For my part, I will say that as a buyer, the threat of retaliatory feedback has definately inhibited my buying on eBay in the last few months. It happened to me this way: First incident, I went on line to buy a new grill for my '99 Concorde. Naturally there were plenty of sellers with off-shore pieces which was fine with me. I picked one with a low shipping rate and similar buy-it-now to most of the others, and hit the button. However, when I got the emailed invoice, the shipping was 3 times higher than the rate promised in the ad. There was a toll free number so I called it, the guy I talked to, when I could understand him at all, finally said, "no problem, I'll take your payment info by phone, give you the promised rate, etc." So I give him my credit card info over the phone. Now, I never carry this credit card, and use it only as the card I have linked to my paypal account; this is literally the first time in several years I've given the info to anyone, anywhere. See where this is going? OK, in a few days I get a box. It has a front bumper backer instead of a grill. I call the number again and they say no problem, they'll exchange. I don't ever get a grill or anything else, so in a few weeks, I call back and they just say OK, they'll credit my account. I check my credit card on line, and the credit shows up.
Next, I decided to leave neutral feedback. After all, they had tried to overcharge on the shipping, then sent the wrong thing, but on the other hand they made it right, so I figured that deserved a neutral. Within minutes of leaving it, I noticed I had new feedback myself. I checked, and they'd already given me feedback...a neutral! Obviously, they had a program which mirrored my feedback with the same rating. This despite the fact I'd paid nearly immediately, and put up with all that happened. That's not the end of it though. Shortly after this, I got a message from eBay that they'd filed a non-paying bidder on me. Now, the only choice I was given was to admit I hadn't paid, which was false, and it would have resulted in one of those "mutually agreed to remove feedback" deals, or cancel the transaction. Naturally I chose to cancel, since as a buyer, I know those "mutually agreed" notations make me suspicious of an eBayer when I'm deciding whether to transact business, and I DO sell some on this same account. OK, as icing on the cake, next time I checked my credit card on line, "someone" had placed several thousand dollars worth of internet orders on it. Just a little insult to injury. I realize now that the whole scam on the shipping quote was to get me to give out my number direct instead of keeping it protected behind the paypal facade. I successfully got the charges removed from my account, although it still hurts me and everyone else at that particular bank since the bank is going to just pass that on to all customers.
Then I had a guy who threatened to leave me negative feedback if I went through with my Paypal non-delivery claim to get my money back after he gave me the lame excuse "I'm not responsible" etc when the two items never arrived.
Next, I buy another item, paid immediately via paypal of course, got it and it flat was a false description. The picture was vague and small, but when I got the item, a motorcycle part, it flat wasn't what was described. I sent off a polite email asking for the seller to let me know what he planned to do. His answer: give me a negative feedback if I gave him one. And another lame, "everything is sold as-is". Yeah, except it wasn't "as-is", it was "not-as-is". Made no difference though, I had to hold back and just eat my money, since paypal said they wouldn't accept the claim since I did actually get an item from the seller.
So finally I fired off a letter to eBay going over all this stuff, and pointing out how their system flat didn't work for me, a good ebayer with nearly 1200 exclusive feedbacks, 100% positive EXCEPT for the one neutral!!!!!, who had paid immediately in all of these cases and got one neutral and two threatened negatives out of it, which would have been my first negatives ever. I got an answer that they were working on changes to prevent this sort of thing from happening in the future, at least vis a vis the feedback and non-paying strike issues, and by golly if they didn't announce that very thing, just as described, and I can't wait!
Bill & Kathi Parker, South Central Indiana
'60 Chrysler Saratoga kustom; '62 Plymouth Max Wedge; '64 Dart convertible; '65 Barracuda \6; '65 Imperial; '68 Barracuda FB 340-S; '69 Barracuda FB now 360; '70 Challenger now 440; '72 Cuda '340
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