closed.

You may not be able to help that a Neutral is not a neutral according to Ebay, but that is -their- rating system, and you should use it with the understanding of what it means within that system, If you think neutral should mean something else, that's fine, but you should understand that when you put a neutral rating on things, on ebay it doesn't mean "average" and you shouldn't use it unless you mean what ebay is saying it means...

As for the seller flipping out, just remember, from your point of view, there's just two people, but as to paraphrase what said on a talk show recently "That clerk just had 8 customers with bad attitudes, you were the 9th..." If you are an anal buyer, you may ocassionally be treated like one..

JohnHwangDD wrote:
No, it's because he sat on the buyer's money for several days without acknowledgment of receipt or tracking number *BEFORE* getting the item he bought.

So he was sitting on the buyers money for a week until he magically teleported it to the guys door? Or was he sitting on the money for 24 hours before shipping it via snail mail. You have no clue how fast the guy shipped, and the fact that the guy got it within a week makes it pretty reasonable to assume he shipped right away.

JohnHwangDD wrote:


*snicker* Yeah, what would you do? Waste your time with e-mails after the fact?

No I would grow up and just get over the fact my toy didnt get to me lickety split fast as I demanded it to.

JohnHwangDD wrote:

You should reconsider. eBay isn't amateur hour anymore. Slack selling processes deserve to be slammed.

Ughhhh what is wrong with you? You think a weeks shipping time is amateur? Ever ordered from a REAL company outside of Ebay? "Shipping time of 4-8 weeks" is pretty common, and they dont tickle your gonads and say "thanks" after you pay your $2.

JHall wrote:

As others have pointed out, I don't think that communication or common courtesy is something I should be chastised for demanding

Fixed. If you simply didnt leave feedback or didnt shop with him again, that would be acceptable, but here you have marred his record because you have an entitled consumer complex.

JHall wrote:I am by no means a huge eBay user, but I have bought and sold 60-70 times on the service and I have never had a problem.

You still haven't you just don't know it.

JHall wrote: I can't help that a Neutral is not really "neutral" according to eBay.

You left something without learning or knowing of the consequences, and now that you realize you were mistaken it is somehow ebays fault?

Next time I am driving behind someone going the speed limit I will run them off the road. I hope your logic used here holds up as well in court. It will be the other guys fault because I didnt know. and you wonder why this guy flipped out on you???????

JHall wrote:he flipped out on me.

Can you seriously blame him? He is being punished because of your entitlement and ignorance.

Osbad wrote:As an infrequent eBayer myself I know I expect different things from different vendors. From an obvious amateur with a low volume of sales, I will cut them some slack.

As if a perfect transaction is slack but...
...you have to remember a lot of these people are using this as a side job and sell on a huge volume in order to make money. Its bits after all. It probably isnt some big company like this person thinks it is, but at the same time it isnt a hobbyist selling bits because it is his fetish, who wants to email all 210 people that ordered $2 in bits this week.

And I seriously hope this was over like $50-100 in bits. If this is over a marine helmet and some kneeling legs I am going to beat my computer over my head.

>>lol it was over battlewagon wheels.

JHall wrote:This person is a Power Seller and by his own admission, does hundreds of transactions a week.

Oh so I was right, thanks.

Howard A Treesong wrote:

Waiting over a week to post the item is sloppy, especially if you're not going to explain the the buyer why there is a delay.

But this isnt what happened. I think people are assuming that the seller didnt post until he sent a message a week later, but in reality he could have shipped that day.

Or he could be married with kids, not some college kid on 12 hours of classes, and only be able to ship certain days, and one of those days was 24 hours after he paid. Is that not legit??

Lanceradvanced wrote:

You may not be able to help that a Neutral is not a neutral according to Ebay, but that is -their- rating system, and you should use it with the understanding of what it means within that system, If you think neutral should mean something else, that's fine, but you should understand that when you put a neutral rating on things, on ebay it doesn't mean "average" and you shouldn't use it unless you mean what ebay is saying it means...

As for the seller flipping out, just remember, from your point of view, there's just two people, but as to paraphrase what said on a talk show recently "That clerk just had 8 customers with bad attitudes, you were the 9th..."

Ahh someone else playing with a full deck.

Jhall you have a serious entitlement issue as a consumer. Remember these people are trying to put food on the table. Its the same as these people who hate business for some reason, and treat them like they are owed something. Dont forget everyone who works at one is trying to feed a family, and is just another person trying to make a living. By being a baby and leaving a neutral you have effected his ability to do this, and if you think about it from this perspective how can you NOT feel for the guy???

lol found it:
"Arrived quickly, but poor comm. Did not know if payment was received/item sent."

I thought the sellers response was fitting and funny:
"Neutral? Fast Shipping Next Day. You knew 3 days after auction When it arrived!"

Feedback was left by JHall almost exactly 7 days after the auction ended. Jhall said he paid 24 hours after the auction ended, and then a reasonable person would allow 24 hours to get it in the mail. Assume another 24 hours at the end for Jhall to get home from work and get time to leave feedback, and you have a 3-4 shipping window.

actually you cant even count the first day because he listed the auction late in the evening lol