Got a free Fiver from ebay shock horror !

Post by **Orkney** » Mon Mar 10, 2008 10:55 am

Check your ebay email accounts everyone - they are randomly giving away money vouchers

Know someone else who got a £10 one this morning too !

Strange thing is that only got the free fiver on my buying account not the selling one - still never look a gift horse in the mouth - reckon I'll have to buy some mig wire with it

Post by **mrbenn** » Mon Mar 10, 2008 11:44 am

Sweet isn't it, I got £7.50 the other day. Lasted about 20 seconds before it was history

Post by **alex_holden** » Mon Mar 10, 2008 11:54 am

Nothing here. I wonder if it's only for people who haven't bought much recently, to encourage them to come back?

Post by **Orkney** » Mon Mar 10, 2008 12:02 pm

think its just pot luck Alex, i use that account to buy maybe one thing a month. Seems from what people are saying on the powerseller board its completely random.
Trouble is have to spend £10 to redeem the £5 and right now any spare pennies are going towards cement for the garage floor

Post by **MoggyTech** » Mon Mar 10, 2008 1:05 pm

They are trying to bolster their market position, due to some very bad press recently.

Post by **mrbenn** » Mon Mar 10, 2008 1:17 pm

Odd. I have 630 odd feedback, use the account to sell and buy in bursts though have done a fair bit recently. My £7.50 coupon had no minimum spend, indeed very few restrictions at all.

Post by **Orkney** » Mon Mar 10, 2008 1:48 pm

gave up trying to figure the logic of ebay long ago, hence stopped having a shop on there now and just sell for beer money.
Main account has 9000 + feedback and theyve never given that anything except fee increases, lessening visibility and drying out sales.
Frankly i hope there's some truth in the rumours that google might be doing an auction site in the future.
A lot of sellers seem to be leaving in droves and that includes quite % of some of the big and established ones.

Lot of people are expecting meltdown when the latest feedback changes come in, automatic + to be given at point of payment.
Ive always done that from day one and only ever got 2 mistaken neutrals and one where the buyer obviousy didnt read teh description at all. What worries most sellers is that it wont be a level playing field anymore. I.E. the buyer can be as negative as they like in feedback without fear of retaliation.
On the whole i reckon its quite a good thing, btu some sellers are not happy with it at all. Hopefully it'll make them pull thier socks up a bit

Post by **tickman** » Mon Mar 10, 2008 1:48 pm

Orkney wrote:think its just pot luck Alex, i use that account to buy maybe one thing a month. Seems from what people are saying on the powerseller board its completely random.
Trouble is have to spend £10 to redeem the £5 and right now any spare pennies are going towards cement for the garage floor

If you feel you cannot use it then I will gladly use it for you

A friend go a £10 voucher not long ago and I have never received anything

ever

Post by **dunketh** » Mon Mar 10, 2008 3:36 pm

A mate of mine was sent 'Ebay' Christmas tree lights.

I'd much prefer they lowered their fees or provided more of a service though, instead of resulting to short-term limited gimmicks.

Post by **NZJLY** » Tue Mar 11, 2008 4:59 am

Orkney wrote: right now any spare pennies are going towards cement for the garage floor

I hope it is not where Dunkeths wife is going to bury him after she reads his comment

http://www.mmoc.org.uk/index.php?name=P ... ic&t=19291

Post by **rayofleamington** » Fri Mar 14, 2008 11:42 am

I got an email from them promising a nice surprise... didn't read it yet as I thought it was a gimmik!

Post by **Matt** » Fri Mar 14, 2008 6:23 pm

I got that email and ignored it... however they sent me £10

Post by **Furrtiv** » Sat Mar 15, 2008 10:14 am

I don't sell much on there lately, as I'm against the changes in the feedback system - for me, a transaction isn't complete until the buyer has received their item and is happy with it, will not give feedback of any sort until I know this. Now I only sell small, cheap items, I'd rather car boot the rest as it's less trouble to flog my unwanted stuff at the local car boot sale than on eBay!

