Lynda Talgo of eBay’s Trust and Safety team clarified the criteria used in evaluating Seller Non-Performance, or SNP last week. She specified that no user would be subject to SNP restrictions due to a single negative of neutral feedback and emphasized yet againd that while detailed seller is not currently a factor in SNP evaluation, it will be in the future.
Further, SNP penalties are divided into two categories:
Low-volume sellers: Low-volume sellers are those with no more than 2 negative feedback, no neutral feedback, and less than $3000 sales volume over a 90-day period, would typically receive a 14-day full selling restriction. After the 14-day period has passed, selling privileges will be automatically reinstated. (As with all selling restrictions, the seller can continue to bid and communicate.)
Higher-volume sellers: For sellers who are not low-volume sellers, and who have a buyer dissatisfaction rate of greater than 5% (but less than 10%), the restriction is a reduction in sales volume. Sellers will be able to continue selling and listing items, up to 75% of their historical weekly volume based on their rolling 90 day history of completed sales. (This is based on dollar sales volume, not on number of items sold.) We manually review restricted accounts after 30 days to determine if there has been improvement in their satisfaction rates. If a seller’s buyer dissatisfaction rate is brought down to less than 5%, the restriction will be lifted. If the buyer dissatisfaction rate remains greater than 5%, the sales volume will continue to be reduced. Additionally, sellers whose performance substantially worsens during this restriction period may be subject to more significant consequences.
Volume restrictions are defined as “average completed weekly sales volume over a rolling 90 day period.” SNP evaluations occur during a 90-day rolling window. If you have over a 5% buyer dissatisfaction rate during the past three-months, you will incur SNP restrictions and penalties. If your dissatisfaction rate increases to 10%, you become subject to the harsher penalties listed above.
Interestingly, negative feedbacks left by non-paying bidders will still count against a seller’s buyer dissatisfaction score:
It may seem that any negative feedback from a non-paying bidder is undeserved, but this is not always the case. For example, buyers may decide not complete payment because the seller has attempted to change the terms of the transaction after the conclusion of the listing. Clearly, this is an area that is not black and white. We’re continuing to evaluate whether all types of negative feedback should be included in evaluating seller non-performance.
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33 Responses to “eBay Seller Non-Performance Policy Clarified”
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Ebay’s Seller Non-Performance policy is a bunch of crap. It makes a punching bag out of sellers. Go to AuctionBytes.com. They blog all of Ebay’s dirty laundry.
As if ebay policies weren’t stupid enough already. Seriously why don’t they just suspend every seller whos feedback is under 99.9% and stars are under 5 then they can sit back and watch their money flow slow to a nearly non existant drizzle /end sarcasm. They have the gaul to rate sellers on their performance when their own performance is nothing short of pathetic. Days to answer emails and even then the chimps that work there can only manage to cut and paste the same old BS that’s used to reply to just about every question. These idiots are in self-destruct mode introducing all these ridiculous policies, I’m going to be there with Christmas lights on when they go out of business. Bunch of morons……
if you are holding stock in ebay, i would sell fast.
ebay has held sellers hostage where the amount of money they spend on listings no longer determines the amount of search visibility you recieve.
this business model is flawed in so many ways and sellers who spend serious money on ebay will rather spend their money elsewhere then to be held hostage by a seller satisfaction rating.
i spend over 15k a month on ebay and they termed my account because my feedback fell to 95%.
absolutely ridiculous. this is not an isoltated incident. ebay forgets that they generate revenue from SELLERS not BUYERS..
this company will be tanking fast, this is just the beginning. spread the word.
Why don’t we post up about another auction site, spread the word.
there must be another one that doesn’t punish sellers?
I am a new seller on Ebay (since around a month ago). I have been selling lots of items and keep getting restrictions placed on my account (evern though I have a feedback of 69 and no negative or neutral feedbacks). Repeated email requests have garnered the following information:
1. My account has been restricted
2. They cannot clarify why it has been restricted
3. They are unable to let me know when these restrictions will be lifted
4. They are unable to quantify what these restrictions limits are
I have a total hit and miss run on when I can and can’t relist products. Ebay was meant to be another sales channel to supplement sale son our own online shops – but they are making life so hard for us that I think we will just give up.
I find it astounding that they have managed to become as big as they are. Total muppets
THE RIDDLE OF THE “NON-PERFORMING” EBAY GOLD POWER SELLER!
“There are lies, damn lies, and then there are [eBay] statistics”.
On the night of July 17, 2008, without prior notice, eBay removed from their site all of my company’s 380 listings and sent me an email stating the reason for this action was: “seller non-performance”; this after more than nine years and tens of thousands of perfect selling (and buying) transactions on eBay!
