as of may 2008, ebay has changed their feedback policy to prevent all sellers from ever leaving a negative or a neutral feedback on a buyer regardless if they were the worst buyer you ever experienced (ie non paying bidder or total lying scum).

my opinion:  we all live by the consequences that have been established.  meaning you might actually consider robbing a bank, if there were no consquences and zero penalties and zero fines and zero jail time.  now apply that to the buyers, gives the buyer complete control over the seller, which leaves the seller completely vulnurable to the buyer to take advantage of - even if the seller has done nothing wrong.  this new system only creates more power to the buyer and less to the seller = chaos and unfairness!  (the opposite of what is needed)  How would ebay survive without its sellers.  I think as sellers we've taken enough from having little recourse on theiving buyers to ebay's fee hikes to this!

i firmly believe that as a buyer, you are not finished with a transaction until you leave (postive) feedback. if at any time the buyer has a problem, the VERY FIRST thing he or she should do is contact the seller.  contacting the seller for many positive reasons, 1) they might not have known they make a mistake (whether its in the listing or in the item the buyer received) and upon this information the buyer has just shared, it may be correct not only for the buyer but for all future buyers, 2) 99.9% of all sellers want happy customers regardless of the feedback you'll leave.  we're business people and dont' want disgruntled customers, but if they dont' tell us there is a problem and just leave feedback, the buyer is a POOR BUYER, and i as a seller should note their feedback accordingly.

my solution:  promote more communication between buyer and seller.  ebay has a wonder warning screen anytime you attempt to leave a negative or neutral for a buyer or seller.  it would wonderful if people actually READ this warning and listened to it.  don't allow negative or nuetrals to be left by anyone until some contact to either has been made first. 

If you are a seller and feel as i do, please sign the below petition to hopefully have it changed back as soon as we can:

EBAY WILL NOT ALLOW ME TO LEAVE A LINK TO ANOTHER WEBSITE, SO PLEASE CUT AND PASTE THIS LINK, BUT PLEASE NOTE I HAVE PLACED A SPACE AFTER THE WWW:

www. petitiononline.com/ebaysf1/petition-sign.html   (there is a space between www and petition,

it must be removed to get to the site, please see note above link)