How to judge a sellers honesty/reliability via feedback:

It would seem a rather easy system to understand,

• positive
• negative

• overall percentage
• read the comments
• make a decision
• bid or move on

Unfortunately, its not quite that simple.

Generally, I would do my research before bidding on a seller with less than a 99.6% feedback rating, perhaps if the seller has a rather low transaction history and only one negative that has severely effected their percentage, i may be willing to give a second chance.

Lets evaluate Seller: MovieMarz (seller id selected at random via google search)

Transaction history: 323 277 transactions in the last 12 months

Positive Feedback: 98.1%

Positive: 313701

Negative: 4523

Neutral: 5053

So all though this seller has over a quarter million successful sales and a high percentage, they still have close to 10,000 dissatisfied customers.

I find that to be unacceptable.

This example is an old screenshot, the seller is still active and has in fact raised the feedback level to 98.7%, so lets see what the unhappy buyers had to say:

• Negative feedback rating it has been 28+ days & no product & no response from my contact attempts.
• paid for item, never received item, then claimed I never paid for the item.
• Item never received, did receive refund. seller did not have item sold to me
• ITEM NEVER RECEIVED. CONTACTED SELLER..STILL NOT REC'D 40 DAYS LATER!

Well, considering the seller seems to close literally hundreds of auctions a day, i can understand how some may slip through the cracks, but how does the seller respond, after receiving negative feedback do they attempt to fix the problem, it seems like no.

There is no follow up feedback, explaining or apologizing for the issue, and no feedback removed (which can be done if a buyer and seller negotiate a compromise).

So in conclusion, this sellers high transaction volume allows them to leave a wake of dissatisfaction and still maintain what appears to be an acceptable honesty level.

I would not bid.

Seller to Buyer:

• A smart seller should take advantage of every opportunity to promote their respective brand.
• A buyers only responsibility is to pay
• Perhaps, a seller can inform his peers on other information important to the seller community

Positive feedback should be left if a buyer pays.PERIOD, but the comment can perhaps state how long the buyer took to pay?

i.e. Buyer paid three days after auction close, thank you!

Buyer paid immediately.

But, in no way does that promote the seller, so perhaps.

(Using the previous seller example)

Get all your movies quick from Moviemarz Quick payment appreciated!

As a seller you should take every opportunity to release your brand into the marketplace, after 90 days the details of your transaction are gone -so use your comment to push your products!

Buyer to Seller:

Detailed Seller ratings exist to delineate the following transaction details:

• Item as described
• Communication
• Shipping Time
• Shipping and Handling Charges

As a result of this option, I feel buyers should use comments to help their peers further by adding important details.

i.e. Seller shipped same day payment sent!

packaged so well an infant would have survived!

Received item but was shipped via Media, i paid for priority!

Sellers can no longer leave negative feedback, so a buyer can in fact say just about anything they want.

So now that I have explained how feedback should be managed and interpreted,

What if you just wrote anything you felt like:

Well thats exactly what this comedic genius does:

Meet: tryork5ifp - The funniest man on eBay and the number one search result for "funniest feedback ever", multiple diggs and blog posts relating to his work cover the net!

Can you imagine opening up your eBay account to read your latest feedback and seeing this!

GREAT! As promised, just 3 drops in her drink and she was mine for the night A+

YES, I LIKE IT!!! Now stop calling me every 5 min and asking if I still like it!

A+! I ATE her LIVER with a fava beans and a NICE chianti: "STHU-STHU-STHU-STHU"

Please take a moment to scroll through the screenshots, please refrain from attempting to eat or drink during this time

Apparently, eBay caught on to this genius and began to pull his comments

He responded by reposting in his ebay blog!

Which is also a sidesplitting read.

He inspired copycats (this comment was previously on his feedback profile)

I contacted him and requested an interview, he said yes and sent me his phone number!

Stay tuned !

This is Volume 2 of eBay from the very beginning, if you are new to eBay and need assistance registering, understanding paypal and the eBay consoles please read Volume 1.

The screenshots may not be legible on lower res monitors, I will replace them with close ups shortly. For now just read directly in the feedback console.