On Friday morning July 18, 2008, after discovering that my listings had all disappeared, I immediately called my personal eBay “Gold Power Seller” representative’s phone number (only available to sellers with sales totaling more than $10,000.00 per month), and asked him how could this be? He said “this looks like a mistake” and said he would call me right back, and within ten minutes he did. He said: “I checked with the trust and safety people here and in the last “rolling” 30-day sample period it appears you had one “negative” and one “neutral” comment in “feedback”, and you dipped too low in one or more of the four categories of your DSR (Detailed Seller Ratings), so that places you in the bottom 1% of all eBay sellers for customer satisfaction, and they have restricted you from listing on the site because of seller non-performance”.
WHAT!!!! eBay made the decision to shutter my business of nine years based on their automated analysis of data from their voluntary buyer satisfaction survey, that they collected over a single 30-day sampling period, and included a total of only 42 of my transactions all of which were completed successfully. How could this be?
Addendum
After eBay’s “trust and safety” department reviewed the letter (printed below) on August 6th, I received two eBay “form” emails the early morning of August 7th: one reinstating my “selling privileges” , the other warning me I would be removed again from the site if my current 95% “customer satisfaction” rating (determined from eBay’s statistics!) deteriorated in any way in the next thirty days. The odds do not look good!
Note: if the following story seems unbelievable, be assured eBay’s trust and safety department reviewed and confirmed that all details relating to the eBay site are correct, and all of my statements can be corroborated.
First a history of who I am, and what I have accomplished using eBay as my business partner:
My name is David Riddle, I have been self employed for thirty six years as an inventor / designer / manufacturer and marketer of technical products in the fields of electronics, optics and mechanical devices, and have been successfully satisfying hundreds of thousands of customers long before eBay existed.
I decided to become a selling “member” of the eBay “community” in December of 1998 under the user name: DAVIDRIDDLE, and have since sold millions of dollars of re-manufactured and fully guaranteed products and services that I call “tools of creativity and productivity” to many thousands of very satisfied individuals and corporations around the world.
With long hours of work from myself and my staff in the past nine years, we have achieved a total eBay “feedback rating” of more than 10,800 customer comments with 99.5% positive responses.
This success is even more astounding when one considers that unlike the majority of eBay sellers that offer their used items for sale “as-is” without any guarantee of any kind, all of our eBay listings and sales are comprised of fully-guaranteed and calibrated specialized high technology equipment supplied to very critical and demanding professional customers.
We not only provide a money back guarantee on every one of our products, but also, more significantly we guarantee “suitability of application”; when our customer receives our products we guarantee the items will function exactly as we described, and will accomplish the task as the customer requires.
Every one of these complex technical products that we offer and deliver in perfect operating condition, requires hours of total hands-on analysis, repair, calibration and testing prior to being expertly packaged for safe shipment through what I call the shipping companies “trail of torture”!
We achieve these results through a commitment to customer support / assistance and guaranteed satisfaction before and after each sale, by providing a toll-free telephone number in multiple places in every eBay listing, in every email and document. This toll-free line is answered by my staff and me personally, nine hours a day, five days a week, from the U.S. and Canada.
This toll-free number is very rarely offered by other eBay sellers and is a direct communication link between potential customers, customers involved in purchases and inquiries of any kind; we vigorously promote “free, expert, customer service”– a rare commodity in today’s society.
Over the last nine plus years on eBay, our phone records indicate that I have personally spoken to and advised more than 45,000 customers, potential customers, and other eBay sellers from whom I have purchased. These “one-on-one” conversations provide invaluable insight into what are my customer’s needs and how they are thinking and feeling about my business practices. In addition, these all important conversations form the basis of my business decisions as to what products and services to provide and to whom I should sell them.
After all of our hard work, unrivaled commitment to our customers and demonstrated responsibility in business dealings, one can only imagine how I might feel being deemed by eBay to be a “non-performing” seller. I can tell you how I feel: disbelief, anger, depression, and finally acceptance. Sound familiar?
These are the emotions of loss and death: the death of my business and the loss of my passion which is happily advising and encouraging my eBay customers to turn their intangible ideas into tangible products and services by providing them with these tools of creativity and productivity while enthusiastically offering free expert engineering solutions and advice, whether they purchased something from me or not.
In addition to ending my business partnership, eBay’s decision has also stopped, something very dear to my heart, my altruistic program of offering a free school for primary and secondary “at risk” students (as I was in school) where I along with other volunteers will demonstrate and guide these students through the real-world process of “Invention and Entrepreneurship”.
