This is an overview common complaints or suggestions about the feedback system. I fully credit the lively activity on the feedback forum for helping me round out my views on various issues presented here. This version is essentially a rough draft; expect it to be revised as I continue to listen, learn and ponder all this. This guide will be updated over the Christmas holiday to reflect the changes to the feedback system.

Feedback Retaliation is the most common complaint made by buyers AND sellers. The frustration of it is very real, but please understand it is NOT an issue faced by only one side. There is often a double standard in place that seriously impacts communication. If a buyer chooses not to go first, they are most often treated as sincere and their position as understandable. If a seller chooses not to go first, there is often an automatic judgment of wrongdoing. Any conversation or transaction resolution started with an accusatory tone is unlikely to improve or get resolved pleasantly. So, please, choose whatever approach works for you - and treat others, buyers and sellers, with the same basic starting point you expect, to be treated as a sincere person expressing a valid point of view.

Some possible approaches to improving feedback issues:

Global blocks would go a long way towards improving the situation. If a seller blocks a buyer, it should automatically block ALL exisiting and future ids of that buyers. Likewise if a seller suspended or banned, that should apply to all their present and future ids - they should not just be able to jump ids and go right back to selling without clearing up the primary situation with ebay.

Preventing buyers who do not pay and sellers who do not perform from leaving negative feedback for the complaining party. In cases where a NPB or NPS complaint has been completed, and there is no response from the other party or exists NO question that payment was never made or item never proven to be sent, the party filed against should not be able to leave a negative. It would also have the effect of making buyers and sellers respond much faster and more honestly to such complaints (since if they don't, they will be forfeiting the ability to leave a neg). This idea should especially appeal to ebay since it would further promote the use of Paypal - a seller can best prove they didn't get paid, or buyer prove they did, when using Paypal. My one caveat to this would be to question its application to lowend items - it is not necessarily reasonable to expect delivery confirmation to be placed on a 99 cent item.

Allowing sellers whose payments develop issues later some recourse to change the feedback already left and/or feedback left by what ends up being a non-paying bidder.

Enforcing existing rules about what constitutes feedback extortion more effectively. There are countless cases where feedback extortion is applied to buyers and sellers where the meaning of the contact is absolutely crystal clear, or where the feedback should be removed on other bases like inaccurate contact info or transaction interference, where no action is taken to protect the person who is harmed by it.

The One ID Limit is an intriguing possibility, though it will never be seriously considered. If people could only have ONE id, ever, it would eliminate massive amounts of shilling, transaction interference, scammers (both buyers and sellers) and serve as a solid barrier to stolen information being used to create new fraudulent ids.

What definitely won't work:

Double-blind Feedback will not work because almost noone would ever leave feedback. Scammers would just not ever go first.

No Feedback left for Buyers will not work because sellers have as much right to show their opinion of a transaction, because how a seller reponds is in and of itself a useful tool for buyers to look at, and because it would open the door for scamming buyers even wider. More on this when I update the entire guide over Christmas break but for now keep this in mind - if you believe undeserved negs drove some good, honest buyers away from eBay, it should be pretty obvious that undeserved negs will drive good sellers away from eBay too.

Showing a Seller's ratio of items sold to items feedback was left for will not work because it would not be fair. Some types of items are more likely to get initial and return feedback than others. Some people don't see a point to leaving fb for every transaction with a favourite seller after the first one (and you don't want sellers who get a lot of return business to look worse when they are likely doing an outstanding job!) And sellers who sell frequently to newbie buyers will end up looking worse since those buyers may not even see feedback change as important yet.

The Star System won't help, for a wide variety of reasons covered in my other guide. The short versions are as follows :

The Star System's Anonymity makes it impossible for the seller to associate problems with auctions or circumstances, and impossible for future buyers to see both sides and judge it more fairly. It may reduce efforts on the part of some buyers to contact a seller for customer service issues. BAD sellers will now get even fewer neutrals and negs - their scores will rise and make them even harder to distinguish from good sellers.

The Star System's Application makes it an unfair gauge. The reality is that many buyers are rating sellers down in areas beyond their control, rating them poorly across the board when one aspect frustrates them,  rating them unreasonably (many sellers who had free to at cost shipping do NOT have all 5s for s/h costs, many who ship sameday/first possible day after payment do not have 5s for shiptime), and rating them down on auction descriptions even when the confusion may well have resulted from not reading the auction.

The Star System's Effects in addition to raising the overall scores of bad sellers will include the following: no significant change in selling habits of gougers and scammers (if the idea of getting a neutral or neg didn't stop them, a free pass on those and a risk of low stars certainly won't), slight but widespread increases in s/h costs from good sellers who quite reasonably determine that if free or at cost shipping isn't all 5s anyway, they might as well have a small handling fee, slightly delayed shipping times (same logic, if they were shipping next day every time and feel their stars don't reflect that, there's no point rushing out the times it is more convenient to wait another day), fewer international sales (since sellers can either charge an arm and a leg and get zinged on s/h costs, or send it cheaply, at risk, and get zinged on shipping time), and increasing confusion and rifts between buyers and sellers in a situation where improving trust should always be the goal.

Possible Modifications to the Star System:

Getting rid of it altogether - The fb scoring system, despite being imperfect, was a wonderful tool and a great motivator.  Educating buyers on how to use the wealth of information that was already there can make that system close to ideal.

Stars for Buyers - will never happen, and most sellers don't even want this. Objecters tend to feel two wrongs doesn't make a right, others simply don't want to be bothered with it.

Voluntary Display of Stars - again, will never happen, and even if it did it would carry such a stigma it wouldn't be used.

Delayed Star Rating Information - Allow sellers to see what star ratings were given by a buyer AFTER they have already left fb for those transactions. Buyers fb would not be impacted, but the seller gets useful information about where to improve and a way to put the ratings in context to specific transactions. Sellers would also be able to block people whose ratings cause them not to want to do future business with them, and will find it easier to identify buyers with other agendas.

Star Display for Buyers - This wouldn't address the major problems but still, interesting enough to include. My idea would involve a display under the area for selling stars that shows the average star ratings that a buyer has left for all sellers they rated. It would preserve the anonymity (which I will always maintain is asking for trouble in the online world) but would help tip off sellers to buyers who always rate poorly and give some marginal sense of accountability. 

Improved Prompting - (more on this later)

Range Limitations - Set a limit on a total score (counting all 4 ratings together) that correlates to a pos. Ex - any total under 14 cannot be scored in a positive fb left. This will allow differentiation, and show sellers stronger and weaker areas, but will reduce the potential abuse of leaving a pos strictly to leave horrible star ratings across the board.

If you found this guide helpful, please vote YES! :) If you are interested in understanding feedback issues more completely, or in contributing specifically to improving this guide, please visit the feedback discussion board!