As the editor of ebay-guides, one of the largest article requests I get is for fixing damaged feedback. Now don't read anything nefarious into this request; there are hundreds of reasons why someone may receive bad feedback. There is little doubt feedback is very important for both buyers and sellers. A rating in the high 80's or low 90's and you can almost forget about doing anything on ebay. While most negative feedback is well deserved, there are those out there who will use it to make threats or demand concessions. The "give me what I want or else," scenario seems to be the most prevalent. Should someone be able to hold your rating hostage? Certainly not, and the purpose of this article is to show you how to overcome a malicious feedback.
An unfortunate problem when you have a global marketplace like ebay, is the guaranteed number of bad apples. Ebay does their best to weed these individuals out, but they can't get everyone. Every once and a while someone will order an item and it will arrive in the mail damaged, or worse, not even close to what was paid for. Contacting the seller to resolve the issue then results in the threat of negative feedback, and an all caps attack on an otherwise perfect feedback rating. Basically, the seller is employing a method I like to call "mutually assured destruction." In the same way it has prevented nuclear war, it will often allow sellers to get away with things they should not be getting away with. You say "bad seller" he says "you never even paid for the product, or, AVOID AT ALL COSTS." It is a no win situation. Or is it?
The fear of receiving negative feedback not only sours users on ebay, but it also helps that bad seller stay in business. Instead of avoiding the bad feedback experience, embrace it. Turn on the flamethrower and blast the seller, and when you get hit with retaliatory feedback, bury it. How? Simple. Buy positive feedback. While ebay would prefer you don't, and they take enormous steps to stop people selling it, there are really no fallouts to buying it. So how much does it cost? About .01 cent. Surprised? Many people are. Yet day in and day out millions of positive feedback are purchased for one penny each.
If you find yourself in need of fixing a negative feedback left by another vindictive ebayer, simply do a search for ".01 cent ebook or .01 recipe." This should bring up several thousand auctions; more than enough for you to bury that negative feedback.
Don't abuse the system, as buying too much feedback can be just as bad as selling it. Buying 25-50 positive feedbacks over a day or two should cause no problem for you as a buyer. I've employed this method in the past, testing it as both a buyer and a seller with no problems. As a final note, I suggest buying from sellers who have marked their auctions as private. There is no point in fixing your feedback if anyone can click on the most recent received and see they are all .01 cent buys.
Chris Yarbrough writes for Ebay Guides, a free resource site with hundreds of articles and guides. For more guides like this visit, http://www.ebay-guides.com
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