How is the percentage positive feedback calculated?

[crazycanuck79]

Recently had issues with a seller that had 100% feedback.  I looked at his feedback after the issue, and he has several negative reviews from over a year ago, he obviously does not sell regularly on Ebay, but his score was 240 with 100%.  How is the 100% calculated?  I would not have bid on his item if I had seen his substantial negative feedback.  Maybe it's my fault for assuming 100% means 100% and there's no point reading past the first couple pages of feedback?

[femmefan1946]

It's on the past 12 months. Feedback slowly rolls back.

You can see only negative feedback on this site:  http://toolhaus.org/cgi-bin/negs

Another resource is the anonymous Detailed Seller Ratings. Again based on the past 12 months, and only sellers with over 10 recent sales have these showing.

Since the normal Rating is Five, and sellers are restricted if their DSRs drop below 4.3, you can use these as a further indicator of trustworthiness.

Mind you, like feedback, the fewer transactions the seller has had the less useful either feedback or DSRs are because: arithmetic.

One mischief maker can ruin a small-time seller.

Read the feedback for consistent patterns of complaint. If only one person is complaining, check the complainant's FB. Some people don't want to be happy.