eBay Management Does Not Like Questions Posed By Users
True to form, eBay is pulling posts on the Town Hall question forum. The forum is apparently meant to be a place where eBay management answers simple questions about eBay life and not a place where concerned users can expect to have serious questions answered about fraud, scams and management malfeasance. While it isn't know exactly how many posts have been pulled so far, there are a few documented cases. eBay pulled a lengthy post detailing how ethically wrong it was for eBay to charge a tiered fee structure; this post also detailed theories as to how removing such structure in favor of flat insertion fees would actually benefit the site.
Personally I just had posts removed as well. Within minutes, the number of posts that eBay pulled of mine had jumped to three. The funny thing is that they first pulled post #358 because I mentioned a removed post. I know that is against discussion board policy, but the whole point of having a town hall forum is to allow members to ask questions. Anyway, a few minutes later I get another email, and then another right after - these emails were concerning posts #329 and #326 respectively. The reason for pulling #'s 329 & 326 was "Refusing to follow eBay staff instructions." Yes that's right, I refused to follow instructions.....despite not being told anything about any policy violations until AFTER I posted #358. Perhaps eBay management simply didn't like the content of my posts.
This is the first email I got. The post in question refers to another post from another member that was removed prior.
So basically eBay is saying that although it is offering to have North American CEO, Bill Cobb, answer questions, users are still not allowed to ask questions pertaining to topics that eBay deems to be inappropriate. The following two posts were also pulled. I will not post the entire email, but I will paste the contents of the posts. The reason eBay gave for removing them was that I refused to follow the moderators instructions - even though I had posted these two posts prior to such instructions.
firemeg (12 ) View Listings | Report Mar-28-07 10:11 PDT 329 of 361
Do you instruct your employees to visit websites such as mine and ebaymotorssucks? What
are you hoping to learn by the repeated visits? Surely you just don't like the entertaining
videos and pictures.
Also, could you comment on the ebaymotorssucks user agreement that states that eBay must
pay the site owner $100 per IP entry from eBay?
Are you making payments to the site when your employees visit or attempt to visit the site?
We users have been repeatedly told that just looking at an eBay page requires us to follow the
eBay user agreement. From the bottom of every page: "Use of this Web site constitutes
acceptance of the eBay User Agreement and Privacy Policy." If eBay is not paying per IP hit to
the EMS site, why should users of eBay have to abide by eBay's user agreement?
Again, remember, eBay removed the previous post because I refused to follow staff instructions about posting about removed topics, NARU'd users and warning letters and sanctions. Yet, nowhere in post #329 do I mention anything about any of those things. The next post that eBay pulled was as follows:
firemeg (12 ) View Listings | Report Mar-28-07 10:02 PDT 326 of 360
In fall 2001 after the September 11th tragedies, eBay admittedly used the Auction for
America as a way to recoup some of the losses associated with severely decreased consumer
spending following the terrorist attacks. eBay said that profits from the A4A would counteract
the decrease from the lack of consumer spending.
Whose decision was it to tell CBS Market Watch that eBay hoped to profit from the attacks?
Has management's morals improved since then?
Again....no mention of removed posts etc., yet the above post was removed for not following staff instructions. I've had at least one more post removed that I know of, but eBay did not contact me regarding that particular post. Shortly after I received my pink slaps, I got an email that was forwarded from another user. This user had posted only one post to the Town Hall forum, and it was removed for refusing to follow staff instructions. The post in question is as follows:
tricycleguru (2627 ) View Listings | Report Mar-28-07 10:07 PDT 327 of 359
Why will buyers have the ability to rate a seller on the shipping charge in
the new feedback system? If they agreed to a binding contract that this rate
was acceptable to them, then they should never have a reason to complain
about it.
Why are international bidders allowed to threaten sellers with negative
feedback to coerce them into shipping surface or lowering the shipping fees
when the shipping charge was clearly displayed in an auction PRIOR to their
bid?
Why does paypal end item not received disputes on international packages
shipped via upsp within 7 days, in favor of the buyer, when international
packages shipped airmail and surface can take up to 90 days to reach a
buyer?
Why are sellers required to cater to buyers via the unpaid item dispute in
order to avoid that undeserved negative? If a buyer didnt pay, regardless of
the reason, they deserve a negative and should have their ability to leave
any feedback revoked.
When is ebay going to stop treating buyers like 2 year olds and start making
them accountable for their own actions on the site? Sellers shouldnt have to
pay to relist items because numpties bid. A refund of listing fees if an
item sells is NOT a refund of the entire cost of selling to that buyer.
When is ebay going to flat out say, we dont care what a seller charges for
shipping? That is the bidders discretion and responsibility. Stop handing
bidders excuses for not paying or being a general PITA.
