Thoughts

I made a purchase on ebay relatively recently. Since the purchase I have received multiple e-mails from the seller reiterating the fact that I should not forget to leave feedback if I was satisfied with our transaction and he will leave me feedback in turn.

The e-mails began showing up in my inbox reminding me to leave feedback before I received the item that I purchased. Correct me if I am wrong, but my end of the transaction was complete. Why do I then have to wait for feedback? As I only bid on auctions that accept payments from one of the online payment companies, my payment was made within a few hours of auction end. I do this to facilitate the easiest of transactions and so as to receive my purchased item(s) sooner as opposed to later. This has to be ideal from the seller's standpoint.

Sure it is nice as a buyer to have positive feedback left to assure future potential sellers that you are a serious bidder. Is it critical? No. Is it nice? Yes. The feedback ultimately helps the seller more than the buyer; I think that is an accurate statement. What bothers me about this whole thing is the fact that this particular seller is telling me that any feedback left for me, whatever it says, should be read as "Buyer leaves feedback" and not "Buyer pays in a timely fashion and causes no problems".

I think you are all able to deduce from this story that I have not left this guy feedback nor will I. Rationalize that my stance is one developed out of spite if you like; you will most likely be correct. This is not even the first time I have received communication from a seller that essentially told me this same thing, but never with the frequency of this seller. That guy didn't get feedback either.