Question for sellers - What Is The Point Of Feedback. Am I a jerk ???

[JohnBull]

Well...after reading all the gobbledy-gook in this thread I have come to two conclusions....Yes...you are a jerk... ...and you should stick to buying CGC graded books...

 

You're probably right on the second count and quite likely right on the first. You obviously have no idea what gobbledy-gook is though and should have kept that particular thought to yourself !

[ArAich]

Well...after reading all the gobbledy-gook in this thread I have come to two conclusions....Yes...you are a jerk... ...and you should stick to buying CGC graded books...

 

You're probably right on the second count and quite likely right on the first. You obviously have no idea what gobbledy-gook is though and should have kept that particular thought to yourself !

 

As a matter of fact I do know what gobbledygook is...

 

 

 

From Dictionary.com

 

gobbledygook

Unclear, wordy jargon.

 

or

n : incomprehensible or pompous jargon of specialists

 

 

 

[garthgantu]

Some thoughts:

- I'm the first person to advocate negging bad sellers. However, in this case, I would say a neutral was warranted, at best. Why? Because you really didn't give the seller an opportunity to correct the problem. It's quite possible the seller would have resolved this in some way that would have satisfied you. Yes, that would have taken more time, but eBay isn't quite like walking into a comic shop, and you have to take the bad with the good.

 

- As for the issue of when to leave feedback, I never expect the seller to leave feedback before I the buyer do. Now in an instance where you've purchased more than one 'lot' (specific auction item #), you could always leave a neutral for one of the items and wait to see what happens.

 

- Re: the tone of your negative fb comment, it really doesn't matter to a lot of sellers, because long after your neg has dropped off the first page of their feedback list (which is all most prospective buyers glance at), the neg is still part of their record. So no matter how gently you phrase the substance of your experience, the neg still looks ugly.

 

- I would also agree with other board members that, even when dealing with a full-time comic book dealer, I don't expect the grading to be dead-on. Sometimes they overlook things while dealing with hundreds or thousands of comics; sometimes their grading just isn't as tight as mine. Regardless, a "two-point" drop (from say VF/NM 9.0 to VF 8.0) is not at all unusual. Does that mean you should *expect* a two-point drop? No, by all means feel free to hope for the best; but if you assume the best, you'll be disappointed on a fairly regular basis, at least by my experience.

 

- As for the shipping, it sounds awfully cheap and slipshod for a "professional comic book dealer." That's the one point I think you can take issue with the most - it seems likely that the seller dropped the quality of their packaging/shipping when they dropped the shipping cost. That to me is pretty unforgivable from a pro comic seller; at the very least, they should have said "well, we can drop the shipping cost by 60%, but will then have to reduce the quality of shipping somewhat." 2 1/2 pounds (approx $4) seems reasonable (not great, but acceptable) for two comics *if shipped safely and carefully*.

 

Bottom line, you did future buyers a favor by alerting them to this seller's shaky shipping and grading. But you could have done the same with a neutral, and probably could have garnered some additional consideration from the seller if you'd contacted them in advance of leaving feedback...of course, if you'd done this, leaving neg or even neutral feedback might not have been as "appropriate." This to me is a real quandary: if you have to jump thru hoops to get satisfaction from a seller after the fact, and said satisfaction is forthcoming, should you still leave neg or neutral feedback? I mean, you still want to warn other buyers that a purchase from the seller in question may not be smooth sailing...

[Darthdiesel]

Nicely put garth... now who is that famous ebay comic connossieur that seems to neg for the slightest of infractions again?

[JohnBull]

As a matter of fact I do know what gobbledygook is...

 

 

 

From Dictionary.com

 

gobbledygook

Unclear, wordy jargon.

 

or

n : incomprehensible or pompous jargon of specialists

 

 

 

I'll use smaller words next time.

[garthgantu]

Nicely put garth... now who is that famous ebay comic connossieur that seems to neg for the slightest of infractions again?

 

Are you baiting me? I honestly can't tell. I frequently rail against buyers who do the Casper Milqtoast thing and just sit back and take garbage from sellers... but I've only negged a couple of sellers myself, partly through reasonably good luck in my eBay purchases, and partly through not having dealt with that many sellers in totum...I tend to buy from the same sellers over again. When I do buy from new/unknown sellers at this point, they're often not professional comic book types, and I know from the outset that I'm taking a flyer on someone's once-in-a-blue-moon comic book auction. Doesn't mean I won't neg them if the situation warrants, it just means I tend to be a little slower to pull the trigger on neg/neutral feedback in such instances - and this has proved to be a good strategy for me.

