Courier delays and bad feedback

90% of my neg feedback are buyers who have used it to communicate with me about an item not delivered so I feel your pain. Even though TM themselves say to make sure feedback is left after an attempt to first email someone they still allow people to use neg feedback to communicate a delayed item & some people just lack enough awareness how that impacts someone's rating or just flat out don't care. The protection is all with the buyer these days and none for the seller. My latest neg was someone saying an item didnt arrive only to have the courier email me GPS that they were there and still TM wouldnt remove it. My only bad review on my Etsy was someone who said their item didnt arrive and then finally in emails admitted they made a mistake and confused me with someone but they dont know how to delete the review.

I think TM should remove any neg feedback if they cannot prove they emailed first etc. But it will just always be the case of  more protection for the buyer as if they don't do anything wrong (make mistake with address which as also happened etc) But thats not going to happen. Our own safety from this hardly matters.

Once upon a time, there use to be an option for "unfair feedback" but thats long gone now.

David, there is s till a Help page with appropriate links to click regarding unfair feedback.

Feedback policy – Help - Trade Me

It looks like David did that, he said TM said they have a right to say how they felt.

They would not remove mine even when I showed them the item had been delivered and they had not emailed me prior.

I am wrapping up my TM in the next 3-4 months. I work SO hard to give a good customer experience. Nothing ever changes or gets fixed and I am tired of being the punching bag for our terrible delivery system.

Gary, been there done that many times, doesn't help most days.
I can screen shot & fully document the entire process and still get the std "At face value, the member is merely expressing their concerns surrounding the trade"

One of my reds is tame enough but the emails received got to the point where the police went to visit the buyer but Tm still left the red there because strictly speaking it was "At face value, the member is merely expressing their concerns surrounding the trade"

Oh yea and the 45 day bit sucks, some disputes can take longer then a month to sort out and then theres the situation when feedback is changed a few months later (it's over 45 days since first placed) .

Yes there was a change in the feedback policy a few years ago. Well it didn't change as such, just that they no longer will delete any unless it's a strict and obvious breach of the policy. I've had similar with goods that the buyer claimed is faulty. No email Just negative. Offer a refund. Offer a replacement. Even actually refund them. No reply. TM wont change feedback. Because "Buyer may simply not want to engage further about this trade"

The most useful one often is "Feedback must not contain unfactual statements" If your buyer has said SLOW DELIVERY then you are probably stuck with it. If they said something like  BUYER SLOW TO SEND you might be able to get it removed by proving you sent it within agreed timeframes.

At one point, Tm would reword specific feedback to remove swear words etc , but I can see how that may have backfired a few times.

About a decade or so ago I was able to get a couple of bad feedbacks deleted by Trademe. Two separate buyers were upset about the shipping delay. Auction finished on a Wednesday, I sent on Thursday, then it was Easter weekend so they didn't get their packages until the following Wednesday. I was able to prove that I sent it on that particular day, and it still took the advertised 2-3 business days. Not sure if Trademe do that any more which is a shame.