Looking at my feedback right now (my ebay username, oddly enough, is trinalin) I’ve noticed that my Feedback Score (59) is exactly half of my total positive feedback (118). No, I don’t go accumulating loads of negative feedback (for shame!) Actually, it’s indicative of how many frickin’ Sylvester McCoy photos I now own. Most of the duplicate positives are from the same seller, who sells Doctor Who photos on occasion. And I’ve bought a fair few number of Sylv pix from this guy.

I have recently successfully purchased two non-Sylv items from ebay. One seller was great at giving feedback. (Like a number of sellers, however, he doesn’t give feedback until given feedback in return – a policy I sort of understand but still don’t like much.) The other seller, with a rating over 12,000, rarely seems to give feedback. (We’ll call him Mr. Stingy for now.) And it’s sellers like him that really annoy me. My own rating would be at least up to 75 by now if it hadn’t been for lame-ass sellers who didn’t give me feedback even after I’d given some to them.

But I did get feedback from Mr. Stingy in this circumstance. He’d sent an e-mail after shipping my product and mentioned how he’d get my feedback up once he did his “update.” And if it had been a week without the feedback arriving, I should send him an e-mail. Well, when the item arrived today, I wrote a very polite e-mail thanking him for the smooth auction and stated that I will be happy to give positive feedback once he did his update. By golly, he had done an update before I got back from work! (I wrote the e-mail while home for lunch.) And I’m one of the few folks who’ve been given positive feedback in his recent sales. Pretty selective update, if you ask me. (judiang got something from this seller too and I’ve given her the same advice that I followed, so hopefully she’ll get some feedback from this guy as well.)

You know, if you’re going to be an ebay business, you should follow the ebay custom. Give feedback to your customers. Don’t leave ’em hanging. Yeah, I’m still a bit sore that I’ve been screwed out of positive feedback on a few occasions, but one of the people who recently ordered from Mr. Stingy has 0 feedback so far. Poor buyer! New ebayer buyers probably don’t think to hold feedback for ransom – heck, I certainly didn’t when I began. But they should – they should insist upon getting some feedback.

So for those of you who ebay – if you’re selling, don’t be stingy with the feedback! And if you’re buying, don’t be afraid to insist upon it! Good luck with all of your online auctions and caveat emptor!