Why eBay Should Allow Sellers to Leave Negative Feedback

I just had a peek at the ol' company feedback ratings on eBay. We had a fresh Negative and a fresh Neutral. This is unusual for us, because we bend over backwards to keep our ratings up. Out of maybe five hundred sales a month, we might get one negative feedback.

The Neutral was from somebody who bought TWENTY games for the Playstation 2 console. The text of the ad very clearly states, and I quote:

"They are rental games from a closed video store. They do not come with original cases or instructions."

The comment left for the sale: "No original cases?? These god damned video games games ALL came from Hollywood Video"

That was a Neutral feedback. That was bad enough. The following really got my goat.

Shipping costs on items we sell are determined by weight and volume, as UPS loses money if they under-charge a customer (us). If something is small and heavy, it will have higher fuel cost for UPS per volume, and the truck can't hold as many parcels. If something is big and light, it will have higher cost because they can't fit as many parcels on the truck. They charge more. We charge more. As Tweedle-Dee and Tweedle-Dumb say, "That's logic."

eBay noted a lot of complaints about shipping costs from winning bidders who did not understand this concept, so they implemented a rule that was a temporary pain until we fixed our software for it. We have to CLEARLY STATE IN THE AD RIGHT UNDER THE OPENING BID PRICE HOW MUCH SOMETHING WILL COST TO SHIP. This has not prevented complaints from the dumb masses.

When we closed out a candle manufactury a few years back, we got their candle molds. They had several thousands of molds. We have been selling these for ages and we very rarely receive a complaint. Once we got a complaint they were dusty (stored in a warehouse), once that they had wax on them (a used candle mold with wax on it). Today I was greeted with this gem of wisdom from a "winner" on eBay:

delivery to hi for aluminum

And this is the message they left for a NEGATIVE feedback. Note: these items weigh very little, as they are thin stamped aluminum cylinders. However, they are quite large. In this case we sold them ten round candle molds, about 13.5" long by 4" diameter. Ten of these makes a box that is a couple of cubic feet, minimum; we pad our stuff very well, without exception. This adds up, and if you will look 2cm below the place where it says "Price: US $19.99," you will see it says: "Shipping: $18.86 Standard Shipping." If you want that expedited, I'm sure we could probably add a zero to the price without trying too hard.

'scuse me, make that tryin to hard.

So this [deleted] saw on their screen the shipping cost, hit the button, signed the contract to bid and purchase this lot of very nice, moderately-large candle molds . . . and then gave us a NEGATIVE feedback because the price of shipping -which they agreed beforehand to pay- was "to hi."

Can we send a flaming bag of dog poo to them? No. Can we go take money out of their wallet because they are taking money out of ours when they affect our feedback rating? No. AFTER they get the thing, we can't even deny shipment. There's nothing we can do but add them to our Blocked Bidders List and ask them to pretty-please remove their negative feedback rating. I'm thinking we will file a dispute with eBay also, but THIS is why sellers need to be able to leave negative feedback.

This [deleted] right here.