Flimsy Sanity: EBay Support: Two approaches to mathematics

Flimsy Sanity

In individuals, insanity is rare; but in groups, parties, nations and epochs, it is the rule. - Friedrich Nietzsche

Tuesday, July 17, 2007

EBay Support: Two approaches to mathematics


This is what I wrote:
I think feedback would be more fair if you carried the rating to a further decimal point. For example, I have had only 1 negative feedback in 950 transactions but I have the same feedback as someone who has almost ten per thousand negative. A 99.99 would be more accurate and much more descriptive than a 99.9. Also, I think letting anyone remove bad feedback for any reason is wrong and defeats the purpose of the whole program. I paid for a couple hive tools over a month ago and still have not received them. The seller has a pretty good feedback but when you check on their negative feedback through Toolhaus, you see they have had several removed - this defeats the whole purpose of the system - to inform the buyer of frauds. Thanks for your consideration of these two matters.

This is their reply:
Thank you for writing eBay in regard to making your feedback 100 percent. I would like to take this opportunity to clarify how the math works with your feedback score. Essentially, we round the feedback percentage to the nearest tenth of a percent. Therefore, if the feedback percentage ends up being 99.95% or greater, then it will round up to 100%. However, the ratio required to maintain a 100% rating is 1999 unique positive comments for each unique negative comment. This would allow you to keep your feedback percentage at 100% in the feedback forum, even though in reality it is 99.95% or greater. It is my pleasure to assist you. Thank you for choosing eBay.

3 Comments:

  • At 4:10 PM, Blogger Nadia A. said…

    I love how they didn't mention anything about letting people remove negative feedback. I think they only addresses one of your two matters. You should resend it again for fun and you will probably see a copy and paste answer again.

    Reading that post brought me back to my days being one of the few American employees writing on behalf of United Airlines customer service, only those complaints were of a flight attendant wearing strong perfume, or salad dressing being watered down, you are way too polite :)

     
  • At 5:19 PM, Blogger Flimsy Sanity said…

    Nadia: I don't think they addressed anything I talked about.

     
  • At 10:26 AM, Blogger Nava said…

    Of course they didn't. They never do - and not only eBay. I gave up on frustration, and am juts enjoying the creativity support people show whenever you send them a plea, and they reply with a nicely phrased Email that says nothing. Quite admirable...

    Love the classic ending
    "It is my pleasure to assist you. Thank you for choosing eBay. "

     

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