Report them to eBay and ask that their account be cancelled. Call the police in their town and ask if they ever checked the guy's back yard for shallow graves.

I'm one of those sellers who typically leaves feedback upon receiving payment. I'm also one who would never suggest that you, as a seller, are obligated to do so.

I also am taking into account all the things that can happen after that point. I'm just dealing with my risks as I see fit based on my personal experience and circumstances. That includes holding off on feedback in very, very few instances.

Your choice to wait 5-10 days before leaving feedback is of course no guarantee that some of those "things that can happen" won't happen to you. It might give an honestly confused/disappointed buyer pause, perhaps enough to convince him not to leave you negative feedback without trying to work things out first. It won't stop someone who's out to rip you off, as it still allows him plenty of time to file a dispute with PayPal or to contest the charges with his credit card company.

As I stated before, it's a matter of "comfort zone". I've found mine, you've found yours, they both work for us, and that's like, groovy.

I got screwed leaving feedback for a b___, I mean lady, she left me with an underseved negative feedback.

Never again.

I will not post feedback unless the other party posts it first.

I always include the following message in some form with my eMails with eBay transactions;

"Looking forward to exchanging positive feedback.",

but, I never post first.

I would be cautious on anybody that made a threat like that, but I would also be polite and offer to reply to their positive feedback with a positive feedback.

__________________
69 220D not running
79 240D parts car
80 240D Beater runs everyday
81 300TD temp disabled cooling problem
82 300SD sweet

But sometimes it's not until after the buyer leaves feedback. It's not that I'm waiting for positive feedback, it's just that I leave feedback in bulk, I do so maybe weekly or so.

http://www.benzbonz.biz

Marty

I as a seller leave feedback as soon as I get paid. When I buy I leave feedback when I recieve the item only if the seller has left feedback for me.
I once got an email from a seller asking if I was happy with my purchase and that as soon as I left pos feedback for him, his automated system would leave feedback for me. I emailed him back saying I was very happy with my purchase and that my system too was automated and would leave feedback for him as soon as he left it for me.

Bottom line is that soon there will be no more feedback if everyone demands feedback before leaving feedback.

__________________
1990 300D 2.5 Turbo.

And hence, I said to leave feedback when your end is done. If you are selling and I have paid, my end is done. There is nothing more that I can do at this point. When you receieve the item and if it si ok, you leave feedback then. What is the confusion?

__________________
01 Ford Excursion Powerstroke
99 E300 Turbodiesel
91 Vette with 383 motor
05 Polaris Sportsman 800 EFI
06 Polaris Sportsman 500 EFI
03 SeaDoo GTX SC Red
03 SeaDoo GTX SC Yellow
04 Tailgator 21 ft Toy Hauler
11 Harley Davidson 883 SuperLow

You should know by now that there is no Santa Claus or Easter Bunny and eBay feedback is pure 100% BS. Why bother participating in a system that you know is BOGUS?

You mean like they do with job references? I mean it is not perfect but it is better than nothing.

__________________
01 Ford Excursion Powerstroke
99 E300 Turbodiesel
91 Vette with 383 motor
05 Polaris Sportsman 800 EFI
06 Polaris Sportsman 500 EFI
03 SeaDoo GTX SC Red
03 SeaDoo GTX SC Yellow
04 Tailgator 21 ft Toy Hauler
11 Harley Davidson 883 SuperLow

The system is quite valuable when negative feedback is posted. Since most people are very reluctant to post negative feedback, you just skew the results accordingly. A seller with 95% positive feedback should be avoided at all costs. IMHO, a decent seller should be able to maintain 98%.

It seems like a simple 3%, but, it's quite significant, in terms of how this seller typically behaves.

The bottom line is that positive feedback is effectively meaningless. It's the negative feedback that really sheds light on a seller.

To look good, he needs to maintain 98% or better. If a few buyers don't leave any feedback, it doesn't affect him one way or the other.

