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Claude and Craig,
I agree that showing prices for what was bought or sold next to
feedback comments would be a very helpful indicator... there's a big problem
with doing that, unfortunately. People value their privacy -- even on public
auctions sites. A lot of them simply do not want what they paid for something
exposed on a feedback page for anyone to easily see. Sure, anyone can find out
by clicking on the item and looking (if it is less than 90 days old), but as
Claude pointed out, that takes more work and I doubt most people bother to go
that far.
Look at Bruce's current auctions. He's gone an listed them "private"
again... which I thought he was only going to do for major catalog events and
this is just a regular weekly auction (although I very nice one). I suppose
since he's got some linenbacked stuff there this week which will close
at high prices he decided to slap on the private bidder screen, but it goes
to the point I was making: A lot of people don't want the details of their
transactions easily viewed by anyone passing by.
We wrestled with this concept when creating the feedback page on
MPB, but in the end decided that it would hurt the site it we put the prices on
the feedback page, because it might prevent someone from bidding, which would be
unfair to our sellers.
I'm glad Craig gave us some more details on iffy sellers... and I can only
add that in my opinion people should NEVER buy from someone with a feedback
rating below 99.0% -- and even that is risky if the seller has a lot of
feedback. My personal cut-off level is 99.5%, unless the seller has less
than 100 feedbacks total in which case I'll check out a lot of the feedbacks in
detail and try to get a read on the person.
ABOUT NEUTRAL FEEDBACK -- people should realize that, at least on eBay,
that most of the time "neutral" feedback is really NEGATIVE feedback in
sheep's clothing -- it's just that the person who left the neutral was
either fearful of retaliation or else they finally, after a lot of hassle,
worked out "something" with the seller/buyer (but what they worked out wasn't
all that satisfactory or the feedback would be positive instead of neutral).
Yes, on occasion you get a weird-o newbie who doesn't understand about feedback
and leaves a neutral or even a negative because the seller didn't get back to
them within 10 seconds of the auction's close -- but those you can usually
identify and dismiss just by reading the comment. Often times a lot of neutrals
will mean that the seller is incredibly slow about shipping and responding to
emails and is a lot of bother to work with. So, generally, if you see a bunch of
neutrals, think of them as negatives and act accordingly!
-- JR
----- Original Message -----
Sent: Friday, October 15, 2004
21:35
Subject: Re: [MOPO] A Tale of Two
Feedback Ratings
JR - I'm not being coy, just careful.
But, if some members of the list buy dvds they can ask me
and by-the-way dvdforfun611 has been booted.
If some members buy Turkish posters, then I'd be
pleased to advise them.
Interestingly, anyone thinking of buying
from salamon34 might want to check the feedback: Score 863 / 97.1%
/ Members who left a negative: 27 / Past Month -3 / Past 6 Months
-10 / Past 12 Months -11 / neutrals total 14
It seems with some sellers there are always some
random buyers who don't get anything nor any communication. Strange how
that is. Never enough problems to warrant scrutiny let alone action by ebay,
but enough to warrant caution.
Craig
----- Original Message -----
Sent: Friday, October 15, 2004 10:40
AM
Subject: Re: [MOPO] A Tale of Two
Feedback Ratings
I do wish Craig would post the names of sellers he knows are bad. Why
only offer to provide them privately? Why not let everyone know? Why would
you protect these sellers? They are not going to sue you for mentioning
their seller names on MOPO, even if they read MOPO, which is highly
unlikely.
In the case of the magically re-appearing seller, it does sound like
eBay is trying pretty hard to stop this guy. it was pointed out that
they booted him, then he comes back the next day under a different name
and they boot him again, yet he comes back the next day under yet another
name. It seems eBay is booting him as soon as they become aware of him
operating under a new name. This is actually pretty good reaction time for
eBay -- which usually waits months to take action (if they ever do).
The problem is sheer volume. There are probably 1 million items PER
DAY being listed on eBay. How would you check each one for fraud or
repetition of phrases used in previous fraudulent descriptions? Virtually
impossible to go through them all and then have humans evaluate them
against past problems -- at least in any reasonable time.
If the seller has registered a bunch of different names with eBay,
that makes it really tough. How are they to know that the new seller name
is the same person as the old outlawed name? At least at first.
In theory, they should be able to identify these people by the credit
card number that they have to provide in order to be a seller. In
practice, it appears these bad guy sellers have access to a whole lot of
different credit card numbers and have no trouble coming up with a new one
for each new seller name they create.
It's pretty scary and the only real solution is to deal either with
sellers you know to be safe from past transactions or to at least make
sure the feedback on a seller you are trying for the first time is way up
there in the 99.5% and above area. It should be closers to 99.8% if
the seller has thousands of feedbacks. There should only be one
or two negatives and they should not be the serious "non-delivery" kind. I
know this approach really penalizes newbie sellers, but that's unavoidable
in the kind of mass-market mess and free for all that eBay has
become.
Sure, you will have to pass up some "real bargains" with this
approach -- which is a shame -- but on the other hand, it is the "real
bargains" that the crooks dangle in front of people in their bogus
auctions to lure them in.
-- JR
----- Original Message -----
Sent: Friday, October 15, 2004
10:43
Subject: Re: [MOPO] A Tale of Two
Feedback Ratings
forget about feedback ratings-----look at the crooks
mgagalli sells dvds and gets booted
the very next day
the exact ad appears under the name
stereoproductions and is
so brazen that mgagalli@ I forgot the internet address is
listed in the description.
then steroproductions gets booted off
and the very next day the same ad appears under seller name
tyguyz
this seller lists a huge amount of dvds daily
and who knows how many other sellers do the same thing.
To make matters worse, I bought dvds from mgagalli and the
auction was cancelled. I had already paid with paypal but pay was
not notified by ebay and the money was given to the seller. I
called him and was told they had been shipped and I did receive them.
However, what if he did not ship them. Paypal is owned by
ebay, their auction sales ask you to pay immediately and are coordinated
but lo and behold, are they coordinated when the reverse happens.
Of course not. You are now on your own trying to get your
money back.
Visit the MoPo Mailing List Web Site at www.filmfan.com
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