Negative review deleted, why?
Summary: The discussion revolves around the topic of why a negative rating was deleted. Various participants, including trastmi, voli-maus, and oskar_der_wikinger, exchange views, but without making any specific substantive contributions. It seems that the actual reason or the details of the rating removal are not clarified in the course of the discussion.
Warum wurde folgende negative Bewertung von eBay gelöscht, obwohl sie den Tatsachen entspricht:
"Avoid! Reviews misled me. Item's quality inferior to listing photos (i.e. dial+hand damage, missing letters, faded lume) Misleading, possibly fraudulent. Japan seller denied fault, refused fair partial refund due to lower value. Pushed off-eBay return without safeguards, demanded PayPal details -red flag! eBay Buyer Prot. offered full refund, warned not to share data. Loss in value + import fees remain. Feel compelled to share painful experience despite expected insults (note other neg. review)."
katzenjogi
·5 months agoHello @trastmi
actually it's quite simple - the eBay guidelines for feedback state that it should be factual.
That, however, excludes any speculation. And an alleged fraud is an alleged accusation of a criminal offense and therefore far removed from factual.
It would have been factual to refrain from wording such as "Avoid" (including the exclamation mark) or "Red Flag" or "painful experience". And your seller cannot create a return label via eBay; he can only do that outside of eBay on an external site, because he is based outside Europe. Via eBay itself only the EU or Europe is possible (I'm not entirely sure which of the two right now).
So if your seller is based in Japan, he simply has no options via eBay. And in international shipping it is quite common that you have to provide an email address or a phone number there, both from the shipper, whether sender or not, as well as from the recipient.
If you buy internationally, you also have to expect that something won't go as hoped and that you basically give up your consumer rights when you buy abroad. Since I've been on eBay, I've already lost around a four-digit euro amount because I bought items abroad (DVDs, model trains, game consoles). However, there wasn't buyer protection in its current form back then. Everything still ran through PayPal Buyer Protection, and they only reimbursed you if you could prove the shipping at your own expense and successful delivery to the seller.
Today, in principle, the seller is almost always the one who gets the short end of the stick in international shipping; if they can't provide a return label in time for an item reported as not as described, customer service actually always decides in favor of the buyer and refunds the money, without the buyer having sent the item back first.
And there are also automatisms at eBay, and these include certain words or phrases in feedback, which eBay will definitely delete upon request; these include fraudster, caution, attention, warning, and countless other formulations.
And ultimately I also have to say, not everything that glitters is gold. eBay has its pros and cons. And as an adult I can decide for myself what conclusions I draw from that. I've fallen flat on my face as a buyer here several times, but true to the motto "Fool me once, shame on you! Fool me twice, shame on me!" I get annoyed with myself if something like that happens to me again. Although with the current buyer protection in such cases I have still always gotten my money back, so at least I haven't suffered any financial loss.
Putting aside the cases in which eBay did not reimburse me for VAT and customs duties paid twice — but that is material for another discussion.
trastmi
OP5 months agoHello @katzenjogi,
thanks for the detailed message.
Hindsight is always 20/20. I’m also clear now about the risk of a negative review being deleted, including the arbitrariness that goes with it (after all, not every „avoid!“ gets deleted yet). So be it. In the end, despite a due and justified negative review, there are still unjustified „100% positive“ ratings there - eBay wants to make sales, even if the next person falls into the trap. Then they’d rather pay buyer protection and sweep it under the rug.
However, the unauthorized sharing of personal data with a private seller is an absolute no-go. Especially since the seller had already committed to a partial refund before changing his mind. I’m sure you can provide a return label without pretending to be the buyer. I’ll probably have to bring consumer protection in on this.
And anyway: do eBay really have to rip me off for another 15 EUR with the currency trick? I was expecting an apology, not a lecture over the phone in bad German.
No hard feelings.
trastmi
OP5 months agoJetzt muss ich mich doch noch einmal melden:
Zunächst möchte ich ich einmal positiv hervorheben, dass die Diskussion doch einigermaßen sachlich verläuft, wenn auch, von den scheinbar immer gleichen Ebay-Verstehern hier ;-), teilweise Belehrungen bis hin zu Versuchen einer subtilen Täter-Opfer-Umkehr zu bemerken sind.
Die grundlegende Kritik an der Intransparenz der Abläufen bei unserem bevorzugten (amerikanischen) Auktionshaus ist jedoch berechtigt und es sei einmal dahingestellt, inwieweit diese europäischem Recht (z.B. im Bezug auf die freie Meinungsäußerung) immer entsprechen.