Why cant ebay instantly show an item in a search? Bloated code is no excuse
when your being paid for it.
How is it fee circumvention to have an item listed for 5 days with no bids
changed to 7? If the item didnt show in the searches for 24 hours, how is it
possible to have it newly listed twice? It was never on the newly listed
page to begin with. And it doesnt cost any more to list for 3,5,7 days,
circumvention of fees doesnt apply!
Why does ebay allow certain sellers to get away with multiple, habitual and
certainly intended listing violations with never a kicked auction after its
been reported repeatedly?
Why does ebay kick off a transaction after it ended because someone bid and
then claimed their account was taken over without telling the seller which
item it was? What does it matter if that person didnt win the item?
Why does ebay ignore questions posed to a town hall discussion and only
answer those questions by newbies or lazy people who cant seem to search the
help for those simple answers?
Why cant be stop catering to the buyer and start paying some attention to
the sellers, who by the way pay for this site?
Why does ebay put so much information out there telling buyers their seller
is going to rip them off but do nothing for sellers?
Why has ebay created an atmosphere of "your seller is a fraud" and do
nothing to protect sellers from it? I've had over 20,000 transactions on
this site. I've been ripped off by numerous buyers and only 1 seller!
Why do you allow buyers to use ebay and paypal to scam free products from
honest sellers?
Why isnt every single item not received claim investigated past the
tracking/delivery confirmation?
Why cant you have a contract with USPS which requires scans on pickup/drop
off and in transit?
Why does ebay/paypal tell buyers that USPS offers tracking on every package
when they do not?
Why cant sellers include a % charge for handling when paypal is taking that
same % of the total received, including shipping? If a seller were to charge
actual shipping for an item, they lose money when paypal takes their cut off
the top!
Why does ebay think sellers should list and sell an item for .99 when the
fees associated with that sell would be more than .99 after the sale
(ebay/paypal)?
Why did I just waste 5 min typing when these questions will be ignored?
I can only speculate why eBay management chose those particular posts to remove after reading all 350+ posts, nearly all of which are critical of eBay, eBay policy, management or Trust & Safety. It oughta be a blast listening to Town Hall on the 29th at 2:00 PM PT.
Personally I just had posts removed as well. Within minutes, the number of posts that eBay pulled of mine had jumped to three. The funny thing is that they first pulled post #358 because I mentioned a removed post. I know that is against discussion board policy, but the whole point of having a town hall forum is to allow members to ask questions. Anyway, a few minutes later I get another email, and then another right after - these emails were concerning posts #329 and #326 respectively. The reason for pulling #'s 329 & 326 was "Refusing to follow eBay staff instructions." Yes that's right, I refused to follow instructions.....despite not being told anything about any policy violations until AFTER I posted #358. Perhaps eBay management simply didn't like the content of my posts.
This is the first email I got. The post in question refers to another post from another member that was removed prior.
Hello firemeg,
We appreciate your participation in the eBay Community Forums.
This email is to notify you that we unfortunately had to remove the following post that you made:
firemeg (12 ) View Listings | Report Mar-28-07 16:04 PDT 358 of 361
Bill, Gianni, Brian etc.
Capt. Steel's post was obviously a question as to why eBay does not institute a flat
insertion fee, and also why ebay feels that it is right to have a tiered fee structure where
higher priced items cost more to insert.
Obviously his comments/question was eBay related and very legitimate. Which brings me
to yet another question.
or two or three...
Why was the "Is eBay Like the Titanic" thread removed?
Why does eBay feel the need to censor the forums when users post things that show eBay
in a less than holy light?
eBay forums are meant to be about eBay, yet many topics seem to be off limits, yet every
pet lover in the world can talk about their lost pet, or sick pet, or dying pet with no
repercussions...why is that? (I have pets, and nothing against them, it's just an analogy).
Some links to sites on the US forums are removed while others are allowed to stay. I've
seen posts removed that had links that did NOT violate the board usage policy. Is there
some type of list of eBay related sites that Liveworld is instructed to pull? Is there a list of
allowable off-eBay links that is OK?
I'm received many emails from very active, concerned and often high volume sellers over
the past few months, stating that they've been banned from posting indefinitely and in
some case they've even been banned for life. What would warrant such punishment? Do
you feel that eBay is a safer place if half of the users are completely ignorant of anything
being wrong with the site, searches and are completely blind to any fraud, scams,
phishing, pharming or hacking on the site?
What happened to beware_of_fraud's ME page?
Why does eBay censor eBay Blogs that have unfavorable topics concerning eBay
management and policies?
In the past few years we've seen dozens of boycotts by different groups, certain threads
with several thousands of posts from buyers and sellers who dislike certain policies....my
question, how does the collective community get something across to management when
they are unhappy? And what is the critical mass before you wake up and listen to those
who sell on the site on a daily basis?
