Worthless?... IMO no. Accurate?... probably not.
I have about 400 transactions on Half/Ebay - 250 as a seller, 150 as a buyer, none negative (knock wood).
There's a lot of incentive to leave positive feedback that drums up the high positive numbers - hopes of that being reciprocated is a big one. I would say I get a good chunk of my feedback a day after I leave it for someone else. There are certainly bad sellers, and bad/cheap products. Than again, you can usually spot them quickly, and when stuff is selling for 1/2 or 1/4 or what I would go pay at Walmart, I figure I'm getting what I paid for. For me, even if I have a problem with a seller, if they fix it they get good feedback from me.
I've had a couple of issues and had buyers that came back with issues for me as the seller, but I would say no more or less than I've had on Amazon, or stores like Home Depot, Walmart, Target, etc. (return policies, I must have broken something, you have to take a problem up with the manufacturer, etc.)
In addition, I know a lot of people have complaints about Paypal but IMO it gives the buyer a huge upper hand/guarantee on ebay, all a buyer needs to do is complain and the seller is likely out of luck. Even if not, # of cases open and such is a good enough threat to a lot of sellers to get them to do what you want.
I have about 400 transactions on Half/Ebay - 250 as a seller, 150 as a buyer, none negative (knock wood).
There's a lot of incentive to leave positive feedback that drums up the high positive numbers - hopes of that being reciprocated is a big one. I would say I get a good chunk of my feedback a day after I leave it for someone else. There are certainly bad sellers, and bad/cheap products. Than again, you can usually spot them quickly, and when stuff is selling for 1/2 or 1/4 or what I would go pay at Walmart, I figure I'm getting what I paid for. For me, even if I have a problem with a seller, if they fix it they get good feedback from me.
I've had a couple of issues and had buyers that came back with issues for me as the seller, but I would say no more or less than I've had on Amazon, or stores like Home Depot, Walmart, Target, etc. (return policies, I must have broken something, you have to take a problem up with the manufacturer, etc.)
In addition, I know a lot of people have complaints about Paypal but IMO it gives the buyer a huge upper hand/guarantee on ebay, all a buyer needs to do is complain and the seller is likely out of luck. Even if not, # of cases open and such is a good enough threat to a lot of sellers to get them to do what you want.
