Re: Ebay new feedbck policies
I have mixed feeling about the feedback system. I am a buyer only and have a 100% positive rating on about 20+ purchases. I always communicate quickly and render payment within a day or so.
I never offer a rating until I have received one from the seller, and I have only given one negative rating and one neutral. The negative was the result of a seller packaging two powerheads in the same cardboard box with nothing more than a small amount of bubble wrap around them - both powerheads were damaged. Even though this was a pretty boneheaded thing to do, I only gave the negative rating after contacting the seller (with photos of the damage) to see what he would do about the situation, and he didn't even reply. The neutral rating was over a wiring harness and plug for a 1958 Rude Bigtwin. What I received was total junk, but the seller did refund my money after I sent it back. Had I not had to pay the shipping both ways, I would have given him a positive, even though I couldn't use the part.
On a more recent purchase, I received a transom bracket and pivot tube for an older Chrysler 10hp motor that had a portion missing (broken off) where the tilt lock fastens. This was inspite of the fact that the listing indicated no damage. I still gave this seller a positive because he was a high volume "EBayer" and had a pretty good overall rating. Additionally, the part that was busted wasn't the one out of the assembly that I needed, and I only paid ten bucks + shipping for the whole thing. While it was sort of annoying to receive something that wasn't as described, I just felt it was appropriate to cut the guy some slack because, when you have sold a few thousand items, one or two mistakes must be reasonably considered to be inevitable.
All of this said, I have to wonder if it is fair to let one side of the transaction only, rate the other. In my broken powerhead situation, I actually asked the seller to put the pair of two cylinder powerheads in the same box. While I feel that doing so with next to nothing to keep them from hitting one another, and no padding to keep them from punching out of the box (which they did - UPS had to repackage them), he could have somewhat fairly said that he did what I asked.
Regardless, EBay has done this and we'll just have to see how it works out.