In order for the community forums, which are based on the eBay Community Values, to be a place where all members can feel comfortable interacting with each other, there are certain types of posts that we have to remove if reported to us. The guidelines for posting in the forums are defined in the Board Usage Policy. Your post was specifically removed for the following reason:
Discussing or reposting deleted posts or warning letters, or discussion of sanctioned or no longer registered members. For clarification of this policy, please visit this page: http://forums.ebay.com/db2/thread.jspa?threadID=410492018
We understand that most posts that are removed were not intentional violations. Please take a moment to review the Board Usage Policy and policy explanations via the following URLs for clarification about the types of posts that we do allow:
http://pages.ebay.com/help/policies/everyone-boards.html
http://forums.ebay.com/forum.jspa?forumID=2005
Again, we value your participation in the forums, and we appreciate your support.
Regards,
Meryl
eBay Moderation TeamWe appreciate your participation in the eBay Community Forums.
This email is to notify you that we unfortunately had to remove the following post that you made:
firemeg (12 ) View Listings | Report Mar-28-07 16:04 PDT 358 of 361
Bill, Gianni, Brian etc.
Capt. Steel's post was obviously a question as to why eBay does not institute a flat
insertion fee, and also why ebay feels that it is right to have a tiered fee structure where
higher priced items cost more to insert.
Obviously his comments/question was eBay related and very legitimate. Which brings me
to yet another question.
or two or three...
Why was the "Is eBay Like the Titanic" thread removed?
Why does eBay feel the need to censor the forums when users post things that show eBay
in a less than holy light?
eBay forums are meant to be about eBay, yet many topics seem to be off limits, yet every
pet lover in the world can talk about their lost pet, or sick pet, or dying pet with no
repercussions...why is that? (I have pets, and nothing against them, it's just an analogy).
Some links to sites on the US forums are removed while others are allowed to stay. I've
seen posts removed that had links that did NOT violate the board usage policy. Is there
some type of list of eBay related sites that Liveworld is instructed to pull? Is there a list of
allowable off-eBay links that is OK?
I'm received many emails from very active, concerned and often high volume sellers over
the past few months, stating that they've been banned from posting indefinitely and in
some case they've even been banned for life. What would warrant such punishment? Do
you feel that eBay is a safer place if half of the users are completely ignorant of anything
being wrong with the site, searches and are completely blind to any fraud, scams,
phishing, pharming or hacking on the site?
What happened to beware_of_fraud's ME page?
Why does eBay censor eBay Blogs that have unfavorable topics concerning eBay
management and policies?
In the past few years we've seen dozens of boycotts by different groups, certain threads
with several thousands of posts from buyers and sellers who dislike certain policies....my
question, how does the collective community get something across to management when
they are unhappy? And what is the critical mass before you wake up and listen to those
who sell on the site on a daily basis?
In order for the community forums, which are based on the eBay Community Values, to be a place where all members can feel comfortable interacting with each other, there are certain types of posts that we have to remove if reported to us. The guidelines for posting in the forums are defined in the Board Usage Policy. Your post was specifically removed for the following reason:
Discussing or reposting deleted posts or warning letters, or discussion of sanctioned or no longer registered members. For clarification of this policy, please visit this page: http://forums.ebay.com/db2
We understand that most posts that are removed were not intentional violations. Please take a moment to review the Board Usage Policy and policy explanations via the following URLs for clarification about the types of posts that we do allow:
http://pages.ebay.com/help
http://forums.ebay.com/forum
Again, we value your participation in the forums, and we appreciate your support.
Regards,
Meryl
So basically eBay is saying that although it is offering to have North American CEO, Bill Cobb, answer questions, users are still not allowed to ask questions pertaining to topics that eBay deems to be inappropriate. The following two posts were also pulled. I will not post the entire email, but I will paste the contents of the posts. The reason eBay gave for removing them was that I refused to follow the moderators instructions - even though I had posted these two posts prior to such instructions.
firemeg (12 ) View Listings | Report Mar-28-07 10:11 PDT 329 of 361
Do you instruct your employees to visit websites such as mine and ebaymotorssucks? What
are you hoping to learn by the repeated visits? Surely you just don't like the entertaining
videos and pictures.
Also, could you comment on the ebaymotorssucks user agreement that states that eBay must
pay the site owner $100 per IP entry from eBay?
Are you making payments to the site when your employees visit or attempt to visit the site?
We users have been repeatedly told that just looking at an eBay page requires us to follow the
eBay user agreement. From the bottom of every page: "Use of this Web site constitutes
acceptance of the eBay User Agreement and Privacy Policy." If eBay is not paying per IP hit to
the EMS site, why should users of eBay have to abide by eBay's user agreement?
