"Chuck Harris" wrote in message
...
Ed Price wrote:

really, really HAVE to have it. Who knows? But one interesting thing is
that gpb333 has been on eBay for about 20 months, but he hasn't bothered
to reciprocate feedback for almost 18 months. Those kind of guys **** me
off.

I haven't decided which is worse, guys that don't give feedback, or
sellers
that wait to see what you give them before they give you feedback.

I recently bought an item, and the seller took 3 weeks to ship my item.
He
came up with a cockeyed story about how paypal didn't notify him that I
had
paid. (I paid the morning after the sale) The item was described as
complete,
but it arrived poorly packed, and missing a major component. 1 day short
of
a month from the end of auction until the item was in my hand.

The seller echoed my feedback, so I got what I gave him.... Yet as a
buyer,
I did everything in a most proper way. Now my feedback says I am a late
shipper,
even though I was a buyer!

The feedback system is seriously flawed. Each party shouldn't be able to
tell
what the other party writes about them until everything is totally done.


Well, maybe, but nobody says you have to take it at face value. I usually
dig through a few previous auctions of the seller to see if any interesting
patterns emerge. If I see any notable negatives I look at the buyer who left
them and then look at his record. Patterns of feedback abuse are often easy
to detect. Too, just because feedback is negative doesn't mean its truthful.
And of course, sometimes you just plain lose. But on the average, ebay
treats my OK.

Had a good one just today. I bought a piece of electronic equipment (B&W
distortion analyzer) from a guy who ran an antique shop. The BIN price was
$15, and in the photos the thing looked flawless. I took the BIN. Sent in
payment via Paypal immediately. 10 days and 3 emails later, no communication
from the seller. I send the 4th e-mail, and 15 minutes later the thing shows
up, beautifully packaged. I open it up and the thing is absolutely flawless,
perfect cosmetics, working and in calibration. STILL haven't received any
communication from the seller, not that it matters at this point. What
feedback do you give? A perfect product and a perfect transaction with
absolutely NO communication...I can't say that shipment was speedy, although
I can't say that it was slow. It's not the way I prefer to do business, but
it worked and I got more than I had hoped for.

Sometimes it's best just to cool it. Go into an auction understanding that
little things WILL be wrong. Bid accordingly. Ask lots of questions and
judge the seller by his responses.

A great one I have started to see is "Positive" feedback with negative
written comments!

Having so many buyers and sellers with 100% positive feedback reminds me of
Garrison Keillor's line; "where all the children are above average."