Myth # 137: Negative feedback is usually deserved.
If postings in the eBay-oriented newsgroups are to be believed, all negative feedbacks are unwarranted. Of course, anyone who received a deserved negative feedback is unlikely to complain. In fact, most of the worst deadbeats who get negged for non-payment don’t retaliate at all. A large number of eBay sellers report having left a half-dozen or more negatives for non-paying bidders without receiving a single negative in return. Here are the facts about negatives, and why they are received.
Deserved negatives (apparently.) Negatives are often posted by sellers for non-paying bidders and by buyers for sellers who rip them off in some way (by not sending the merchandise, or by sending something that was damaged or otherwise not what was promised.) These negatives could be safely classified as deserved if you knew all the facts of the transaction. Unfortunately, you don’t have access to that information, so it’s sometimes difficult to sort out the bad sellers and buyers from the good without looking at all the feedback an eBayer has received.
Retaliatory negatives. These are left by one trading partner in response to a neutral or negative left by the other, and may or may not be deserved. For example, a seller may leave a neg for a non-paying bidder (deserved, if the seller tried all means to resolve the problem first). The bidder then posts a negative in retaliation for the seller that is probably undeserved if the seller held up his or her end of the bargain.
Buyers also leave negatives first, often for good reasons, but sometimes capriciously, and if the seller feels wronged, he or she is very likely to leave a retaliatory negative in turn. You can often tell which negatives are undeserved by the order in which they are given, and the apparent circumstances. A seller who leaves a negative first for a non-paying bidder probably has cause to do so, while a seller who leaves a negative after a buyer who has complained that an item is defective is less likely to be in the right. Similarly, a buyer who responds to a non-paying bidder negative is less credible than one who leaves a negative first for an apparent good reason.
Negatives left by mistake. Sometimes an eBayer meant to leave the comment for someone else, or misunderstood the terms of the auction. Perhaps an item was delayed in the mail and arrives immediately after a hastily-left negative. I’ve had newcomers to eBay leave negatives because they thought feedback was the only way to correspond with their buyer, and were upset because they hadn’t received in invoice an hour after the auction closed. EBay now allows such feedbacks to be removed easily and at no cost if both parties agree.
Negatives left maliciously. Some people leave feedback just to be mean. Others bid on auctions, never intending to pay, just so they can leave negative feedback. There’s not a lot you can do to protect yourself from these evil beings, unless you spot them early by perusing their current feedback and putting them on your Blocked Bidder list.
Negatives left as an over-reaction. You charged $1.99 for shipping/handling/packaging and used only $1.72 in stamps, and get a negative for your trouble. The item wasn’t exactly what the buyer expected, so the buyer left a negative without asking you to remedy the situation. Through no fault of your own, your payment took three weeks to wend itself through the US Postal System, and the seller didn’t buy your excuses and left a negative. Negatives are often left too soon, before all the opportunities to resolve a problem have been tried.