The basis of this program depended on using eBay as a pivotal component in test-marketing student’s product ideas at low cost all over the world, then manufacturing only their successful creations and using the EBay site to sell these products, allowing these young entrepreneurs to personally profit from their ideas.
The facility plans included a fully outfitted “model shop” for prototype product fabrication, graphic arts / photo studio, video and audio production studio and computer business center all housed in a 2500 square foot portion of my building.
The students were to have used this facility at no charge, and, with the direction of myself and other volunteer mentors, were to experience the hands-on work of: “conception to execution to marketing to sale”– the process that I and every successful inventor and entrepreneur uses. Now this dream may never be realized.
Now, a description of how eBay uses statistics to determine “buyer satisfaction”
eBay’s original method since 1995 for keeping track of satisfactory transactions on the site is called “feedback” where both the buyer and seller could voluntarily assign a “feedback rating” to each other for every individual “ended” auction listing or “buy-it-now” listing on the site; this feedback is normally non-revocable and accumulates for each buyer and seller from their first transaction to date. The available options are as follow: “Positive” (add one point to feedback score), “Neutral” (no score change), or “Negative” (subtract one point from feedback score)
In 2007, eBay added an additional component to the buyers voluntary feedback reporting; called the “Detailed seller Rating”or DSR. eBay promoted DSR as a way to provide sellers with a more detailed report of their buyers satisfaction (or dissatisfaction) in four categories, each with a 0 to 5 “star” rating selection as shown below in the exact wording the buyer sees if they bother filling out the DSR ratings (remember, there is no requirement or reciprocal benefit for the buyer to fill out this section, as there is for regular feedback):
“Click on the stars to rate more details of the transaction. These ratings will not be seen by the seller.
How accurate was the item description?
* Very inaccurate, ** Inaccurate, *** Neither inaccurate nor accurate, **** Accurate, ***** Very accurate
How satisfied were you with the seller’s communication?
* Very unsatisfied, ** Unsatisfied, *** Neither unsatisfied nor satisfied, **** Satisfied, ***** Very satisfied
How quickly did the seller ship the item?
* Very slowly, ** Slowly, *** neither slowly or Quickly, **** Quickly, ***** Very Quickly
How reasonable were the shipping and handling charges?
* Very unreasonable, ** Unreasonable, *** neither unreasonable nor reasonable, **** reasonable,
***** Very reasonable
Remember – these detailed seller ratings are anonymous, so please feel free to leave honest ratings about your buying experience.”
I suggest you should carefully note what phrases and words eBay has chosen to use in the DSR survey shown above: “These ratings will not be seen by the seller”, (and again): “Remember – these detailed ratings are anonymous”, (and the five stars rating choice): “Very accurate”, “Very satisfied”, “Very quickly” (and) “Very reasonable”: I will comment on this in the following text.
My DSR ratings slowly began accumulating, and we were always showing “4+ stars” in all four categories along with our regular feedback running at its usual 99.5%. I naively didn’t pay much attention to this new rating system; I saw this as yet another one of eBay management’s many demonstrations of: “Look were doing our job by improving the eBay experience”– an exercise I’ve seen many times in the past nine years. Why would I care, knowing that our entire focus is on customer satisfaction and the feedback we receive every day is directly from the “customer’s mouth” in those one-on-one conversations through our toll-free help line? In addition, I personally called almost every customer that left a negative feedback to find out why they did?
Then, in May of 2008, eBay announced that they were changing the feedback system in the following ways: sellers and buyers feedback rating (positives divided by total feedback = %) would now be calculated with the data from only the past “rolling” year to date, eBay threw out more than 8-1/2 years of my satisfied customers!
More significantly, now only buyers could leave negative or neutral feedback for sellers, meaning sellers no longer had any means to note unsatisfactory buyers’ actions on the site; the reciprocal component of the original feedback system was lost (eBay claimed this change was to prevent sellers from threatening buyers with “retaliatory feedback” if the buyer decided to give the seller a negative feedback comment). Personally I have never given “non-performing” buyers negative feedback, I just simply called them and asked; what’s wrong?
If none of this seems to make any sense, then eBay’s other change to the feedback system will astound you. eBay decided that the “neutral” choice buyers and sellers typically had used in the past to denote an “average” transaction, not worthy of a positive, but not so bad as to give the seller a negative (and not counted in the feedback score in any way), would now be counted as a “negative”, subtracted from the sellers overall positive score, and without informing the person leaving the neutral it was actually a negative!
My personal feedback score went from 99.5% to 98.6% because of the truncated data points and the “neutrals as negatives”change. Apparently eBay received so much uproar from sellers about all of these changes, and especially this last one, they elected to rescind only the “neutral as negative”component and promised to make any negatives that sellers had received in this manner be removed retroactively “sometime in August”.
