Honesty in giving feedback

[hayfield]

Recently I have noticed that some sellers descriptions have not been honest as they should have been. This will be a contridiction but I look for the item's description to be either poor or inaccurate or wrong, but I do expect the condition of the item to be honest.

 

The last 2 items I won I would have paid what I did for them even if they were described honestly, but both suffered from deleberate incorrect description of the condition.

 

Item 1

Title:- 00 gauge whitemetal kit built GWR loco

 

in a good condition and a good runner

 

I noticed it was a Wills 1854 pannier tank, photo taken so the the 2 missing buffer heads could not be seen and the pickups were mangled, it will not run on the track till most are replaced, however when power is applied to the pickups it runs well.

 

It is well made and painted, the pickups can be replaced as can the buffers but these will be a pain as they are part of the buffer beam casting. It cost me £21.25 + £2.90 p&p so I have had a great deal.

 

Item 2

 

Title:- Finescale pannier chassis 00 gauge K's/Keyser

 

working order but pickups may need adjusting.

 

This is a Wills 1854/1804 chassis with a Hornby motor and Romford wheels (I have a saddle tank kit waitinf for a chassis)

 

Again well painted, the pickups needed slight adjustment but the gears were not meshing. A bit of packing at the back of the motor sorted this out, but it was not in working order when sent.

 

Again a great buy at £18.40 + £2.60 but the chassis was not in working order.

 

Both these sellers had 100% feedback and well over 500 feedbacks each, one had 1 neutral comments the other had 3 in the past year (but give him his due full refunds plus return postage were given).

 

In both cases I have had good results, the chap with the chassis I left possitive feed back but sent a note thanking him for the goods which now works well after I repaired it. Am I being too hard on the sellers or should we expect higher standards. Or is it a price worth paying so we can buy goods under market rate !! & should I leave feedback for the other chap?

 

Before all you holier-than-thou start slagging me off as a wingeing buyer. The other day I brought a schools class loco described as 'Kit built motor does run', it was a well painted but badly converted Airfix schools, using an old motorising kit with Romford Wheels, I left positive feedback as I got what was described, and the parts will come in usefull, the game I play is that you win some and loose some, and I am well ahead.

[Kenton]

I think the honesty in feedback is a bit like those rating questionnaires where the pollster asks "on a scale of 0 to 9"

We are generally a reserved nation and tend to reward rather than knock down another person, yet we are also reluctant to give a score of either 0 or 9 as that can be seen as extreme. If things are REALLY bad then we may suggest a 1. So the feedback score system I think is inherently flawed.

 

The seller's honesty is also understandable, hiding imperfections out of image, overstating quality, appearance, running order, all quite common IMO as few would compete in a bidding frenzy for a rubbished item. Though perhaps a little more of "what is left out" rather than blatant dishonesty would be more acceptable. I always think "why is he/she selling this wonderfully pristine excellent runner?".

 

For me by far the worst experiences have always been due to packaging - or rather the lack of it. Bargains on eBay these days seem like dinosaur eggs.

[hayfield]

 

The seller's honesty is also understandable, hiding imperfections out of image, overstating quality, appearance, running order, all quite common IMO as few would compete in a bidding frenzy for a rubbished item. Though perhaps a little more of "what is left out" rather than blatant dishonesty would be more acceptable. I always think "why is he/she selling this wonderfully pristine excellent runner?".

 

For me by far the worst experiences have always been due to packaging - or rather the lack of it. Bargains on eBay these days seem like dinosaur eggs.

 

I do not pay either high or inflated prices but shop at the other end of the market. If something is not mentioned but you can see the defects in the photo, or someone who is not gened up on the item then thats fine. I guess we all hide the odd thing.

 

The chassis was stated as a good runner, but the motor and gears were not meshed together. A new chassis wheels and gears will be £60+, so my £21 is a good investment

 

The loco again was stated as a good runner, it is if you put wires to the motor, then it runs very well, but to describe it as a good runner when the PB pick up strip is all mangled.

