From your tone it sounds like you were one of their customers who gave them a negative?

It also sounds like you have completely bought into the eBay spin and double-talk.

When I was a school, if a rating system had 3 grades, then one was bad, one was good, and the other was average / as expected / normal / nothing outstanding.

That was also the original intention of the eBay feedback system, time has shown that some people use it that way, some people don’t.

eBay’s own forums (all countries) are full of threads about complaints from both sides that “it was only a neutral”, when, as I blogged last year, eBay has twisted the knife and made neutrals into negatives, but never told the buyers.

So on basic feedback, we have the situation of buyers being led to believe, “hey, if it’s neither bad nor good, give a neutral”, and sellers being told, “if you get neutrals, you get restricted, suspended, or banned”.

The same double standards are being applied in the Detailed Seller Ratings – it’s a five point scale, and therefore a ‘3′ should be the same as a regular neutral, a ‘4′ should be good/above average, and a ‘5′ should be excellent.

But, eBay are financially disadvantaging sellers with a less than 4.6 average on each DSR, and if they go under 4.3 they get dumped to the bottom of all search and browse results.

If they fall to a 4.0 on any one of the 4 criteria, eBay splashes a big red warning on their listings saying, “WARNING, this seller has a poor rating for xyz”.

Now hang on a mo’ – on a 5-point range, the ‘2′ should be the rating of ‘poor’ with a ‘1′ as ‘bad’, so why tell browsers a seller is ‘poor’ when they have a rating of ‘4′, which eBay then tells to buyers is a ‘good’ when they are leaving the ratings after the purchase?

Your comment – “34 neutrals! that almost 3% of customer that could not rate them positively.”

Try reading that as “34 neutrals! That’s almost 3% of their buyers didn’t have a clue about the importance of feedback, or how it’s used to punish sellers on eBay, and bought into the eBay spin.”

Or, “34 neutrals! That’s almost 3% of their buyers didn’t have a problem with the product or service, but didn’t believe it was exceptional either”

eBay ARE playing divide and conquer – they’re giving the buyers TWO different messages (before and after purchase) about the same rating, and both of those messages are different to how they’re used against the seller.

It’s a bit like the different modern translations of the bible compared to those of the 17th Century King James version. Today’s “Thou shall not murder” is very different to “Thou shall not kill”.

Ed

I pulled up their closed listings and looked at them. If you look at what and how they sell, the way it’s described, the use of stock photos rather than actual photos of the damaged items, and most importantly, their feedback trend over 12 months.

Guess what, any seller who was paying attention to their business could see this coming.

34 neutrals! that almost 3% of customer that could not rate them positively. Plus 9 negatives!

Bargainland was selling carp, but at least they sold it as carp. These folks were selling open box, damaged goods but presenting it as if it was new and perfect.

Tuffy

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I think with eBay removing the Feeback from seller to buyer and the issue of non perfmonace we will start to find many and I say many BUYER who will rip off the seller. The buyer has nothing to lose at all if he places a negative.
eBay did not provide an apprpriate counter back.
I think the fair thing is to let a third party to like SQAURE TRADE to be a mediator and if the buyer losses the case he/she pays the fees they don’t have a choice. So it will let them think if they are serious about the necative they are leaving out.

Surely, in their aim to encourage businesses on the site to behave in a more professional manner, their first advice ought to be for the seller to attempt to resolve the issue amicably with their customer
Then (and only after that) look into defamatory comments and/or Mutual Feedback Withdrawal

I dread to think what sort of advice these account managers will be issuing when the Mutual Feedback withdrawal process is withdrawn later this year

The current Mutual Feedback Withdrawal system will remain in place until the second half of 2008.