After writing “Warning! eBay Buyers Using Feedback Extortion To Make Money” I did some research to find out what can be done to these eBay buyers. What I uncovered is something I feel is a step in the right direction but also a step in the wrong direction.

If you receive an email saying anything about a buyer leaving you negative feedback if you don’t do something, that is called “feedback extortion”. If you happen to get a negative feedback from a non paying buyer, that is called “Unpaid Item”. If you a buyer leaves any personal information about you within the feedback, that is called “Feedback Abuse”. I hope you have not had to deal with any of these. But if you have here is the good news. eBay actually has a way to help you out.

Report this sort of feedback abuse here: http://pages.ebay.com/help/sell/report_problem.html

Now here is the bad news. Since the feedback system is based on the honor system, many buyers are being a little smart on how they leave you negative feedback. Meaning they can choose an option stating, “item not as described”, or “returned item”, or any other selection without it actually being true. Can you see how that can become a problem for you?

You can do everything right and still get a negative feedback. The real problem is when you report it to eBay as feedback abuse. You send eBay all the information to prove to them that you did everything right. But since the buyer selected one of eBay’s options as the reason for the negative feedback and did not break any of eBay’s feedback policies, eBay does nothing. So you get the negative feedback, lower percentage and lower DSR ratings.

I guess we all have to take the good with the bad. I’m sure there are going to be many people talking about all the changes this coming weekend at eBay live. Let just wait and see what comes out this weekend. Hopefully we get better news than we have been getting.

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