Real-life MMD: Should I change my eBay feedback now the seller's replaced my item?

A question about : Real-life MMD: Should I change my eBay feedback now the seller's replaced my item?

Money Moral Dilemma: Should I change my eBay feedback now the seller's replaced my item?

I bought an item via eBay, but found it was very poor quality when it arrived. Since leaving negative feedback, the seller's offered me a free, more expensive replacement if I change my negative feedback to positive. I feel my comments were valid and serve as a warning to prospective buyers, but the seller is clearly trying to rectify the problem. Should I accept the offer?

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Best answers:

• Whats "suspicious" to me, is that you said the seller is only offering to replace it for free IF you change your feedback. It's supposed to be the other way round, if they had offered a goodwill gesture to me because I wasn't happy, I would maybe edit my feedback. But I wouldn't do it if they are asking you to.
  The whole point of the feedback is that it's supposed to be unbiased, and from the buyer, whatever they think..
• Bribery to alter feedback is against eBay policy. I suggest you report this and move on.
• Wait until you have received the replacement and decide after that. You could add a comment on to say seller replaced your item and you are happy now but leave the original feedback as it is. Definitely do not change anything until you have the offered replacement.
• The feedback system on eBay is solely there to provide buyers with honest reviews on the sellers performance and how they handle each sale. It's about honesty, trust and also warning other consumers of potential problems before they part with their cash. As a buyer you make a decision over whether to choose to shop with that seller or not depending on the rating. If the system is messed up by unscrupulous sellers, the system will fail and people will get ripped off in the process.
  What they're asking you to do is go against eBay policy and is essentially asking you to outright lie on the feedback system - you were unhappy with the way the transaction went, you left honest feedback the first time, end of story really. You don't have to be unpleasant to them, but neither are you obliged to change your feedback simply because they're unhappy that their ratings had lowered. If I was a seller and that worried about my ratings, I'd have made damn sure that the transaction had gone flawlessly in the first place!
  If they wish to make amends for what happened it's a basic seller's responsibility to replace, refund or both (I can dream!) not encourage you to be dishonest and dangle a carrot of 'better' goods in lieu of doing so. That just smacks of something more than a little bit dodgy really. It is trying to bribe you with the 'promise' of a better item on the condition that your feedback is changed - that's not how it works and the bottom line is who's to say you'd even end up with the better item considering the sellers performance and business practices are sub-par to begin with. There is a high chance of you not ending up with the better item or your money back the very second after your feedback is altered.
  I'd personally involve eBay, stick in a PayPal claim for a refund and move on. It's obvious that the seller has no qualms about trying to 'fix' the system in their favour, who's to say they won't pull a bigger scam or fail even more miserably to provide the basic service or item they're offering to somebody else in the future? Reclaim your money and move on.
  ~ B xx
• I would message them saying that I will leave honest positive feedback once the item is received. If it's good quality I would change my feedback to "First item faulty but good quality replacement received". If it's poor quality then I'd write "First item faulty and replacement faulty too"
• I had similar happen to me on the amazon marketplace and spoke with amazon who told me it was against their terms of service.
  Others here have said the same about eBay, so what you ought to do is fairly clear.
  Again, as others have said, changing the feedback defeats the purpose of it...
  But then this is a moral dilemma, so it's not a given that you actually want to do the right thing. I suggest you subtract the price you paid from the value of the potential replacement item. The resulting amount is the price you are considering allowing somebody to "buy you" for. Only you can decide whether:
  1- you have a price and
  2- whether the seller is meeting that price
  As an occasional ebayer, I'm hoping you don't accept the offer and that you report the seller.
• Did you email the seller before leaving negative feedback? If not then the feedback is likely to be the first the seller knew that there was a problem. If this is the case then offering to replace the item for free sounds a fair and reasonable resolution. In that case updating the feedback to reflect the good customer service received sounds like a reasonable request to me (assuming of course that the replacement received is satisfactory!).
  If you contacted them first and they refused to help until you left the feedback then that's a different story. Otherwise damaging their reputation without giving them a chance to resolve the issue first is unfair.
• If the seller has immediately taken steps to fix the issue, and has professionally and courteously resolved the problem, yes, change your feedback. After all, sometimes, it's not about what a seller is like when everything goes right, but what they're like when something goes wrong.
• Did you contact the seller about the original goods before you added the feedback? Did you give them an opportunity to put things right first? If you did and they failed to put things right,then you are quite right to leave negative feedback. If they then contacted you again,offering to put things right if you change the feedback, that is clearly poor customer service and an attempt to bribe you into giving a positive review. Report them to eBay.
  Having been both a buyer and a seller on eBay I know it can be a tricky situation . I was once given negative Feedback because I 'overcharged' postage,by 30p !! Given that the item in question was a brand new,unwrapped item that the person was getting at an absolute snip, Ј5 instead of proper price of around Ј50, I thought that was incredibly petty. However,I wouldn't have offered her the 30p back just to get her to change the feedack!
