New: Sellers Scam eBuyers Using Feedback

Shyster sellers on eBay have figured out how to use eBay's feeback system to to leave negative feedback remarks by posting a positive green mark.

Here's how they do it:

1) They select the green positive circle in the feedback selection area.

2) In the blank white box for leaving feedback remarks, these sellers write negative comments next to the positive green mark.

3) Sellers go so far that if the buyer has left neutral or negative feedback for them, since they can no longer retaliate against a buyer by ruining our feedback records, they will make nothing but personal attacks.

eBay claims not to allow anyone to leave a postive mark followed by a negative remark. If this happens to you, go to the "contact us" area of eBay. Type in "positive feedback mark with negative remark." Identify the seller & the item number & ask eBay to REMOVE the seller's negative remark.

When eBay does so, the positive point will remain & count as a positive feedback rating on your account. The seller's negative mark will be removed & the message left by eBay will say that the message was removed by eBay.

Note: Some sellers are so retaliatory that they will even go so far, AFTER eBay has removed their negative remark, to leave another negative remark in the Reply to feedback area of your feedback record. eBay will removed that one too, when you have not made any remarks in response to the original negative remark next to the seller's positive feedback mark.

When the irate seller can't back at you through leaving the first negative remark, they will try, try again! So, you do likewise & head right back to the eBay "contact us" area & write that the seller left another negative remark after eBay already removed a false negative remark next to a positive mark. eBay will remove that remark too & leave the same message that the remark has been removed by eBay.

Leaving a positive mark followed by a negative remark violates eBay's feedback policy. So don't let sellers who have done a lousy job during your transaction & truly deserve your neutral or negative feedback, intimidate you by this slick tactic. It won't work as long as you keep your cool & simply contact eBay about the feedback violation. Do not contact the already rule-violating seller.

If you read such a remark by a seller next to a positive mark, do your peer eBay buyers a favor, contact them & contact eBay about it. This is a relatively new scam that sellers have learned to do since they can no longer harass buyers they've given very poor service to & earned a poor mark & report of the incident through our honest feedback.

Equally so, as a buyer, stop leaving positive feedback for non-performing shabby sellers. By doing so this leaves a false positive percentage so that other buyers cannot tell who's an on the ball seller & who's not.

1) If sellers do not contact you after you've paid them, do not leave them 5 stars for communication. That is not 5 star communication at all.

2) If sellers do not respond to your email requesting shipment or any other purchase information after you've paid them, do not leave them 5 stars for that either.

3) If sellers do not ship an item within 3 days after your payment has cleared, do not leave them 5 stars for fast shipping.

4) If sellers do not insure your item after you paid for insurance, report them to eBay &/or PayPal through the dispute &/or resolution center until you get that insurance money back in full. Don't leave them positive feedback & report that they kept your insurance payment via feedback. Other buyers depend upon you writing the truth!

5) If a seller has a "100% satifaction guarantee" written on their item description page & you don't receive either your item or a refund or an item replacement in a very timely fashion, do not leave them 5 stars for shipping time or item description. Leave them negative feedback so that other buyers know that this seller doesn't honor their written guarantee.

These suggestions are to help improve the declining safety of shopping via eBay. Buyers depend upon the feedback remarks on a seller's page to know the seller's pattern of conducting transactions. If a seller doesn't respond to you after you pay them, open up a dispute immediately. This is a sure sign that they are not on the ball & might even be jerking you around. All good enough sellers will contact fast paying good enough, friendly buyers within 2-3 days or even sooner. So if you haven't heard from your seller three days after your payment has cleared, do put up with that lousy customer service.

Whenever buyers contact a seller, do so through eBay's message portal, not through your private email account. There will be a record of every message you sent the seller left on eBay's message portal in your sent mailbox for a month (or longer, if you save it in a folder). If a seller says they have tried to contact you, don't believe them until their produce a forwarded copy with the full header of the original message(s) they sent to you. You see, if they contacted you through eBay's message portal & you can request that they do so, their messages will also be stored. Sellers can't get away with feigning they have "tried repeatedly to contact you" (a standard line of horse-hockey for an AWOL seller) if you've requested they only contact you through eBay's message portal. Their messages will have to be on eBay's server too!

Don't be a sap who spends your money with a seller who profits but doesn't perform with good customer service.

And please...do not use Reviews for making comments about your transaction. A review is not the place to leave feedback about the seller's misconduct. A review is a critique of the item itself, not a critique of the seller's performance. It doesn't count at all & buyers can't find your review about a seller's misconduct buried in reviews that are ONLY linked to the items, not the sellers.

AGAIN, IT VIOLATES EBAY'S FEEDBACK POLICY FOR A SELLER TO LEAVE A POSITIVE (GREEN) MARK WITH A NEGATIVE LINE OF REMARKS.

Do not respond to a retaliatory seller: contact eBay instead & have the inappropriate feedback removed. You'll still get to keep your green star & the positive feedback point!

Finally, use neutral & negative feedback for sellers only when you have tried to contact them, tried to resolve a problem & you get rudeness, nastiness, nothing at all, or otherwise very poor customer service. Just because someone has thousands of sales & is called a "Power Seller" doesn't mean much yet, because for all these years ( for me) these sellers have been allowed to intimidate buyers & more or less coerce positive feedback out of us. Now that they cannot do that, they have resorted to violating this feedback rule, instead.

There is no good enough excuse for any seller not to perform well when a buyer has!