Again, remember, eBay removed the previous post because I refused to follow staff instructions about posting about removed topics, NARU'd users and warning letters and sanctions. Yet, nowhere in post #329 do I mention anything about any of those things. The next post that eBay pulled was as follows:
firemeg (12 ) View Listings | Report Mar-28-07 10:02 PDT 326 of 360
In fall 2001 after the September 11th tragedies, eBay admittedly used the Auction for
America as a way to recoup some of the losses associated with severely decreased consumer
spending following the terrorist attacks. eBay said that profits from the A4A would counteract
the decrease from the lack of consumer spending.
Whose decision was it to tell CBS Market Watch that eBay hoped to profit from the attacks?
Has management's morals improved since then?
Again....no mention of removed posts etc., yet the above post was removed for not following staff instructions. I've had at least one more post removed that I know of, but eBay did not contact me regarding that particular post. Shortly after I received my pink slaps, I got an email that was forwarded from another user. This user had posted only one post to the Town Hall forum, and it was removed for refusing to follow staff instructions. The post in question is as follows:
tricycleguru (2627 ) View Listings | Report Mar-28-07 10:07 PDT 327 of 359
Why will buyers have the ability to rate a seller on the shipping charge in
the new feedback system? If they agreed to a binding contract that this rate
was acceptable to them, then they should never have a reason to complain
about it.
Why are international bidders allowed to threaten sellers with negative
feedback to coerce them into shipping surface or lowering the shipping fees
when the shipping charge was clearly displayed in an auction PRIOR to their
bid?
Why does paypal end item not received disputes on international packages
shipped via upsp within 7 days, in favor of the buyer, when international
packages shipped airmail and surface can take up to 90 days to reach a
buyer?
Why are sellers required to cater to buyers via the unpaid item dispute in
order to avoid that undeserved negative? If a buyer didnt pay, regardless of
the reason, they deserve a negative and should have their ability to leave
any feedback revoked.
When is ebay going to stop treating buyers like 2 year olds and start making
them accountable for their own actions on the site? Sellers shouldnt have to
pay to relist items because numpties bid. A refund of listing fees if an
item sells is NOT a refund of the entire cost of selling to that buyer.
When is ebay going to flat out say, we dont care what a seller charges for
shipping? That is the bidders discretion and responsibility. Stop handing
bidders excuses for not paying or being a general PITA.
Why cant ebay instantly show an item in a search? Bloated code is no excuse
when your being paid for it.
How is it fee circumvention to have an item listed for 5 days with no bids
changed to 7? If the item didnt show in the searches for 24 hours, how is it
possible to have it newly listed twice? It was never on the newly listed
page to begin with. And it doesnt cost any more to list for 3,5,7 days,
circumvention of fees doesnt apply!
Why does ebay allow certain sellers to get away with multiple, habitual and
certainly intended listing violations with never a kicked auction after its
been reported repeatedly?
Why does ebay kick off a transaction after it ended because someone bid and
then claimed their account was taken over without telling the seller which
item it was? What does it matter if that person didnt win the item?
Why does ebay ignore questions posed to a town hall discussion and only
answer those questions by newbies or lazy people who cant seem to search the
help for those simple answers?
Why cant be stop catering to the buyer and start paying some attention to
the sellers, who by the way pay for this site?
Why does ebay put so much information out there telling buyers their seller
is going to rip them off but do nothing for sellers?
Why has ebay created an atmosphere of "your seller is a fraud" and do
nothing to protect sellers from it? I've had over 20,000 transactions on
this site. I've been ripped off by numerous buyers and only 1 seller!
Why do you allow buyers to use ebay and paypal to scam free products from
honest sellers?
Why isnt every single item not received claim investigated past the
tracking/delivery confirmation?
Why cant you have a contract with USPS which requires scans on pickup/drop
off and in transit?
Why does ebay/paypal tell buyers that USPS offers tracking on every package
when they do not?
Why cant sellers include a % charge for handling when paypal is taking that
same % of the total received, including shipping? If a seller were to charge
actual shipping for an item, they lose money when paypal takes their cut off
the top!
Why does ebay think sellers should list and sell an item for .99 when the
fees associated with that sell would be more than .99 after the sale
(ebay/paypal)?
Why did I just waste 5 min typing when these questions will be ignored?
I can only speculate why eBay management chose those particular posts to remove after reading all 350+ posts, nearly all of which are critical of eBay, eBay policy, management or Trust & Safety. It oughta be a blast listening to Town Hall on the 29th at 2:00 PM PT.
posted by Ziggy at 8:13 PM
2 Comments:
Some may find this amusing
http://tinyurl.com/3bbhdd
because vbay has their heads in the sand
Post a Comment
Links to this post:
Create a Link
<< Home