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To leave a negative or not?

39 posts in this topic

Guys, I would like to get some good critical feedback on an issue that has been bothering me lately. As you may or may not know I am sometimes a little too quick i feel to leave negative feedback. I recently left some negative feedback for a raw book I bought ungraded advertised on ebay as 9.4 nm. I paid $25.00 for it. I gave specific instructions book be bagged and boarded, packaged securely between thick cardboard and bagged for shipping, shipped priority. I indicated i was willing to pay extra for all of this and I did. I got the book and it was stuffed in my mail box because it was put in a yellow envelope, easily bendable. It was shipped media rate. Book was not boarded but was bagged and taped between two thin backing boards. Book was also not 9.4 nm by overstreet stds but had some stesses and a horrible bend in lower left corner xtending throughout the entire book (not due to the packaging effort). Instead of contacting the seller to resolve the issue I immediately left negative feedback (seller: Highendcollectibles). This is where I would like feedback. Why did i do that?

1. I am very busy

2. i may be a little different but a seller i have never dealt with before, will never deal with again and on top of that $25 is not worth the effort of sending the book back, and taking another loss through paypal

3. one more negative on ebay (I have a total of 5 out of 399 now) is not going to hurt my feelings. Im in law school. I got embarrased in class last night for not reading a case. To me that bothers me more than 1 neg on ebay considering the amount of money I spent on that place.

 

Perhaps if it was important enough for me to buy it should have been important enough to resolve the issue? To me it was resolved. I sometimes feel that since I do not buy raw very much, the times I do it should be somewhat graded and packaged correctly. I would NOT have left neg f/b if perhaps book was sent and packaged correctly and was undergraded.

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Yet another sad typical Ebay transaction.

I think its safe to say we have all gone through similar problems.

And sounds like you even took the extra steps in writing, and and paid for service you did not recieve.

And then comes the issue to neg or not to neg, in fear of return retallitory neg feedbacks.

I feel as a buyer, you are really hamstrung by the feedback system

If you get really bad service and want to leave bad feedback accordingly, you have to accept that they will neg you back unfairly most times, and make your record look worse then it should be.

So I stopped leaving Neg feedback after I got 4 negs from people who I negged first.

Seems kinda flawed if thats how it works now.

And once again, if it is a seller who you dont know well , and after many emails dont feel comfortable with how they respond to you, them on Ebay its a gamble.And this time you lost.

 

By the way, how did this seller respond, when you asked him why he did not take better care in mailing you your book?

 

 

Zeman

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i never bothered to ask him. At that point what would his response have mattered about why he did not packaged or grade better? What could have possibly happened to have frustrated his grading ability or ability to box the item, especially when I paid extra for that?. I mean, even if he had offered a refund the only way I would have taken that option was if he said i can either keep the book or he would pay/reimburse me for mailing the book back to him.

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First question I have is did you have a bad night at school before or after you received the book.

Would you have done this if lets say it was a $300.00 book?

If you were already frustrated, than your attitude was already negative and that book you received put you over the edge.

Granted the seller could have sent it the way you requested after all you are the customer.

Time and time again alot of RAW books sold on EBAY are well Overgraded, and most of the time the shipping is poor. These sellers should not be selling, I got burned a few times, but as humans sometimes we take risks. I personally would have contacted him first, express that I was unsatisfied and then try to work it out from there.

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I'm with you and probably leave more negs/neutrals than most. I ask myself a question at the end of every transaction - was this a positive or negative experience for me? Then I leave feedback accordingly. If I get too many retaliatory negs, I shelve the buying account and start again. I don't need a big feedback number when I buy, so to me, it's not a big deal. This is my way of dealing with all the [!@#%^&^] out there.

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This is why as a seller I ALWAYS leave a positive as soon as I receive payment (or after the check clears if it is a check). Always without exeption. If the buyer meets his obligation to pay, then he is done. That's it. You get a positive. As a seller I should not have the right, or option to leave retaliatory feedback. If the buyer is unhappy and leaves me a negative, so be it. I did not live up to my obligations in one way or another. I absolutely cannot stand sellers that wait for a buyer's feedback first. That is [!@#%^&^]-backwards. If anything, the buyer should wait for the seller's feedback first. I don't care about problem buyers, there are many more problem sellers. Damn insufficiently_thoughtful_person seller's out there that wait for feedback. Very unethical in my opinion. 893naughty-thumb.gif -----Sid

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I thought you were telling them about one of my bad experiences. The only difference is that I've come to know my mailman and therefore, when he calls my suite to tell me come down, he warns me ahead of time that my item was poorly packaged.

 

My suggestion is to contact the seller who may be willing to make restitution (probably not given that he ignored your request for more secure packaging) and if not, neg him. Personally, I'm finding a lot of sellers will advertise a high-grade book to receive the highest possible auction outcome and then on purpose, carelessly package the "less than high-grade" book so that when you receive it damaged, they will immediately blame the postal service while claiming that no one's ever had a problem with his packaging. So I say again, neg him. makepoint.gif

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Damn insufficiently_thoughtful_person seller's out there that wait for feedback. Very unethical in my opinion.