 

With the loco I think I have had a great deal. A new kit is £75 if I had to buy a new set of Markit wheels, motor and gears I would not have much change out of £50. And its been well built. The only problem is that the buffers are part of the buffer beam casting so will have to be cut off, also as they are the taper shank type I do not think I will be able to drill them out. So Its finding a replacement or changing the type of buffer. The pickups are the easier problem to resolve, clearly not a runner.

 

Or is it just I am a 'Grumpy Old Man'

[bertiedog]

Put simply, praise where due, and send in the Rottweillers if wrong! I always follow up with an email if the service is good, well packed etc, fast delivery, but also miss-descriptions must be fully reported to the seller.

With the rule changes the seller cannot down rate the buyer spuriously now, this happened to me on a purchase that was both faulty and then replacement non delivered, took ages to correct with Ebay.

Feedback is not a wonderful feature of Ebay, but can give clues as to the seller.

 

Stephen

[hayfield]

I sent an email thanking him for the loco, which I gave the correct maker and model saying it was excellent value despite having to change the broken buffers and would be certain it will be a good runner once I sort out the pickups.

 

Looking at the neutral feedback, 1 was a faulty item (he seems to sell new kicknacks) the second he gave a full refund including postage, the other was for charging £2 above the cost of stamps. I thought his postage rates were fair.

 

I will leave carefull positive feedback as I feel that makeing the point of execelent value (which it is) despite the 2 problems is punishment enough, and if I was un-happy I think the chap would refund my money including return postage.

[LNWR lives on]

Does the problem with correct descriptions lie in the ability of the seller and the knowledge of his item? In several instances i have bought items which i have found listed incorrectly, some being the owner of the item and some being sellers of their parents collections. In these instances the description can be mis-leading, but not intentionally.

 

In some ways maybe some peoples technical knowledge and understanding is not as good as others

 

You do though have the rougues. I did buy a Flatiron made up kit which was supposedly in perfect tested running order for a reasonable amount, i think about £50 and it turned up minus its motor and chassis, i think it must have been running on the back of a wagon

[hayfield]

Does the problem with correct descriptions lie in the ability of the seller and the knowledge of his item? In several instances i have bought items which i have found listed incorrectly, some being the owner of the item and some being sellers of their parents collections. In these instances the description can be mis-leading, but not intentionally.

 

In some ways maybe some peoples technical knowledge and understanding is not as good as others

 

You do though have the rougues. I did buy a Flatiron made up kit which was supposedly in perfect tested running order for a reasonable amount, i think about £50 and it turned up minus its motor and chassis, i think it must have been running on the back of a wagon

 

We all look for miss described items, and you cannot expect those selling others items to know exactaly what they are. Long may they keep selling these items, and better they make the profit than some dealer who would have paid very little and know the true value.

 

There are some who on purpose leave vague descriptions hoping to inhance the value of a lesser item, well its up to the buyer to ask questions may be tipping others off at the same time. This category I think falls in to the game between buyers and sellers. Is the buyer who thinks he has spotted some gem that others have not is just as bad as the seller trying not to give too much away.

 

Its the third group that I get anoyed with. Both items were listed as good runners. The pickups on one were all mangled, nothing would run with these. The other the gears were out of mesh !! Neither of these were capable of running. But had they been described properly I would still have paid the same (or more) as they were items that in one case I liked and the other I needed. I could have complained about the descriptions but they were not bad enough for me to return them.

[Bloodnok]

Its the third group that I get anoyed with. Both items were listed as good runners. The pickups on one were all mangled, nothing would run with these. The other the gears were out of mesh !! Neither of these were capable of running. But had they been described properly I would still have paid the same (or more) as they were items that in one case I liked and the other I needed. I could have complained about the descriptions but they were not bad enough for me to return them.

 

I had a similar experience - I bought a Grafar 158 power car, intending to use the chassis to repair one I had that had a rather mangled drive spring. Now, Grafar of that era had a lot of problems with split gears on the axles - and he mentioned in the advert that "it clicks when it runs, one of the gears may be split". Fair enough - one split axle gear I can deal with. Turns out it had been mined for working axles - one had no gear at all, and the three others were all badly split. It could not run in the condition it was in, and it would have to have been apart for the axles to be in the state they were.

