Where to post negative feedback?

Deal wasn't done, but I do have a need to warn the community about a negative experience while trying to sell one of my lenses.

Thanks.

I understand your concerns and I applaud you for trying to let us know, but negative feedback is expressly forbidden on POTN. If you were blatantly ripped off and it was a complete scam, then you'll want to notify the mods. If the person is a perpetual and total scammer, they will disable their account.

Cheers,
Bryan

It does suck that we can't post a negative, but as you were selling and the deal wasn't done, there likely wasn't much harm done besides being very frustrated.

It can be frustrating. I was trying to set up a deal with someone the other day and when I was ready to purchase they messaged me and said it wasn't for sale anymore, as they were keeping the item. That wouldn't have been worth a negative feedback, but I understand the frustration.

I think the true scammers are weeded out pretty quickly, so I'm not sure how much value a negative feedback system would provide and I'm sure it would generate a lot of PMs to the moderators to arbitrate the issue, which clearly isn't what they should be spending their time doing. Given this, I completely understand why there is no such feature on this site.

I've bought and sold tens of thousands of dollars worth of equipment online via this site, Fred Miranda forum and eBay and have received one negative feedback, which I felt was unwarranted and there was no way to "fix" it. One negative out of hundreds of positives isn't going to impact anything, but it was frustrating and caused more angst than you'd imagine.

For the record, the negative was over a $30 CF card. The buyer didn't accept paypal, so I sent a check through my bank's online bill pay feature. I followed up a couple of weeks later and he said the check had never arrived. I apologized and suggested he relist as I couldn't guarantee the check or a replacement would arrive. It all spiraled downhill from there and in the middle of the back and forth PMs my bank reported "This payment was returned by the payee stating that they need more information to process the check. As such, we have stopped the check and the funds were credited back to your account." I'm not sure how I was responsible for either USPS delivering the check or someone in his office mishandling the check, but I received a negative feedback just the same.

There are plenty of deals that don't come to closure through reasons that may be outside the control of either/both parties. It is just better to move on as another deal will come around sooner or later.

I hear ya. I went from 100% to 91.7% feedback rating on ebay because of one transaction. I'd sold a lens and sent multiple requests for payment, and finally received a message "I'll pay but want you to realize I spent too much on this lens". I shipped and he opened a dispute with ebay because the lens cap had a nick out of it, claiming fraud because I had listed the lens in excellent condition. I disputed, ebay awarded in his favor and shortly thereafter brought my score down. I was fortunate enough to sell the lens to a happy buyer somewhere in between, but I haven't been able to sell anything since. Would you buy from me? Sigh.

It's a sad fact, some of us like photography and swap gear via sales, some make a business out of selling for profit. The latter is a dangerous lot to deal with in my opinion.

Not having negative feedback on here is one of the stupidest things ever. I got scammed a while back and I reported it to the Mods and they did nothing. That member is still on here scamming other people.

Nethawked wrote in post #17908595
I hear ya. I went from 100% to 91.7% feedback rating on ebay because of one transaction. I'd sold a lens and sent multiple requests for payment, and finally received a message "I'll pay but want you to realize I spent too much on this lens". I shipped and he opened a dispute with ebay because the lens cap had a nick out of it, claiming fraud because I had listed the lens in excellent condition. I disputed, ebay awarded in his favor and shortly thereafter brought my score down. I was fortunate enough to sell the lens to a happy buyer somewhere in between, but I haven't been able to sell anything since. Would you buy from me? Sigh.

It's a sad fact, some of us like photography and swap gear via sales, some make a business out of selling for profit. The latter is a dangerous lot to deal with in my opinion.

One of the reasons I no longer sell on eBay. They're no longer seller friendly.

Nethawked wrote in post #17908595
I hear ya. I went from 100% to 91.7% feedback rating on ebay because of one transaction. I'd sold a lens and sent multiple requests for payment, and finally received a message "I'll pay but want you to realize I spent too much on this lens". I shipped and he opened a dispute with ebay because the lens cap had a nick out of it, claiming fraud because I had listed the lens in excellent condition. I disputed, ebay awarded in his favor and shortly thereafter brought my score down. I was fortunate enough to sell the lens to a happy buyer somewhere in between, but I haven't been able to sell anything since. Would you buy from me? Sigh. .

Rule #1 for eBay sellers: if a buyer says, "I no longer want it", or "it doesn't match the description", your reply is ALWAYS, "OK, return for full refund".

Rule #2 for eBay sellers: never, ever send requests for payment. Either cancel, or open the UID.

Rule #3: if a problem buyer says anything in a message that casts doubt on the veracity of his claim, as your buyer did, CALL eBay (during the day, to make it more likely to get a rep in the USA) and ask them to review the messages and remove the neg and any defect caused by the claim.

Nethawked wrote in post #17908595
I hear ya. I went from 100% to 91.7% feedback rating on ebay because of one transaction. I'd sold a lens and sent multiple requests for payment, and finally received a message "I'll pay but want you to realize I spent too much on this lens". I shipped and he opened a dispute with ebay because the lens cap had a nick out of it, claiming fraud because I had listed the lens in excellent condition. I disputed, ebay awarded in his favor and shortly thereafter brought my score down. I was fortunate enough to sell the lens to a happy buyer somewhere in between, but I haven't been able to sell anything since. Would you buy from me? Sigh.

