What’s the point of giving feedback if it disappears?
I bought three collectible postcards and the seller shipped them twenty days after receiving payment, without apologizing for the delay. So I left them neutral feedback, which seems like the least I could do. After a day the feedback disappeared without Ebay notifying me or asking me anything...
41 comments
deejaynick
·3 years agoSo, to recap:
- Purchase with the shipping method "Posta1"
- eBay gives me a maximum delivery date of, for example, February 10.
- But I'm in a hurry and on February 8 I get fed up with waiting and leave a nice negative feedback.
- The item arrives the next day.
- My feedback is removed.
- My protests come to nothing even though eBay keeps telling me that with that type of shipping the maximum arrival date was correctly indicated.
- I turn to the forum
- I find a bunch of people who don't understand my reasons and side with the seller (and eBay too).
- I keep insisting because I want to be proven right.
- No one does, and they mock me.
- At this point, could I be the one who's in the wrong?
modellismoealtro
OP3 years agoOf course, next time someone who ships after 20 days I’ll leave positive feedback, so the community won’t understand which seller is good and which isn’t. In other words: how was the chow? Excellent and plentiful, Sir General...
modellismoealtro
OP3 years agoHere is the customer service response, as promised:
Dear Ferruccio,
thank you for contacting eBay customer service, I am Ergin and I am happy to assist you regarding item 113693018772 .
First of all, I wanted to thank you for being part of eBay for all these years and I am sorry that you encountered difficulties with this purchase.
I have read your email and I understand how unpleasant it must have been not to see your feedback. As you know, your opinion is very important to us and we generally do not remove feedback.
I have reviewed the case and I can see that in the listing the seller specified 2 shipping types: EUR 2.80 (Posta 1 standard)
EUR 5.90 (Posta raccomandata standard)
Checking the order details I can see that you selected the economical shipping with Posta 1, which is not trackable.
In addition to this, the latest expected delivery date was January 16, however you left the feedback on January 14.
Since the feedback was left before the expected delivery date complaining about the delay and the shipping code that was not expected, the department responsible for feedback assessed the case as eligible for removing the feedback.
For this transaction we kindly ask you to accept the decision made by the feedback management department.
However, we will review this seller's conduct, and if necessary we will take action.
Confident that I have provided you with a clear explanation, I take this opportunity to wish you a pleasant rest of your day.
Happy to have helped you with this, I take this moment to thank you for being part of eBay and to wish you good health and only the best.
Kind regards,
Ergin N.
eBay Customer Service
heavenwelkin
·3 years agoThey would have removed it for you even if you had left it after January 16.
It was a POLITE way of telling you that it wasn’t the case to leave that negative feedback.
Why leave a negative for a seller when:
A) You chose posta1 yourself (when registered mail was also available)
B) The seller shipped within the expected time
C) With delivery outcome unavailable (if you open a dispute) you are entitled to a full refund.
Kind regards.
modellismoealtro
OP3 years agoActually, the order had already been set up with the posta1 shipment and I certainly didn’t want to cheat anyone by saying I hadn’t received the item.
Today the seller has two new neutral feedbacks😀, I took a screenshot and I’m curious to see what happens, bye everyone
actar80
·3 years agoThe only thing you should have done was ask the seller that you wanted shipping by registered mail because, in fact, as you say, if you pay automatically the first shipping method entered is used. In this case the seller, after your request, must send you an invoice with the chosen shipping method and the updated total amount.
Generally the seller does not change the shipping method unless a request is made because, by offering various types from the cheapest to the most expensive, if they changed it on their own the buyer (who usually wants to spend less) would be upset.
modellismoealtro
OP3 years agoThere are sellers who provide the postal code1, which for a purchase of 10 euros is enough, and who ship right away. Others, like the one I left neutral feedback for, who ship after 20 days and do not provide it. In my opinion, the first ones deserve positive feedback, the second ones do not.
Therefore, if I leave neutral feedback, it should have stayed there. OK?
sika700
·3 years agoYou know as well that it doesn’t work like that!
You’re generalizing and treating every seller as "the same", which is impossible!
If the listing clearly says that the first seller ships in ONE day and the second ships in 20 days, who is it that considers one seller better than the other?
The buyer, as is obvious, MUST read the listing and be AWARE of what they are doing... not complain AFTERWARDS because it took too long for them!
If the code is not provided, it only works against the seller themself, but there is "Contact the seller" and you would have removed any doubt.
For me, as a seller, your reasoning is out of place.
Kind regards.
modellismoealtro
OP3 years agoI'm not generalizing at all, quite the opposite: the seller who ships right away deserves positive feedback, the one who ships after 20 days doesn't.
actar80
·3 years agoA valid opinion, but your phrase "if I leave neutral feedback, it should have stayed there. OK?" should be directed to support, not to me or the other users who can give you various answers or opinions that you may or may not like; here we try to provide opinions and help when possible, and we do it without expecting anything in return.
kh-vince
·3 years agoHello everyone,
I’d like to remind you that the Forum is a place for users to help one another, where discussions must take place with respect for others’ opinions. Please keep the tone civil.
