> What you are actually doing when negging a seller is deciding "This seller made me so mad that I am going to cost them large amounts of reputation, raise their fees, restrict their ability to list, and possibly help drive them out of business"
What you are actually doing is noting dissatisfaction with the buyer through the system eBay has set up. The consequences you describe are a result of the system, not the willful action of the buyer. Savvy and unscrupulous buyers might hope that those are the consequences, but one neg doesn't directly translate into that quoted intent.
>The consequences you describe are a result of the system, not the willful action of the buyer.
And if you take that action as a buyer, you are either ignorant of what that negative feedback entails (which is understandable, eBay doesn't go out of its way to post this except on seller only pages.. they DO however say that you are supposed to contact the seller, and in fact if you attempt to leave negative feedback, they stop you with an "are you sure you haven't done X Y and Z" page before actually submitting it)
Or, the buyer knows, and decides that these consequences are worth ruining someone over a dollar.
Right, so a buyer who is unaware of the way that negative feedback can impact a low-volume seller is doing nothing wrong. They are using the system that they have at their disposal to leave feedback.
I think you're being a tad over-zealous with your talk of "ruining someone".
>Right, so a buyer who is unaware of the way that negative feedback can impact a low-volume seller is doing nothing wrong.
Correct.
>I think you're being a tad over-zealous with your talk of "ruining someone".
Hardly. Remember, eBay feedback is calculated over 12 months.
If you have a chain of good sales, don't sell for a while, sell again, and something happens that causes the buyer to leave a neg, you are in deep shit with eBay.
Your listing fees will be higher, your number of listings will be restricted, you have funds availability holds from PayPal.. it's a real mess. Lesser things can and have put people out of business.
If you are primarily an eBay seller this can completely ruin your business.
Now, obviously this is the absolute worst case scenario, but the point is the amount of negative feedback you need to start getting really nasty restrictions put on you is miniscule. Anything that drops you below 98 or 95% positive (haven't been a seller for long enough that I honestly forget the exact number) is enough.
Going back to the subject of the TFA, (and we're venturing deep into conjecture territory here, but bear with me) what if they ended up with a faulty scale that weighed everything a pound less than it should be, and as a result a cluster of buyers ended up with packages postage due?
If it weren't for eBay this would be no problem. You make it right with your customers, refund them, maybe give them a future discount for their trouble, hopefully most of them are happy and you continue on your merry way.
Instead, the buyers are encouraged to vent on the feedback system, which is tied directly into how the platform treats you. Even if you make it right, there's nothing stopping a buyer from trashing on you, and your recourse is precisely jack and shit.
There are three very important things to remember here:
1. eBay is enough of a jerk to sellers that you should really think twice before submitting bad feedback, especially if they fixed their screwup. This is what neutral is for. The seller got you your item but did so in such a way that you don't want to increase their reputation.
2. Enough bad feedback (and "enough" is a very, very small number) most definitely can ruin an eBay seller's business.
3. eBay is a terrible company ripe for replacement.
Yeah, eBay seems like a piece of shit to sell on. But that's eBay's fault, not the person who leaves bad feedback. And if you're an eBay seller, then you should know the risks of dealing with them to sell your stuff.
What you are actually doing is noting dissatisfaction with the buyer through the system eBay has set up. The consequences you describe are a result of the system, not the willful action of the buyer. Savvy and unscrupulous buyers might hope that those are the consequences, but one neg doesn't directly translate into that quoted intent.