It's a sad fact, some of us like photography and swap gear via sales, some make a business out of selling for profit. The latter is a dangerous lot to deal with in my opinion.

Seems they bid higher than they wanted to. A Lenszilla *LOL* Sorry to hear about that.

Good to know

pat.kane wrote in post #17906735
I think the true scammers are weeded out pretty quickly, so I'm not sure how much value a negative feedback system would provide and I'm sure it would generate a lot of PMs to the moderators to arbitrate the issue, which clearly isn't what they should be spending their time doing. Given this, I completely understand why there is no such feature on this site.

I've bought and sold tens of thousands of dollars worth of equipment online via this site, Fred Miranda forum and eBay and have received one negative feedback, which I felt was unwarranted and there was no way to "fix" it. One negative out of hundreds of positives isn't going to impact anything, but it was frustrating and caused more angst than you'd imagine.

For the record, the negative was over a $30 CF card. The buyer didn't accept paypal, so I sent a check through my bank's online bill pay feature. I followed up a couple of weeks later and he said the check had never arrived. I apologized and suggested he relist as I couldn't guarantee the check or a replacement would arrive. It all spiraled downhill from there and in the middle of the back and forth PMs my bank reported "This payment was returned by the payee stating that they need more information to process the check. As such, we have stopped the check and the funds were credited back to your account." I'm not sure how I was responsible for either USPS delivering the check or someone in his office mishandling the check, but I received a negative feedback just the same.

There are plenty of deals that don't come to closure through reasons that may be outside the control of either/both parties. It is just better to move on as another deal will come around sooner or later.

If you are on FM you must see that mods aren't needed to arbitrate negative feedback. The system there works. It's not perfect, but nothing is. And even guys with a100 positives might get lazy or sloppy and get a neg or fair rating or two. It would be nice to know as a buyer, and frankly inexcusable that is doesn't exist here. I recall being told two or three years ago that it was being worked on. Yeah, right.

Nethawked wrote in post #17908595
I hear ya. I went from 100% to 91.7% feedback rating on ebay because of one transaction. I'd sold a lens and sent multiple requests for payment, and finally received a message "I'll pay but want you to realize I spent too much on this lens". I shipped and he opened a dispute with ebay because the lens cap had a nick out of it, claiming fraud because I had listed the lens in excellent condition. I disputed, ebay awarded in his favor and shortly thereafter brought my score down. I was fortunate enough to sell the lens to a happy buyer somewhere in between, but I haven't been able to sell anything since. Would you buy from me? Sigh.

It's a sad fact, some of us like photography and swap gear via sales, some make a business out of selling for profit. The latter is a dangerous lot to deal with in my opinion.

I think the lesson is to not describe something as "excellent", because you then allow the buyer to use his interpretation of what excellent means. I always try to overstate the issues, and show them in photographs.

mpix345 wrote in post #17912493
I think the lesson is to not describe something as "excellent", because you then allow the buyer to use his interpretation of what excellent means. I always try to overstate the issues, and show them in photographs.

Any description of quality will come with individual interpretation, there's no workaround for this. And, nobody is going to buy anything used without indication of quality. In my case, there were no issues to over or understate, unless it's the collective sentiment of this community that a scratch on a lens cap now makes a lens only "Fair". Probably not.

mpix345 wrote in post #17912488
It would be nice to know as a buyer, and frankly inexcusable that is doesn't exist here. I recall being told two or three years ago that it was being worked on. Yeah, right.

There is a priority queue in all the work. Marketplace feedback is not an essential top priority feature even as it is very good to have and I want it there, too.

Worked on or not? With all the changes and additions I have done with the forum code, I use the same method: I plan first, code writing is the last thing and not even started until I am completely happy with the plan in all respects. With the marketplace it is the same. Since few years ago there has been a lot of very complete and complex design plans that catered for full transparency of everything. Later, towards the end of last year after the new forum had been running for several months, I realized that the "full and transparent" marketplace rework would fail as people simply do not want (or are resisting) to learn anything new. That is ok, and simply a sign of times and a fact that I have to accept in all that is done here since release. So, I have recently made a new plan where the new features to marketplace will be gradual, smooth and easy, and most importantly not "required" in any manner.

I am open to discussion of what is good to have there.

I can tell a couple of things that will happen:

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1. There will be seller/buyer feedback ratings, few key items at 1-10 range. These will be visible in home pages etc.

2. There will be an additional "form" for NEW THREAD in marketplace forums to let you pick the items to the thread from the gear database (your gear list preferably) and add prices, conditions, your country/city, payment method.

In that case your items will be automatically promoted on gear pages, your home page and post info, signatures etc. There will also be a marketplace notification system, you can put any gear in the database to your list and you'll get notifications when the gear appears on the marketplace forums. You can also say "I want to see only sellers in Germany" and in condition "mint".

If you decide to sell something that is not our database or you do not want to use the form, feel free to do so, but then the items exists only that forum, no notifications etc. You can do some items with the form, and add other items in the post, but only those added with the form will get promoted and notified.

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