Of course, if 30% of the buyers leave no feedback, his positive ratio will drop from 98% to 97%. Could be somewhat meaningful in this scenario.

We should accept this theory because.............? What would you propose to improve the system?

I consider that to be an invalid generalization.

There are ways to buy and sell feedback, and there are ways to extort feedback. There are also buyers and sellers who range from simply incompetent to a little bit twitchy to outright nuts. I freely acknowledge that not all feedback is "real", and that of the rest, not all of it is valid.

However, I think that there are still many participants in eBay who leave honest, factual, and informative feedback.

This information can be valuable when considering a purchase, but the prospective buyer needs to use some smarts in reading and intererpreting a prospective seller's feedback profile. That requires more than just looking for a magical "XX% positive" rating. It may involve looking at any or all of the following:

- how long the seller has been around, and how active he's been across that time span
- the quantity of transactions
- the nature of the transactions (buying or selling)
- the nature of the goods (for the closed transactions still viewable in the eBay system - am I buying a high-dollar item from someone who built his rating selling nothing but low-dollar items?)
- the comments associated with any negative or neutral feedback left by buyers.

If one is concerned about any particular negative feedback comment left by a buyer, it may be a good idea to look at the auction page if it's still viewable in the eBay system. Sometimes it's obvious that the buyer imagined something substantially different than what was clearly described. It may also be wise to check the history of feedback left by a particular buyer for other sellers. Sometimes a given buyer seems to have "problems" much, much more often than most! In both of these cases, one may wish to disregard a particular negative feedback comment.

When I read a seller's feedback profile, I'm trying to estimate the likelihood that I will, if I purchase from him, have satisfactory results. I think that, very often, the information available is good enough for me to make that estimation well enough.

Would I like better information? Certainly. Will I ignore what's currently available? Certainly not, but I consider it with a critical eye.

I don't live and die for feedback, but I do participate in the system. Every time I leave honest, factual, and informative feedback, I add a little more non-bogus information to that system.

While that makes sense, it's still a risk. As a seller, I generally leave feedback as soon as an item is paid for. Recently, however, I woke to find feedback that said "did not mention flaw" or something to that effect. This buyer NEVER contacted me about any "flaw" on the item I sold, nor do I recall any sort of flaw on the item... may have been shipping damage. I'll never know, as that individual never bothered to contact me about the transaction, so I couldn't offer to make the situation right.

A disappointing number of Ebayers clearly don't read item descriptions, and will email during an auction to ask questions that are clearly answered within the item description. If one of these folks wins your auction, there's no telling what their reaction will be when the receive the item.

__________________
1992 300D 2.5T
1980 Euro 300D (sadly, sold)
1998 Jetta TDI, 132K "Rudy"
1974 Triumph TR6
1999 Saab 9-5 wagon (wife's)

I would leave a follow up feedback to that and mention that fact..........

__________________
Proud owner of ....
1971 280SE W108
1979 300SD W116
1983 300D W123
1975 Ironhead Sportster chopper
1987 GMC 3/4 ton 4X4 Diesel
1989 Honda Civic (Heavily modified)
---------------------
Section 609 MVAC Certified
---------------------
"He who fights with monsters might take care lest he thereby become a monster. And if you gaze for long into an abyss, the abyss gazes also into you." - Friedrich Nietzsche

I responded to the feedback I was left, but had already left glowing feedback for the buyer as soon as I received her payment. The feedback she left luckily was not negative, but I didn't appreciate the fact that I was not given a chance to make things right. I would gladly have done so. I go WAY out of my way to describe things such that buyers will always be pleasantly surprised when they receive an item, and if problems with shipping (damage, late arrival, etc...) occur, I follow-up on it.

Oh well...

__________________
1992 300D 2.5T
1980 Euro 300D (sadly, sold)
1998 Jetta TDI, 132K "Rudy"
1974 Triumph TR6
1999 Saab 9-5 wagon (wife's)