CB DAZE

Monday, August 17, 2009

"SO MANY QUESTIONS...."

As many of you know, I write a lot about Ebay. Lately I've noticed a trend regarding negative feedback. It was always my understanding that once a buyer gave a

seller negative feedback it was permanent (as it should be). The trend I've noticed recently is a seller gets negative feedback and usually a well founded complaint as to why it was negative (so far, so good). But it seems that the seller can now buy off the buyer and get the nasty red mark changed to a happy green mark, with a sudden change in the description. For example the negative verbiage might say "This item came broken in pieces, I'll never buy from them again", but when it's changed to good feedback it could say something like "Wonderful item, I'd buy from this seller in a heartbeat"

So I ask myself, "What the hell changed?"

Feedback is an indicator that lets a buyer determine whether or not they'll take a chance on the item up for auction. But if the seller can reverse this by means I have no direct knowledge of (ed. - pay-off, refund-keep-the-item, or maybe if-you-change-the-feedback-i'll-send-you-something-FREE), it screws up the whole system.

So when did this all change? And why did they do it?

I know: "Questions, Questions, Questions" and, no answers.

If I were to buy something now, how would I know that the seller was honest? How would I know how many negative feedback's were changed to positive? I couldn't, and neither could you. I'm sure you've seen many auctions where the seller writes (in large bold letters) "IF YOU ARE DISSATISFIED PLEASE CONTACT ME FIRST BEFORE SLAMMING ME WITH NEGATIVE FEEDBACK", which indicates the feedback cannot be reversed - yet it can, I've seen it with my own eyes.

The moral of the story is unless the buyer digs their heels down and refuses to be bought off, the feedback system is worthless.