I am busy seven days a week meeting my customers needs; I don’t have time to spend perusing the voluminous eBay site for changes and announcements. Because my eBay power seller representative didn’t tell me, I missed the fact that to be a power seller, I would now be required to maintain a minimum DSR rating of 4.5 stars (90%) in all four stated categories. And most importantly; I would be barred from selling on the eBay site if my combined feedback and DSR scores dipped below eBay’s arbitrary threshold now determined from a single rolling 30-day sample period (not the newly announced 12-month period I assumed).
The following is where eBay’s statistics and the vagaries of the human condition (what I call “the ultimate variable”) collide:
Does eBay truly believe that their volunteer feedback and DSR survey can provide a highly accurate assessment of seller performance?
Are they confident enough to terminate long term power sellers using this feedback and DSR data based on so incredibly few samples?
Does eBay not understand that the repeated statements: “….will not be seen by the seller”, and ….”these detailed seller ratings are anonymous” will encourage more severe negative ratings?
Do they believe that people will voluntarily give sellers an all ”A” (5-stars) every time?
Do the buyers know an all “B” (4-stars) score in every category gives the power seller a failing grade?
Will most buyers who were clearly told there would be a two-week delivery time on a custom-made product order remember and give the seller 5-stars (“Very quickly”) on “shipping time”?
How can any eBay buyer possibly have any knowledge of what it costs in materials and labor to properly prepare and package products for safe shipment, or keep track of the always increasing actual freight and fuel surcharges and then expect them to select “Very reasonable” for “Shipping and handling charges”?
Did you get all A’s in school? Have you ever filled out a business satisfaction survey, or any survey for that matter, and given all top scores? How many warrantee card surveys did you not fill out when all you wanted to do was use and enjoy the product?
Are you human? Aren’t you more likely to fill out a survey if you are upset and then want to make sure “they” know just how upset you are by filling it out in the most negative way possible?
It’s very hard to imagine that eBay’s management could be so ignorant of basic statistical methods and the guaranteed inaccuracies of voluntary surveys conducted in the manner eBay is doing (for proof, Google “survey accuracy”). eBay’s methodology completely ignores the human condition, assuming that all buyers will behave like a computer, applying a fixed metric to each question. Are they expecting people to always be rational in a society where many of our citizens function mainly on an emotional basis!
Could eBay management possibly be this ignorant of reality and at the same time have such incredible hubris? Or, could this be eBay’s agenda to rid the site of all of the unique individual sellers who have been supporting them all these years, allowing eBay to profit by using its brand-name recognition to help push electronic shopping carts filled with new consumer products supplied by large corporations around the internet?
When I first discovered eBay, I immediately recognized this gathering of individual sellers and buyers as an historic shift for marketing and commerce; “cottage industry can now be global”. I jumped in with both feet, and as my success grew, I became a huge eBay booster, encouraging and helping hundreds of other business people I met to “get on eBay and take advantage of this huge opportunity to expand their market reach”. Many of those people I encouraged are now successful eBay Power Sellers using the site as their sole means of marketing and sales. What do I tell these people now? Many have called to offer support but also to voice their anger about the injustice and absurdity of what eBay has done to me, my employees and my business…
They also voice their fear that it will happen to them, as I am not alone in this: there are thousands of eBay sellers who have recently suffered from eBay’s current managements’ travesty of un-tested “improvement ideas” that produced only misjudgement and unjust actions; further damaging our beloved eBay community.
Is this anyway to treat your business partner? I certainly don’t think so, do you?
Call me toll-free @ 800-544-3746, 9AM-6PM, M-F, PST. Tell me what you think, David Riddle
Hello, I have been manhandled the same way and feel very frustrated. I have spent a lot of money to make this work. I am now banned from selling with a 98% rating. I am stuck with a lot of inventory and no place to sell it. Good luck and God Bless
Danny Wyatt SATMAN1954
Surely a class action lawsuit should be brought against them.
I also have fell foul to disgruntled buyers who feel they should receive their item on day of purchase (you muppets).
eBays customer service should also have a feedback rating, and trust me it wouldnt last an hour before receiving a non performance email preventing it from the right to comment on other peoples sales.
I cant wait for the worst company in the world to fall from its own grace, and there is a way to help them fall.
If your buying account is still active, leave other sellers anegative for all sales and 1 star on the DSR (Detailed Seller Ratings), cant see them staying in business for long if everyone did this.