 

I recently bought about 15 SA DCs from a woman who was selling them for her church; another parishioner had donated them (and had overgraded them). After receiving the books and finding that all but a couple were overgraded by at least 2-3 "notches," I contacted the seller and she sent me a check for 35% of the total cost. I felt kinda bad about even asking, but I knew I wouldn't be able to sleep nights if I didn't resolve the situation to my satisfaction one way or the other. Would she have gotten a neutral or neg fb if I hadn't gotten the refund? Yes, even if it meant (her) God might not smile upon me for doing so...

[Darthdiesel]

Look out for that lightning bolt...'cause you'll be sleeping in Hell for this one !

 

 

Actually I wasn't baiting you...there is a known comic buyer on eBay that no one can seem to please...many sellers have his ID blocked and he used to frequent the ebay comic boardss as well, ranting all thetime from my recollection. I just forgot his ebay ID

[garthgantu]

Sounds like a nice guy...

 

In some ways I'm ashamed not to have a few "badges of honor" in the neg feedback dept. I'm sure someday I'll regret that sentiment...

[Joanna]

gp, I think you lost sight of one thing. If you had contacted the seller, you might have gotten full satisfaction. He might have sent you another copy that fit your grading standards, or given you back all of your money, including all shipping, so that you could search for the book elsewhere without a loss. By not contacting him, you guaranteed yourself an unhappy result, and then made sure he was unhappy, as well.

 

Why? Why was it more important to neg the seller than it was to be satisfied with your purchase? You said you didn't want to have to do the work, but unless you tell him what's going on, he'll never even know you were dissatisfied. And maybe the only 'work' you would've had to do was that initial email. I once missed a problem with an early SA Jimmy Olsen. The buyer told me, I immediately refunded all of his money, told him to keep the book anyway, then looked for another listing on ebay so that he could get the copy he wanted. He didn't have to do anything -- not even send the comic back. He could've negged me without talking to me, and been unhappy, or he could have all of his money and the comic, and a line on a better copy. As a buyer, which makes more sense?

 

-- Joanna

[garthgantu]

In gp's defense (no that he needs help defending himself), Joanna, you are the exception, not the rule... the much more likely outcome of contacting the seller with gp's concerns/complaints would be some amount of work on gp's part. I'm not saying that extra effort might not have been worthwhile - I made the same point in my initial post to this thread - but let's face it, part of what you're paying for on eBay is the convenience. If I wanted to, I could probably go get most books I buy on eBay at my LCS, many in the same or better condition. But I'm not willing to pay the extra $ for that extra convenience and peace of mind.

 

In gp's case, he made a choice - one that not everyone on the boards agrees with (surprise!). But it was his choice to make and he'll have to live with the consequences. Ultimately, as a buyer, I applaud gp for alerting other buyers to this seller's M.O. (I don't want to say that the seller is doing anything bad intentionally, but even if they're not, I as a buyer want to know about this sort of slapdash packaging, overgrading, etc.)

[fantastic_four]

Why ? I collect certain older DC's in around VGish grade. On them I don't care if it's out a bit. I collect other stuff in 9.0 minimum. I don't want an 8.0 or an 8.5 of a book I've seen 300 copies and read in a dozen forms in the last 25 years. My desire for a VF/NM might be churlish, but it's what a guy with a profile showing 1300 was offerring and if everybody else who'd got VF's instead of VF/NM's had told me so, I could have avoided his auctions in the first place.

 

That's my point. Nobody did tell me, unless I really am the first. I have however enshrined it for posterity and for future buyers to act on or ignore as they see fit.