 

Luckily, the bits I was buying it for were in perfect condition (motor, chassis block, drive springs), so I replaced the bogies with the ones off my other chassis. But I didn't feel inclined to leave positive feedback...

 

(plus it didn't help that the package stank of tobacco smoke when I opened it!)

[hayfield]

I had a similar experience - I bought a Grafar 158 power car, intending to use the chassis to repair one I had that had a rather mangled drive spring. Now, Grafar of that era had a lot of problems with split gears on the axles - and he mentioned in the advert that "it clicks when it runs, one of the gears may be split". Fair enough - one split axle gear I can deal with. Turns out it had been mined for working axles - one had no gear at all, and the three others were all badly split. It could not run in the condition it was in, and it would have to have been apart for the axles to be in the state they were.

 

Luckily, the bits I was buying it for were in perfect condition (motor, chassis block, drive springs), so I replaced the bogies with the ones off my other chassis. But I didn't feel inclined to leave positive feedback...

 

(plus it didn't help that the package stank of tobacco smoke when I opened it!)

 

 

If he brought it and had not tested it and said so, well its up to you to either ask the question or take the chance, but when it says or implies something then its wrong. Sounds that like me the item was worth more to you than the trouble of complaining.

 

On the other hand I have re-sold the odd item correctly describing it and or its condition and not ended up out of pocket, so sometimes it does pay to be honest. Still I think I have just bagged a Wills FC101 Hornby Dublo replacement chassis for a fiver, I've got a nice Wills G6 waiting for it, which has a H/D 0-6-0t chassis milled out to a 0-4-4 but thats another story.

[Bloodnok]

If he brought it and had not tested it and said so, well its up to you to either ask the question or take the chance, but when it says or implies something then its wrong. Sounds that like me the item was worth more to you than the trouble of complaining.

 

I didn't pay a lot for it - about half what a replacement chassis would have cost from GF - and as with the previous poster, I'd probably have spent that knowing the condition it was in anyway. However, I thought I was getting at least three spare axles into the bargain - sadly this turned out not to be the case...

[hayfield]

I didn't pay a lot for it - about half what a replacement chassis would have cost from GF - and as with the previous poster, I'd probably have spent that knowing the condition it was in anyway. However, I thought I was getting at least three spare axles into the bargain - sadly this turned out not to be the case...

 

 

Before we spread doom and gloom about Ebay, luckly these cases are in the minority of my Ebay purchases. I cant realy say about the larger sellers, as the items I tend to buy come from private sellers rather than dealers. But in general the average seller tends to be honest, helpfull and sends the items quickly.

 

And there are some rogue buyers as well.

[57xx]

Sellers who deliberately mislead should have feedback left accordingly IMO. If they don't resolve an issue, they get neg, if they do, give them neutral for the initial deceit. It serves as a warning to other buyers where all positive feedback would hide the seller's dishonesty. Last year I bought a Bachmann pannier in "Great Western" livery. I hadn't seen many around, they were mainly GWR and I got it for a reasonable sum. However when it arrived, it had a string of problems that had been disguised by taking the picture of it in the box. I took "Mint condition" to mean that it was 100% perfect so took a chance on it without seeing pics of it not in the box.

 

After mailing the seller I was told that "the grandchildren must've been playing with it as it was fine when I listed it". So that accounts for a missing tank vent, both fillers missing, a broken handrail knob, a mark on the bunker corner presumably from being dropped and a cab spectacle window missing. At least the kids had the foresight to attempt to hide their misdemeanor by trying to glue the handrail knob back on.... I suggested they refund the cost of replacement parts (of which I first found the prices of online plus a bit for my trouble) to which they did oblige. This saved them from the negative feedback, but no way were they getting positive just because they resolved the issue which plainly was no accident. Genuine mistakes I can tolerate, but not this sort of behaviour.

