leaving a review for an item not purchased?

[bat119]

I noticed reviews left for products for a seller were all made by the same buyer after I reviewed the buyers feedback they never purchased any of the products. The buyer has left 44 reviews mostly for the same seller and his feedback indicates they have only bought 6 items none from the seller reviewed.

This doesn't give much faith in the review system .

[mcrlmn · Accepted solution]

The reviews you may find at the bottom of your listings or others aren't necessarily referencing those exact items.
Generic and misleading, all of the many reviews I've seen at the bottom of my own listings are from people I've never heard of, never sold to, and often for an item I've never sold previously.
I just ignore them.

[femmefan1946]

Further, only about 40% of transactions get any feedback at all.

It's my suspicion that most of that FB is left by sellers as a thank you to buyers. The equivalent of the supermarket cashier's "Have a nice day!"

The best use of FB is reading the FB Left for Others as a guide to the personality of the member.

With sellers, look for a pattern of FB that mentions low quality, poor communication, and slow/no delivery.

Multiple reviews by a single person of a single product are up there with multiple exclamation marks.  Terry Pratchett often wrote about that.