Just perusing the ebay seller board (I figure, I've sold enough stuff and i sell more than I buy, i deserve to provide my input...i've been on ebay since 1999), someone posted this:
Well, Ebay has forgotten who its customers are. We, the sellers, are Ebay's customers. But they protect buyers (who are our customers, not theirs) over sellers (their customers) almost every time. Their business model depends on extracting fees from sellers -- even from a buyer's scam -- and they really seem to have no interest in protecting this community or the sellers who make it up.
Which is absolutely true.
5 comments:
I'm not sure I agree with that, the term customers isn't mutually exclusive to either Sellers or Buyers, they are both customers of eBay. The part that makes it difficult is that how do you arbitrate a dispute efficiently between the two customers while minimizing any potential loss for all parties? It's a tough call.
Sellers wouldn't have customer to hawk their wares to if eBay didn't provide a platform to do so and eBay wouldn't really get return business from Sellers and those darn fees if they can't keep sellers happy but I'm guessing that there are so many Sellers now that siding with the Buyers all the time even if it pisses off a few Sellers doesn't matter because there will always be someone else that wants to be a Seller on eBay. It's horrible to suggest it but the people that run eBay are business types first, community oriented second. Who would eBay believe if each presented good cases? It's always the Sellers word against the Buyers.
The only way I could forsee pleasing this disgruntled Buyer Sabina would be to do a conference call with the USPS to track down the package or send him a a screenshot of the USPS website showing the tracking information.
For one guy to complain I wouldn't really worry about it, I would however leave him poor feedback, he might find it hard to buy stuff from people once they start seeing how much of a boob he is.
Did my email help?
It may be true that both Sellers and Buyers are customers of eBay, however you have to look at some of the other points of the post. eBay's motives are strictly to attain fees from sellers, without regards for the seller's satisfaction with the site. Hence the altering of the fees yet again, the tightening of the discussion forums to not allow users to communicate to one another scams, where to find a certain item, etc. They have no interesting in protecting their sellers whatsoever.
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On the eBay “naughty chair” again!
Well, I’m on the eBay “naughty chair” again: for 30 days this time. A permanent ban next time? They really do make it difficult for an honest eBayer with only one user ID and one email address to make any serious comment; I guess I’ll have to go with the flow and take out multiple IDs and get some more email addresses! I’ll probably have to go back to a bit of “dial up” too to avoid them sensing my static IP address. What a shame one has to learn to be so devious to deal with these disingenuous snakes.
It appears that eBay will not tolerate any detailed critical discussion on the matter of absolute anonymity of bidders, that further increase in the level of anonymity that they have recently introduced (at least) to their Australian and UK sites and which serves no other purpose than to further obscure bidder IDs to the point that genuine bidders have got absolutely no chance of detecting and thereby protecting themselves from shill bidders. This is a reprehensible action that serves only to deceive consumers. eBay doesn’t like such discussion on the US boards either which suggests that they are in the process of trying to make up their devious little minds as to when to introduce this policy onto the US site also. You all in the US should be prepared to confront them when they do so, and I look forward to seeing the US buyers’ response when this despicable feature is introduced.
Sellers in Australia are currently squealing like stuck pigs: between the recent introduction of absolute anonymity for (shill) bidders upsetting buyers; the nonsensical new feedback system upsetting sellers and the farcical attempted “grab for cash” with “exclusive dealing” for PayPal annoying everybody; here, just about everybody (except the shill-bidding sellers) is unhappy.
The fact is that although it is sellers who pay the bill, an outrageous eBay policy, such as absolute anonymity of bidders, that will reduce buyer confidence will ultimately hurt (ethical) sellers—and ultimately eBay. But apparently nobody at eBay has the intelligence to understand that; then, probably, their only immediate concern is the triggering of the next executive bonus for which they will require an improvement in the bottom line; a reduction in customer support staff will help effect that end.
