Research on reputation systems has mainly focused on the trust building function of reputation systems. The present research looks also at the trust rebuilding function of reputation systems, more specifically, the role of the short text comments given in reaction to a negative feedback. Online markets are noisy environments; rebuilding trust is therefore often necessary. Research suggests that a seller’s outstanding benevolence or credibility increase the price premium whereas comments that provide evidence for abysmal benevolence or credibility diminish it (Pavlou & Dimoka, 2006). However, it is unclear whether not only the buyer's text comments but also the reactions of the seller on the comments of the buyer affect the subsequent perceived trustworthiness of the seller. This paper analyzes whether sellers´ reactions have the potential to re-build the trust between business partners. It is going to answer the following questions: Do different types of trust violations have more or less detrimental effects on trust? Do reactions of sellers have any trust re-building effects? Which types of sellers' reactions are more effective in re-building trust? We make a distinction between morality-based and competence-based violation of trust and between two types of reactions that a seller can display, namely an apology or denial of the trust violation (Kim, Ferrin, Cooper, & Dirks, 2004).

We conducted two experimental field studies among 1,141 active eBay users in the Netherlands, using a random sample (response rate: 44.3%) of members of a large Dutch commercial ‘opt in’ access panel. The results show that the text comments accompanying negative feedback indeed influence trustworthiness judgments. It also makes a difference whether a trust violation is perceived as competence-based or morality-based. Moreover, plain apologies were observed to be more successful in repairing trust than denials. The effects were mediated by perceived believability of the comments. Thus, to avoid the detrimental effects of noise on trust, operators of online market places should encourage text feedback comments and reactions. Contrary to what has been reported in the literature, we consistently find that denial in case of morality-based violations of trust is not trust re-building. The implications for further research on re-building trust on the internet are discussed.