You sell, I buy, I pay, you ship. Not, “You sell, I buy, you tell me it’s shipped, I leave feedback, then you ship.”

My friend Wayne buys and sells postage stamps. He gets some of his product on eBay, as do many other collectors. And usually when one does an eBay transaction, the procedure is as such. If you win an action, then you pay for the item. Once the item is purchased and funds are verified by the seller, the seller must then ship the item. Afterwards, once the purchaser receives the item, the purchaser may leave appropriate feedback for the transaction – i.e., was the item packaged well, was it the correct item, did you suddenly notice the pungent smell of tobacco or such in the shipping container, all of that. Then parties go to their next purchases and sales.

The other day, Wayne posted on FB that he received this message from an eBay seller from whom he regularly purchases products. Or, should I say, used to purchase products. That certainly changed after this message.

So … let’s unpack this.

Apparently this eBay seller, whose identity has been obscured because he doesn’t deserve free publicity, is now demanding that if you want to regularly purchase products from him, the customer must immediately leave feedback on the seller’s eBay page from the last transaction, including stating that the item was received.

Say … what??

Basically, the advert is saying, “Hey bro, glad we could do a transaction. But you need to leave some positive feedback, no matter what, if you ever want to buy something from me again.”

Yep. Feedback ransom. I’ve seen it before, and it’s just crass. And it sounds like this guy got burned by a sale gone wrong, or maybe he just had a buyer that took out his frustrations on the seller with some nasty feedback. But now this guy decides, “Hey, I’ll just blame it on eBay’s new policies, and people will sympathize with me and I’ll get my feedback protected from future abuse.”

Or, maybe this guy has some serious problems with shipping, and he’s trying to cover up his prior mistakes – because if someone does check eBay feedback and it’s not 100%, then does the buyer automatically think, “Well, this yonk’s a bad seller because he has dissatisfied customers, I’ll shop somewhere else,” even if that person received ONE negative feedback post in twenty years of eBay action? And that one negative feedback ding occurred … oh … seven years ago?

Yeah, I’ll tell you this. As far as I’m concerned, eBay feedback is just like Yelp reviews. If there’s one bad review in a batch of 100 good reviews, you take that as just an anomaly. If you see a pattern, then you have to take that into consideration when you buy anything from that person in the future.

And if I received a card like this in my shipping parcel, my thought is, “No problem, I won’t bother buying from you again in the future if I have to go through all that emotional feedback manipulation from you. Have a good life.”

Trust me, it’s not like I can’t find somewhere else on eBay for impulsive shopping needs.