[hayfield]

Once you have listed something why keep on useing it !, especially when its listed as mint ! Accidents do happen if so then it should have been mentioned before posting.

[apj64]

I am currently having a problem with an ebay seller.

I have purchased from this seller previously and had no problem apart from a slightly extended delivery time partially due to the postman not puttinga a card throught the door.

This time around I purchased the same item on the 22nd March and paid 25th March, To date the item has not arrived ( I have been to the Royal Mail Delivery office to check) I won some other items at the same time from other sellers and they have all arrived.

I have send 3 messages via Ebay to the seller roughly a week apart asking him to confirm when and how they were posted (the item is not marked as dispatched on ebay but that is not unusual. As yet the seller has not replied to any of these messages. The seller has had 100% Feedback ( and so do I)and I dont really want to spoil that if I can help it.

The Question being is how much longer should I give him to either reply to my messages or for the item to arrive? before leaving negative feedback

The silly thing about all this is it is for less than £5 inc postage but I feel inclined to push more for the principle than the item or money. I thought maybe he was ill or on holiday or some other reason for not dispatching the item or replying to my message so have given him the benefit of the doubt up until now.

 

Andy

[57xx]

Once you have listed something why keep on useing it !, especially when its listed as mint !

Exactly why I knew his excuse was b.s.! The bodged attempt at gluing the handrail knob was also a dead give away. This was no "accident", just a deliberate attempt to mislead and I guess hoping the buyer couldn't be bothered to complain.

 

 

[hayfield]

I am currently having a problem with an ebay seller.

I have purchased from this seller previously and had no problem apart from a slightly extended delivery time partially due to the postman not puttinga a card throught the door.

This time around I purchased the same item on the 22nd March and paid 25th March, To date the item has not arrived ( I have been to the Royal Mail Delivery office to check) I won some other items at the same time from other sellers and they have all arrived.

I have send 3 messages via Ebay to the seller roughly a week apart asking him to confirm when and how they were posted (the item is not marked as dispatched on ebay but that is not unusual. As yet the seller has not replied to any of these messages. The seller has had 100% Feedback ( and so do I)and I dont really want to spoil that if I can help it.

The Question being is how much longer should I give him to either reply to my messages or for the item to arrive? before leaving negative feedback

The silly thing about all this is it is for less than £5 inc postage but I feel inclined to push more for the principle than the item or money. I thought maybe he was ill or on holiday or some other reason for not dispatching the item or replying to my message so have given him the benefit of the doubt up until now.

 

Andy

 

Andy

 

Open a dispute for an un-delivered item, the onus is on him to prove its has been sent and to claim from the Royal mail. I think he should have replied to the first message and giving him a week in between each message is reasonable. Price is not a reason for either not answering or not claiming. When Ebay try to recover the funds then give feedback according to his actions.

[Chrislock]

Recently I have noticed that some sellers descriptions have not been honest as they should have been. This will be a contridiction but I look for the item's description to be either poor or inaccurate or wrong, but I do expect the condition of the item to be honest.

 

My experience of ebay is that rarely do people give honest feedback.

Some sellers include something like " give me a chance to put it right before giving negative feedback." and then go on to mislead, or blatantly lie, in the item description!

 

If the item description is misleading, negative feedback nust be given. It might make some of these chancers be a bit more honest.

 

HOWEVER if you do perchance buy something which you are not happy with, and you want to get your money back, it makes sense to approach the seller before giving bad feedback, otherwise they will likely tell you where to go!

 

One thing I find particularly irksome, along with item descriptions which are less than accurate, is the amount of postage which is often bolted on. This is not reflective of the actual cost of sending the item in many cases, and is a way of setting down a reserve price without incurring the ebay charges of doing so.

I will only give moderate feedback at best if I think I am being overcharged for postage, even if the goods arrive quickly.

 

Cheers

Chris

[hayfield]

My experience of ebay is that rarely do people give honest feedback.