 

I wholeheartedly disagree. Feedback should be left upon the satisfactory completion of the transaction, not before the buyer has received the item. While I would wager that seller-related problems outnumber buyer-related problems by an large margin, there are still unreasonable/unethical buyers out there who can and do create problems for sellers. Buyers that switch books and then demand a return. Buyers who threaten to leave negatives if actual shipping charges turn out to be 75 cents lower than what they paid. Whiny 893censored-thumb.gif who ask for refunds because of speckles inside the CGC case. 893frustrated.gif

 

Gene

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I wear my "Red Badges of Courage" proudly as I've received a couple of retaliatory negatives. I will also take the time to reply to them so that people viewing my feedback know what's up. I yet to have a retaliatory [!@#%^&^] respond to my response. Check his feedback, he probably responded to yours and you can write a final comment in response.

 

To the question you asked, it was only a $25 book, IMHO the seller scammed you. You took the initiative to instruct, paid extra for that and was flatly ignored. The only thing different is I might have contacted him first to see what he would do, then light the BBQ. He might have surprised you to meet your request.

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I'm with you and probably leave more negs/neutrals than most. I ask myself a question at the end of every transaction - was this a positive or negative experience for me? Then I leave feedback accordingly. If I get too many retaliatory negs, I shelve the buying account and start again. I don't need a big feedback number when I buy, so to me, it's not a big deal. This is my way of dealing with all the [!@#%^&^] out there.

 

Exactly. Hello? If you buy on eBay, you owe it to other buyers to alert them to the lousy sellers, so they can avoid the bad experience you had. After all, you'd want other buyers to do the same, right?

 

If you buy and sell on eBay, get two separate accounts! Then you don't have to worry about retaliatory negs that might impact your eBay selling efforts.

 

Sorry, Zeman, but your strategy strikes me as pretty lame, if what you're saying is, you no longer leave neg or neutral feedback when you have a bad experience with a seller... you owe it to other buyers to forewarn them about such sellers.

 

The feedback system is weak - and it's the only 'safeguard' we have as buyers when bidding on auctions. If the majority of buyers would get some guts and leave negs and neutrals when appropriate, there'd be far fewer bad experiences, IMO - the bad sellers would have so many negs that they'd eventually be weeded out of the herd.

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Damn insufficiently_thoughtful_person seller's out there that wait for feedback. Very unethical in my opinion.

 

I wholeheartedly disagree. Feedback should be left upon the satisfactory completion of the transaction, not before the buyer has received the item. While I would wager that seller-related problems outnumber buyer-related problems by an large margin, there are still unreasonable/unethical buyers out there who can and do create problems for sellers. Buyers that switch books and then demand a return. Buyers who threaten to leave negatives if actual shipping charges turn out to be 75 cents lower than what they paid. Whiny 893censored-thumb.gif who ask for refunds because of speckles inside the CGC case. 893frustrated.gif

 

Gene

 

While I agree that Ebay's feedback system is far from perfect, I still believe that if most people handle it ethically then it is a good thing. Well... I wholeheartedly disagree back at you. The completion of the buyer's transaction is when he makes payment, when the seller receives it. His transaction is done. What more does the buyer need to do? This is such a lame excuse delekkerte although I do respect your opinion. Yeah, I know the excuses of some buyers out there, but why does that give sellers an excuse to wait on feedback. What if the buyer never contacts you to let you know that he received the product? Or just does not leave you feedback at all? Do you STILL not leave him feedback? I just see it as sellers that are too afraid of how buyer's will react to the items they sell, or just too wimpy to handle a few red marks. If you are confident in your listings, then you have nothing to fear. The occasional irrational buyers out there that will neg anything is just what we have to put up with sometimes.

 

One more thing. Say you sell a book and the buyer is unhappy and imediately leaves you a neg because he thought it was overgraded or poorly packaged. Then what do you leave him? Assuming he paid on time this guy still absolutely deserves a positive. ----Sid

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I absolutely cannot stand sellers that wait for a buyer's feedback first. That is [!@#%^&^]-backwards. If anything, the buyer should wait for the seller's feedback first. I don't care about problem buyers, there are many more problem sellers. Damn insufficiently_thoughtful_person seller's out there that wait for feedback. Very unethical in my opinion. -----Sid

 

Good post - BUT

 

The transaction is completed when the BUYER decides. The Seller already sent item, his/her part is over. The BUYER needs to determine if transaction is satisfactory. So on MY auctions, I always wait until the BUYER posts the feedback first. Like delekerste above, I have had the very things he describes happen to me. I also had a few BUYERS threaten me re: returns ( " if you don't give me positive feedback I will neg you") and the last one to do this I turned in to eBay and he is no more. I also had a clown try to "switch" an Avengers Bronze comic on me.

