The thing is, eBay's feedback system has changed over the years. I first registered on eBay (only as a buyer) about a decade ago, and I've been an active selle

The thing is, eBay's feedback system has changed over the years. I first registered on eBay (only as a buyer) about a decade ago, and I've been an active seller on eBay's properties (DeRemate.com and MercadoLibre.com) for a long time. Negative feedback used to be very common and appropriate in cases such as this one, sellers on MercadoLibre get negative feedback a lot. eBay's official guidelines (just checked) for leaving feedback are just: "Share honest Feedback to help members buy and sell with confidence. Give sellers detailed ratings to let them know where they're doing a great job, and where there's still room for improvement" and on the link to the help page: "Before leaving neutral or negative Feedback, contact your trading partner to try to resolve any issues." http://pages.ebay.com/help/feedback/contextual/feedback-tips.html http://pages.ebay.com/help/feedback/contextual/feedback-tips... it doesn't say "leaving negative feedback will destroy the seller" or "Negative feedback should be reserved for very rare situations. Additionally, negative feedback should be left only after you have tried desperately to resolve the situation with the buyer or seller in question. " which is what one user-created (by a seller) help page says http://www.ebay.com/gds/Some-Guidelines-To-Follow-For-Leaving-Feedback-On-Ebay/10000000002756172/g.html http://www.ebay.com/gds/Some-Guidelines-To-Follow-For-Leavin... Maybe eBay should guide users better, or get better grading tools. I haven't left negative feedback in a long time (just checked, the last four years I've only left positives), because my transactions all went smoothly (props to eBay and their sellers). Edit: the buyer definitely didn't even attempt the first step (contacting the seller). I would have. They acted too fast (maybe in anger or something, they had a bad day, who knows).