Some sellers include something like " give me a chance to put it right before giving negative feedback." and then go on to mislead, or blatantly lie, in the item description!

 

If the item description is misleading, negative feedback nust be given. It might make some of these chancers be a bit more honest.

 

HOWEVER if you do perchance buy something which you are not happy with, and you want to get your money back, it makes sense to approach the seller before giving bad feedback, otherwise they will likely tell you where to go!

 

One thing I find particularly irksome, along with item descriptions which are less than accurate, is the amount of postage which is often bolted on. This is not reflective of the actual cost of sending the item in many cases, and is a way of setting down a reserve price without incurring the ebay charges of doing so.

I will only give moderate feedback at best if I think I am being overcharged for postage, even if the goods arrive quickly.

 

Cheers

Chris

 

Chris

 

If you are buying an item which is described as new or mint, then you are expecting a new item. If it is described as second hand, play worn etc then you can only expect major flaws to be detailed.

 

As for postage, I factor this in to my purchase price (max price £35 less £5 P&P = £30 max bid). If a person details £5 post and packing, even if the cost of postage is £2 then you cannot complain. The seller has been up front with the price and if you do not like it then do not bid.

 

Post and packing covers the cost of postage, packing, the time, effort and cost in the seller packing and taking it to the post office. Likewise is a seller states he only posts on Tuesdays or weekends then do not expect a fast service. Depending whether you are a buyer or a seller I can understand both sides of the debate about P&P v cost of postage

 

What people forget is that Ebay is an auction site, however unlike normal auctions where both buyer and seller pay a commission to the auction house. With Ebay its the seller who foots all the cost. Like it or not most sellers give themselves a margin to offset part of these costs. Providing they are stated up front then there is nothing to complain about.

[apj64]

LOL Less than an hour after posting my message I received a reply from my errant seller.

Appologises for not replying previously but has been out of the country. (wonder how he got home!! ) and says that he will send another item out to me tomorrow 1st class, no mention whether he had posted it previously or not.

 

Andy

[57xx]

One thing I find particularly irksome, along with item descriptions which are less than accurate, is the amount of postage which is often bolted on. This is not reflective of the actual cost of sending the item in many cases, and is a way of setting down a reserve price without incurring the ebay charges of doing so.

I will only give moderate feedback at best if I think I am being overcharged for postage, even if the goods arrive quickly.

You always have the choice of not bidding on such items or reducing your maximum bid accordingly. I don't mind P&P being more than the stamps on the item, it does after all cover cost of actual packaging and time/expense of making a trip to the post office (mine is several miles away) however I do know the sort of sellers you mean where the postage is very excessive, at which point rule 1 is enforced.

 

LOL Less than an hour after posting my message I received a reply from my errant seller.

Appologises for not replying previously but has been out of the country. (wonder how he got home!! ) and says that he will send another item out to me tomorrow 1st class, no mention whether he had posted it previously or not.

Maybe he got a lift off Dan Snow.

 

 

 

[Blandford1969]

Feedback is interesting because sometimes you want to keep buying from a seller as they sell things you want, but the speed of postage is very slow. If you open a dispute, or leave neg feedback buyers may well block you which is understandable, so i have taken the view if i am going to buy from them again either dont leave feedback or leave a low score on the speed of postage.

 

Overall though most of the time most ebayers are ok and i've only had a few small problems.

[Suzie]

Giving honest feedback can reflect badly on the buyer.

 

I have only made one purchase on Ebay, some Lima fertiliser vans. I paid promptly and they duly arrived - but some not in the condition I was expecting. There was a brake wheel missing from one of them, and they had the moulded couplings cut off and replaced with some Hornby ones at the wrong height.

 

I got them for a reasonable price and thought no more until I got a message from the seller requesting feedback. I gave positive feedback, since the deal was still OK, but mentioned that some of the items were not as advertised. This prompted the seller to send me a very rude e-mail and give me negative feedback!

 

It is not easy to buy things on Ebay when your feedback is at -1!

 

 

 

 

 

[Il Grifone]

Giving honest feedback can reflect badly on the buyer.

