BrickLink Discussion Forum

In Suggestions, yorbrick writes:

In Suggestions, Admin_Russell writes:

In Suggestions, SylvainLS writes:

In Suggestions, yorbrick writes:

[…]
Part of the problem is buyers keep buying from sellers with relatively poor feedback,
suggesting (some) buyers don't care.

I think it’s more a “it won’t happen to me” attitude.

Remember HouseOfLogo (and what a real mess it was).

Yes, and it was a huge ordeal to get that store shut down. I have often thought
of establishing some kind of disciplinary board to handle these high profile
cases. But regardless of the mechanism, honest data from users would be a big
help.

If you want honest feedback from buyers, then remove feedback for buyers. That
way, they don't have anything to lose by being honest (not that a buyer's
feedback matters anyway). Buyers getting only positives like at ebay is pointless.
You might as well just use the buyer order count instead, it amounts to the same
thing and saves a seller the time of leaving positive feedback.

It would be nice though to have a buyer score based not on the feedback they
received, but the feedback they left. If a buyer continuously leaves negatives
or neutrals as they feel they have the power to do so with no comeback, then
they are the problem. It should not be anonymous either. If they leave a seller
a negative (or multiple negatives), then the seller should have the right to
ban them from continuing to purchase and continue to leave poor feedback. If
a buyer has a problem with say 1 in every 20 orders, then leaving negative feedback
on that scale is fine. However, if they claim they have negative experiences
in 1 in every 2 orders then I imagine they will get added to many stoplists and
should probably be banned themselves.

I think you have to be careful though, giving lots of power to buyers might actually
reduce standards. If a buyer says they have a problem and is probably going to
leave negative feedback anyway no matter what the seller does, then the seller
has no incentive to put things right. And in a similar way, if negatives become
more common and there is some threshold set then there is less of an incentive
to maintain an excellent record when good enough is still enough to keep selling.

I think there is a better way for you to maintain standards than through feedback
though and that is through NSS claims. Not completed ones, but claims. For example,
if a seller continually fails to deliver but refunds when caught and does this
time and time again, why are they allowed to continue getting away with it? Just
refunding when they get a complaint does not mean they are a good seller.

You could always have another box for buyers to fill in when leaving feedback
- asking did you get everything in your order in the stated condition. If a seller
gets below a certain percentage for those, they should be warned. If they continue
to get very low ratings, then they should be banned. Of course, it should only
count if a buyer fills in this information for all of their orders.

I'd disagree with that assumption, since right now the only negative feedback
I have is as a buyer and I did deserve it I failed in my obligation to the seller.

and as to feedback I have left as both a buyer and seller, they were deserved.
in fact in one case where I was the buyer my feedback along with others helped
to inform the public the seller was a serious problem and even then it took awhile
to get rid of them. https://www.bricklink.com/feedback.asp?viewType=&u=lego_police2

Author:

Rick_S.

Posted:

Jun 24, 2020 11:12

Subject:

Re: Changing rules of feedback

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Topic:

In Suggestions, infinibrix writes:

In Suggestions, Admin_Russell writes:

That, of course, is the real issue. IMO we need an auxiliary buyer feedback system
that is completely anonymous, where the results are amalgamated before presenting
them (privately) to the seller. These results could then be used to weed out
sellers who consistently perform poorly and lower the reputation of the site.

I have always felt that public feedback was not enough to raise the selling standards
of the site. For many BrickLink sellers, their standards are sky-high and represent
their passion for the hobby. For others, they do nothing but dull the effect
of the excellent sellers, cause problems for us in the Help Desk, and in general
apply a lot of pressure on us to implement a heavy-handed "sellers will only
get paid when the buyer is happy" system where BrickLink controls all the money.

The only problems I have with anonymous feedback is that think it may head in
a direction where the feedback left may become even more sinister!
The thing is there are always people out there that look to destroy and ruin
things simply because they can and/or they get a kick out of doing things like
that and similarly there are people who I’m sure would love to put a neutral/negative
against a sellers otherwise flawless feedback simply because they can and have
the power to do so without being bought to task about why they did this?

There may be others that begrudge a seller somewhat simply because they didn’t
agree to discount something when asked? and then you may have other competitor
sellers who may be looking to bring a high performing seller down a few pegs?

From a sellers point of view if I make a right hash of an order or end up
non-intentionally messing the customer around with mistakes, oversights or forgetting
to ship their order and I get a negative then I guess I have to just take that
on the chin but if a buyer leaves what I consider to be unfair negative then
I would at least like to be able to see who has complained and what I have done
wrong so that I can improve or choose to block the buyer if I don’t feel its
justified!