In meinem Fall hatte ich gleich drei solcher fragwürdigen Vorgänge in einer Transaktion:
Die Bewertungsfalle: Die Löschung meiner Verkäuferbewertung erfolgte angeblich aufgrund der Formulierung „möglicherweise betrügerisch“. Die juristische Einordnung ist müßig, da eBay in seinem Bewertungssystem ja das Hausrecht hat, und im Grunde dabei machen kann, was es will. Im Zweifel für den Verkäufer, dessen Werte durch die Löschung von realistischen 93% wieder auf verfälschende 100% gestiegen sind (auf die ich ja beim Kauf reingefallen bin)
Die Währungsfalle: Die Abweichungen zwischen erhaltenem und beworbenem Artikel (in diesem Fall das wertvolle Ziffernblatt einer Armbanduhr) waren so eindeutig, dass der eBay-Käuferschutz sofort gezogen hat und eine Rückgabe anbot. Alternativ bot mir der (deutsche?) Kundendienst (schriftlich!) eine Kulanzzahlung von 100 EUR an. Diese habe ich aufgrund der minderwertigeren, gelieferten Ware und dem bereits erlittenen „Verlust“ an Einfuhrzöllen dann angenommen. Aus den versprochenen 100 EUR wurden letztendlich aber nur ca. 85 EUR mit der Begründung, dass die Transaktion in USD abgewickelt wurde und man deshalb 100 USD zugrundelegen müsse. Sämtliche Reklamationen (schriftlich und telefonisch) waren zwecklos, da der Fall bereits geschlossen war...Klappe zu, Affe tot: Eines Marktführers absolut unwürdig!
Der Identitätsklau: Zwischenzeitlich wollte der private Verkäufer die Rücksendung erzwingen, und zwar am offiziellen eBay-Prozess vorbei. Um ein Rücksendeetikett zu orden, verlangte er nach meiner privaten Email-Adresse, was ich verweigerte. Dann war es aber eBay, die sie ihm, entgegen der Datenschutzrichtleinen, weitergab (Nachricht: „I could finally get your email. (...) Andreas, a kind ebay agent felt sympathetic to me. (…) She gave me your email address...“). Aufgrund dieser unbefugten Weitergabe durch eBay hat er dann ohne meine Zustimmung oder Kenntnis bei einem Parcelservice in London ein Rücksendeetikett mit meinem vollständigen Namen und Adresse gebucht. Er hat sogar unter meinem Namen ein Konto registriert und Nachrichten darüber verschickt.
Wer das nicht glaubt: Es ist alles dokumentiert und ich kann es belegen. Ich wünsche niemandem das Gefühl, gleichermaßen von einem Verkäufer und von eBay, auf deutsch gesagt, besch...n zu werden. Alle, die so lapidar sagen: „So ist es halt, du hast doch eine Erstattung bekommen, ist doch alles gut, was regst du dich so auf, etc.“ machen es sich zu einfach oder haben andere Interessen… Ich jedenfalls, habe meine Meinung über eBay gründlich revidiert und werde von größeren, internationalen Transaktionen über diese Plattform künftig Abstand nehmen.
imperial-modellbau
·5 months agoHello @25.07.1966
if you spent more time on the seller side and got ratings like the ones you like to hand out - then you'd know that what you're writing is pretty much the biggest nonsense I've ever read.
No, let me take that back - I've already read much bigger nonsense here - but it's pretty high up there!
It's actually not that easy as a seller to get a review deleted - even if it contains borderline terms - some colleagues here can confirm that from bitter experience! 🙄
Of course you won't acknowledge that now, because you have your opinion and that's that.
I just wanted to say this to not let your unproven claims just stand there without comment!
bootyooty
·5 months agoTag @trastmi I can only link you to the policy for ebay.de.
https://www.ebay.de/help/policies/feedback-policies/grundsatz-zu-bewertungen?id=4208
What is written on the pages of ebay.com or ebay.co-jp regarding the policies there may differ from ebay.de.
So... we have no idea what constituted the violation now.
oskar_der_wikinger
·5 months agoNo one can tell you why it was deleted @trastmi
but the word "fraudulent" could already be a trigger.
trastmi
OP5 months agoThanks for the quick replies!
I had already suspected something like that. Nevertheless, I wrote "possibly fraudulent" (possibly fraudulent), which I assumed was legally impeccable. "Red flag!" (caution!) refers to the danger of disclosing personal data (Paypal), which the eBay customer service expressly warned me about. I wasn't even given the opportunity to correct critical formulations.
As a consequence, quite helpful feedback for potential buyers about a seller is being suppressed, and their rating profile is being distorted.
voli-maus
·5 months ago@trastmi ,
it doesn't matter whether the word possibly appears before the word fraudulent.
The seller can have such reviews deleted, and that's what he did.
And if a refund via eBay is no longer possible because the case was closed or the time is up, then the seller needs your PP address in order to issue a refund.
trastmi
OP5 months agoThat wasn’t the case. The private seller tried to get around the official eBay process. eBay warned me about it. I then opened a case (item does not match the description), which eBay decided in my favor.
By the way, in a comment on another negative review, the seller in question insulted the buyer as follows: "What a malicious, crook buyer you are!" (What a malicious, fraudulent buyer you are!). That’s still there... double standards?
Incidentally: This seller is now back at 100% positive again!
voli-maus
·5 months agoOh, you could have written that right away, @trastmi .
The buyer can have that deleted.
Conclusion: you got your money back and will avoid this seller.
25.07.1966
·5 months ago@trastmi :
I had exactly the same experience last week. A case was opened that was decided in my favor, and the negative review was deleted by ebay without comment. I created a separate thread about it.
I was also not given any opportunity to revise/rephrase the passages/words that were objected to.
This clause in the basic principles on reviews:
" ..... that could damage the seller's reputation or that of his business .... "
is now being used excessively as a reason for deletion. It is so vague and open to interpretation that almost any negative review can be deleted with it. Of course, that is a contradiction in itself, because negative reviews damage per se the seller's / his business's reputation.
Best regards,
voli-maus
·5 months agoCaution and fraudulent are terms worth deleting, @trastmi .