New Ebay Policies

[nick60]

I received a email from ebay with some new policies. Apparently they are reversing the ban on sellers giving negative ratings to buyers. And they are also going to add a search filter to show the sellers with the highest rating first.

They claim these changes where from feedback from sellers. I think there listings may have gone down and they noticed a loss in revenue.

I am not sure what they will come up with next the seem to change there mind every week

[shsu]

Here is the extract on feedback policy changes.

Feedback Protections

Also in January we committed to a plan that will restore the original intent of the Feedback system - to facilitate trust between buyers and sellers. Since announcing our plans, effective in May, it has become clear through conversations with many of you that eBay needs to do even more to protect sellers from dishonest buyers who use the Feedback system as a weapon. To make it perfectly clear, let me say that there is no place on eBay for anyone who abuses our community, flouts our marketplace policies and willfully harms other members.

As a result of our conversations with many of you, we are adding two Feedback policy changes to be rolled out in May to better protect sellers from this kind of behavior. First, while threatening to use negative Feedback to force an unfair deal is both extremely rare and grounds for permanent buyer suspension, we recognize it has happened in the past and will be tried in the future. If you experience this sort of behavior, please report this to eBay by using Contact Us from this page.

When we identify a pattern of abuse, or the evidence is clear from your report, we will remove the negative or neutral feedback - retroactively. But, we can't identify those patterns without your help and reporting. This is a call to action for every seller.

Second, we have listened to your thoughts on Unpaid Item (UPI) reports and our decision to remove negative or neutral Feedback from a buyer who fails to respond to a UPI. And what has become clear from our conversations is that we need to build in more flexibility for what happens when a buyer responds to a UPI report. What we have determined is that if the buyer does not specifically call out poor seller performance, item condition or transaction problems during the UPI process, eBay will remove the seller's negative or neutral feedback - retroactively.

Finally, let me close by saying that we're pushing hard on these and other changes because of how much eBay means to you (and to us) but we expect to be judged by our actions, not our words. It is my intention to earn your trust and respect by making eBay a more responsive organization that is unafraid to take some risks and move more aggressively while always striving to do right by you, our customers. I look forward to the continuing dialogue.

Sincerely,

Lorrie Norrington

President, eBay Global Marketplace Operation

[bean_fidhleir]

Nothing to protect honest buyers from unscrupulous sellers, I notice.

[PhilipG]

I think that eBay is perhaps realizing that they have made a mistake with the new feedback policy and is now looking for some way to implement it/not implement it. More than likely, they will put it into place and then after a while - when they have confirmed that they are indeed losing money - a LOT of money - they will reverse it. They will undoubtedly phrase it in such a way to then state "New and Improved Feedback Policy!" and, if that isn't enough for us, they will then also raise either insertion fees and or final value fees and let us know that is a better thing for sellers as well.

[nick60]

I would say they are losing money. My stores traffic is down from the same period as last year. I think the economy has something to do with it. I also think many customers have been turned off by poor sellers.