Miphee, I feel that you either don't understand or are being deliberately misleading.
Please see edit below.
I just searched online about "defects" on eBay and found nothing remotely close to:
Miphee wrote on 2020-09-11, 09:24:Defects include everything that made the buyer unhappy. It can literally be anything
What I see is are things like this and this which state:
eBay states that there are three kinds of defect:
1. Transactions canceled by the seller.
2. eBay Money Back Guarantee cases whe […]
Show full quote
eBay states that there are three kinds of defect:
1. Transactions canceled by the seller.
2. eBay Money Back Guarantee cases where eBay decided in favor of the buyer.
3. PayPal Purchase Protection cases where PayPal decided in favor of the buyer.
Sounds like very specific things, and negative feedback is not one of them. And only cases where the parties did not reach an agreement, and eBay/Paypal decided in favor of the buyer.
Miphee wrote on 2020-09-11, 09:24:dr_st wrote on 2020-09-11, 08:55:
Again - how does negative feedback cause a ban?
If the defect rate reaches 3% then the seller gets banned permanently but the seller gets restricted way before that.
Again you are mixing up negative feedback % and defect %. I found nothing that suggests that negative feedback leads to registering defects on the seller's account.
Miphee wrote on 2020-09-11, 09:24:Right now sellers have no rights there and Ebay always sides with the buyers. Just browse through heaps and heaps of complaints from sellers on this issue. They are defenseless against dishonest buyers. (pay special attention to SNAD cases) I'm not making this up and I'm not an Ebay seller either. I just hate injustice.
You are exaggerating. eBay does most of the time side with the buyers by default, and you know what? They are right to do so, and not only because it probably makes them more money. That's because the buyer pays money, and does so upfront, and this money has no smell and no color. Money cannot be "defective" or "significantly not as described". It cannot be broken in transit due to improper packagine.
Sellers have more power than the buyers when the transaction is initiated. They don't have to ship until the buyer's payment cleared. They determine what to send, and how to package it, which service to use, whether to insure it or not, and so on and so forth. It is only fair that eBay and Paypal give more power to the buyer (at least by default) when something goes wrong.
Scummy buyers are a thing, just like scummy sellers. There are more buyers than sellers, though, and a rotten seller can drive away more buyers than a rotten buyer can sellers. At least, this is probably the conclusion that eBay had reached before they decided on their current policies.
Still, whether you are a buyer or a seller, you can significantly reduce the chances of being wronged, by properly communicating, properly documenting, and using the damn services that eBay puts right there for you to use (such as customer resolution center, or feedback dispute / defect rate removal). It will never be 100% but it will help.
Edit: I believe I found some possible cause for the confusion. Negative feedback use to count as a defect, but with the revised policies, it is no longer so. It makes sense that it goes hand in hand with the other policy changes regarding feedback (e.g., seller cannot leave negatives). It seems that eBay simply decided that feedback in itself is not a good parameter to base defect rates on.
Source: https://community.ebay.com/t5/Selling-Q-A/neg … ht/true#M147329
also: https://community.ebay.co.uk/t5/Archive-Selle … ct/td-p/4731871
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