Neutrals will be neutral again from next week

32 Responses

1. there are some that will say ebay are wonderful for listening blah blah blah.

   I think they were negligent and someones bum needs toasting

2. I am with north on this one. Counting neuts as negs retrospectively was not ebay’s decision to make. If the buyers/sellers who left them wanted to leave negs they would have done so there and then.
   Ebay really lost the plot with this one and I can’t actually believe that they didn’t realise the impact it would and did actually have.
   Fools.

3. I agree with Northumbrian. Neutrals should never have been counted. Neutral = having no impact/impartial not negative or positive.

4. I agree that neutrals shouldn’t have been counted, and I am happy that eBay reversed their decision, rather than sticking with the original plan. Given that no working Tardises are available on eBay, I don’t think that “not having made this change in the first place” is really a viable option at this point 😀

5. we are dealing with peoples future and business,
   its not good enough that ebay do things first, think about it afterwards, and then change them if its not the right choice,

   measure twice, cut once is a darned apt saying,
   in other words think and make sure before you act

6. for the life of me I cant work out the thinking on why neutrals were counted as negatives
   why did neutrals even exist if thay were negatives

   I dont believe ebay do not have a working tardis, because the idea must have been hatched in some other time and universe

7. #6 “for the life of me I cant work out the thinking on why neutrals were counted as negatives
   why did neutrals even exist if thay were negatives”

   To enhance the buyers experience norf, keep up! lol

8. So yet more fiddling with feedback scores to come. The darn thing is already broken enough with the current (well it certainly is not fixed despite ebay’s protests that it is) DSR fiasco.
   Trust in whole feedback system is now beyond repair. Even if ebay say it’s correct, who would believe them now?

9. #8 I am not the greatest eBay expert but the way I read it your feedback score can only go up with the new change, so my suggestion would be to shut up and not mention it incase they do another U-Turn
   P.S Shut up not aimed at you, was aimed at everyone btw lol

10. 😛
    I know exactly what you mean, but the fiddling is becoming tiresome, as is ebay’s “pretending to listen” stance.

11. ahh enhanced buyer experiennce. I forgot about that,
    leave a neutral and spend a week receiving confusing perplexing emails from an irate seller
    explaining how a neutral is not a neutral its a negative

    lol

12. I’m sure ebay could find a tardis if it looked hard enough
    https://toys.search.ebay.co.uk/tardis_Model-Kits_W0QQfromZR34QQsacatZ1188

13. I prefer this one myself: https://search.ebay.com/delorian

    However it didn’t take a time machine for me to know this was a bad idea. Our buyers that got neutrals, got neutrals. Nothing more, nothing less.

14. Now all we need is for the muppets to sort out the Crap Match search and gets things back to how they used to be.

15. too right crap match should be changed,
    there should be different default search finding methods depending on category,
    finding a size 10 pink jumper is far different to finding a Royal Dragoons Battle of Waterloo Captured French Imperial Eagle

16. should be on another thread I know
    though if you enter
    royal dragoons French Imperial Eagle in search, nothings found though plenty of french and eagles are suggested
    not a Royal or a Dragoon is found or suggested anywhere on ebay.
    yet there are thousands of listings with Royal,
    and hundreds with Royal Dragoons

17. Just hope we can TRUST that eBay will take a SAFETY first approach to changes in the future 😉

18. Yes…..but the percentage is only part of it. How about the buyer dissatisfaction rating? Are neutrals still going to count here? What is the point of having a 100% rating if 1 or 2 neutrals can get you suspended. Why the hell does Ebay always leave the real questions unanswered?

19. While the neutral=negative fiasco and all the sellers it damaged is sad in itself, we can not forget the collateral damage.

    Posts below copied from eBayINK Blog

    Richard Brewer-Hay On 05.21.2008 at 9:31 am Said:

    @ Patricia — “Neutral means just that”

    I don’t see how neutrals are being “counted as negatives” rather they’re NOT being counted as positives. It seems that neutrals are now defined exactly as neutrals (neither positive nor negative) and a “neutral” rating shouldn’t be included in a “positive” score.