• Wow, I've just read other people's responses after I'd posted mine, most of which don't appear to accept that occasionally things can go wrong, often for reasons completely out of the hands of the seller.
  Here's a little perspective from a person who has been a full time eBay seller for several years. I go to extraordinary lengths to give the highest levels of outstanding customer service (I'm the highest level "Top Rated Seller", Powerseller, etc. and by bending over backwards I typically manage to keep my feedback rating at 99.8 or more, based on about 12,000 feedbacks a year, that's about 20 negative feedbacks a year). But still some people cannot be satisfied.
  Ebay is a hostile environment for sellers. Most buyers are great; understanding, reasonable and flexible. However, a significant minority of buyers think they can use the threat of negative feedback to the point of extortion. Unfortunately, the default position of some buyers is that all sellers are out to rip them off. In my experience, this is the complete opposite of the truth. The level of customer service a business seller must provide on eBay is way higher than the level you'd ever dream of in a shop.
  Occasionally, things go wrong (delays or damage in the post, the item is faulty even though on visual inspection at dispatch it looked fine, a different level of quality compared to the customer's - sometimes unreasonable - expectations. Etc.)
  The first time a seller becomes aware of a problem is often when the buyer posts negative feedback, without giving the seller a chance of resolving the issue. If the buyer bought the item in a shop they'd return to the shop and resolve it there. They'd not immediately post a damning press release and start a campaign of civil disobedience(!), but some people hit their default "scam" button without a seller even knowing there's a problem.
  So what is a seller to do? Try to restore their reputation, that's what they do. They say "I'll fix the problem for you, if you fairly give me the chance to."
  There's a world of difference between giving good post-sales customer service and "bribing" someone to retract negative feedback. Asking someone to remove negative feedback once the seller has had a chance to fix the problem is fair and reasonable, and just good business practice.
  Even eBay know that in many instances it is right to rescind negative feedback, that's one of the reasons why they've got the facility to do it.
• "Having been both a buyer and a seller on eBay I know it can be a tricky situation . I was once given negative Feedback because I 'overcharged' postage,by 30p !! Given that the item in question was a brand new,unwrapped item that the person was getting at an absolute snip, Ј5 instead of proper price of around Ј50, I thought that was incredibly petty!"
  Sorry can't quote properly on here. It's things like this that make me less and less keen to use eBay. It's PACKAGE AND postage cost. Who's to say you don't live miles from a post office and used 30p of fuel to get there... I was given neutral feedback for an item being 'too snug', was a known brand, size 'medium' - I made no claim as to it's size other than a photo of the sizing label. I was tempted to respond that it's the perfect size and they are too fat but I (just about) held my tongue.
  As for the dilemma I would agree but change the feedback as other have suggested to 'poor quality item but seller resolved issue and new item good' or something like that. I'd let the seller know that was my plan in advance. xx
• You need to take the following things into account:
  1. Whether or not you contacted the seller to tell them you were unhappy with the product and whether they tried to resolve the situation before you left your negative feedback.
  2. What the problem actually is. Was there clearly something wrong with it meaning it should never have been sent to you, or is it a matter of opinion as to whether the quality is satisfactory?
  3. How quickly the replacement reaches you and whether it is satisfactory when it does.
  If the quality of the product is as bad as you imply, I would keep the negative feedback on there as a warning to others (because it should never have been sent out in the first place), but assuming you are satisfied with the replacement I would then edit it/add feedback to that end because they corrected the problem.
• I very much sympathise with the seller here, on the info given. I endorse all that pennypinchuk says. I have more or less given up selling on EBay because of bad experiences with a few buyers. Only a few, but boy is it true that some people take the attitude that the world is out to get them and give no quarter whatsoever. I've had the 'you overcharged me for postage', because I weighed the item at home, gave them the exact postage to pay me and then found it just made it into the lower weight category at the PO. The difference was 11p and the buyer complained. I sent a cheque for the 11p. I sold a pair of chiffon evening trousers with a tiny, neatly mended tear in the hem, mentioned it in the description, they got them for under Ј5 instead of Ј50, they left neg feedback. You bust a gut to keep these people happy and get nothing but moans and complaints and neg feedback. If the seller is genuinely trying to put right the situation and has suggested that perhaps you might consider amending the feedback if the replacement pleases you, I'd do the decent thing. Or as someone above suggested, say the original wasn't up to scratch but the seller worked hard to sort things out and you ended up happy.
• Yeah change it for a replacement. Bribery works!
  What you consider rubbish might be a-ok for others.
• A quality issue is different to an item being faulty. I have had a couple of quality issues and in each case resolved ok - once photos have been uploaded to the ebay resolution centre. In each case I chose not to leave feedback, mostly to give seller the benefit of the doubt.
  The downside is, if you leave feedback mentioning how pleased you are with a replacement you will encourage other buyers to press for the same. Because of this, I would agree to retract negative feedback and just leave it at that.
  As an aside, I don't leave random phrases for feedback. I says it's excellent, or I don't say anything. And the same approach for buyers, so they can see what I expect.