Thank you for your cooperation.
ibba_it
·3 years agoI understood and I replied, then you went off on a tangent talking about feedback where a seller is defined as a scammer, I never did that
Sometimes it would help to get off your high horse and understand, instead of using more or less veiled insults
Regards
ibba_it
·3 years agoDoes it say bad seller? No
Does it refer to the transaction/experience? Yes
How did it go?
Let's see if it's clear this way, with even simpler words
ibba_it
·3 years agoWhat can't be done, to write 'terrible' - 'terrible'?
Of course you can, if it's not accompanied by seller / ebay user it is not defamation / rule breaking, it doesn't refer to the person
Regards
marioelegio
·3 years agoWell, if that's what you think, then that's how it is. Why study at all if you can even get a degree on social media...
ibba_it
·3 years agoLeaving feedback does not solve problems, but it warns other buyers about any shady sellers
Anyway, eBay is wrong too; they removed some feedback I left as well (and it was a mistake, confirmed by customer service)
modellismoealtro
OP3 years agoI contacted customer service, I’ll let you know
sika700
·3 years agoCalling a seller a "shady" one is already defamation... maybe you don't know that simply opening a report for item not arrived or a return request has a negative impact on the seller's performance and is already a system that protects the buyer... the more reports they receive, the harder it will be for them to sell, unlike feedback, which is currently easily removed and leaves no trace on the seller.
So information is always better than impulsive action.
Kind regards.
ibba_it
·3 years agoMaybe we didn't understand each other, there are plenty of eBay scammy users, both sellers and buyers, and if a seller is a scammer, you can let buyers know through feedback by describing the experience you had, there's no need to write 'scammy seller' 🙂
sika700
·3 years agoMaybe you didn't understand my reasoning: to hit a seller if you want to hit them, but in this case it seems to me you just want to make your fingers move, there are other ways to do that... and it has been described.
Any more words are pointless if you don't want to read the whole reply.
Best regards.
marioelegio
·3 years agoYou have the bad habit of starting off with “terrible” in your negative or neutral feedback.
All this feedback can be removed upon report by the person who received it because it is clearly defamatory.
You cannot, based on the experience of your single transaction, describe a seller as terrible. Your subjective judgment harms the seller’s reputation and amounts to the offense of aggravated defamation. To avoid being complicit in the offense, ebay is obliged, by law, to remove the feedback upon report by the injured party.
hi
mario
modellismoealtro
OP3 years agoMy feedback rating was absolutely not defamatory: shipment sent 20 days after receiving payment and without providing the shipping code
ibba_it
·3 years agoAs you can see, my old feedback, which you went over with a fine-tooth comb, is still there
This is because 'terrible' isn't accompanied by 'seller', it can mean 'it was terrible'
'terrible transaction' and so on
If for you you can't even write this, then the room for maneuver is (or rather, would be) really limited
marioelegio
·3 years agoBy law, you can't. The fact that they are there only means that there hasn't been a request for deletion.
All you had to do was read the whole post.. remove the feedback upon request of the offended person.
hi
mario
heavenwelkin
·3 years agoGood morning ibba_it
Why did they decide to make these changes?
In my opinion because eBay has seen that in recent periods buyers were leaving too many negative feedbacks for the most trivial reasons, where maybe the seller wasn't at fault (see late deliveries, undelivered items because the recipient was absent, etc.) reasons that can be solved with greater responsibility and seriousness on the part of buyers (we're not on Amazon) or by contacting the seller or using the protection tools made available by eBay.
The feedback issue is a bit more complex since on several occasions the algorithms step in directly and remove negative feedback (regardless of its content) within a few minutes of it being posted.
This happens especially when a buyer has opened a dispute that was regularly closed with a full refund, or has opened a dispute but then didn't take it to completion because A: (they didn't want to waste any more time dealing with the returns bureaucracy and preferred to give up) B: (they weren't willing to send the item back at the seller's expense but only wanted a partial refund).
Kind regards.
marioelegio
·3 years agoProbably the feedback posted violated eBay rules or even defamation law.
In all these cases eBay is required to remove feedback upon report by the offended party.
Generalizations that lead to subjective judgments about the seller are prohibited, even if they are based on personal experiences.
For example, it would have been acceptable to write: "They shipped me the item late, without notifying me" while it will definitely be deleted: "Rude seller: Ships late, doesn't notify and doesn't apologize".
hi
mario
modellismoealtro
OP3 years agoI simply wrote that the seller shipped 20 days after payment and without specifying the shipping code. Nothing else. That’s why it sounds strange to me.
Hi
Ferruccio
modellismoealtro
OP3 years agoA tip for everyone: make sure your feedbacks aren’t removed without knowing why: the least eBay could do would be to communicate: dear customer, we have removed your feedback for this reason and maybe give you the chance to leave another one
sika700
·3 years agoThe reason will never be communicated... we need to learn that feedback does not solve problems, there are proper procedures for every occasion, use them!
If the item was shipped late, after the presumed delivery date, you could open a report and you might even have been refunded!
Kind regards.