e-bayers: a question about feedback ratings; possible conspiracy?

[jtexas]

I don't shop ebay very much so I don't have much experience with it.<br /><br />Searching for a digital camera, I checked the feedback rating for a particular seller. It's mostly positive, about 49k positive for the year vs. 2600 negative. Reading some of the comments I noticed that only 5 or 6 different buyers account for maybe 75% of the first 50 comments. These guys are just resending the same comment 5 or 10 times; they even have the same date and time. Looks suspiciously like stuffing the ballot box. Could this be some kind of conspiracy?<br /><br />thanks,<br />jtw

 

[ndemge]

Re: e-bayers: a question about feedback ratings; possible conspiracy?

If I buy 20 things from one person, and leave them 20 + feedbacks, only ONE is counted towards their score.<br /><br />I have a feedback rating of 121 on ebay, but I have had over 130 people leave feedback (return customers)<br /><br />Personally, I do NOT like to buy from the super huge power sellers. <br /><br />49k Pos, 2,600 Neg is not good in my book

 

[phatmanmike]

Re: e-bayers: a question about feedback ratings; possible conspiracy?

that is fine, but buy from a individual person if possible, avoid these power sellers if you can, customer service is usually non existent

 

[jtexas]

Re: e-bayers: a question about feedback ratings; possible conspiracy?

Okay, think I figured something out. Looking at the seller replies, it appears as though this seller automatically replies to positive feedbacks with positive feedback, so by sending them pos feedback you build up your rating.<br /><br />Is this possible?

 

[ndemge]

Re: e-bayers: a question about feedback ratings; possible conspiracy?

You can only leave feedback for someone you when you have a transaction with them, and also, only one feedback per transaction.<br /><br />If someone does want to falsly build their feedback, it's going to be expensive in listing / final value fees just to pad, not to mention a unique user for each to build the overall #.<br /><br />The ebay feedback system is pretty tamper proof.<br /><br />But due to retaliation by people who leave negatives, some people are reluctant to leave a neg even when the person deserves it.<br /><br />Buyer be ware.

 

[buckeye_sean]

Re: e-bayers: a question about feedback ratings; possible conspiracy?

jtexas, another thing you have to watch out for is hijacked accounts. This is where someone will crack a reputable seller's account and start posting fraudulant auctions. You can usually if they start selling something totally different than they usually do, or if they request that you reply to a different email than is listed under the legit contact info.<br /><br />In reality, unless you're looking for a highly specialized camera you're probably better off to frequently check a bargain hunter's site like fatwallet.com or bensbargains.net for a good deal. Buying any tech gadget is always a risk when you can't easily return it locally.

 

[JoeW]

Re: e-bayers: a question about feedback ratings; possible conspiracy?

The feedback is legit, but nothing to be proud of. A 94%-95% positive feedback means thay about 1 in 20 transactions go sour. Not a good record by most standards.