 

I collect 9.0 and above exclusively, and if the book were overgraded by 3 notches or more, I would have agreed that you should have negged him to warn other buyers. However, if you're buying from ebay and hoping to get tightly graded 9.0 or better comics, you're trying to squeeze water out of a stone. About the best rate you can hope for is just two notches off. Here's why:

• It is inherently biased for the owner of a book to grade it themselves. Some people can overcome the natural bias to look a bit overfavorably on their own books--which gets even harder to overcome when they're trying to sell for the most they can get--but most can't.
• Grading takes a lot of time and focused dedication and practice to learn. Most sellers, no matter how high their feedback is, never put the time, or more importantly, the focus, in to really get good at it.
• Even if you do put the time and the focus in--and even if you're a grading professional--the 25-notch CGC/Overstreet scale is overly ambitious when you consider that the only written guide to the grading standard in existence, the Overstreet Grading Guide, does not offer specific enough guidelines to allow you to grade comics without at least a one-notch margin of error. If you put the 50 best comic book graders in a room together and have them grade 100 books, I suspect on almost all of them you'll get a variance of at least 2 to 3 notches between the highest and lowest grade assigned to each comic, with the average margin of error being around plus or minus 1 notch. I can tell you that it's absolutely common for the CGC graders to disagree by at least a notch.
• If the best graders can't even grade without a 1-notch margin of error...how can you really expect to get tightly graded comics from the average E-Bay user? It's tough enough to find dealers who grade that tightly...to expect it from even the highest-feedback E-Bay users is unrealistic. The E-Bay feedback system is too flawed, and grading is still too much art and not enough science, for your expectation of tight grading on E-Bay to have much success.

[thanos_oftitan]

I'm confussed, you could take the time to complain about shipping costs but not

the books??

 

Switch to decaf.....

 

Also does anyone use the Neutral feedback button?

 

 

[xrcst]

My policy on feedback is when your portion of the transaction is done, you should leave feedback in good faith...IE.

 

If I am the seller, then once I recieve payment...I leave feedback.

If I am the buyer, once I get the item, I leave feedback.

[JohnBull]

I'm confussed, you could take the time to complain about shipping costs but not

the books??

 

Switch to decaf.....

 

Also does anyone use the Neutral feedback button?

 

 

Uh, I didn't want to pay £6-00 to have the books sent when I know that it should cost around £1-50 to £2-00. That was before they were sent.

 

I could only complain about the books after they were sent and previous experience has made me wary of raising issues before the seller has left feedback.

 

When I sell, I leave positive feedback as soon as the cheque cashes or the paypal hits. This is before I even ship the books. At the point that I've been paid, I consider that they buyer has upheld his end of the transaction. I know that some sellers won't give feedback before they've received a positive and I take issue with this (in fact if I experience it, I avoid them in future).

 

I know that the buyer can hurt the seller after the transaction, but they seller can hurt the buyer in far more ways - they can not ship the goods, ship the wrong goods, ship counterfeit goods, ship damaged goods...

 

Whatever. Bitter experience has shown me that if I have a problem and the seller doesn't wish to resolve it, I can't make them. They can tell me to get stuffed, keep my money and that's that. I can then leave a negative, but if they haven't already done their feedback, I get once back straight away.

 

For me, the transaction was a negative and I chalked it up as a bad one. If he'd done his feedback within a few days, I'd have raised the issue and possibly got a refund. But I'm annoyed I have to do this and I expect to be out of pocket through it. If that had happened, I might have left a neutral - 'books slightly overgraded, but seller refunded promptly' or the like. When my feedback finally hit 34 days later, it was ancient history, so I reported the deal as I saw it - I got overgraded books, badly packaged for a disproportionate shipping cost. If the seller has an issue with this, he should have provided a better service to start with and the fact that most people couldn't be bothered (or are more likely too scared) to complain is not my fault.

 

Aside from that scenario, I could never see the point of leaving a neutral. What the hell is a neutral deal ?

 

[comicmankev]

Havnt read through all the long posts, so sorry if I'm repeating, but I get the jist.

 

I think feedback helps to distinguish the majority of 'con artists' out there. Theres not many people that woul bid on a $$££$$££ book when someone has less than 5 feedback. But I do agree that leaving feedback can leave you wide open to a 'rebound neg'.

 

I, unfortunately, do not leave negative feedback anymore. This is for the same reason as GP, every time I leave one, I get one! Which really pissssssez me off. But as Ebay has no concern as to whether your feedback is viable or not, what are you to do?

 

I have had a few transactions when the US buyer claims through paypal that an item is not received, even though it has been sent. What do you do then? I contact the buyer, no response.

