You know its news if the BBC is covering it

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/business/7228460.stm

Basically it seems eBay is pushing a measure which makes it impossible for sellers to leave neg. feedback.  Thoughts on this?  Personally, I think its a good idea in so far as it removes the threat of "leave negative feedback and I'll retaliate," but it still doesn't force the seller to leave feedback after the buyer pays, which I believe is how eBay should be operating.

Well that doesn't sound fair to me but I totally agree with this -

"It added that many buyers would not leave negative comments for fear that sellers would retaliate."

That was a problem with the system but I can't see removing negative buyer feedback being a good idea. Surely a seller should have some way of knowing if they're potential buyer could be a problem?

Agreed.

No, not unless they e-mail you and say, "Hi, I'm a problem!"

...

At any rate, if a seller doesn't leave positive feedback about a customer, then you can assume it was negative; you just won't know what exactly went wrong.

This would mean that sellers would only feel comfortable about buyers who have positive feedback.

Well, I guess that would mean nothing's changed.

I want to know what is soooo hard about altering the system so that the buyer's feedback only appears/registers after the seller leaves theirs. But no, let's do something so damn stupid it makes people question our intelligence.

Also, I'd like to see the implementation of a "mulligan" system. Get so many positives and you can remove a negative from your history. Kind of like All State's "accident forgiveness" thing but for eBay.

I'm a little more concerned with "Feedback more than 12-months old won't count towards your Feedback percentage," and a lot more concerned with the final value fee rate increases they didn't detail in the "lots of great changes" announcement  they sent me.

I personally wouldn't mind that. I have two negs from several years ago when I was on the buying end that have kept me at 99.7% for a long time. Being the perfectionist I am, I'd love to have that rounded up.

My personal view, ebay sucks. Unfortunately, it's really about the only way to get rid of your "junk" and get a decent price for it (at least within a week). Whatever they're doing, I'm sure it's for their own personal benefit and not for the benefit of sellers or consumers. Me? I ain't no cynic, just a realist

cheers,

-avatar!

I like the idea, considering the only negatives I ever received were retaliation.

paypal already holds sellers by the balls, now ebay is giving the buyer more power to extort whatever they want without any worry of it hurting their feedback.

And how will sellers ever be warned of deadbeat bidders? unless ebay plans to reduce the 3 strikes rule to 1-strike >> gone.

If you ebay internationally, youd better be prepared to charge for priority mail rates to cover your ass. We stopped shipping 1st class back in september.

not to mention ebay is raising final value fees AGAIN...

-pullipstyle (1054)

Ebay sucks.  The way they treat their customers, they deserve to go bankrupt.