When do you not leave feedback?

[bluerose9978]

I leave feedback in batches at a time, to both buyers and sellers.

That said . . . although I do like getting feedback as a buyer, it's also pretty pointless.  Like, wow, you've rewarded me for doing the bare minimum: paying for a thing I bought, lol.  It's not like you get feedback when you shop on HasbroToyShop or Amazon or anywhere else, but we are so conditioned to expect it on eBay.

Its not just that. Getting good feedback by paying quickly and by not being a jerk lets others know they can risk selling to you without fear of getting screwed over.

eBay feedback USED to be vitally important because people used to pay by check and money order before Paypal. With checks / money orders, eBay could not 'force' a buyer to pay or a seller to refund, nor could they 100% know who was telling the truth if a buyer said "I paid" and a seller said "they didn't".  But if the buyer had a string of negative "didn't pay" feedbacks, yeah, that was a big warning to sellers.

But now sellers can't leave negative or neutral feedback for buyers.

So it's meaningless.  All buyers have 100% positive feedback for buying (except very old legacy accounts) because it is impossible to get anything else.

Edit:  I mean, I get that positive feedback is nice to receive;  I like getting it too.  But as far as conveying anything useful to sellers, it just doesn't anymore.

The way to spot problem buyers these days is to check their "Feedback Left For Others" tab.  If they've LEFT a ton of negatives, then they're to be avoided.

Similarly if they've left a high percentage of "there was a problem, but the seller made it right" positive feedback then they are probably a serial "pretends there's a problem and begs / threatens for partial refunds" buyer.

And this is why eBay needs to overhaul their feedback system once again. If they want to leave it where sellers can't leave anything but positive feedback, then they should have a box that can be checked by the seller to inform eBay that the buyer was a problem buyer. That they harassed the seller, were a non-paying buyer or that they made threats for partial refunds, etc. There needs to be something more put in place for the sellers. After all, they are the ones paying the fees.

[SurfStar]

As a buyer, I usually leave feedback within 24 hours of receiving the item (unless there's a problem that I need to contact the seller to resolve... in that case I'd wait to see how the transaction works out in the end).

As a seller, I leave feedback after it's left for me. If the buyer doesn't leave feedback after 30 days, I usually leave feedback for them. If there were any issues with the transaction I won't leave feedback at all since you can't leave negative or neutral for a buyer.

I also find that more than 50% of eBay buyers don't leave feedback for sellers these days. I'm not sure that anything can really be done about it... it is just the way a lot of buyers are.

+1 to this. As a seller this is basically what I do. Usually feedback being left is the only way I know that the buyer received the item. I ask them to let me know (I worry about things arriving as I sent them). So usually I leave feedback when I get feedback.

I also don't leave feedback if there is an issue. eBay did change their feedback page now, so it brings up a "report your buyer" button if there was a problem. I just don't see that it actually does anything.