Unfortunately eBay has lost sight of it founding father's original intention as written on their own site as to the purpose of the feedback forum and what it was supposed to do. In simple terms he realised that to operate any business environment in a which buyer and seller can not get to know one another face to face there must be a way to establish trust and to quickly find and push away those that were dishonest, discourteous and those that hurt the market community he was trying to build. He was able to set up eBay successfully ... "By creating an open market that encourages honest dealings."
Can we claim that to be true of eBay today? Honesty?
We have on eBay :-
1. Knockoffs and refurbished items sold as new/legit,
2. Direct imports from China and other countries selling items well below quality standards normally allowed sellers here, who come and go under various ids until they are closed down leaving no recourse for duped buyers.
3. FEES both hidden and unfair e.g. you can not pass on PayPal and GST costs to end buyer like you can in the normal bricks and mortar world and eBay can take a percentage of the GST included end price of your item but you can not claim GST on their fees not add GST or other value based fees to the final value of an auction (like you can to a property or car auction for example). Worst of all you can not tell customers about these fees and what eBay and Paypal are doing or steer them away from their golden goose - PayPal. They also recently forced me to move to a higher store as they are 'getting rid' of the cheaper option, then hike up the cost of that higher store type on me... I now pay twice as much for the privilege of multi-variation selling which is the only thing I need a store for!
4. eBay owned PayPal takes a %age of postage and handling but we can not charge that back to the buyer... PayPal is forced upon us 'for our own good' and we are told it is safer that a Bank (but I have never lost money using my bank and I have lost $3000 USD using Paypal with a supposedly verified user address website and feedback scores...)
5. I have also been asked to break the law by Paypal when I explained that sending back a known counterfeit USB key to get back my money from the Chinese seller was breaking Federal Law of sending counterfeit goods in the mail and subject to a $2000 fine or even jail time. I was told regardless of this I would not get my funds back unless I could prove I had sent it back.
Is this honest dealings? Are sellers getting an honest feedback system when they can only leave positive feedback or none at all? Why is there no warning when a person with negs puts a bid on your item instead - so you can see if you even want their business for example? Why only UPIs as the only (extreme) reason for refusing to let then bid on your items?
If other businesses have right of refusal of service to known trouble makers - why not us?
This is why I stopped being a Powerseller on eBay and went back to just using it for getting rid of a few items. It was no longer the market it could have become and it was no longer honest. I helped make eBay what it was then. I fought to keep eBay unrestricted/unshackled by well meaning politicians in Canberra along with other eBay sellers (at eBay's invitation) back in 2005 (or so) and I a full time business employing people and had over 35000 positive feedbacks and 99.7% rating with only retaliatory ratings making up that small percentage of negs. Those few negs did not matter to me because it was honest and if someone negged me for a good reason I would wear it, and if not I could tell the world why, and that they were crooked (mostly deadbeat UPIs). I let the feedback system work it out and it did the job perfectly e.g. Often the ones I negged were negged by several other sellers (repeat UPI offenders or just plain nasty to deal with) and booted off thus removing them from the community and forcing those with nasty tendencies to pull their heads in and consider the feeling of others. It was much more pleasant to deal on eBay then and that was only 8 years ago! eBay has forgotten that is is not just the money and payment or non-payment that we judge each other on, it is the whole experience.
And why when you ask eBay about some new change being unfair do they just tell you "you are free to leave"?
Finally, feedback is more than just - did they pay or did we cheat them (as sellers) - it is about how we felt we were treated and would we want to transact with them again if given the chance? It is about building a community we can be happy trading in and enjoy working and shopping in every day in preference to all the other website and physical stores we have on offer to us daily, and about making eBay a place people can be committed and passionate about - like I/they used to be.:-D
