Question Author
The important thing is that you leave feedback after you've been paid that's the point and the principle. If someone has paid late (without communication, explanation or apology, see above) then you should feel free to say so on your feedback. Perhaps eBay could introduce a star system, 5 stars for payment within 48 hours, 4 stars for within a week, 3 stars a fortnight, 1 star a month and none after that you'd leave feedback (positive or neutral) saying "Paid thankyou". It's ironic but I've recently bought something on eBay, paid on the button and I've had neither item or feedback or even a response to my e-mails. Further investigation of his history shows that his feedback mirrors yours (you leave neutral he leaves neutral) when you read his 'positive' feedback you see the same problem occurs reguarly, comments like "late delivery", "poor comms", "paid for 1st class arrived 2nd class" and more commonly "arrived eventually" prevail. This is indicative of the problem we're talking about and it makes a mockery of the feedback system, eBay should do something but they won't because it'd be too much like hard work!