It's nice when eBay takes away bad feedback. I sold some dolls three weeks ago and the buyer was one of "those" idiots. Those idiots meaning they buy randomly without paying attention to anything and will file claims at the drop of a hat because they misunderstood what they were getting. I get them all the time but it's really rare for their bad feedback to go away! It was there and then I checked a week later and it was gone. WOW!
This had happened sometime last week but I didn't feel like writing about it. Today I got one of "those" buyers yet again over a book. He or she didn't feel that it was in "Very Good" shape. I felt that it was, but whatever I'll probably get a bad feedback as this person has a history of being overly harsh and isn't afraid to ding sellers at all. That will probably work in my favor eventually because this action can get a buyer into trouble.
It's been my experience that eBay doesn't seem to care if you scam sellers and contently file claims against them but if you start leaving enough bad feedback then ebay will notice and that will get you into trouble.
My proof on this is that Spain customer on the other account who filed all those claims against me. She (or it could be a he even) never left any feedback for anyone in nearly a year although they buy stuff like crazy. I'm pretty sure they play this trick on every seller that they can but you can get away with it as long as you don't leave anyone bad feedback. It's a loophole!
Either way, check a bad buyers "feedbacks left" out. Typically a good 10% to 25% will be harsh comments left to other sellers. I sort of wish we buyers can leave bad feedback as these are the sort of buyers we used to warn each other about. I have cancelled orders in the past because it seemed the buyer was too scammy or dishonest. Now there is no preventing it as all buyers has 100% feedbacks, unless they sell too.
Anyway, it's obvious that eBay has is a secret policy where they monitor EVERYONE over their feedback leaving. If you leave too many bad comments (or if enough sellers files reports against you), then you will eventually trigger some magical number (rumor has it that it's 5%, but only if you buy X amount of items in Y amount of time) and ebay will take action.
Any number of things may happen as a result. Sometimes some of the bad feedbacks goes away. I've seen cases where I got all but 1 bad feedback taken away. That never helped as typically only one counts and never several from the same person.
Sometimes all of them goes away, it's super rare for that to happen though. Sometimes you are banned from buying, I've only read about this happening. Usually you get one warning to stop leaving bad feedbacks, which I hear almost always goes ignored and leads to a mass removal and you are banned from buying more stuff.
It seems quite random and honestly I gave up trying to figure it out. It's all some secret formula that they'll never tell a soul about.
The flipper person I had mentioned down a few posts ago still has his account and I still have his bad feedback, so his situation makes no sense. I just checked his account and the newest bad feedback says "Drop shipper who seems to not be happy with everyone. Check the fb he leaves".
So I guess I was right with my hunch that he takes orders from people elsewhere and then has them reshipped once he gets them. I was a fool not to realize this but then again I cannot see how it could be profitable. He couldn't make more than a few dollars off of each one but then again he probably does it in very large numbers.
Either way, the asshole flat out lied to me saying not to include an invoice as it's a birthday gift. In fact, he negged a seller and said "I bought a DVD as a gift and asked that the invoice be left out. They neglected". I've read a couple cases where he does that according to other sellers.
Yeah, someone asked of me to do that last week and I instantly knew he was a reseller as well. Oh, I listed a video game and it sold in under a minute. O_o; That was a few sales before this guy, but I'm thinking what the fuck type programs do these people have that buys stuff instantly and flips like that. They don't even have to buy inventory, they just have programs that scours ebay to buy stuff instantly to reflip to some customer that bought something off of them that day. Amazing.
Anyway that reseller still has his account because he buys in such huge bulk and his bad feedback left to others percentage rate is extremely low. I don't think he ever files claims against buyers because of the reasons I said in that post (mostly he doesn't have the item anymore). I always assumed it was bad feedback vs good feedback being left, but obviously it's not. It's almost certainly percent bad left against everything they buy. So often scammers won't leave any bad feedback because it'll flag their account and they'll loose their account and scam.
Back to that doll buyer. Generally stuff in lots are sold as-is, as seen, you look at the images before buying. Some people don't think and they buy all willy-nilly and file claims or give bad feedback for any random reason. Find a scuff? Leave a bad feedback.
Long ago people used think that they are to be totally honest when leaving rating and feedback, but it's not. Hell, when this first started with ratings, we were judged with 5 stars and a lot of buyers felt 3 was average and so they leave everyone threes. 5 was for a killer awesome transaction. After a while of that, eBay would then warn the buyer against doing that and even banned some of them. So people quickly learned that you are to leave 5 stars if you feel average. If you are unhappy, just don't leave any feedback at all. Some people, like the jerks I've been talking about, hasn't had anything happen to them yet to learn to not do these things.
Anyway what had happened with the doll buyer is that three shoes didn't have pairs and I think one of the dolls was a little too loose in the joints or something to that effect. Very minor stuff really, but some people are hardcore about things like that. The images shown that three shoes were missing pairs but I didn't think to mention anything about that in the listing. Not that it would matter in all honesty, I've had people file claims against me when I flat out go insane with mentioning stuff in the listing. People just don't care and it's eBay's opinion is that you just let it happen and eat the return. It's a cost of doing business.
So the person went off on me about the lot of dolls and wrote something rude and left a neutral comment. They said that all the shoes were missing pairs. Umm...no, it was 3 shoes missing out of like 10 pair? Jerk.
So I got a neutral which I know there is no way to remove or chance to contest it. The only way it can be removed is if they said something really bad (anything short of threatening to kill someone won't get removed) or they left way too many people bad comments, which they obviously had.
I went back and checked their feedback lefts and not a single bad comment can be found anywhere. I didn't pay any attention to how many they had (I wish I had now to prove my point even more), but their account was purged clean so I know what had happened. I've seen it happen a handful of other times too.
Anyway, as always, if something is wrong with your order, don't ever take it personally and don't get all pissed off and act like a dick about it. Don't go yapping away that this item is horrible and let the shit spew from your mouth. No one wants to hear it. Be kind to the seller and most will do something about it. Chill out and email the seller and talk about it. If the seller doesn't respond (and give him a couple days, not a few minutes or hours as not everyone lives on their PC), then resort to filing claims with ebay.
Sadly I know how other sellers are and that's why customers react so viciously. The trouble is that most sellers won't give you the time of day, so it's hard to be cordial. You just tend to treat all sellers like they are scummy jerks.
So whatever. It's hard being a seller, I can never say it enough. I've heard constant stories from others on how they dislike it and why they won't sell on eBay any further. Get scammed once for $100 and you're out. Luckily it's about 2% bad transactions for me or so it seems. I consider myself lucky really. I know I could do so much more with everything I do, but it's not realistic, so I do as much as I feel is necessary. Basically whenever there are issues, I chalk it up to cannot pleasing everybody, as I know I try hard to be a good and fair seller whenever a person gives me the chance.