My account has been restricted as well for having 98.8% posative feedback, I have been on ebay for two years and sold over 1000 items but due to 2 newbies that cant use a phone i got restricted. this is very unfair and their pathetic so called special help line for power sellers cannot do anything. The trust and safety team do not reply to e-mails and are in itself very untrustworthy and unsafe
**** Ebay.
They removed all my listing for non performance despite me having a 98.9% feedback rating, and being a power seller. What kind of BS is that. God I hate ebay and their bs policies. enough is enough am pulling the plug. FU Ebay
Wow, its good to see so many Saisfied Ebay sellers, Keep up the good work Ebay. You @$$holes! You are shooting yourselves in your own foot! That’s exactly what you want to do in an ecomonic slow down…restrict and limit selling! Congrats!
Guys get this..
I’ve been selling on ebay since 2002! I’m a powerseller and have over 900 feedback.
Thats real f*&king smart block people from making money in a recession.
(above doesn’t make sense, the site edited what I wrote) Heres my problem ebay has restricted me from selling for having a 4.0 out of 5.0 on shipping time. As a seller whos been selling since 2002. Ebay is my main income I need to be able to sell. 4.1 or higher is a little ridiculous on standards. The restriction should be 2.5/3.0 or lower. Blocking my account from selling for 30 days to 12 months is unacceptable for me. Especially since I pay over $100-200 a month in selling fees and a monthly store rate. It’s not like I have poor feedback or a 2.0 on shipping time. Also I’m just a single person not a huge warehouse. Your new standards work for big companies but not for small sellers. People demand 2-3 day shipping times because they are used to companies liek amazon, newegg ect. I remember the old days on ebay.. these changes are bad for the company. People like myself are looking into other places to sell craigslist, google checkout stores ect. The money I spent for fees will go right into advertising my own website. Ebay made life easy for me but now thats its a headache I’m considering other options.
I found out last night as I was trying to post three items for auction that Ebay had taken away my seller privileges for 30 days because one or more of my DSR (detailed seller ratings)had slipped below 4.1 ratings! They were kind enough to let me know that I still had buyer privileges…as if!!! They also told me that if I raised my DSR’s I would get my seller privileges back…hmm, how does one accomplish that without the ability to sell which is how the DSR’s are tallied?? It is a mystery to me! My feedback is a 98.4% positive with one neutral and one negative in the past six months. Those figures speak more clearly of my abilities as a seller than the damn DSR’s! DSR’s are only a way for buyers to abuse the rating system. These ratings are posted anonymously with no way for sellers to refute false negative ratings from buyers AND Ebay encourages buyers to go ahead and leave “honest” ratings because of the anonymity…what a load of hogwash!!! I had a buyer from the same state as myself (Idaho)who asked for a reduced shipping rate even though my auctions clearly stated that I chraged a flat fee to anyone anywhere regardless of location (except international); I went ahead and gave her a discount on shipping and when she didn’t receive her package as fast as she thought she should,(again my policy was clearly stated in the auction; a 10 business day shipping policy, not including weekends or holidays), she filed a paypal dispute against me; I won. Of course this person left false negative DSR’s for me, Ebay hasn’t given her any incentive to be fair or honest. Of four recent Paypal disputes filed against me for not receiving items on time, I won all four, but this information is not posted on Ebay where others can see it, it is private correspondence on Paypal only. Buyers like this woman and Ebay as a company should be ashamed of their treatment of sellers!!! Sellers are what fills Ebay’s coffers not the buyers. It is the sellers that pay listing fees, relisting fees, template fees, picture posting fees, storefront fees, and final value fees…without sellers there are no buyers! And let’s not forget the Paypal fees (Paypal is a subsidiary of Ebay) No one is perfect in this world, most of all not Ebay as evinced by this shameful treatment of it’s lifeblood, sellers!
Ps-I am not going to participate as a buyer on Ebay and be a sponsor and co-conspirator of this hypocrisy.
I’m in a similar situation to people above, my account has had selling restrictions placed on it, it seems because I have dropped below 4.1 stars on dispatch time while I am 4.8 and 4.9 on all the other categories, one negative and one neutral feedback within the past 30 days, both left by bidders who have only registerred in the past 30 days. Even though in 5 years that is the only bad feedback I have received, and I have over 600 positive sales feedback. What’s really strange is that my listings are still active almost a week after they imposed the limit on my account, but I cannot amend the listings! I have an item that I need to amend the listing of but cannot do so, it tells me that I am not allowed to list items for sale, but I have items for sale!
It’s really confusing they would do this at this time of financial worry worldwide, for one they are decreasing their own profits and stopping me from making money. How does that make sense?
The same has just happened to me.
On Wed 9th September I received 2 e-mails from ebay, one said it had removed my 165 listed items for sale & the other that my account had been restricted for 30 days.
