Sellers AND buyers are planning a large scale boycott on May 1st to try and get ebay to reverse recent and on ongoing changes, and to make other improvements. So far, ebay is completely ignoring its users and many are leaving, or have already left in disgust. PLEASE help support the upcoming boycott. For more infomation, you can visit various forums out there such as
Power Sellers Unite - Online Auction Industry Discussion Forum and Ecommerce Store web hosting and
PayPalSucks.com is where you will learn about the PayPal Class Action Lawsuit, Abuse, Fraud & evil behind the PayPal system!, or even the "seller central" forum on ebay (before some threads are censored).
THE MAJOR ISSUES:
1. Feedback Changes:
A. Buyers will only be able to receive positive feedback effective May 2008.
B. Feedback older than 12 months will no longer be applied towards your
feedback percentage.
C. Neutral Feedback will now be considered as negative to determine buyer
dissatisfaction rate and seller account restrictions
2. DSR'S (Detailed Seller Ratings):
A. eBay allows buyers to think that a 4.0 (on a scale of 1-5) denotes good
business practices by the seller regarding item as described, communication,
shipping time and shipping and handling charges, while sellers are subjected to
various penalties for that same score.
B. DSR's are rated on a curve. Results of this curve may make even a rating of a 4.8
the median in a given rating category.
C. DSR'S will now be intertwined with "Best Match" search positioning.
D. eBay is unjustly red-flagging "good" sellers as well as "bad" sellers by stating
sellers with a 4.5 rating (On a scale of 1-5) now have a "low" rating, thereby
implying they are in the category of "bad sellers".
E. "Bad" Sellers will be kept because of their monetary value.
3. Minimum 21 Day PayPal Hold For Risky Sellers And Risky Categories:
A. Sellers whose total feedback score is not more than 100 will have payments held
for up to 21 days.
B. Risky category sellers will be subjected to a 21 day hold, even well established
sellers.
C. Sellers with 5% or greater negatives in a 30 day period will be subject to the 21
day hold regardless of the circumstances.
4. Unreasonable Fee Increases:
A. Promoted to the Ebay community as decreases, only the insertion fees were
decreased. Insertion fees decreased by $.05 with the gallery picture given free
($.35 savings) yet FVF (final value fees) raised by as much as 66%.
B. Reserve fees increased from $1.00 to $2.00 and will no longer be refunded if
the item sells.
C. Store FVF's (final value fees) increased to 12% above and beyond monthly and
listing fees.
5. Miscellaneous:
A. The universal anonymous bidder policy promotes additional
unsafe buyer practices and has led to buyers losing trust in the system.
B. The majority of Power Sellers will not qualify for newly stated discounts.
C. The note "This item is not covered by buyer protection on eBay," which is
placed in two areas of the listings of sellers who do not offer PayPal, causes
harm to the good sellers' reputations and intimidates buyers.
D. eBay sellers are red-flagged on their listing page if their rating is 4.2 and below.
(per the beta test).
E. When sellers are red-flagged, eBay also lists other sellers' items on said sellers'
listings. (per the Beta Test for eBay Express items).
F. Non-existent customer service.
G. Paypal is being forced on sellers and buyers as the only acceptable means for payments on ebay. Australia is currently a test for this. This amounts to double-dipping by ebay, and opens the door for future hikes in Paypal fees.
H. Buyers can get a Paypal refund for any lame excuse, and in many cases, can get a refund AND keep the item. (Read ebay forums to find out how to do this.)
I. ebay is close-lipped about their substantial plans for changes to ebay. They appear to moving towards a retail site similar to Amazon.com and are planning to get rid of all of the "small" sellers and the auction format.
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I will not bid nor sell until 'they' get back to being the good place that they used to be. Thank you for this information.
