Virtually real- Virtuellement vraie

I shop on E-bay from time to time. I’ve found many things that I could not find elsewhere. I’ve made good deals, located rare and original stuff, found 1960s Kiddles and Flatsy dolls for my mini collection. I enjoy E-bay.

Except for the E-bay terrorist tactics that have developed from certain sellers (many sellers, let’s face it) in order to get perfect feedback. They set up automatic messages to remind you to please leave perfect five-star scores and nothing less, to contact them before leaving anything less than a perfect score, they warn you that giving them anything less than top scoring may hurt their business, they say that they will leave negative feedback on you if you do it to them…and so on.

Hey, E-bay sellers. Nothing in life is perfect. An above average to high score is absolutely great. Buyers have the right to leave realistic scores and I am quite sure that the public is smart enough to know that even if a rating is not 100%, but is close, the seller is a reputable one.

I don’t even pay attention to E-bay scores anymore, I just hope for the best because to me they don’t mean much if the seller has bullied the buyer into leaving a perfect score in order to protect his or her online reputation.

Get real, people. What’s the use of these scoring systems if we can’t be honest and use them to reward good sellers and to help others get their act together and improve their business?