eBay Changes Feedback, Reducing Transparency

by: Ric

Ina observes: " It seems incredible that eBay would take away a key feature without notifying sellers in advance."

eBay has a long standing reputation for imposing anti seller changes out of the blue and without regard for how their seller community will be impacted.

Worse still is eBay management's complete and utter disregard of selles opinions on changes they impose with to sellers,

These days, about the only thing eBay sellers can be sure of is that the company will continue to make it even more impossible for sellers to avoid problematic buyers.

eBay's clueless management wonders why sellers are so willing to walk away from eBay and never considers the fact that it is eBay's anti-seller policies that are driving sellers to the exits.

by: Rexford

And meanwhile they beg sellers whom they drove or forced off of their platform to come back and they also try to recruit small business "ambassadors".

Get a clue eBay.

by: FeelingFroggy

Feedback is a joke for sellers and buyers. Anyone with half an ounce of common sense and uses Ebay knows feedback is a joke.

by: toolguy

I use this feature to decide if I need to have a signature conformation, I also use this information if I have to call eBay Customer Service about one of my buyers.

It's another tool taken away from sellers to see what kind of buyer they have.

No way to cheerlead this new feature if it comes to the USA.

by: angryllama

NOT the same feedback problem, but for fully 3 weeks I've seen that although ALL of my feedback as a seller has been POSITIVE darn near HALF of those have been BLANK aside for the GREEN CIRCLE to indicate it was POSITIVE. No WORDS in the positive left by the buyer, No eBay i.d. of the buyer who LEFT the positive and actually the WORST is that these positives do not even tell ME.. the SELLER.. WHICH sold item the POSITIVE feedback had been left FOR. No kidding.  YES, being able to examine the FEEDBACK LEFT that this current report addresses is an AWFUL and POINTLESS change that can ONLY shield BAD BUYERS.  No other even quasi-legitimate reason can have caused this to even WHISK ACROSS the Conscious Mind of any ADULT. At eBay the Toddlers are running the PreSchool.... INTO THE GROUND.

by: tkg

Its bad enough you can't investigate problem buyers. We just had a buyer this week were if we could have researched their buying history could have resolved an issue much sooner. They opened an return for item not as described against us for another seller's item. Confusing that seller's item with ours.  Luckily ours had not been delivered yet.

And then another buyer recently too wrote to us claiming damage of a brand new item & their feedback left is littered with 90% negative for sellers.  Even their positives left had negative remarks.  Maybe Ebay doesn't want sellers to know how many of these donkeys they continue to let abuse their site & sellers.  

by: Rexford

tkg, they want a sale at any cost. They continue to show what they think of sellers.

I have heard a lot of sellers state that eBay have more thieving and scammer buyers than any other platform.  This change will only continue to fuel this.

I believe that eBay think that throwing a seller under the bus is yet another "cost of doing business".

by: bitbybit

Just throwing it out there..maybe eBay, like Yahoo, is considering going up for sale and they don't want any potential purchasers seeing how fraught eBay is with bad buyers. The US site might get the worse version described by angryllama. Wouldn't surprise me.  

by: maxmad

oh well, just another stab in the back for eBay's disposable, unwanted, evil sellers, ebay knows there are plenty desperate sellers that will not leave, no mater what they do to them, and plenty of new one's coming down the pipe, ebay must be rolling on the ground laughing at each and every one

by: 27tcle

Making one way feedback was bad, they should have changed it to two separate feedback scores. Making rival buyers anonymous was worse, Now it became impossible for you to tell if you are bidding against a shill resulting overall in the death of auction style listings. It also opened the door wide for abuse. Hiding the items people bought and obscuring the time they bought was even more sickening, now it became impossible to know your customer. Making feedback left by others invisible is plain stupid. No there is no way to weed out newbie neg happy bidders or malicious competitor sellers. Looks like they want to take everything sellers can do to protect themselves. C'mon put the fork in Ebay's done.

by: mcposty

So I take it, with this change, ebay will be held responsible fir charge backs? Since the seller has no data in which to conduct investigations on possible fraudulant buyers?

Time to sue ebay

by: The End

"Feedback left for others" is a good barometer to see if they have a penchant for destroying businesses.
Ebay management is a stupid a$$.

by: White Rabbit

This is BAD and proof Ebay is not out to help the sellers.. just cheap talk but act like this prove otherwise. Serial negative leavers are not removed by Ebay and this creates a real problem for sellers as this was the last remaining tool of somewhat usefulness.

by: shut1968

One more attempt at becoming more "Amazon" like, bad buyers screw us at least once a week on Amazon, it's been less an Ebay but I suspect it'll get worse now.  I've been one of the few to praise eBay as of late for making positive changes.. foot in mouth now

by: maxmad

Really not shocked at all, we knew they would do it eventually, all we used it for was to block potential bad buyers, ask a question, and if we see your a problem buyer, your immediately blocked,


ebay wants full control of you, your business, and your money, THEY WILL NEVER STOP, until they get IT ALL, and if hiding bad buyers will take more of your money, no problem for ebay.

There is only one way out, Take some of your items from ebay and use other venues, and soon enough, these constant changes will be just simply laughable and totally meaningless to you,

by: leathermermaid8

Amazing.  So why should anyone bother to leave any feedback at all then?  Had many of these users left factual, non emotional, name calling feedback, it may have been different.  We'll never know now.

An intelligent user knows how to read between the lines with negatives.  They're just handicapping us all.  Again.

I've seen many negatives left that should have been aimed at a Manufacturer not a seller.  One person left negatives because they didn't like a book.  Not the condition or the shipping time.  The writing! Huh?

My own method is not to leave feedback at all if something wasn't right.   Silence speaks louder than rants sometimes.

by: FeelingFroggy

To many paranoid sellers on Ebay.

Feedback is a joke for both sellers and buyers. Useless waste of time for all. Move on.

by: pace306

Maybe instead of spending 24/7 sitting around finding ways to put the screws to its sellers (knee capping them over and over), eBay could grow up, put their big boy pants on and make it a better place for all?!?

As long as the easy money continues to roll in, and the Tools of the world don't/can't/won't see the truth about eBay - nothing will change. And why should it? eBay doesn't care about its sellers, they are simply bait for their bad buyers. That's why when there's a faulty return, eBay just laughs in your face.

eBay only cares about eBay, they are not your friends, Uncle Grifter isn't your kind old uncle that looks out for you, and they are t your partners. eBay takes and never gives - unless forced to.

Know it, understand it and live it - then nothing absurd and anti seller that they do will surprise you.  

by: Marie

I use this function from time to time to research what a certain buyer may be doing or not doing.  Especially if they send an email with a rude statement or some other potential issue.  It is all we have left as sellers on Ebay.

With that said, toolhaus.org still is in existence and we can use that to see what any given buyer may have done with FB.

by: dander

there are bad buyers out there that are unreasonable or frauds. I have used feedback left for others to help sellers screwed over by buyers, and also for my defense when the buyer has a history of feedback abuse.