 

I have only made one purchase on Ebay, some Lima fertiliser vans. I paid promptly and they duly arrived - but some not in the condition I was expecting. There was a brake wheel missing from one of them, and they had the moulded couplings cut off and replaced with some Hornby ones at the wrong height.

 

I got them for a reasonable price and thought no more until I got a message from the seller requesting feedback. I gave positive feedback, since the deal was still OK, but mentioned that some of the items were not as advertised. This prompted the seller to send me a very rude e-mail and give me negative feedback!

 

It is not easy to buy things on Ebay when your feedback is at -1!

 

I would have thought that a complaint to eBay is in order.

 

There is all the world of difference between a genuine error and deliberate misrepresentation (aka 'lying').

 

I always treat postage costs as part of the price. If they're high, the bid is correspondingly less. Some Chinese sellers are especially infamous for this!

[ianwales]

Hi all

 

One of the problems with ebay is there is no chance of a seller giving neg feedback to a buyer any more, all my transactions so far have been fine up until a couple of days ago when someone left neg feedback over the packaging saying the item should have been in a box despite the description clearly stating unboxed, what annoys me most about this is that if the buyer isn't happy why didn't he contact me first and I would have refunded him(or her) rather than just leave neg feedback.

 

Ian

[Gwiwer]

I seldom use eBay for any purpose now but have done so more extensively in its earlier years. I still browse some regular and trusted sellers' lists, mostly dealers and eBay stores, and still list items for sale about once a year.

 

I limit myself to two images of each item as I don't wish to use all of my winning value in paying for extras on the listing. I do attempt to show any areas of significant defect or flaw in the images and always draw attention to them in the text. My argument is that I feel it is best to offer full and fair description of goods offered for sale as to do otherwise may breach eBay's policies and applicable Laws.

 

It has been my experience that very far from all users on eBay take that much care and a small number seem to intentionally hide flaws or provide misleading descriptions. On the very rare occasions I have won items and found them to be not what was described for any reason I have always emailed the seller first stating my concerns before leaving feedback.

 

The responses I have had range from extremely helpful (offers to replace or send an additional item at no cost) through the mediocre "Sorry, I missed that" to the plead of ignorance "I don't know anything about it - I was selling it for a friend." One seller failed to respond at all before leaving eBay.

 

A positive response to a problem will result in positive feedback being given even if I record "Item not as listed but replaced free of charge". An excuse will be met with neutral feedback. A cop-out or no reply will get negative feedback.

 

One reason eBay uses feedback is to generate and engender trust among its users. A seller with more than a few negatives will be frowned upon. As will anyone with a feedback score of under around 99%, though there are legitimate reasons why some scores can be a lot lower.

 

eBay also allows feedback to be posted and the sale rated on the basis of fair and reasonable postage costs. I will always ask for an estimate from the seller if a fixed price is not given. I am well used to purchasing items from overseas and have a good idea what each of my usual purchases should cost to ship. If I am quoted over the odds I don't bid. I don't bid where the "Standard International Rate" is something requiring a second mortgage. I therefore have few complaints about postage costs but always have the ability to score the deal up or down based on my experience. A seller who has asked me for three or four times what is shown on the stamps will not get repeat business. I make reasonable allowance for packing costs and even shipping time. Well-packed items (even in recycled wrappings) can cost more to mail due to extra weight or size but anything which turns up scantily or hopelessly wrapped will again get a low score. I refunded some money through the buyer's Paypal account on the one occasion I over-quoted on postage; it wasn't much but I couldn't comfortably keep what wasn't due to me.

 

My own buyers have left feedback which I consider to be fair and even generous. I have never had to follow up a sale and have never received any comments in return other than messages of thanks and the occasional photo of a sold item in its new home. I consider that's a nice friendly touch though it's not appropriate for all items.

 

All in all I speak as I find. You play fair with me and I do likewise with you. You play rough you get the rough end of the stick in return. Simple.

 

At the end of the day we all have the choice to deal or not deal through eBay.