Post by **Orkney** » Sat Mar 15, 2008 10:43 am

Crickey Furrtiv !
Thats a very debatable subject.
I was @ gold powerseller level for 4-5 months last year (on qty sold not turnover so you can imagine A LOT of small value sales) , always leaving feedback on payment. with 3 exceptions in almost 10k FB it never gave me a problem.
When i use it as a buyer i wont ever leave FB unless i get it first - i've paid & the rest is up to the seller.
Yes as a seller would be differnt if had been selling a different product, fortunately i wasn't in the selling tat to pikey's & chavs, no way would have had it on auto if that was the case.

What i have noticed from buyer & seller point of view though (and maybe its teh reasoning behind the changes) is that as a buyer you get a lot of confidence when your left FB for your payment, with what i sold it certainly helped bring repeat business.
When the buyer gets their + they gain an air of confidence that ok that seller can give me a retalitory if i complain (thus lessening the merit of FB although making it no longer a level playing field).
The star system certainly made a lot of people have to buck up thier ideas as sellers, that alone drove many away because they could not provide a decent service.

The changes would make me more confident as a buyer - but as usual it makes it yet worse for the majority of sellers.
Alas ebay perpetually make a rod for thier own back and seems they are doing everything possible to drive the good sellers away.

Keep an eye on t powerseller board and recently it made me grin when one of if not the biggest dvd sellers in the UK (this seller used to spend all day every day on there bragging about how he'd negged someone, destroyed thier 100% FB etc, mostly for no substantiated reason) is pulling the plug on there over the changes (under the guise of some other reason).
Major toys ut of pram session if ever there was one but will ebay be a better place for the seller leaving? - yes it will.

Anyway not picking a fight Furrtiv just really interesting to speak about it outside the realms of ebay

Also interested to see what others feel about feedback

Post by **mrbenn** » Sat Mar 15, 2008 1:29 pm

Can't say I think the new changes to the feedback are all good

I do like the idea that multiple deals with the same user(s) will count towards feedback, rather than only deals with "unique" eBayers count currently. If I find someone good then I will remember and use them again if the need arises.

Another new idea - from May sellers will not be able to leave negative or neutral for buyers. What? Why?!
I always used to leave feedback for people as soon as they had paid me for goods. As far as I was concerned they had done their "bit".
Then I got a negative which was absolutely unfair (later removed) and a neutral. The neutral was because an item had been damaged in the post. The picture clearly showed no damage to the item, so proof that it happened in transit.
The buyer made no attempt to contact me despite me telling every single buyer:

...."please let me know of any problems as soon as possible and I will do my best to help". I would have refunded immediately and taken the damage up with the PO.

I duly gave him neutral feedback on grounds of poor communication, but I didn't feel great about it

Now I will only leave feedback on receipt of feedback for goods sold. When buying I am happy to leave feedback first.

I'll get off my soap box now

Post by **Furrtiv** » Sun Mar 16, 2008 12:30 am

Exactly! To me, no transaction is complete without knowing that the buyer is happy with their goods, or has even received them - the new rules also make a bit of a joke out of the fact that feedback is voluntary, as now nobody will trust any seller who doesn't immediately leave feedback upon being paid. But what if the payment is fraudulent? What if the buyer makes a wrongful claim with regards to damage or condition of the item? Sorry, it's all just too risky for me when I'm only selling bric-a-brac and low-value items, it's simply not worth the effort and the blooming triple fees (insertion, FVF and PayPal charges).
If I'm in a shop and buy something, I don't consider the transaction complete upon handing over payment; it's complete when I've received both the item and the receipt, and sometimes, in the case of things like DVDs especially, not complete until I get it home and have thoroughly checked it. If a transaction in a shop was over the second you handed over payment, you'd never be able to take anything faulty back, is the way I see it. I see eBay as no different.