negative-feedback.com
was conceived in a moment of absolute exasperation with the unreachable, impersonal, heavy-handed monolith that is eBay and its Safe Harbor minions. My focus will be putting eBay’s so-called “Trust and Safety Department” procedures up on display for all to see. It’s time to poke a few holes in the walls that eBay has built around its operations and let some sun shine in on this particularly reclusive goon squad. I promised myself I wouldn’t let a few months and a few easy sales lull me into complacency over these not-so-long-ago eBay abuses. So happy hour is finally here, and I made a Molotov Cocktail just for y’all.

As a longtime eBay seller, I found eBay’s complaint process to be absurdly tipped against the very people who helped build eBay into an online success story. Despite my initial good faith attempts to abide by the letter and spirit of eBay selling policy, eBay’s “Trust and Safety Department” repeatedly shut down my auctions. Much to my chagrin, this happened in two wholly unrelated categories for totally different reasons (in Music – original cassettes incorrectly deemed “potentially infringing” on copyright and in Books – 50’s and 60’s vintage fetish magazines deemed “offensive” and unsuitable even in the Mature Audience category). And, in a baffling turn of events, a third conflagration erupted over some Japanese toy listings! With no opportunity to refute auction closures, a seller simply drowns in the so-called Safe Harbor of auto-reply e-mails and ever-shifting interpretation of eBay’s wide-open rules. Despite endless nauseating references to a “community”, eBay is about as community oriented as your nearest Wal-Mart and is as callously corporate, blindly bureaucratic, and decidely disingenuous as they come. eBay is so big at this point that it no longer has to consider any sense of fair play when dealing with the small-timers who pay for the privilege of contributing to eBay’s corporate coffers. Don’t like it? Too bad. eBay OWNS the market. They’re often the only game in town, and they know it.

Much of eBay’s appeal and indeed the image it promotes lies in the idea of individual economic empowerment. It certainly brought the be-your-own-boss workplace to many homes around the world, mine included (at least part-time). This freedom, it turns out, has a higher price than Final Value fees. eBay’s effect on collectors and collectibles has been double-edged, not all bad but certainly not all good either. As this website progresses (or digresses), I plan to discuss some of those issues, too.

For all the criticisms you read here, note that I don’t pretend to hate eBay enough to stop using it. eBay has become an indispensable resource in spite of its faults. As a collector, ignoring eBay for its buying and selling opportunities would be foolish. I am, like so many other others, hopelessly addicted. All of this does not detract from the fact that eBay's Safe Harbor Investigation Team is misguided and capricious and that I, and many others, have been unfairly targeted. While the Department of Justice shelved its ill-conceived Operation TIPS, such a program is thriving within the eBay “community”.

Aside from venting my own frustration, the goal of negative-feedback.com is to encourage other eBay sellers to share similar experiences and sling a few pebbles eBay's way. Give Safe Harbor and eBay's Community Watch a small dose of the bad PR they deserve. Sure, it's all pointless and futile in the shadow of the eBay colossus but take inspiration from our man Sisyphus and roll that grudge up the mountain for all to see... maybe on its way back down a couple of Safe Harbor minions will get flattened. Then do it again.

A couple of sellers with whom I’ve spoken fear reprisals from eBay simply for speaking out. That fear is a powerful tool especially when eBay sales are an individual’s sole source of income. One person suggested I do a private registration for this domain to conceal my identity and keep things on the down-low. To that, I'd respond by quoting a fairly common bumper sticker found on pick-ups around town: Ain't Skeert (translation: "I am not scared"). If eBay cuts me off one place, I'll just grow back in two others (dig the hydra). Thanks to shady Safe Harbor practices, PayPal machinations, VeRO heavy-handedness and that notorious eBay aloofness, the community of the disaffected grows daily. I'd also love to hear from eBay defectors, people who've seen the monolith from the inside, employees with insight into a “judicial process” that would make Kafka proud. Disgruntled with eBay? Join the club! Let's light up and get some glass flying...

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