eBay to ban negative seller reviews? Is the new CEO mad?
I despair of eBay these days, I really do. No sooner has the new eBay CEO, John Donahoe, got into the hot seat than he makes his first blunder. He announces that from May, no seller on eBay will be able to leave a negative or neutral feedback about a buyer. This has obviously got the entire eBay community into an uproar.
That’s right, deadbeats. You can now buy things on eBay with no intention of paying for them. You can buy something then demand the price be lowered to suit yourself, in fact you can do whatever you want as the buyer - and the seller has absolutely no recourse. Oh sorry, I forgot - the seller can file a complaint with eBay - for all the good that will do. eBay couldn’t care less if a seller has a problem with a customer, as long as the money keeps flowing in. Meanwhile, the buyer can leave negative comments about the seller if they wish (question : can the seller respond to the negative? At the moment, you can leave a reply to a negative).
My initial response is : is Donahoe smoking something? And if so, can I have some?
How can he possibly think that such a move will restore user confidence in the eBay marketplace? Why would sellers want to go through so much grief and hassle with deadbeat buyers if they don’t have the ability to make negative complaints about them? I can just visualise now the deadbeat buyers rubbing their hands in glee - and the number of sellers who finally give up on eBay as a lost cause. I may be one of them. eBay obviously doesn’t care about us and support us, so why should we care about and support them?
I was a columnist on Auctionbytes for two years covering eBay stories and I did it because I loved eBay (both buying and selling). But I am glad I don’t write those kinds of stories anymore because I would be honestly hard-pressed to find good things to say about eBay anymore. My stories would just end up sounding like bitter ranting and if I said anything nice, I would feel like a hypocrite.
In the past few years, eBay has made some really crazy decisions that have turned it into a shadow of its former glorious self. Raising fees to absurd new levels is just the start of it. Looking at the whole thing in hindsight, it is obvious that eBay has become a victim of its own greed and arrogance.
I can’t begin to describe how I wish a serious competitor to eBay would emerge to give them a good kick up the ass. Personally I am now looking at Amazon Marketplace to sell my books.
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