I know this was down to one buyer who bought am item from me & did not pay in the specified time in my listing. I contacted her numerous times without reply. I then sent a message stating i would report the matter to ebay as none payment, suddenly still without contact she paid. I posted the item & the next thing she opened a dispute stating item significantly not as described-i fought this case with ebay & won the dispute & did not have to give a refund as i proved the item was as described. Then surprise surprise she left negative feedback. Ebay removed the comment but not the rating-what use is that?? So because i received a negative, item signifcantly not as described without leaving the customer satisfied???ebay voted in my favour for gods sake!!!so because of this malicious idiot my account has been restricted for 30 days. I have a feedback of over 5000 99.8% 5 gold stars for each category yet this happens. So thanks to ebay i will be at least £1000 short this month & god only knows how i will pay my mortgage. what a fair process not!!!Surely this is against the law.
I tried listing heavy Film Magazines, but ebay do not allow sellers to charge postage on film magazines.
So it’s now impossible to sell them on ebay.
Not worth listing on ebay and i’ll boycott them altogether buying and selling.
I just wanted to say I’m really glad I saw this site. I have never bought anything on ebay before and didn’t know how the rating system works- usually when I rate things I only give 5/5 if the service was EXCEPTIONAL in some way, now I see that giving 4/5 which I usually would do for “good” would hurt the seller. I’m glad I saw this before doing my first feedback! Thats outrageous to me that ebay does this to sellers, I’m pretty disgusted with them.
I have been a seller on e bay for 5 years.Like yourself due to the new dsr rating system I have been penalised.I could go on for ever about how ridiculous the new system is.But I think you have said it all.Final words.
NO MORE SELLERS, NO MORE BUYERS.NO MORE E BAY.MASS UNEMPLOYMENT AT E BAY.
All going well google will start up a new auction site with sensible selling.Contact google and suggest it.long live G Bay.
I just recieved an e-mail from Ebay notifying me that my seller performance standards have gone down. I have a 99.6% feedback rating and nearly 5 stars on everything. I have been on ebay since 1998. I have never received a legitimate neutral or negative feedback. But because some people decide to leave me 4 stars instead of 5, and 6 people left me 1-2 stars for “shipping charge”.. I get this notice. Such crap. People want the item there next day with free shipping. Too bad we can’t rate buyers on payment speed or leave neutral/negative feedback to non paying bidders.
Im glad I found this website and can add my comments to similar storys of woe. I have wasted hours emailing, live chatting and even speaking to Ebay “representatives” who have basically regurgitated the same message – we arent interested. My problem is that after they imposed seller restrictions with no good explanation, and have failed to give a plausible explanation to date ( though I suspect from reading these stories and anonymous DSR is to blame ) the restrictions being that I can list a set percentage only of my previous trades – I find I cannot even list one item let alone a percentage of! Absolutely ridiculous. Its a complete farce and faceless unhelpful staff are of no help whatsoever. Mind blowing.
I hear everyone’s pain, I have been to aswell brought down from selling on ebay. “The NON SELLER PERFORMACE” I have been a active seller since 2003 with 15 employee’s whom I just had to let go last week becuase thre were no more sales on ebay. I was too in such a very good standing with a 99.9% feedback rating and then all the changes came into affect and boom, one morning we wake up to 98.1% We are Canadian and our postal service is slow and expensive. These DSR’S are what brought us down. But I would just like to say that this world we live in runs on GREED and this is the reason of the changes on ebay. No powerseller now no discount on the fees. It’s just another way to make a few more million. I could go on and on with this sh*t as you all know. But best of luck to everyone and we should really do something about this.
We are suffering too. We are in Thailand and did sell mainly to UK.
1 batch of mail got delayed for whatever reason in September and several items took about 15 – 20 days to arrive (1 was 22 days).
We got hit with 14 low stars for despatch (5 from 1 person – all items in 1 pack), we despatched when we said we would (i.e within 48 hours).
Now it is a daily head scratching excercise as we do not know how many we can list on any given day. Impossible to plan anything.
Despite asking on many occasions what the limits to our account are – no one ever comes back with a statement that makes any sense.
We were not going to worry too much about a website of our own because past experience showed that making a living on eBay was possible. That has changed, our website is 50% near completion – well done eBay, you have driven another loyal customer away.
I so hope many thousands join us, and we can all watch your share price slump and see you flap to bring about sufficient change to try and bring sellers back.
Add me to the long and growing list of ex-ebay sellers. I sold on ebay since nearly the beginning of ebay. Their latest insanity of the DSR’s, was the final straw. I started gettng low marks for shipping fees, but the real kicker, I always offered free shipping for all my items. A email to “customer service”, and asked them, how I could possibly get low ratings, since I had free shipping, their canned answer “that is the buyers perception”.
