Governor Marley

Ebay’s proposed new feedback changes are quite frankly so ridiculous that I’ve had to read them twice to make sure it’s not a wind up. I’ve checked my calendar to make sure I haven’t slipped into a time warp and came out on April 1st, but alas, they really are serious.

This is the real issue: “Sellers will no longer be able to leave negative or neutral Feedback for buyers. This change will occur in May, 2008.”

I’ve seen some ridiculous policy changes in my time on the interweb, I’ve seen absurd decisions, but this really takes the biscuit. In short ebay are leaving the door wide open to buyers to extort sellers by threatening them with negative feedback and there’s nothing sellers are going to be able to do about it.

The issue regarding tit for tat feedback is something that needs to be addressed, but to come up with a solution that creates a worse situation really takes some doing. Even this early in the year I doubt I’ll see a more absurd policy change all year, ebay, you really do deserve to win awards for this one.

Let’s break this down a little, ebay have a 4 point list of what they believe, so I’ll debunk their BS here and now:

1. buyers will be more honest when they leave Feedback since they will not fear retaliatory negative Feedback.

Buyers will be more dishonest when they leave feedback. You see that argument about being charged fifty pence too much postage because the seller asked for £1.50 but the stamp says £1.00. Hey give me the buyer my fifty pence back or I’ll neg you. I don’t care that you had to pay for a jiffy bag, money back or you get a neg.

2. buyers will bid more and higher since their trust in the Feedback system and the sellers will increase.

Buyers won’t need to bid higher, buyers can just blackmail sellers. There’s no feedback system for sellers, this isn’t a Non payment issue, buyers can and will use feedback blackmail.

3. our best performing sellers will be able to differentiate themselves from all other sellers and increase the amount of business they receive as buyers gravitate towards them.

Ah you see, once the platform for hobbyist sellers and the little guy. Ebay don’t want you anymore. Weekend sales, clearing out the garage? Ebay don’t want you, they’ve established themselves and now you don’t bring home the bacon.

4. sellers will leave Feedback upon payment more often in order to increase their chance of receiving positive Feedback.

Why on earth should buyers receive feedback on payment? The deal isn’t done at this stage, the buyer hasn’t received the item and there’s much more to the transaction than just receiving payment, if the buyer didn’t read the listing correctly or they simply change their mind, now they have positive feedback and now we can go back to point 1, they can now blackmail the seller and threaten negative feedback if they don’t get a partial or full refund.

The transaction is not complete until the buyer has the item, I can’t understand why ebay themselves can’t see this. However there we have it, utter tripe and codswallop from ebay and a more corrupt feedback system on its way.

There is currently a so called boycott going on. Whether people really will boycott is another matter but USIFF Online auctions have reported a 200% increase in traffic:

“We are fired up and ready to bring aboard all those discontent eBay buyers and sellers.” said USiFF.com Online Auction’s Vice President and Marketing Director, Teri Holliday.

Ebay did need to address the ridiculous tit for tat feedback system, but you don’t do that by chopping off the arm of one of the parties. This is a ludicrous decision and ebay deserve every single bit of the criticism they are getting. Ebay need to think again about this and they need to think again fast.