If you hadn't noticed, eBay has recently introduced some pretty radical changes in their feedback policies. One of these changes affects each eBayer's Positive Feedback Percentage. In the past, eBay has always based the rating of an eBayer's entire feedback history, counting all neutrals and negatives as well as positives. Now, however, they are basing the feedback percentage on the number of ratings received by an eBayer in the past YEAR only. eBay states that their reason for doing so is that:

A seller's recent feedback is more representative of the seller performance. Twelve months is long enough to show trends and patterns and will enable buyers to make more informed decisions. It is also enough time to prevent a single bad transaction from having an overly negative impact.

So what does this mean? This means that if an eBayer has fifty negatives three years ago but none in the past year, theoretically their feedback rating could now read 100% positive. So now, when looking at a person's feedback percentage, basically that is their feedback for the past year ONLY. If you want to know more about a person's feedback history beyond that you'll have to do a little searching, or "feedback scrolling", through their history. Now, more than ever, this is important so that you can see what kind of an eBayer you are dealing with.

This is not always necessary. For example I recently purchased a leather cell phone cover from a seller who had a huge inventory of brand-new items, 100% positive feedback rating with thousands of feedback, and the perfect cover for my phone that cost less than five dollars with very reasonable shipping rates. I didn't see any reason to go scouting through their history with a transaction like that. However, if you're going to splurge a few hundred dollars on a new watch or a gift for your honeypie, you might want to delve a little deeper into a seller's history to see what you could expect. How do you go about it?

1. Click on the member's feedback rating on any of their pages to bring you to their "Feedback Profile" page.

2. Scroll down to the bottom of the feedback profile page. On the right hand side is an option for choosing the number of items viewed per page, so go ahead and click on the 200. This will make feedback review much faster.

3. Now scroll down the pages of the person's feedback history quickly, keeping your eye on the left side for a telltale red signal of a negative feedback or a grayed out neutral. You can also check for feedback that has been removed, which usually appears as a large block of spacing and/or text. Even though the feedback has been removed, the content can tell you a lot about the eBayer in question.

4. Now you can review as many or as little of the negative or neutral feedback left for a particular eBayer. Again, this is not something you will want to do for every transaction. But it could save you some heartache as well as your hard-earned money.

5. OR you can go to www. toolhous.org. Enter the name of the eBay party you wish to review, and they will do the search to bring up all the total negative and neutral feedbacks both given and received by any given eBay party. This is a great time saver and lets you look for trends in the feedback that can serve as a warning. They will show each comment given and/or received, and at the end they will total the number of negatives, neutrals, and feedbacks withdrawn by eBay.

Here are some examples of what this information could reveal:

Here are some things to look for:

• The language and content of the person's feedback. Who would want to deal with someone who leaves feedback like "STUPID JERK, DON'T BOTHER WITH THIS IDIOT!", or gets into a personal battle with everyone who leaves them a neutral or negative. There are a lot of people who don't take it gracefully, and it can get ugly sometimes.
• The seller who leaves excuses whenever someone complains about slow shipping. There are people who leave excuses a mile long, ranging from "I was in a coma after a car accident" to "my wife had open heart surgery". While unfortunate events do happen to honest eBayers, I'm referring to those who seem to have life-threatening experiences every week or so. The giveaway is that you can't help but notice that other sellers during this same time period may have received their item and left feedback reporting satisfaction with their transaction. This is the type of seller who has no respect for their customers right to not only prompt shipping, but to honest communication.
• Look for trends in the feedback being left. If someone has twenty feedback complaints that the item received looks nothing like the item in the ad, chances are that you may receive an item from this person that falls in that same category. Again, unfounded accusations can happen once or twice to any eBayer, but a long list of these accusations is certainly a cause for suspicion.
• Feedback scrolling can be beneficial to sellers as well as buyers. I once received a request from a customer who wanted to pay for an item in cash. I glanced at his feedback and found it chock full of negative feedbacks that he both left and received. He claimed in multiple transactions that he sent cash to the seller, and then stated that the seller kept the cash and never sent the item to him! To all of these he left a negative feedback, calling them liars and thieves and other ugly accusations in the feedback remark section. The sellers almost all responded with statements that they never received payment, and that the eBayer sent multiple threatening phone calls and emails demanding an item that he never paid for.

Another way of viewing a buyer's opinion of a seller is through the "Detailed Seller Ratings". This allows a buyer to leave an anonymous report on several different criteria including Item as Described, Communication, Shipping Time, and Shipping and Handling Charges. This gives you a quick birds-eye view of what the popular opinion is on these important issues for a given seller.

Having a couple of negatives should not affect the feedback profile of someone with thousands of positive, glowing feedback. There will always be someone that you can't please. But conscientous eBayers who respect others; do their best to showcase their items as honestly and thoroughly as possible; ship their items quickly, safely, and for a reasonable charge; and use the feedback system to objectively report the facts will usually have this reflected both in the type of feedback they receive and in the quality and content of the remarks. Taking the time to do a quick review before parting with your hard-earned cash can sometimes save you money, grief, and an unpleasant confrontation. There are many, many wonderful sellers out there on eBay who will do everything they can to make your transaction a pleasant, satisfying experience.  

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