The Vintage Reader

I got a nice friendly email from an eBay seller today. Here's what it said:

"If you would like to exchange postive feedback, please enter yours and then I will do the same."

Um, no. That's not the way feedback works. Here's how feedback works: I'm the buyer. My ENTIRE responsibility in this transaction is to pay for the item. In this case, I did so via PayPal within a few hours. If I have fulfilled this responsibility, then the seller should give me positive feedback.

You are the seller. Your responsibility is to package the item in a way that ensures its undamaged delivery to my address and send it out in a timely fashion. If you do that, I will give you positive feedback.

Feedback is an indication of how well each participant in a transaction fulfilled those responsibilities, not a carrot for the seller to dangle in front of a buyer's nose.

This isn't the first email I've gotten from a seller who offers positive feedback on the condition that I leave positive feedback first. I'm sure it won't be the last. But as it has been before, this WILL be the last time I purchase anything from this particular seller.