Ebay will ban – without right of reply or reproach – sellers who receive a certain percentage of negative OR neutral feedback. This is why this seller was so desperate to get the rating changed.

In light of this, my suggestion would be that you give poor feedback on the product but deliver it with a positive comment. After all, this trader attempted to resolve your issue satisfactorily.

I’ve had >10 $100+ transactions with HongKong based ebayers, and they’ve always been quick, and easy to communicate with. They often have HSBC accounts in Australia, which makes the money trail pretty transparent.

As for being unfairly scored after giving negative feedback as a buyer, it’s true that ebay favours the seller in this respect, but they must do so, especially if they want nervous newcomers to participate. Who would send their stuff away unless they knew that the payment was guaranteed? The buyer takes the risk – it’s just the nature of the thing.

@Herne: I think that the buyer has no reason to fear negative feedback if they are operating a throw away ebay ID. After all, you don’t need to have a good reputation to buy, as you are taking the risk in sending the money. If the seller scores you badly, just open another username! In other words, have a seller account with a 100% feedback score (and rising), and a buyer account (also 100% until someone gives you a negative, whereupon you get a new ID).

Adam, when the product turned up it was obvious that it was a Chinese dodgy after market thing. No name brand. You’re probably right, they are probably all dodgy.

However, when I originally left the feedback, my rationale was that if she is selling dodgy product, people should know. I would want to know if I was a future customer. I never criticized her as a vendor, just the quality of the merch.

I’ve bought and sold on eBay and I have a 100% positive feedback rating. If someone has a problem with anything I sell I deal with the problem or refund their money. No problems so far.

I agree with Adam that the feedback system in general sucks. I think that it would be better if a) you had a limited time in which to leave it (makes the 8 week delivery thing a tad hard) and b) the two parties couldn’t see each others feedback until both had left it, thus avoiding tit-for-tat comments, and hopefully leading to a more honest and realistic rating system.

I only ever wander ‘off shore’ (outside Australia) for items if my flatmate is purchasing via me (thus he takes the loss not me). Otherwise my rule of thumb that has never proved me wrong is to stick “within Australia” as place of where seller is located.

If it were me, I’d be pretty happy. You weren’t happy with the product you recieved and she has acknowledged that fact and actually DONE something about it. What do you think the XBOX teams response would have been if you said the remote you bought at K-Mart sucked?

Naturally I left negative feedback, so the seller in return left negative feedback for me, even though I had paid instantly as it was a ‘Buy It Now’.

I complained to eBay saying it was unfair for myself to be penalised. The seller told me they would remove my bad feedback if I agreed to ‘mutually withdraw’.

With no help from eBay I decided to ‘mutually withdraw’. So unfortunately the seller leaves with a near perfect feedback score, which is not a true representation of their service.

With that being said, in Cameron’s scenario I would be inclined to leave positive feedback and state in the comment what occured.

Plus it’s too much commitment. You’ve gotta buy it, pay for it, receive it, and then decide you like it (or not…). Too topsy turvy for me

Anyway, since she refunded you the whole amount of the item you won WITHOUT you asking her to do so .. IMO she deserves full credit and a positive rating now. She is only selling the item, not making it herself. If she has advertised that she MADE the item herself, then judge the item and customer service she provided. I would give her positive feedback as now the whole deal has cost you $0 ! You’ve come out on top: you have the item you paid for (and can keep it as she hasn’t asked for it back) and it hasn’t cost you a cent now.