Not one change that eBay has made recently has been in the interests of consumers (except for the shill-bidding sellers, who are undoubtedly rubbing their hands in anticipation); all appear to have been aimed solely towards improving eBay’s bottom line (nothing wrong with that per se as long as you don’t openly abuse your customer base in the process). Regrettably, I have come to the conclusion that the current management team at eBay are an unethical, disingenuous mob of cowboys.
I assume some stooge on the UK site has reported me this time, although I am surprised that with all their claimed sophisticated processes eBay don’t have some automated process for keeping track of “pests” like me. I say that because, although I am now barred for 30 days from posting on all eBay discussion boards, they have not pulled any of my current batch of posts from the US or AU sites and, strangely, not all of my “offending” posts have been pulled from the UK site either although many have been and eBay, even more strangely, are polite enough to notify me regarding each pulled post individually to that effect.
The strange thing about it all is that apart from me occasionally daring to mention the unmentionable, the common denominator appears to be the link to a certain “commercial web site”, but, of course, many other members’ posts bear links to other commercial web sites but they are not pulled, and a simple search on the discussion boards (by User ID) for my user ID (philip2727) shows that there are still plenty of my posts containing such links remaining. Apparently eBay are not even efficient at being disingenuous.
It’s interesting to note the difference in mentality between eBay “members” and eBay discussion board moderators. On the UK site some of my posts that were not pulled are contained in a thread that I started and titled “There is nothing wrong with eBay!”. Some members obviously thought that whoever started this thread must be insane and posted responses; eBay moderators apparently took the title literally and looked no further!
The full details at:
http://www.auctionbytes.com/forum/phpBB/viewtopic.php?t=23355
Disclaimer: Notwithstanding any statements by eBay to the contrary, no action taken by the current management team at eBay has anything to do with benefitting consumers: eBay’s every action is purposed solely towards improving eBay’s bottom line, and consumers are hereby advised that if at any time there appears to be some benefit to consumers, that is wholly unintentional.
Revised 13 August 2008
From: Philip Cohen
To: pierre@ebay.com
Cc: invite@survey.ebay.com
Sent: Monday, August 11, 2008 1:36 PM
Subject: Another message from a simple eBay use
I am in receipt of eBay’s email dated 2 August inviting me to participate in a short survey seeking comment on recent changes made to eBay. Unfortunately, again, I found some of the survey questions ambiguous and confusing and so I stopped half way through (but I am retired from work now and maybe I am just getting a bit slow upstairs). However, that eBay would launch such a survey after the fact indicates to me that you have indeed done damage to yourself in the marketplace with a number of your recent changes. You certainly have damaged yourself from my perspective.
(The survey at: http://survey.ebay.com/survey/ebay/eby08040?list=2&source=Uk8VjXOIAE)
I accept that, as a publicly listed company, eBay’s every action will be purposed towards improving eBay’s bottom line and we consumers have to understand that if at any time there appears to be some benefit to us, that will be purely coincidental. And that is a strange business strategy because unless my commercial logic is seriously flawed, in the final analysis, eBay needs us more than most of us need eBay.
However, without wishing to (once again) appear impertinent could I again tell you what is so obviously wrong with some of the, frankly stupid, decisions made by your management team in recent times:
1. Stop treating your users (both buyers and sellers) as though they are a pack of disposable idiots. In particular, stop making absurdly disingenuous statements that only serve to indicate that your management team is even more stupid than you apparently think your users are:
(If you are interested, some classic examples of eBay’s disingenuous statements are summarized at:
http://www.auctionbytes.com/forum/phpBB/viewtopic.php?t=23458&sid=90d854e1c4ba29b77055b72a425a3fd9)
(And even if we users are as stupid as your management team apparently thinks we are, then I would refer you to the text of an old “Snake” cartoon strip by Allan Salisbury, Q: “Oh, great spirit, what is the lesson for today?” A: “Never underestimate the power of stupid people in large groups!”)