What a load of ****, I charge to much for shipping, even though I have free shipping, what kind of insanity is this?
That was the final straw, I have closed my ebay account, as well as paypal, there are plenty of other places to sell. Ebay will go down in flames, sooner or later. Hopefully sooner.
In a similar position & in agreement with all the above comments.
I’m adding a voice/comment so need to repeat what’s already been stated here but the DSRs are not a true reflection of most sellers practices & just end up punishing honest sellers.
The Ebay business model is flawed & becoming increasing untenable(run by bots).The powers that be at Ebay do know this but wont change it…
Members questions/concerns/help/attacks etc on Ebay’s policies & actions on their disscussion boards are frequently removed.So the true reflection of peoples concerns are seldom seen to be resolved.There is no true place for help & discussion as anything deemed negative against Ebay is surpressed.
Where is Ebay without the sellers?
Oh, God, ebay is becoming so redundant. I can’t believe their business model still manages to function. Seller performance??? What, whoop my arse until I make you even more money? Back in 2005, after more than $100k in sales, ebay closed my account down due to receiving two consecutive negative feedbacks. One of the negative feedbacks was due to a person not receiving his item within three days. He got his item. He also got his refund. Woe is me. I recently signed back up to ebay again (I know, a fool and his money are quickly parted, blah, blah, blah). But I have to come to ebays defense (a tiny smidgeon) for now having a phone number, where you can actually speak to a REAL person! You have to play around a little bit in the customer service section. In the customer support section, click on contact us on the right. Then click on the selling tab/appealing a case. It will bring up “call us” on the right-hand side of the screen. When you click on it, it will give you a phone number (866-540-3229) and a pin number that will be active for 15 minutes only. It seemed like I got through to someone in the Philippines, but the person seemed very friendly and efficient. Anything has to be better than chatting to “Emma” the online robot. I also recieved an e-mail to give feedback on their customer service performance. I guess ebay has realised that they’re a slowly-dying dinosaur. Rest in peace, ebay.
Well i have to say what a crock of S**t Ebay has become, i have been restricted from selling and i have 100% Feedback!!!!!!!!!!!
i wont bore you with the ins and outs but i too have been here for 10 years and all i an say is yes it is an attempt by ebay to earn off the back of large scale sellers, their original ethos has long since met the bin. I am not at all happy, one thing the representative suggested is that i should offer free p&P yes so that they can take more money off me in final value fees, not muh help to me i replied i cant list any items!!!!
I started getting the same crap about seller performance, charging too much for post and bad comms etc, but ive promptly posted items and given freebies to my customers to keep them happy, and cant change our local postal service charges as im on an island and its not the same costs as the UK that ebay seems to judge us against! or is it because I usually list all my stuff for 0.99p and they think I make a killing on the postage doing them out of fees mmm I wonder???
I am in agreement with all of the above i also have 99.7% feedback but my seller account has been restricted and my listings removed (2 hours before they were due to finish!) can anyone tell me if there is a time limit or is it permanent? as i cannot seem to get any response from e bay customer support?
Hello i have been indefinatly suspended unfairly , can anyone please help
my rating
Feedback 10207 98.9%
Here is a screen shot of my feedback and DSR
http://imageshack.us/photo/my-images/703/dsrebay.jpg/
ny negive or neutral feedbacks were items lost in the post or delayed due to bad weather ect and i refunded each and every one and they still left me bad feedback
anything i can do to get the account back up please. thanks
My recent conversation with Ebay
James Vaughan
Welcome to eBay Live Help, my name is James. How may I be of assistance?
funkymonkey2316
hello james please can you explain why i am no longer allowed to sell items
James Vaughan
Just to clarify, have you encountered any error message when listing items to sell?
funkymonkey2316
no i have received an email telling me i am no longer allowed to sell, i would like to know the exact reason why
funkymonkey2316
the only error message if it is a error message says i am not allowed to list due to my seller performance standards !!!
James Vaughan
I’ve checked your ‘funkymonkey2316′ account and found that your Selling Performance status is Below Standard. As soon as your account has improved to Standard, you’ll be able to list items to sell.
James Vaughan
As your ratings has now improved, you’ll be able to get your status back to Standard on the next performance evaluation on the 20th of October.
funkymonkey2316
the last email i received told me i am NO LONGER allowed to sell so how am I supposed to improve my rating, up till this rating came in I never had any problems, I have had this account since 2003 and I am shocked at the why I am being treated
funkymonkey2316
James I have items I need to sell now
James Vaughan
I know this matter concerns you.