 

Sid is on the right track re: Bad BUYERS vs. Bad SELLERS. My take: You can always avoid the bad SELLER but never know when that bad BUYER will stumble upon your auctions and ruin them and your feedback. The Bad BUYER is more of a threat as my experience dictates.

 

CAL hi.gif

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Sorry, Zeman, but your strategy strikes me as pretty lame, if what you're saying is, you no longer leave neg or neutral feedback when you have a bad experience with a seller... you owe it to other buyers to forewarn them about such sellers.

 

The feedback system is weak - and it's the only 'safeguard' we have as buyers when bidding on auctions. If the majority of buyers would get some guts and leave negs and neutrals when appropriate, there'd be far fewer bad experiences, IMO - the bad sellers would have so many negs that they'd eventually be weeded out of the herd.

 

Well you are partly right, my reasons were kinda lame.. firstly I only have 1 ebay accnt, and dont plan on making a new one so it is perhaps more important to me then some here to not get negged.

, secondly if I do sell on Ebay it is not always comics, so I do like to have my record as clean as I can. but I failed to mention that when I have a less then favorable experience I do leave nutral feedback and expalin what hapened.

But I learned the hard way on Ebay a long time ago, to contact a seller before buying , communicate with them, and if I dont like the cut of their jib , I stay away.

So I have not had many bad experiences at all in the past few years.(200 or so auctions)

And those that were bad are due to mailing, I got refunds, partial credit etc...So I agree with you, feedback is crucial to a succesful Ebay system, and in the future I will be more diligent about leaving negs, if I really feel a seller did me wrong.

your point did not fall on deaf ears, I hear ya... thanks for slapping me round to see the light!

 

Zeman

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The transaction is completed when the BUYER decides. The Seller already sent item, his/her part is over. The BUYER needs to determine if transaction is satisfactory. So on MY auctions, I always wait until the BUYER posts the feedback first.

 

I can see your point but it becoming obvious that there's a whole lot of sellers out there using this tactic that AREN'T leaving feedback for whatever reason. "I got mine so I don't have to worry about yours anymore because the deal's complete" comes to mind. I've had 7 sellers now over the last three months NOT leave feedback after I've done the same. And it's not me being a bad buyer that's the reason. I always pay within 24 hours after getting total and didn't have any "bad" communication, and in most cases no communication because of the Paypal invoice scheme, with these sellers. And it's not like these are newbies. They have feedback numbering in the hundreds and thousands. I'm almost to the point of not providing feedback at all until the seller does the same.

 

Jim

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If the grading was off I'd tell you to leave no feedback and just eat the $25. It's not worth the time and effort no matter how aggravating.

 

You should leave the negative feedback. Absolutely. Even if you receive a neg, he can't neg you for not paying, which is the only truly "bad" neg you can get as a buyer. As a seller, he shouldn't be allowed to get away with substandard, damaging packaging. He also grossly overgraded the product. You did the right thing.

 

By the way Hensley, as someone who's been through law school, I can tell you that being embarassed in class is just part of the law school experience (ask every other lawyer too, I'll bet something similar happened to them). It happened to me, and I had read the case... just not as carefully as I should have.

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Interesting thread!

 

I always leave feedback when I ship the item. I don't do this for any other reason that I have a ton of auctions, and I delete the image and leave feedback when I ship. If I don't I forget about it, and my website gets clogged and its a pain.

 

I think I'm in a different boat then most, in that I no longer care about feedback. Mine is very high, and my positive ratio is high, so I don't care.

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Thx for the replies. Yes Foolkiller I know that is part of the lawschool game for sure. I was just saying that Im not scared to leave a neg in fear of receiving one in return when one is deserved. There are things scarier than receiving a neg on ebay, law school being one of them smile.gif. Good points about the bad buyer concept. I sometimes feel i should have contacted some of the guys I left negs for atleast if the purchase was over $10. But even regarding this particular purchase had I done that, after paypal fees, etc I would have been out $5 on a $25 purchase which is 1/5 of my money so, to me, i think the point the seller got from me leaving the neg was far more impressive than either me receiving one in return or loosing out anyways. But it is something i think needs debate

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Yeah, yeah, yeah... you leave me feedback first. No, YOU leave ME feedback first!!! How about if nobody leaves feedback for anybody? Sounds like a coupla' kids fighting if you ask me.

 

If you were an impartial comic book judge and a buyer and seller came up to you and asked which one of them should leave each other feedback first, knowing the second one will see the first one before responding, would you say the Buyer or the Seller should leave feedback first confused-smiley-013.gif ? Whether it was a good transaction or not and you were the judge, who has first responsibility?

 

Might be a good one for you law school/attorney guys out there to answer.

 

Thanks-----Sid

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