Spruiking Consumer Protection with eBay

Another inspired comment from my friend Australian Seller Kevin T, too good to leave in the comment section for Friday the 13th


"eBay believes the consumer benefits of this initiative are worth fighting for on behalf of its buyers which will ultimately benefit sellers."

Yes, I believe that those are the same buyers that Simon Smith basically said were too ignorant to make informed decisions about payments, or "The issue is people don't make an informed choice." to be precise.

You have to love the structure of that top sentence though, sellers are truly an afterthought, they are not the ones that are considered worthy of "consumer benefits", even though they are the consumers of Ebay's services, and pay their fees. In fact if you return to the APC article covering the first Melbourne meeting you will see that Simon Smith states "We're not allowing people to offer unsafe choices, just like in this democracy you can't go out and buy heroin on the streets.", while the team admitted that the serious flaws in offering PayPal on Pick-up-only items leave sellers very vulnerable, "It is something we are looking at -- I agree, it's an anomaly." Six weeks later, they are still forcing unsafe choices on sellers, and spruiking consumer protection for buyers.

**Henrietta says: Its hard to 'look at' something when you only have three functioning brain cells, you need one to just keep breathing.**

This "anomaly" is not new - it has been a problem at least since the beginning of 2007 when new members were required to offer PayPal on all listings - including pick-up-only items, and some have been burned.

However this week, with the introduction of the Discouraging and Misleading Payments Policy in the UK, that stalwart for punishing members whose listings are only "within the letter of the policy", Richard Ambrose, is quoted from the UK Power Seller board:

"The position on collection only is the same - PayPal has to be offered on all listings, and sellers can’t discourage buyers from accepting it. We’re aware that this creates a risk of sellers not being protected from chargebacks after in-person collections. We are considering how to protect sellers there, though it may require some major changes to the PayPal seller protection programme that wouldn’t be quick to bring in."

Well, obviously since it is already 18 months since the problem became apparent, it won't be quick to bring in, will it? But being at risk from PayPal payments is different to being at risk from other forms of payments - Ebay doesn't make a profit on other forms of payment!

Kevin the Cynical


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eBay Strike or Split?

The boycott is well into its sixth week and sellers are falling like ninepins as eBay fails to follow through on their promises to remove feedback from Non Paying Bidders (NPB) and other malicious feedback practices. The ninepin analogy is particularly appropriate as troll buyers add seller after seller to the ranks of STRIKE!

Last week in the UK a NPB left 106 neutrals and negatives for sellers in a single day. I emailed one of those sellers who told me that although the feedback had been removed and the buyer NARUed he had not been credited for the fees. We are not talking small change here, he got hit on 40 items.

Tamebay had an article with 165 comments two weeks ago covering the initial effects of this policy in the UK. Well worth the read, down to the last comment (if you can bear to). This is a response from an eBay rep.

No.24 Richard (from eBay) on May 29th, 2008 11:58 am

Morning everyone,

The individual cases that are brought to the boards are, by definition, edge-cases (or ‘dolphins’, whichever phrase is most useful). If you only look at them, you might well conclude that the system is unfair (though there are a fair few on the boards that haven’t stood up to friendly scrutiny from other posters).

We are looking at the bigger picture - the vast majority of sellers being restricted by these new SNP rules richly deserve to be, and we’re removing more poor sellers from the site than ever before. The site overall will benefit from that, even it’s painful in the short term. There are also thousands of other sellers who are sharpening up their selling practices and customer service in response to avoid the risk of sanctions. This picture is largely invisible if you don’t have access to data from the entire site and the entire SNP programme, so I can understand the unease about individual seller cases.

All that said, we are learning from the ‘edge-cases’ and will evolve the system where it makes sense to.

Regards
Richard

No.66 ...it isn’t possible to be suspended for a single negative. The new programme may be harsh, but it’s not that harsh.

In Australia the situation is deteriorating rapidly as eBay prepares to enforce the PayPal only rule. Forum threads are being pulled almost as fast as they are put up. I am now copying and pasting to read at leisure because if I do not the thread poufs halfway through!

This seller received a 30 day suspension for one negative and one neutral from the same buyer over $15 worth of vintage jewelry.

We received an email telling us we were restricted but nothing else....it seems we are on a limit ( not sure what) due to the 1 neg we received from a non paying bidder. We are over the 5% dissatisfaction rate in 30 days allowed by Ebay.

Note the word seems. This seller is guessing at the reason for their restriction as there is no mention of it in their restriction letter nor does it tell them what the restriction is. Another seller;

1875 positive 100% until 2 mths ago, 1st neg as a buyer, then a few days ago 1st neg as a seller. Seller left neg 1 month after transaction without any communication just right out of the blue. I have no open disputes. My rating is now 99.6% & I am restricted from selling as I am now a under performing seller.
Today I tried to relist some items that ended but got a big red message telling me I have a selling restriction so can not list at this time....I rang eBay customer service yesterday & was told nobody knows what the restriction is. Their advise was to try & list & if it won't allow try again a couple of hours later & keep doing this until I am able to list again

A third seller:

They tell you to resolve outstanding disputes even though I have none, and to ensure any outstanding transactions are finalized in a positive manner. To to this both parties must leave feedback. I thought feedback was not compulsory??

On a personal note I am not reliant on eBay for my income; I was able to abandon the ship long before it started sinking. A question for my Australian readers, is this kind of trading behavior covered under the Trade Practices Act 1974? Isn't the Act designed to protect you in your dealings with business; prohibiting a business from using its superior bargaining power in an unconscionable way?

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