James Vaughan
As mentioned, you’ll be able to list after the next evaluation on the 20th.
funkymonkey2316
But as mentioned I have items to sell now, ebay makes sure it takes its charges every month and they are getting more expensive I am really not happy with my treatment
James Vaughan
In order to assist you further on lifting your selling restriction, I will then need to transfer you to our dedicated taem.
James Vaughan
Please stay connected while I make the transfer.
James Vaughan
Has transferred you to:Jessica Lorie
Jessica Lorie
Welcome to eBay Live Help, my name is Jessica. Please give me a moment to review what you have discussed with the previous representative.
funkymonkey2316
ok thanks
Jessica Lorie
Thanks for waiting. From what I understand, you’d like to appeal for the selling limits on your account. is this correct?
funkymonkey2316
yes that is correct i have items that i need to sell
funkymonkey2316
i have had this account since 2003 and if you look at my history for the last 8 years you will see that until this new system came in i had a very good account
Jessica Lorie
Thanks for confirming. Please bear with me for a few moments while I look into this.
Jessica Lorie
Thanks for waiting. I see that you are currently not meeting our minimum seller performance standards required to sell on eBay, and upon review of your account activity, we’ve determined that your business may not be right for the eBay marketplace.
Jessica Lorie
As a result, we’ve indefinitely restricted your selling privileges. You won’t be allowed to list or sell items moving forward, but will be able to purchase items freely.
funkymonkey2316
please explain in full how you have come to this decision
funkymonkey2316
I need a full explanation to how you can make this decision
Jessica Lorie
I can see from our records that we had previously warned you about the low levels of buyer satisfaction on your account and stated that we needed to see a big improvement. Since then your account has failed to meet the requirements of our Seller Non Performance policy, so we had to take action.
Jessica Lorie
I’d just like to check if we are still connected. Are you still there?
funkymonkey2316
yes because you have restricted me from selling enough items to be able to improve I am 1 of hundreds of people who are totally disgusted with my treatment from ebay under this seller proformance
funkymonkey2316
if you actually read my feedback you would see that a lot of people give excellent feed back but dont fill in the star thing and this has caused the problems which is wrong because it does not give a true reflection
Jessica Lorie
I’m afraid the reason for this is that your account breached eBay’s Seller Non-Performance policy by causing an unacceptable level of dissatisfaction amongst your buyers.
funkymonkey2316
what 1 neutral feedback that got resloved
Jessica Lorie
This restriction is due to the low DSR scores you received.
funkymonkey2316
please advise in full the dissatisfied buyers and what the DRS score is as i have never heard of it !!
Jessica Lorie
You can check your seller dashboard:
Jessica Lorie
http://cgi6.ebay.co.uk/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?SDPerformance&tabValue=lastEval&spsProgram=UK
funkymonkey2316
No I am asking you to provide detailed reason to why you have stopped me from selling on Ebay i do believe it is my legal right to have a full clear explanation
Jessica Lorie
Should you want to pursue this further, you can contact us for information at the following address:
eBay Europe S.à r.l.
Attn: eBay.co.uk Legal
22-24 Boulevard Royal
L-2449 Luxembourg
Jessica Lorie
Are you there?
funkymonkey2316
I am asking you as the customer service to provide me with this information, also I have now found yet another site with thousands of dissatisfied ex ebay people
Jessica Lorie
I can understand you’re disappointed as you can no longer use your eBay account and I’m sorry that there’s nothing more we can do at this point. Our decision not to remove your restriction is final.
Jessica Lorie
Thank you for using eBay Live Help. Have a good night.
Chat Session Ended, Goodbye. (5010
Same story…I’ve selling nice antiques (glass, china, furniture, paintings) for years, been on Ebay since 2001, all positive FB of 2600 – was restricted on Sept 6th for slow despatch time (at a mere 98.4% satisfaction rating – everything else is 99%+). Restricted to 214 items and £12030 per month, so I couldnt list anything really that month (already had that many up for sale). Ebay totally unexpectedly upped the selling limit on 20th Nov to 280 items, and £16000+, and sent me a nice email complimenting me on the improvement in my scores. My DSRs rose slightly more until Dec 6th – when I was suddenly restricted to £12000 and 160 items. 160 is pretty much what I have on, so 3 weeks before Xmas I cant list anything else. Income gone. How do I pay the mortgage after the last few dodgy income months of restrictions? Which *****ng lunatic thinks I’m a bad seller? Which ****ng lunatic came up with this scheme? How many billions have Ebay lost in revenue? How come they’re still in business?
Its really unfair. eBay is simply a bunch of morons. Have had enough of their BS …