In fact I would also say that perhaps make it common knowledge to everyone using
Bricklink that by choosing to leave a negative for someone you are also choosing
to never deal with that store/person again and so perhaps put in place an auto-blocking
feature?
Presumably if someone leaves a negative they are unhappy with the way a store
performs and in which case for that same person to continue to shop in your store
for a second time would seem a bit sinister to me or am I wrong here?

Either way in some cases I’m sure people will be able to work out who left the
negative feedback anyway based on the feedback comments or the way an email conversations
went beforehand but on the other hand what if a buyer complains and still leaves
positive and yet the seller receives a negative from someone else and wrongly
assumes it’s the buyer who complained meaning you still end up with some retalitory
feedback injustices!

The only way I think this really works is as I’ve mention before with the ebay
style where sellers can’t leave anything but positive feedback for buyers and
buyers can leave whatever they feel appropriate so that the feedback system is
used to help keep all sellers on their toes and performing to high standards.
At the end of the day if there are severe feedback injustices left by buyers
I’m sure they can be reported and removed by admins where appropriate and rather
than rely on sellers feedback to attempt to tackle bad buyers, I’m sure if these
buyers are that that bad it should just be a case of reporting any outrageous
buyer behaviour to the admins so that with enough reported incidents they can
be weeded off the site for good and with it all the feedback they've left
for people!

problem is it is not just bad buyers but bad sellers, my suggestion here was
made because of a seller who left retaliatory feedback for a deserved negative
they had received from a buyer.

Author:

Rick_S.

Posted:

Jun 24, 2020 01:35

Subject:

Re: Changing rules of feedback

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In Suggestions, Admin_Russell writes:

In Suggestions, Rick_S. writes:

I basically told him the same thing, but the core issue is the buyer has no recourse
to get what is obviously retaliatory feedback removed.

which brings into question how can buyers leave honest feedback when they face
the potential of retaliatory feedback that cannot be removed? such a situation
is a threat to what the feedback system is.

Unfortunately such a system would not work well with the seller waiting for money
till buyer receives item, sounds good in theory, but in practice not so well,
one of the things that could be added is like eBay's star system or with
holding feed back till both parties give feedback with neither knowing the other,
then it would be honest feedback from both sides. if neither party is happy then
they can communicate with the other party on getting the feedback removed. which
can only be removed if both parties agree.

Author:

Rick_S.

Posted:

Jun 24, 2020 00:49

Subject:

Re: Changing rules of feedback

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Topic:

In Suggestions, Admin_Russell writes:

In Suggestions, Rick_S. writes:

In Suggestions, Heartbricker writes:

In Suggestions, Rick_S. writes:

As it goes a rule not allowing retaliatory feedback should also be added for
removal of said feedback since as the rules stand retaliatory feedback is allowed:

Feedback you Received:
The following are currently the only valid reasons for which you can request
feedback you received to be removed:
Feedback you received contains vulgar language.
Feedback you received contains personally identifying information including your
name, address, e-mail address or telephone number.
You are the seller and the buyer has not paid. Non-Paying Buyer Alert has been
completed or the buyer has accepted the NPB penalty via NPX.
You are the buyer and the seller has not responded or shipped. Non-Responding
Seller Alert or Non-Shipping Seller Alert has been completed.
Feedback you received was posted by a duplicate account of a user who had their
membership terminated.
Feedback you received was posted by a duplicate account of a user who was on
your Stop List before the order was placed.
If you're requesting feedback to be removed for the last 2 reasons above,
you should contact the Help Desk before you submit the request and let us know
the original username of the duplicate account.
Requests can be submitted until the order is purged from the system - up to 6
months from the order date. Requests are submitted to the BrickLink Administration
for approval. If the feedback is removed, it cannot be reposted. Each request
has a status:

I understand the frustration of getting a retaliatory feedback BUT i don't
support interjecting the BL admins into disputes over feedback.
The BL team has enough to do without this added task which is not a revenue producing
nor a productive use of their time.
Having the admin being a referee between two disputing users may result in one
of those users leaving the site which will not be beneficial for the greater
good.
Retaliatory feedback is easy to spot and usually hurts the image of the user
who left it more than the user who received it.

oh wouldn't be surprised if the seller made it onto a lot of peoples do not
buy from lists since his actions are not those of a good seller. but the whole
reason behind admins and moderators is to moderate between 2 parties, instead
the buyer was forced to file an NSS so as to remove said feedback, do you think
that is better?

An NSS like that will never stand. It is abuse of the system and admin will remove
it immediately upon notice.

Author:

Rick_S.

Posted:

Jun 23, 2020 22:26

Subject:

Re: Report post button

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