 

Now, if I leave negative feedback, it makes my 5% chance of getting the money back reduced to 0.1%! Now, on one of these transactions I was lucky enough to have got the cash back again, but what do I say about that buyer?? I even have one at the moment that has put in a claim as it has not been received after 2 weeks, this may be a long time to some of you, but remember, it's coming from the UK and I have provided a tracking number, what more can I do? Whats worse is I think it is a Forum members shill account! Anyway, enough of that, do you get my point?

 

 

[Darthdiesel]

FWIW, I was tracking in November how much I paid in shipping costs versus the postage meter. And it was a relatively slow month...

 

Paid: $169.38

Actual postage cost: $102.55

Difference: $66.83

 

Not mind boggling, but knowing I overpaid almost $67 to offset seller's costs, fees, time, gas, misc expenses, packing expenses, state tax - (all costs that I absorb in my own selling endeavors) eats at me a bit but I still haven't negged someone based on that. Costs were explicitly laid out in the auctions and there were no surprises, so I'm not pointing fingers.

 

This again was a small month...I'm wondering how bad it'll get during heavier traffic months

 

[CosmicBob]

FWIW, I was tracking in November how much I paid in shipping costs versus the postage meter. And it was a relatively slow month...

 

Paid: $169.38

Actual postage cost: $102.55

Difference: $66.83

 

Not mind boggling, but knowing I overpaid almost $67 to offset seller's costs, fees, time, gas, misc expenses, packing expenses, state tax - (all costs that I absorb in my own selling endeavors) eats at me a bit but I still haven't negged someone based on that. Costs were explicitly laid out in the auctions and there were no surprises, so I'm not pointing fingers.

 

This again was a small month...I'm wondering how bad it'll get during heavier traffic months

 

Darth, do you get stuff shipped from UPS? They don't put cost on the label, so are you able to track this?

 

I don't track that data, but I do track how much I charge vs. how much postage costs. I'm very close to breaking even on postage, but I'm still paying more than I'm charging overall.

[Darthdiesel]

Bob - for UPS shipments - I can go to the online UPS shipping calculator and enter the weight and zip info found on the label or enter the tracking info and get the relevant info that way. I usually don't get stuff via UPS and I ALWAYS encourage my sellers to go USPS if offered an option.

 

As for tracking my shipping vs my postage costs, I'm a shipping profiteer all the way! I get you guys to pay for my limo rides to the post office when I drop off packages and have plenty left over from shipping charges to go for a steak dinner with the family afterwards

 

Actually Bob, I started using that ebay shipping calculator and guesstimating the end weight of my packages so it is calculating exact postage costs via USPS and that is what my buyers see. Sometimes it is heavier, sometimes it is lighter. If the cost of postage exceeds by a couple of bucks, I send it back in cash tucked in the book/package. If I'm short a few cents I cover it. If I'm short by a lot (ie, Spain has a ZIP set up - 5 digits - similar to ours. The stupid eBay calculator gave him shipping costs for Georgia and I ended up paying more in shipping that buyer sent - I covered it in this case, but reminded him that international buyers are supposed to contact me to work out exact costs instead of paying right away), I usually ask at that point or to get me back the next time they buy from me...

[ArAich]

As for tracking my shipping vs my postage costs, I'm a shipping profiteer all the way!

 

I've been meaning to speak to you about the $.06 overcharge on my Adventure book... ...but I let it go since you added the Faith Ford/Kelly Rippa mag...

[lighthouse]

Not mind boggling, but knowing I overpaid almost $67 to offset seller's costs, fees, time, gas, misc expenses, packing expenses, state tax - (all costs that I absorb in my own selling endeavors) eats at me a bit but I still haven't negged someone based on that. Costs were explicitly laid out in the auctions and there were no surprises, so I'm not pointing fingers.

 

This again was a small month...I'm wondering how bad it'll get during heavier traffic months

 

Well speaking for my $1.15 portion of that $67, I can tell you that the extra "handling" portion of the shipping and handling charge was money well spent. Your books accompanied me to the local strip club where they got up close and personal with some of the finest entertainment available in these parts. Your $1.15 covered the nine second drum fill during Godsmack's "Voodoo" as an engineering student named "Sunshine" was removing her t-back...

 

Our local establishments are all smoke-free, but you may want to check those John Carters for just a hint of "Beautiful," the perfume of choice for engineering students everywhere...

 

Money well spent, my friend... money well spent...