You are spot on and I feel your pain.

The defect and DSR system are completely flawed and drive a wedge between sellers and buyers.

Feedback alone is enough to judge the overall performance of a seller.

Good sellers look after their customers and receive good feedback in return.

I hate this defect & DSR system (even though my current defect rate is only 0.18%) so much so, that I have withdrawn all my listings from eBay for a considerable time, maybe for good.

This Defect and DSR system is either (A) a deliberate ploy to get rid of smaller sellers or (B) The product of complete insanity.

I think (A) is more likely.

But be under no illusions. eBay are not going out of business, no matter how many small sellers they shed, not with the massive advertising revenues they get and the reach they have.

They are evolving and seem quite happy to court big business whilst casting off as many small and medium sellers who want to leave or get pushed.

This is stupid and has caused a lot of ill feeling, because small and medium sellers depend a lot on eBay for their living and generally look after their customers better than big business.

Looks like you either fight it by reporting every breach of their defect system to the ACCC (good luck with that, I hope it works, but the ACCC has nearly always been completely useless in my experience) or you put up with it and try to work with it, until the sword falls.

If you hate the defect system (like me) you start seriously looking for alternatives to eBay.

Not many in Australia as far as online selling goes, however, my website sells well, old and antiquated as it is.

As far as I understand, 95% or less gets you kicked off eBay, BUT once you get under 98% that can instigate a spiral (reduced listing visibility, selling limits, etc) than can easily cause you to go quickly from 98% to 95%..

Apart from absolutely first class customer service, only sheer volume can save you with the defect system, making it surely, a deliberate ploy to get rid of smaller sellers.

All round, this seems to be ruthless behaviour from a ruthless (GST avoiding) company, almost a monoply within Australia at least, but why should we be surprised?

What a pity. eBay has been so great for me, but I loathe what they have become for sellers now.