    Brian’s explanation of it seemed fairly straightforward to me:

    Neutrals are not counted as negatives but they’re not going to count as positives either. Moving forward, what we can do is make the Positive Feedback Percentage be exactly that. What’s the percentage of positives that a seller has received over all of the feedback they have received? Which is really what sellers should be measured against.

    -RBH

    to which I replied:

    implog On 05.26.2008 at 7:33 am Said:

    Richard:

    Hope you are having/had a great holiday.

    A couple of us have cautioned you about keeping your distance from the current eBay Brain Trust. Your statements, copied below, are why.

    Imagine a time after eBay when you are interviewing with a new organization. Imagine what an interviewer or evaluation team might say if they saw that you had publicly stated that a neutral feedback rating becomes a negative because it is not being counted as a positive. You might have to explain that one in detail.

    or

    Imagine that you are working with a new organization. As so often happens in the corporate political world, you’ll probably have friends and enemies.

    Imagine that you are competing with others for a promotion. Imagine what would happen if one of your competitors or corporate enemies showed your statement about neutrals being negatives because they can’t be counted as positives to the promotion decider(s).

    Please analyze eBay’s reasoning and pronouncements carefully and more importantly, watch what you write. Statements such as neutrals being counted as negatives because they are not counted as positives may have an unexpected effect on your career.

    I don’t see how neutrals are being “counted as negatives” rather they’re NOT being counted as positives. It seems that neutrals are now defined exactly as neutrals (neither positive nor negative) and a “neutral” rating shouldn’t be included in a “positive” score.

    Brian’s explanation of it seemed fairly straightforward to me:

    Neutrals are not counted as negatives but they’re not going to count as positives either.

20. Hi everyone, will the neutrals that affected the feedback scoring be removed and feedback score will increase to a higher percentage, am i right in thinking this?

21. Mr Patel, no feedback is being removed. It’s just the percentage that is being recalculated (so yes, if you have neutrals, the percentage will go up).

22. Hi there, this is brilliant as i was worried i may be knocked off powerseller status, as my percentage fell to 97.4% , but since i changed my selling ways on ebay the new strategy is paying off dividends. My new percentage is 97.5% and once neutrals are not considered in calculations it should go up further to a more respectable value. Is there an exact date this will take place Sue. thanks

23. Mr P., “next week”, and more specifically “before PowerSeller eligibility is recalculated for this month”, so you should be okay.

24. Hands up anyone that understands any of post #19 ?

25. BS, I think that’s the danger of cutting and pasting out of context… I’ll edit the mark-up a little so it’s perhaps clearer that Implog is quoting almost entirely from comments on eBay Ink. Perhaps if commenters want to include material from elsewhere, a link might be easier? Or shorter quotes?

26. Hi Sue:

    You are right, most of my post was copied and pasted from eBayInk. The thread is at the link below.

    I would have included the link in the post but eBayINK has no search feature and the thread I am referencing has 370 posts. Gets a bit messy without search capability.

    The point I awkwardly tried to make was in reference to the past neutrals=negative fiasco. Not only were/are sellers damaged by this poorly thought out error on eBay’s part but possibly eBayINK’s blogger Richard Brewer-Hay.

    In my post, I identified Richard as “collateral damage” of the “neutral=negative because it is not a positive” policy because it seemed he was trying to defend the indefensible. He tried to make “black is white” sound sensible.

    His “neutral=negative because it is not a positive” stance was worrisome.

    Some us who were active on the blog saw that as a shift; that Richard was now spouting eBay’s party line, that he had “drunk the San Jose Kool-Aid” as many feared would happen and that he was threatened with becoming as delusional as some of eBay’s “Brain Trust” (execs).

    Prior to that Richard seemed genuinely honest and fresh and was well liked. He seemed open to eBay members ideas and suggestions, often asking those in power our posted questions.

    Unfortunately, we didn’t always get an answer or sometimes got answers unrelated to our questions.

    The corporate world can be nasty and words and associations can haunt you. I was trying to say to Richard that he might want to keep his distance from eBay’s current crop of San Jose crazies and their “neutral=negative because it is not a positive” logic.

    Hopefully this will be an eBay “trust walk” for Richard.

    Sorry for the confusion, convolution and request absolution.

