Check your feedback on eBay Oz - NOW !!!

eBay's new feedback policy will affect your overall feedback percentage score on Thursday, and you might not be happy when you see the new scores.  You can have 0 negatives but still be less than 100% (since neutrals will count against you).

eBay rolled out the changes in Australia on Monday, so sellers in other countries can go to eBay Australia (www.eBay.com.au) and do an Advanced Search by Seller for your ID. Clicking on your feedback number will bring up your scores based on eBay's new methodology. 

Note that on Oz, the feedback % showing on your listings is still based on the current UK (old) calculation of just negs and positives, but the feedback page will tell a different story ....

Under the old system, I've been on 99.5% to 99.6% since way back before I became a PowerSeller and before John Donahoe was employed by eBay.

Having just checked the rating on eBay Oz, under the new system, my overall percentage drops to just 98.5% from the current 99.6% - that's a full 1.1% drop caused by 17 neutral comments received during and shortly after the UK's postal strike last autumn.

Am I happy?  Not a bit of it.

I sell on a dozen non-eBay auction sites, which between them have earned me more than double the total feedback I've earned on eBay, and collectively I have just one non-positive feedback score on all of those other sites (and that was a retaliatory from a non-paying bidder).

That leads me to ask, just what is it about eBay buyers and the new eBay culture that causes eBay buyers to be so willing to throw non-positives at sellers so frequently?  It also leads me to point out that from the tens of thousands of PayPal payments I've received over the years, the only chargeback claims ever made against my account have been from eBay buyers.

Roll the above into all the other seller-punishing new policies (and especially the unilateral ones from eBay UK) and it's got me working 25 hours a day to get my other channels ramped up so I can exit this madhouse, because the cuckoo's have definately taken over this nest.

Speaking of retaliatory feedback ... the USA doesn't block sellers from giving negatives until next Monday, and Mutual Feedback Withdrawal will be around for a month or two yet.  So if you're a seller and you get a rush of neutrals or negatives this weekend, pop across to the US site (before Monday breakfast time in the UK) and leave a nice glowing red retaliatory negative, with a suitable comment that doesn't contravene the feedback abuse policy so it can't be removed by eBay.

Grrrr - I am fuming at all these retroactive changes to feedback, and feeling thoroughly intolerant this week - Caveat Emptor = Buyer's Beware!

Mutter, snarl, hiss

Gaz