ebay uses feedback ratings to determine each member's feedback score.

- A positive rating adds 1 to the score
- A negative rating decreases it by 1
- A neutral rating has no impact

In my experience on eBay as a seller it can be very frustrating if you do everything you can to the best of your ability and still receive a negative feedback. You may be thinking to yourself right now, well I paid for the item and I never received it so that seller deserves negative feedback. That may be the case, but it also may not be the case. There are a million different reasons why the seller may not deserve the negative feedback, here are just a few:

1) The seller did ship the item but it got lost in the mail

2) You overlooked something in the auction and the seller may have stated that the item was a Pre-Order

3) The seller e-mailed you but you have a SPAM blocker and didn't get their e-mail. Is that the seller's fault?

4) You may have overlooked the shipping time frame that the seller has stated in their auction listing

Like I said, there are a lot of reasons why a seller may have done everthing possible to get you that item but it just didn't get to you. Does that mean you should lose out on your money? Of course not! But, you should do the following in the appropriate order:

1) Send the seller an e-mail

2) Send a second e-mail (a day or so later) perferably to another e-mail address that you may have belonging to the seller

3) Use the eBay Help Pages to get the seller's contact information, which eBay will e-mail to you

4) Use the contact information to call the seller

5) (wait at least 3 days from first contact) If you used Paypal, contact Paypal requesting a refund (this will make the seller respond by either getting them to issue a refund or prove that the item was shipped)

6) After all of this, if you feel that the seller has not solved the problem, you leave negative feedback, stating the exact problem in a way that doesn't involve profanity.

Remember - Negative Feedback is the LAST resort not the FIRST