Negotiating shipping, again.

Update 14 July: this seems to be being revisited by ebay.

This is a very confusing topic, perhaps because the way it works is a bit counter-intuitive.

Buyer is allowed to negotiate shipping after the sale, using the threat of negative feedback to leverage a lower shipping charge. Period, end of story.

Any doubt, click this link to ebay's help page:
http://pages.ebay.com/help/policies/feedback-extortion.html

Observe in particular:

Examples that aren't Feedback extortion

*

A buyer says he or she will leave negative Feedback or low detailed seller ratings (DSRs) unless the seller accepts a return and pays for return shipping.
*

A buyer says he or she will leave negative Feedback or DSRs unless the seller gives a full or partial refund for an item.
*

A buyer feels the shipping costs are too high and says he or she will leave negative Feedback or DSRs unless the seller lowers the shipping costs.
*

A buyer pays for an item and waits several weeks for it to arrive. The buyer tells the seller that if the item doesn't arrive by a certain date, he or she will leave negative Feedback or low detailed seller ratings (DSRs).
*

A buyer receives an item and decides the item is significantly not as it was described in the original listing. The buyer tells the seller he or she will leave negative Feedback unless the seller allows it to be returned for a refund.

Historic bad sellers

A record of historic bad sellers who met justice when the era of feedback intimidation ended, 20 May 2008.


frogswamp was a self-proclaimed ebay employee who was running either a drop ship or an order&forward operation, selling movies and music. Either way, inventory control was lax, and frogswamp was chronically non-performing.
http://toolhaus.org/cgi-bin/negs?User=frogswamp&Dirn=Received+by&ref=home

bboykorea382 was a Hong Kong seller with serious issues. Toolhaus has problems getting all the data, but this guy did 541 MWs in one year (May 2007 ->May 2008). Here's the summary:
365 Negative
232 Neutral
543 Withdrawn (2 removed by eBay)
1138 Total

http://toolhaus.org/cgi-bin/negs?User=bboykorea382&Dirn=Received+by&Many=ON

bargainland was your basic crud seller. Not an out and out crook, but a seller who sold stuff carelessly and would not fix things when it went wrong. Basically believed that a low price should cover the chance that the stuff wouldn't work at all. Classically advised in the listing that buyers who expected good service should buy from a seller with higher prices. bargainland left voluntarily once ebay put in DSRs, which he knew was going to doom him.
Here's a summary of the final six months:
TRUNCATED: Time limit
5395 Negative
6768 Neutral
164 Withdrawn (0 removed by eBay)
12327 Total
http://toolhaus.org/cgi-bin/negs?User=bargainland&Dirn=Received+by&Many=ON

cellz4less was selling returned cell phones. He was careless in inventory control, and obviously didn't test anything. Just shipped it out and picked up the pieces. Lots were broken. A massive abuser of mutual withdrawal, he would return neg for neg, and then do withdrawal.
1 year summary:
TRUNCATED: Time limit
308 Negative
349 Neutral
1655 Withdrawn (1 removed by eBay)
Basically, this seller was able to convert 2000 OTPs into 400 OTPs + 1600 MWs, in the year leading up to the feedback changes which eliminated MW.
Two years (back to 16 June 2006):
TRUNCATED: Time limit
488 Negative
1151 Neutral
2437 Withdrawn (1 removed by eBay)
4075 Total
http://toolhaus.org/cgi-bin/negs?User=cellz4less&Dirn=Received+by&Many=ON