Your right, neutrals don’t play into your feedback score, but that doesn’t mean that they are actually neutral. That would be like saying that children should be ok with D grades in school because its just “a little below average.”
A neutral is equivalent to giving the seller a grade of D. And as long as the seller was courteous and tried to complete the sale I don’t think it was deserved.
Again, this is only taking her behavior before feedback was left into account. The sellers behavior after feedback was left is inexcusable.
Well, in a store you can look at the merchandise and know if it’s really available and in good shape. This was represented as an auction.
Never has anything sounded so neutral to me as no one getting anything out of the deal. Papsett then recorded why nothing happened.
I think she should get negative feedback if only because of this comment:
<<READdiscriptionBEFOREbuy Mold was distroyed by mice SHOULD I HAVE SENT TRASH!!!>> tammish, take a chill pill.
Nah… it’s more like a gentleman’s C. I think the mitigating factor is that since the neutral isn’t calculated as part of the feedback score, a user actually has to open up the feedback forum in order to see the neutral. The irony in this case is that the seller here (tammish) actually made herself look like an idiot by her totally over-the-top reply to the neutral. If she had just noted, “Returned bidder’s money with apologies,” buyers would be like, “Oh, okay, no harm no foul.” Instead she’s made them think, “This seller is a kook. Why on earth are mice eating her molds, and why are they sitting on her Caps Lock key?” Worse, if people then open PapSett’s feedback and see that tammish has flamed her, they’re going to be doubly reluctant to buy from tammish. Score? **Papsett **1, tammish 0.
I think Papsett’s best option would have been to write back (originally) saying that the piece had a fair amount of emotional value to him/her and was there any chance that there was an existing piece available somewhere, or some possibility of getting the mold replaced in the future.
The seller’s response completely out of proportion, so I’m pretty sure that the “more flies with honey than with vinegar” approach is not longer an option.
A neutral is a little harsh - although it doesn’t figure into the feedback score, the number of non-positive feedbacks is more important than the actual score. Nevertheless, since Papsett won the auction and was not satisfied with the subsequent transaction, I don’t think it was out of line. If I were the seller I wouldn’t have complained about it.
I totally agree with you that the seller has behaved like an ass, and has only hurt herself in the long run. There is no excuse for that kind of behavior.
I still disagree with the assessment of how weighty a neutral feedback score is, but I don’t think that is really all that important. Neutral SHOULD be perceived as truly neutral, but as others have pointed out, it is looked on as more as mild negative than anything. I think this is due mostly to the fact that you always have the option of leaving no feedback at all, so no feedback becomes neutral and neutral becomes bad. I honestly think the system would be better if the only options were Positive and Negative.
But like I said in my first post, customer service is the name of the game when selling on ebay, and the seller has violated the first rule of customer service, namely “the customer is always right”. Even when they are wrong. Tammish was dumb, but I am not going to say that Papsett is without fault in the situation. Moreover, **Papsett ** should not come out of the situation feeling vindicated, because IMHO (and with no offence intended to Papsett) the OP started this fight.
I continue to maintain that **PapSett **did the eBay community a favor, because she basically led this seller to expose herself as nasty and customer-unfriendly harpy. If I were a potential buyer, tammish’s reaction to the neutral would be far more telling than the neutral itself. In fact, it would scare me off.
Here’s something else to ponder. I like the use of a neutral to signify lack of consummation of the deal. It tends to operate, admittedly in a very slight way, as a check on the seller who says, “Oops! The item is lost/broken/devoured by mice,” when what she really means is, “I found somebody else who would pay more for it.” This is particularly true when the seller has an actual physical store, and not just an eBay store, and has the item out for display at a price possibly higher than the eBay price.
One last thing: what about the item actually in the photograph? Why couldn’t the seller send that instead? She hardly needs it anymore if the mold is ruined.
I am so sick of this idiot’s tactics. I did report her last night for the feedback blackmail, waiting to hear back from eBay. I sincerely hope at this point that they ban her ass, tho I don’t see that happening.
My initial e mail to her was not in any way rude, I explained to her that the piece was something I had looked for a long time for and I was leaving the proper neutral feedback, and she popped me off the first of several crappy replies. Yes, as her replies got crappier, so did mine. Her last one last night called me ignorant and said she had blocked me , not to bother replying. :wally
I really hope that others see what happened in this transaction and avoid her like the plague. I still say that BEFORE an item is offered for sale on eBay , either in an eBay store or auction, she should have made sure the mold was good. PERIOD.
How do you know? Isn’t it possible that she did check the mold prior to listing and it got damaged in the interim? Something similar happened to an electronic item that I bid on; seller took my money then discovered that the item had been damaged after listing it and gave me a full refund.
Because she admitted to me that she did not get the mold out until after I bought the item. I ould not dream of offering an item for sale on eBay unless I knew I could honor that sale, and I told her that.
I agree with the neutral feedback. Negative feedback should be resorted to as a last option. If the seller will not respond to E-Mails, correct a problem, etc. Feedback can be withdrawn, but it feels like you have to go through a billion pages to do so.
My parents own a ceramics business, and I sometimes get to see them in the process in making things.
The least she could have done was poured the mold, to make sure the greenware turned out alright. This would have taken 5 minutes to fill the mold, a little bit for it to sit, and then 5 minutes to empty it. If the mold was messed up, the greenware could be broken back down into the mud, or slip, and nothing would have been lost.
Also, if you take care of your molds, the rats won’t eat them. Maybe next time she should leave out some cheese.
The netural feedback appears unwarranted to me in this case. This is how I interept the feedback given by the OP:
Many regulars on eBay on extremely reluctant to give negative feedback for fear of repercussions. This creates a situation where neutral is the new negative. It is not generally used where both parties amicably walk away from a transaction that could not be completed.
I agree with giving the neutral feedback. If a buyer backs out of a bid due to whatever (accidentally bid too much, credit card was stolen and they haven’t gotten a new one, etc.), they get a mark that goes against their name - from ebay itself.
The seller was advertising an item as being available. She didn’t take proper steps before listing the item to ensure it would be able to be sold. She did refund the money, so didn’t deserve a negative feedback, but she didn’t uphold her end of the contract - hence I believe* PapSett* was justified in putting in her feedback, in a neutral fashion.
Besides, we don’t know that this isn’t a habit the seller might have, when she’s run too many auctions and can’t be bothered making some of the items she’s promised to sell. By leaving the neutral feedback, if it happens to other buyers then they might feel a bit more comfortable leaving their own feedback, which is how it should work.
Actually, the seller very much should have their rating dinged. They are selling via auction items that they may or may not be able to provide. Just a few days ago another mold was destroyed and another customer didn’t get what they wanted, but seller got a positive for refunding money on a product they couldn’t sell. High praise :rolleyes:
Do you enjoy going into a store that advertises item X only to find that they’re out of stock? Is it not a waste of your time to go there, locate the item on the shelf, only to find you can’t buy it? A store that is chronically out of stock is a store I’m less and less interested in shopping at. An eBay seller that is often unable to deliver is one I’m not interested in. But thanks to these sorts of “rules” buyers are unable to find out whether or not sellers are actually reliable.
Sellers, if it’s OK for a seller to back out when the item is unavailable, is it similarly OK if the buyer backs out when money is unavailable? No harm, no foul.
Hey, I left a positive after the incident that I mentioned above. It’s not high praise, it’s being satisfied with the transaction; the seller refunded my money and I was satisfied and I said so in the feedback. Had they kept the item and the money, I would have left a big fat negative and contacted PayPal.