2. Get rid of all forms of absolute anonymity of bidding (ie, “Bidder N”; “User ID kept private”) so that genuine buyers can again have the opportunity to watch for and thereby protect themselves from at least any blatant shill bidding; do that before you do any more damage to yourself in Australia, the UK, Ireland and the Philippines. (Then you probably won’t have to waste your money resorting to self-promoting TV advertising.) And, please, don’t let me hear any more of that disingenuous nonsense about SMI being introduced to stop fraudulent SCOs: that problem was effectively solved with the blocking of access to users’ direct email addresses. The fact is, the non-bidder-specific, absolutely anonymous alias (“Bidder N”) in effect aids and abets blatant shill bidders by making any such shill bidding “disappear” and serves no other purpose than to deceive the genuine bidder. The whole bidding process, rather than being “open and transparent” as it used to be, is now “closed and opaque”. For buyers in particular, eBay is no longer “a safe and fun place to trade.”
(If you are interested, a detailed argument against absolute anonymity of bidding at:
http://www.auctionbytes.com/forum/phpBB/viewtopic.php?t=23355&sid=90d854e1c4ba29b77055b72a425a3fd9)
3. If you have any more thoughts about “exclusive dealing” for PayPal, erase them, and don’t waste any more of your money on such abysmal legal advice as that which you apparently received prior to your naïve attempt to apply “exclusive dealing” for PayPal in Australia. And, don’t try it on anywhere else; you don’t need any more egg on your face: this is the year 2008 not the “Robber Baron” era of the 1870s.
4. I doubt that any seller has a problem offering PayPal for international sales, but you should also cease the disingenuous “back door” enforcing of PayPal on sellers for all sales. (I hope that the various government regulators will have more to say about that abuse of your market power in the not to distant future.)
5. By all means “fix” the feedback system to stop unscrupulous sellers from retaliating against justifiably dissatisfied buyers, but frankly your current solution is a joke and now exposes sellers to blackmail by unscrupulous or unreasonable buyers. You should bring back a sensible balance between buyer and seller; get rid of the nonsensical and incomprehensible mathematical formula: has your management team no understanding of the “KISS” principle?
6. Now that you are sensing users’ IP addresses, give your programmers something useful to do: develop a system that will actively filter auctions for suspicious patterns of (shill) bidding (and also “validate” all users). (But, I still want to be able to see for myself that any blatant shill bidding—now hidden from view—is being controlled, because frankly, I would not trust your current management team as far as I could kick it.)
(If you are interested, some shill detecting algorithms by Jarrod Trevathan and Wayne Read from James Cook University, Australia, at:
http://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/viewdoc/summary?doi=10.1.1.61.7728
http://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/viewdoc/summary?doi=10.1.1.61.7072)
7. I notice that your programmers are currently fiddling with what appears to be cosmetic changes to the individual auction dialogue page, and I accept that the application of good principles of layout and design are desirable, but could I suggest that instead of fiddling with cosmetics you should first make changes such as those previously suggested that have more to do with function than with form.
(Previously suggested functional improvements at:
http://www.auctionbytes.com/forum/phpBB/viewtopic.php?p=6498837#6498837)
Maybe it is your intention to “kill off” the auction form of selling on eBay: who knows? However, I do know that the less open and transparent you make your auction process the more likely it is that government will ultimately declare that you are indeed an “auctioneer”—which, of course, is what you have always been! And, won’t that open a can of worms!
But then what would I know about anything: I’m only a simple eBay user.
PS: I’ve included a copy of the Snake cartoon: maybe you should distribute it amongst your management team to remind them just how dangerous we stupid people can be.
Shill Bidding on eBay: A Case Study
For anyone that is interested, a case study of an instance of shill bidding on eBay, and a detailed comment on eBay’s apparent attitude thereto, at http://www.auctionbytes.com/forum/phpBB/viewtopic.php?t=24033
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