Question about clarifying the rules regarding iTrader feedback

brancron

brancron

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Dec 14, 2011
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Section 4.5 of the Exchange Rules reads as follows:

If a deal did not happen, there is no iTrader Feedback to leave. Sorry if you were inconvenienced, but life is full of disappointments. As long as you are not out any items or money, move along. Consider improving the terms of your sales threads / read the sellers terms carefully in order to avoid this before buying.
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(Emphasis added.)

As evidenced by this thread, there is a fair amount of confusion about whether this rule bars a buyer from leaving negative feedback for a seller who never sends the knife, forcing the buyer to resort to filing a PayPal claim to get a refund. In such a situation, there was clearly a "deal," but the buyer isn't out any money at the end of the day because he successfully filed a PayPal claim.

I would submit that in such a situation you should be allowed to leave feedback. If literal scammers can't have negative feedback left against them, it turns the feedback system into a joke. I don't think the rule was ever intended to exclude this sort of feedback, it's just that the language put in bold above creates confusion in this instance.
 
The buyer was out money when he was finished dealing with the seller. He recovered the money by calling the cops.

If a burglar robs your home and you call the cops, who recover the goods and arrest the burgler, does the judge let him go because you got your goods back?

Leave negative iTrader feedback for the bum.
 
Esav Benyamin said:
The buyer was out money when he was finished dealing with the seller. He recovered the money by calling the cops.

If a burglar robs your home and you call the cops, who recover the goods and arrest the burgler, does the judge let him go because you got your goods back?

Leave negative iTrader feedback for the bum.
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I agree, and I can't imagine the rule was written to not allow feedback in such a situation. But at least one moderator (Boru13) reads the rule a different way and has been instructing people that feedback should not be left.
 
brancron said:
I agree, and I can't imagine the rule was written to not allow feedback in such a situation. But at least one moderator (Boru13) reads the rule a different way and has been instructing people that feedback should not be left.
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I've been instructing people that way because that's how the H.P.I.C. instructed me.
 
Boru13 said:
I've been instructing people that way because that's how the H.P.I.C. instructed me.
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That's totally fair, and I'm not trying to cast any blame on you. The way the rule is written makes it easy to come to different interpretations about what is and is not allowed. So I guess I'm just seeking official clarity.
 
brancron said:
That's totally fair, and I'm not trying to cast any blame on you. The way the rule is written makes it easy to come to different interpretations about what is and is not allowed. So I guess I'm just seeking official clarity.
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I agree the way the rule is written it definitely leaves a lot open to interpretation.

I plan on seeing Spark this weekend and I'll see if we can't get more of a definitive answer on what's acceptable and what's not concerning negative feedback.
 
Per our discussion earlier .............I feel it would not only be proper, but would make the FB system a better tool - if the rules for FB allowed the buyer to leave such in situations as above.
It makes no sense whatsoever (to have a seller take a buyers money, not send the item, have to file a PP claim) for the buyer not to be able to leave a negative.
I do like the idea of there being consequences for retaliation (with no real basis) in FB.
 
The way Boru13 interpreted it is the way I have been seeing it interpreted by other moderators. There is a flaw in the rule that is allowing a few to maintain stellar reputations without stellar performance. The thread proves that when the seller brags of having no negatives, yet 3 people in the thread have had some sort of problem with him. Hopefully Spark and others will address this and find a way to improve the rule which at this point leads to the rating system having a very high positive bias. It is not a big problem to me, since I know the system has this bias, but I believe a number of members aren't aware and take the results as gospel.
Thanks for all the administration and moderators do to keep this place running well
 
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Peter Hartwig said:
The way Boru13 interpreted it is the way I have been seeing it interpreted by other moderators. There is a flaw in the rule that is allowing a few to maintain stellar reputations without stellar performance. The thread proves that when the seller brags of having no negatives, yet 3 people in the thread have had some sort of problem with him. Hopefully Spark and others will address this and find a way to improve the rule which at this point leads to the rating system having a very high positive bias. It is not a big problem to me, since I know the system has this bias, but I believe a number of members aren't aware and take the results as gospel.
Thanks for all the administration and moderators do to keep this place running well
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Peter, I agree with your post and revisiting how the rule is worded and it's boundaries is a good idea. However, it's not the only issue that I see.

As the rule in question stands, 2 of the 3 posters in the aforementioned thread were allowed to leave an itrader feedback and chose not to. With the now harsher stance on retaliatory feedback, there should be no apprehension in leaving a neutral or negative feedback that is earned by poor conduct in a transaction. Also, they didn't mention their issues until that thread was posted. I get not wanting to start a thread when there are issues present that do not affect the outcome of a transaction, but if these are not brought to the attention of the other party or the community as a whole, then those with issues wont learn how to correct them and if they happen to persists, the rest of us may get caught up in an unsuspecting crap storm that could have been prevented with a heads up.
 
Just to clarify my original post:
I was aware that 2 of the 3 posters could have left a negative rating, but chose not to(wasn't trying to mislead anyone). It was only the OP that was affected by this rule interpretation. However there are other GBU thread OP's that have also been told they could not leave a negative rating under the same interpretation of the rule.
 
I see where all sides are coming from here, and I want to remove some of the wiggle room for interpretation, so I propose replacing

As long as you are not out any items or money, move along

with

As long as you are not out any items or money hasn't changed hands, move along.

This isn't a blanket justification to start dinging people after 72 hours because you haven't received a tracking number, but if weeks have gone by and you have to file a dispute to get your money back because the seller has disappeared? Negative feedback seems warranted IMHO
 
That gets rid of some wiggle room for sure Kevin.
There was a thread recently about a new guy.....he saw 100% feedback and paid F&F. Turns out the seller had a couple of questionable transactions and neg feedback wasn't warranted under the rules.
This should help!
Joe
 
palonej said:
That gets rid of some wiggle room for sure Kevin.
There was a thread recently about a new guy.....he saw 100% feedback and paid F&F. Turns out the seller had a couple of questionable transactions and neg feedback wasn't warranted under the rules.
This should help!
Joe
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Oh God, not the F&F thing again! Most rational members agree wassup with that and where that leads. Hell, I don't even want to accept funds F&F.

However, back on topic, the difference between murder and attempted murder is only if you die or not. Bran, Esav, Spark, and others got it right. Punishment is still the order of the day in either case!
 
Spark said:
I see where all sides are coming from here, and I want to remove some of the wiggle room for interpretation, so I propose replacing

As long as you are not out any items or money, move along

with

As long as you are not out any items or money hasn't changed hands, move along.

This isn't a blanket justification to start dinging people after 72 hours because you haven't received a tracking number, but if weeks have gone by and you have to file a dispute to get your money back because the seller has disappeared? Negative feedback seems warranted IMHO
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I think this is a great change. Thank you!
 
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