Another eBay Rant

[EvilCensor]

My opinion (obviously for it has come from me) is that eBay's star feedback system is stupid, for me to be able to give someone five starts I would have to state:

very accurate
very satisfied
very quickly
very reasonable

..when accurate, satisfied, quickly and reasonable are enough in their own right?

Am I such an unenthusiastically grumpy person whereby I'd rather be skinned alive than submit to saying very satisfied or any of the other very options?
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Please refer all site and database related matters directly to me - incl. missing games, links, screenshots and suggestions.

[Kong Daddy]

I can't remember all of the criteria off hand.

What is incredibly annoying is the ebay search default of 'best match' which is absolutely useless.

The best bargains are from people trying hard with low rating but their stuff is shoved right to the end of the search results and you miss loads of bargains if you're new to ebay.

[cerium88]

i agree with evil, i mean you give them your address, how much more accurate can they be, you buy the thing you want, so your satisfied with it , it cant be done very quickly unless you live near them and well due to the nature of an auction you pay over the odds. I mean wtf are people looking for, i'm a lot happier swaping with locals than i can find. its very hard to give 4.7 out of 5 so their level does not go down even if the service is average....

[Kong Daddy]

I suspect what they are looking for is...

Very good photos of the item you buy, so when you get it you are not surprised and all reasonable marks/creases etc were clearly visible. Also contents of the game box are clearly laid out in photo so you can see everything in the picture.

A very complete description by the seller (eg disk worked on my A2000 but not on my A500 so your Amiga may be 'fussy')

Postage speed as in dispatch speed...so you won it on Friday at 1am...seller posted it on Saturday morning....can't ask for any more.

So if I win for 99p the following "Rocket Ranger on budget Mirror Image label, instructions missing but codes for Lunarium usage present, game works but disk 2 has loose metal dust cover with spring missing but loads fine on my 1mb Amiga 500". Also he posts it next day by 1st class, and the postage charge was no more than say 50p for a padded envelope, 75p for actual postage, and say 25p for various things like the fact PayPal are screwing him on money intended for postage costs specifically to the tune of 56p minimum charge on payments received and stuff like that (not ebay fees though which only count on item sold price only) so say £1.40 in total. So at this point I see no reason not to give the seller 5 stars on all counts....no need to psychoanalyse your purchasing experience. Obviously if you buy more you expect a reasonable postage discount (again remembering the mafia like 50% whack PayPal screw you out of for micro-transactions under a few bucks....so important to pay for all items at once so PayPal do not do that multiple times)

What you don't want is for some duff disks to arrive in budget packaging with instructions and code protection sheets missing, when the auction made no effort to mention it was a budget re-release of Rocket Ranger and the manual and Lunarium codesheet was missing and the spring trap on the floppy disk metal dust protector was broken, and then be charged £3 for 'sellers standard rate" which happens to be 2nd class standard post in a padded envelope that's been half way round the world with holes in it which he got round to posting a week after you won the item. Stuff like that.

Simple really, I buy what I want, it's exactly as described, item is posted in new media for not much more than cost of actual posting plus packing stuff, doesn't matter if Royal FAIL deliver it 1,2 or 3 working days later, if the package has the date stamp of same day/next day marked on it, you know the seller did the best he could

Now you ask why after all this effort on the seller's part should I spend a minute of my life clicking on 5 stars four times? Well probably because it encourages people to be more professional on ebay in the criteria I have described. In the example above the tendancy is for people to take a google image of the box, write a 1 sentence description and post it a week later in some dodgy packaging, and if you don't reward sellers who go the extra mile then eventually they will give up and just become as bad as the others.

[EvilCensor]

Not really my point - I'm saying that very satisfied for example is overkill, either I'm satisfied (4 stars) - or I'm not.

Otherwise I'm happy to take time to rate with their system.
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Please refer all site and database related matters directly to me - incl. missing games, links, screenshots and suggestions.

[LinesMachine]

I see your point but in the whole buying/selling game service is everything. Some sellers don't want you to only be able to say you are "satisfied" they want you to be able to go further than that. Personally I thought the original system of positive/negative/nuetral with a line of feedback comment was enough.

[Kong Daddy]

Yep sorry it was more at Linesmachine's comment.

Yes I agree it is OTT, but ebay decided they needed more control on how to present the search results so they went a bit mad. The extra features are also part of the new paypal holding funds process, until you get 10 ratings over 4.7 they will hold all money until you get positive feedback for 21 days. I also suspect it was partly to counter the whole 99p game £5 postage problem which meant poor old ebay was losing 80% of their fees It only takes one of the rateable sections to be marked low to lose people their magic 4.7 and hence get shoved to bottom of 'best match' results and postage cost is one of the parameters.

I think Medhi Ali must be running ebay policy last couple of years, it's a bit rubbish and just crazy

[LinesMachine]

[Chuckles]

EvilCensor said,

[Bebokus]

I wish to live in some normal country, so I could buy stuff on eBay

[anx866]

Where do you live then?

[Bebokus]

Motherfuc... polenland But I want to live this shit, and go to some other place.

[Kong Daddy]

I am assuming polenland <> China/Africa So which country are you in which doesn't allow you to go on ebay

[Shoonay]

@thread: how about giving AmiBay a try?

@Bebok: you really think things are different in other places (wherever you'd rather want to live)?
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"I used to be an Amiga user like you, then I took an arrow in the knee."

[Bebokus]

Uhm, Poland isn't the best place to live, and you know about that It sucks.