    Thanks Sue and others here for your work, words and wisdom.

    Link below, all 370 posts.

    https://ebayinkblog.com/2008/05/19/knowing-where-you-stand/

27. Thanks Implog – I did go and try and find the link, but – as you know – it was not easy to track down!

28. An addition –

    In my post I said that eBayINK Blog has no Search feature. It should have read no FUNCTIONING search feature.

    There is a Search box but it does not return accurate results. If you search on a topic you might get a blog entry IF it includes the tag on which you searched.

    Individual posts and their content does not appear in the search results. Several eBay reps have made appearances yet you can not find their posts with the Search feature.

    I believe eBayINK blogger Richard has been trying to get this fixed for months.

29. Yes…..but the percentage is only part of it. How about the buyer dissatisfaction rating? Are neutrals still going to count here? What is the point of having a 100% rating if 1 or 2 neutrals can get you suspended. Why the hell does Ebay always leave the real questions unanswered?

    Good point if SNP rating is not going to be adjusted then it’s pointless!

30. Since the changes were implemented we have witnessed a huge increase in timewasters, aborted sales, deliberate sabotage and blackmail. The eBay community of decent honest folk has been contaminated by individuals ranging from the deluded to the downright malicious.

    We are cautious and principled traders, yet today we find ourselves deregistered by eBay because of feedback from individuals with whom we would not wish to trade. We have received 16 negatives in last 30 days (our highest ever – normally 2-3) against 466 positives and ebay decide that we should not trade on ebay any longer. We have recently undergone a massive warehouse move and our delivery time slipped for a couple of weeks which we have received a few negatives for even though we e-mailed buyers to let them know. A lot were understanding and left a positive as the goods were still what they ordered but delivery slow whereas others decided to leave a negative that delivery slow, but goods as described. How is it fair that we are removed from ebay. They should base their decision on the overall picture. We did not have any prior warning from ebay just a phone call to say “Hi, this is Bert from ebay. I am ringing to let you know that your account has been restricted so you will not be able to buy or sell for 30 days”. Were we meant to say “Thanks for letting us know, goodbye”. After an hour of discussions with Bert and him stating that it was his decision prior to speaking with us with no chance of a defence from us. He did not even know that we had 748 items listed/removed until we told him.

31. # 30.
    ….. and I thought it was only small sellers who were suffering, what on earth are Ebay trying to do?
    I am a small hobby seller and have been an Ebay user since 1999. During that time I received over 3000 positives and 2 negs, until this week!
    Two days ago a Neg arrived from an NPB and although Ebay subsequently informed me that this individual had ‘Faked a payment confirmation’ on the item I was selling they declined to remove the Neg. Another example of Ebay allowing rogue buyers to abuse the system to the detriment of honest sellers.
    Today a Neutral appeared from someone who clearly had not read the extensive description within my listing and decided to ‘shoot first and ask questions’ later. There was a time when Ebay went to great lengths to emphasise the importance of ‘communication’ between buyer and seller to try to resolve problems without recourse to unfavourable feedback.
    Since I only sell about 20 items a month I am now in serious danger of being suspended!
    It is easy to understand how many sellers subscribe to the so called ‘conspiracy theory’ that Ebay want rid of all small sellers by 2010!
    What used to be an enjoyable buying and selling experience has been replaced with a ‘climate of fear’ generated by hurriedly implemented, ill thought out schemes that ultimately benefit no one!
    Sorry but I just had to find somewhere to get this off my chest. Ebay are only interested in ‘policy’ , not common sense or common decency.
    I just hate the injustice of it all. Perhaps its time to give up until a viable and sane alternative appears, if ever.

32. As long as I don’t get any negs from paying buyers in the meantime, then as soon as this is implemented, my feedback % will increase to 100!

    ‘Get in’, as they say. Not to mention ‘wahey!’ (comin’ atcha in the da Cheggers style-ee, no less).

    Given that we had 98.7ish% before the new changes came in, I think some of the feedback changes have indeed been positive. Conversely, both my neuts read ‘smooth transaction’ & ‘thanks +++++’ so I really think eBay dropped the ball when they counted neuts as ‘semi-negs’ score-wise. But at least they picked it up again.