Deatailed Seller Ratings On Ebay

[Ady Potts]

Those of you that buy/sell on ebay will be aware that from last March ebay introduced a new thing called Detailed Seller Ratings. So now not only do you have the chance to leave a seller/buyer feedback, but also the buyer can now leave the seller an extra rating on...Communictaion, Dispatch time, Postage & packaging charges. This then shows up in a star & percentage rating on the sellers home page.

Now here's the interesting bit. When the buyer clicks on this new rating system ebay says that the seller wont know who has left the individual ratings, so in other words the seller wont retaliate because they wont know it's you that's just said they weren't happy with this or that. Well they're wrong. If you only sell a small amount of items you can watch your percentage rating very closely, & when someone knocks you it shows up because your percentage drops.

Does any of this matter ? Not to me personally. But my partner has just taken it to heart. She sold a stone cold mint 45, the buyer paid that night via paypal. Although on her listing she says £5 for Special delivery insured, she invoices for £4.75, the exact cost of postage. First thing the next morning she sends the record, followed by an email as soon as she got back from the post office saying thankyou for the payment & that she'd shipped the record. Next day she gets a nice feedback highly praising her...but her Detailed seller rating dropped. She sent an email to the buyer saying she was concerned that they were not happy with her Dispatch Time & Postage Charges (the two things she got knocked for). They came back with a bit of a stunned reply full of waffle. She instantly put a block on the bidder, but here's the crunch, the buyer has been left in a situation where they could lose their 100% positive feedback. When she calmed down she said she would not do this, but had I not been there when this happened things may have been different.

So it's only a matter of time before this back fires on a buyer. Just thought i'd mention it.

[boba]

Those of you that buy/sell on ebay will be aware that from last March ebay introduced a new thing called Detailed Seller Ratings. So now not only do you have the chance to leave a seller/buyer feedback, but also the buyer can now leave the seller an extra rating on...Communictaion, Dispatch time, Postage & packaging charges. This then shows up in a star & percentage rating on the sellers home page.

Now here's the interesting bit. When the buyer clicks on this new rating system ebay says that the seller wont know who has left the individual ratings, so in other words the seller wont retaliate because they wont know it's you that's just said they weren't happy with this or that. Well they're wrong. If you only sell a small amount of items you can watch your percentage rating very closely, & when someone knocks you it shows up because your percentage drops.

Does any of this matter ? Not to me personally. But my partner has just taken it to heart. She sold a stone cold mint 45, the buyer paid that night via paypal. Although on her listing she says £5 for Special delivery insured, she invoices for £4.75, the exact cost of postage. First thing the next morning she sends the record, followed by an email as soon as she got back from the post office saying thankyou for the payment & that she'd shipped the record. Next day she gets a nice feedback highly praising her...but her Detailed seller rating dropped. She sent an email to the buyer saying she was concerned that they were not happy with her Dispatch Time & Postage Charges (the two things she got knocked for). They came back with a bit of a stunned reply full of waffle. She instantly put a block on the bidder, but here's the crunch, the buyer has been left in a situation where they could lose their 100% positive feedback. When she calmed down she said she would not do this, but had I not been there when this happened things may have been different.

So it's only a matter of time before this back fires on a buyer. Just thought i'd mention it.

I got fired back on! Seller sonpau67 banned me from his auctions! Usually his grading is conservative, but his VG is often destroyed (even though his VG+ might be very clean, I don't understand it). I got a destroyed record from him, it was like G and even heat damaged and was graded VG. I used the detailed seller ratings. Next time I tried to bid, it said I was blocked. I emailed him and he said he didn't like the implication that he was a bad grader. I've bought from him since he started selling 45s. The most ridiculous part of the whole thing is that the ratings are totally meaningless, as the best seller will have like 4 1/2 stars for everything and the worst, shadiest seller will have 4 1/4 stars.

[Ady Potts]

I got fired back on! Seller sonpau67 banned me from his auctions! Usually his grading is conservative, but his VG is often destroyed (even though his VG+ might be very clean, I don't understand it). I got a destroyed record from him, it was like G and even heat damaged and was graded VG. I used the detailed seller ratings. Next time I tried to bid, it said I was blocked. I emailed him and he said he didn't like the implication that he was a bad grader. I've bought from him since he started selling 45s. The most ridiculous part of the whole thing is that the ratings are totally meaningless, as the best seller will have like 4 1/2 stars for everything and the worst, shadiest seller will have 4 1/4 stars.

There you go, I guessed this must be happening. But the silly thing is Bob he could have left you a bad feedback (if he had not already posted you a positive prior to you doing this) & you wouldn't have seen it coming.