The only customer service I had was from the good folk who volunteered in Answer Center, other sellers, bless them. Without their help I would have quit the first year.

I understand from my neighbor that they have something called OnRamp now where new sellers get to speak with a human but after a short time that goes away and you are on your own until you get to higher than basic PS.

What things might ebay do to make this a welcoming community again?

I would rather I represented someone who never had similar ridiculous problems with ebay. But, I don’t, and I fear I’m far from alone.

We stop shipping items to all buyers whose status was “Not a Registered user”. First time buyers who have not verified their email can still complete transaction but their status would be “Not a Registered user”. Half.com warned us that if we continue to ship items to fraudulent buyer and keep claiming, we are at a risk of being identified as a part of fraud schemes. Buyers who got refund from us instead of book had following profile.

1. At the time of transaction, they were on site for less than three days.
2. They were marked as “Not a Registered User”
3. They had zero feedback or some auto-generated feedback at a time of order.
4. They buy very high value items and requests expedite shipping.
5. They would not respond to email requesting further order verification.
6. Most of time, they would have some numbers in their user name making it look like auto-generated.

Per half.com, those are typical characteristics of fraud buyers. We got 10 negative feedback out of 430+ feedbacks in last 60 days. All the negative feedback we received follows exact same pattern described above. We chose to refund to about 5 % of customers instead of shipping item.

Please look at this decision from seller perspective as someone who has made significant loss fighting with frauds. We did not had enough information to separate good buyers from fraud buyers, Less than 10 % of buyer whose status were “Not a registered user” turned out to be genuine buyer after verification of their email. None of them lost money as we refunded them right away. Our current feedback rate is 97.3 % positive with DSR of 4.37 and higher.

Unfortunately, few genuine buyers also received bad service as we could not differentiate them based on available information. We had choice of either taking huge loss or ship item out to every customer or risk negative feedback. Financial losses were starting to be unbearable. eBay put us on restriction for 30 days and without any further explanation, they suspended us indefinitely.

I called T & S to discuss decision, I got sarcastic laughs and shouting. I realized I had access to TSAM and called them. They listen to me carefully and nice no at the end of conversation.

I only had three negative feedback in last one month restriction period. Two of those three buyer wanted to revise feedback but I could not send them feedback revision because of ebay sitewide glitch. (Talk about bad luck). One negative feedback came from database error in half.com. (Bad luck on our side)

eBay just refused to listen to us and shut door fast on us. No appeal, no Logic in this Jungle raj. Very very disappointed.

What more can you do stay afload on ebay ?

-Randy Smythe

Richard, I must say that the blog has been at least a good attempt at public disclosure and you’ve worked hard at it. Not being an ivory seller, I can’t appreciate that scoop the blog got either. Nor could I appreciate the “Green” HQ building my fees paid for.

But I can say this with assurance: Trust in ebay management has only declined in the interim. Things like Lorrie Norrington saying here how much small sellers are appreciated, but come on, how has this been shown since she came and paid us lip service through your blog? I think tha answer can’t be posted, as it is one word–zero, or arguably negative.

About starting a business here: I’m sure you are aware that many business just getting started can be shot out of the sky for 30 days or more, or certainly wiped out in search order, with just one bad feedback, even if the bidder did not get around to paying. Then you’re stuck with inventory you can’t do anything with but try again on another site. And how do you appeal the suspension or listing limitation? You can’t! There is no accountability–the bots are judge, jury, and executioner! The humans you can reach are impotent to do anything but tell you you are suspended. Ebay’s customer service is still the worst in the industry.

How do you know that BUY or another Diamond Powerseller won’t move into your space and bury you in Best Mash search, leaving you anonymous and again stuck with stale inventory?

How do you deal with your shipping cost DSRs when they paradoxically fall when you use Free Shipping, and ebay won’t do the right thing and make that DSR like it is on half.com? How do you deal with Paypal glitches where your funds say they are “unclaimed” for weeks now, and you can’t ship to the disgust of your buyers? Can you hear your shipping time DSRs falling, and the last place you will see any mention of the ongoing problem is at ebay itself, where the problem is still cloaked in secrecy? Do you really want to start a business here? Sort of like selling home lots on an active volcano, if you ask me.

I heartily disagree that ebay is the best place to start a business–it isn’t at all, and matter of fact, due to the instability of the platform and policies as Mr. Donohoe’s team continues to disrupt the marketplace, probably one of the worst out there. It is clear to many of us transitioning out of ebay, that the only safe businesses to start here are owned by the likes of BUY.

Their policies have made a VERY big difference. All bad.

I think you’d find the results of the vote to be very disappointing. I think a number of you would be out of work.

2008 has be a VERY unhappy year here for sellers using eBay. Too many Draconian changes that are not working, too many bonehead rules, too many policy changes, too many software glitches that disadvantage the seller and cause unjust feedback or lowered DSR’s. I could go on and on, but I’ve said enough.

For everyone else, get out and vote. Vote your heart, vote for who you think is best, JUST VOTE!. Who ever wins will be our next leader, and frankly I do not think it can get any worse than it has been for the last 8 years. I hope I am about to wake up from a long nightmare.