[NTLK] OT - Off Topic - eBay feedback rating

[Frank Gruendel]

Hi folks,

recently people have recommended on this list to avoid buying from sellers
with a bad feedback rating. Although, generally speaking, this is of course
sound advice, I'd still recommend trying to figure out WHY the feedback
rating is bad.

A minute ago I was about to bid on something when I noticed that this seller
has a feedback rating of 83.3% positives. This was so unexpectedly poor that
I had a look into his feedbacks. This fellow has been selling and buying at
eBay since 2006. During this time he has received 199 positives and one
single negative. The buyer who left the negative feedback complained that
the case of the PC he bought had a dent that the seller hadn't mentioned in
the auction. At the time this feedback was left, the seller had 199
positives and no negatives.

Personally, I'd NEVER leave negative feedback in such a case. Chances would
be good that the dent wasn't the seller's fault, but that someone might have
droppend the thing in transit. Considering that he has 199 positives and no
negatives, I'd assume he didn't conceal this on purpose and would probably
be willing to find a way to resolve the problem. But that's another story.

The seller's current problem ist that he had only five auctions within the
last 12 months. Since the feedback rating ic calculated from the last 12
months, one out of five auctions was left with negative feedback, resulting
in a disastrous feedback rating of little more than 80%.

Of course, he could improve things by randomly purchasing items that are
available for one Euro and paying immediately, which would usually result in
positive feedback. Five of these auctions might set him back less than 10
bucks and would improve his current feedback rating by 10%.

Boy, what an utterly stupid feedback rating system...

Frank

-- Newton software and hardware at http://www.pda-soft.de