Vic - thanks for bringing this up -- and Michael: thanks for trying to
contact eBay about this "private feedback" BS.
Notwithstanding the privacy feature, here's what "redqueen3" has in his
feedback profile:
"350 positives. 285 are from unique users and count toward the final rating.
10 neutrals. 0 are from users no longer registered.
24 negatives. 23 are from unique users and count toward the final rating."
9 Buyers have left feedbacks in the past week, 2 of which were neutral.
In the past month, however, he has had a total of 29 feedbacks, 3 of which
were neutral and FOUR were negative. That means that in the past month, just
shy of 1/4 of Mr. Nichols' customers were less than 100% satisfied.
My wife and I buy & sell on eBay occasionally (she collects dolls, I
collect coins). We have over 250 feedbacks between us... only 1 neutral
feedback (which was bogus, I might add) and no negatives. Mr. Nichols has
350 feedbacks with 10 neutrals and 24 negatives in his history. By
comparison, 1/3 of 1% of my clients have responded less than positively,
whereas just shy of 10% of Mr. Nichols' clients have responded less than
positively. Taking into account a reasonable margin for error, this 10
percentile doesn't look too savoury.
While I was unaware of this privacy feature on eBay, I assume it is
designed to protect sellers from 'bad press' created by flaming taken out of
context -- for example, if an entire shipment were lost in the mail and USPS
took 2-3 months to pay out (as it usually does), the seller may wind up with
a bunch of unhappy campers who blame him even though it was the shipper's
fault. Frankly, I think the odds of this happening are pretty miniscule, and
look upon this whole privacy thing as another way to protect the criminals in
our society... gotta love the USA.
But I'll give Mr. Nichols the benefit of the doubt. His profile page
states:
"User redqueen3 (private) has elected to make their Feedback Profile
private so comments are not available for public viewing at this time."
Please contact redqueen3 (private) directly for information about specific
feedback comments."
Gotta love this political mumbo-jumbo: how can you ask about specific
feedback comments if you don't know what they are? :)
I'm interested to see what Mr. Nichols' explanation is. Please post a
copy to the list or e-mail me privately so as not to inconvenience the folks
who prefer to keep non-LBC stuff off the LBC list.
And thanks for the soapbox... I guess I should lay off the coffee a
little...!
Scott (& Hobbs, 77 Spit, daily driver)
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