Hi guys

I have been a regular buyer and seller on ebay for the last few years, and whilst I love (and am addicted) to the site, I feel that there is one major flaw with the whole buyer and seller feedback rating scheme! which I feel I should share with you.

Also before I advise of the problem if you agree with my views please rate my review, because the more people who agree the more it will come to the attention of the big wigs and hopefully some action will be taken to clear this "grey market" up.

The problem I often encounter is that  when i buy an item the 80% of sellers (this figure is not based on hard stats, just experience) will often not leave feedback until you have left yours. The major problem with this is that it leaves you wide open to the all to common problem wherby you can't be completely honest about your transaction in fear that the seller has the attitude of "if you leave me negative feedback, then I will leave negative feedback about you".(which based on my couple of years experience is very common!)

I strongly feel that this is an issue that needs to be adressed by ebay, and whilst I dont pretend to know how to go about solving this issue, but I do have a couple of basic ideas:

Possibly introduce an advanced stats page/link in the "Meet The Seller Section", which could include stats such as this seller left 50% of feedback for buyers, or this seller left  100% feedback  after the buyer left theres.

Another possibility is to possibly place the onus of leaving the feedback on the seller to do this first (possibly once payment has been received?) - Although this is a much more difficult area to enforce, and is full of potential problems, which I can't even start to understand?

Thats my only ideas, as you can see not a lot, but that is why I put this on here, so hopefully it can cause a bit of a debate? Anyone else got any ideas?

Therefore it is my belief that feedback ratings on accounts, whilst mostly give you a good indication as to how good a seller is, the actual figures are easily manipulated, and does not always give a truely accurate reflection of what is going on. Just Imagine if you could see all those feedback that has never been left because of fear of negative feedback (when the only thing the buyer has done wrong is to trade with a "dis"honest seller who doesn't leave feedback until after them - almost like blackmail in a way!?!?!?).

Again I must reiterate that I put this info on ebay because I am a massive fan of ebay and hope it continues to go from strength to strength, and I feel that if we all input this can only get better.