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Attorney Sues eBay over Negative Feedback
Mephie writes "MSNBC is running a story on an attorney who is suing ebay over negative feedback a seller left about him. It sounds like a classic case of buyer leaves negative feedback for seller; seller responds accordingly. The plaintiff claims he'd not be filing the suit if he didn't feel ebay's policy needs revision, stating 'They can control content and for them to fail to do so is unconscionable.' Yeah. That's great."
...are the best part about eBay's system. It doesn't always work, but it seems that the honest half of the honest/dishonest feedback ratio is much higher than in normal venues.
Does anyone know this loser's EBAY ID or email address? I would like to give this guy some direct negative feedback. In case you didn't read the article, not only is he whining about his (allegedly deserved) "negative feedback" but
The lawsuit also demands that buyers and sellers, who use aliases in eBay transactions, register their screen names with the state of California as fictitious business names, and that eBay be forced to collect state sales tax.
So not only does he want better EBAY Karma, but he wants to try and destroy EBAY via judicial legislation. I don't think the court has the power to make every Ebay'er in California register, but you never know how judges will interpret the law in these uncertain times.
Ebay is the world's largest yard sale and should remain sales tax free!
While the line may appear to be fine at times, there is a difference between libel and a simple statement of fact. If you are ripped off by someone on ebay simply document it as much as is possible. Then condense this factual information into your feedback. When you use the feedback as a tool to make statements about someone that are not provable or are a personal attack then you are veering into the area of libel or slander.
A screen name is your eBay personality. You buy and sell under that name and if you wish, participate in their online community.
There's no rule against having more than one. I, for example, am "anonymous*coward" on eBay.
What he started the lawsuit over was the fellow who sold him the magazines (yes, probably late and in worse condition) left retaliatory feedback calling him dishonest, saying he should be banned from ebay, and otherwise making him out to be a Very Bad Person to do business with simply because he called the magazines late and in worse condition.
Then when ebay refused to remove the seller's retaliatory feedback, all this happened. Yes, the lawyer's making a bigger deal out of this than he should -- but the seller is scum for calling him a con artist (and such) just because he said in feedback that the magazines were late.
Nope, exactly the opposite.
The sales tax thing is a way of putting pressure on eBay to settle; this is a classic crooked lawyer blackmail tactic (go ahead and sue me, Grace; you're a disgrace to the profession and this is the sort of barratry that would see its perpetrator disbarred in more genteel times). It's potentially far more costly to eBay than any judgment they could reasonably expect to pay for the bogus libel claim. eBay throws him a bone, he stops making noise about the sales tax, everyone signs the papers and goes home.
"Patriotism is your conviction that this country is superior to all other countries because you were born in it." -- GBS
From: Squaretrade
You can have your negative feedback removed as part of an arbitration process, IF both parties agree and pay $20.
Q. What circumstances will eBay will consider removing Feedback?
A. In limited situations eBay may remove feedback without a ruling or settlement agreement from SquareTrade. See eBay's Feedback Removal Policy for more information.
eBay will remove feedback after filing a case with SquareTrade in two situations.
1) Feedback can be removed after you file a case with SquareTrade and there is no response to your case filing if:
-At least 14 days have passed since you filed your case;
-The feedback was left less than 90 days prior to this case filing;
-All necessary case notices were sent to the respondent and SquareTrade received no response either online or by email;
-Filer used the same item # and eBay IDs as recorded in the feedback record (note that a separate case must be filed for each item #); and
-The item bought or sold must not violate the marketplace policy.
2) Feedback can be removed after you file a case with SquareTrade and receive a response from the other party if:
-You have obtained the help of a SquareTrade Mediator;
-Both parties agree to the removal in a Settlement Agreement;
-The item bought or sold must not violate eBay marketplace policy; and
-All other terms of the mediated settlement have been completed.
{Note: there is no time limit to resolving problems - feedback can be removed through mediation even if more than 90 days has passed.
No, because it takes specific action by the government to make a company or industry a "common carrier." I believe eBay's policies are appropriate for a common carrier, but they are not currently a common carrier.
IANAL, of course....
Catherine
truth has always been a defense for libel. if they ask the person who left the feedback if it's true, then its not libel!
look back to early american history!
*the governer fucked my wife* was published (not like that, but same intent). someone responded with "its true!" and therefore not seditious libel (given this isn't seditious, but thats where we get the 1st amendment from)
"Martha Stewart can lick my Scrotum......do i have a scrotum?" -- Sharon Osbourne
That idiot as you call her sued because the coffee was hotter than coffee usually would be. She had sever injuries that requires skin transplants. I can understand why she would sue. I can't understand however how the jury could aware over a million dollar in punitive damages. It's good to know that the judge reduced it to $650,000.
"Light is faster than sound." - "Is that why people tend to look bright until you hear them speak?"
You said he quote 18.00 for S/H but it only cost 8.00 for shipping. Unless the auction in question said 'buys pays actual shipping charges' he did not cheat you. Charging a lot for S/H is not cheating.
http://www.cnpa.com/Bulletin/may%2013%202002/searc h%20warrant.htm
No, no, no. A million times, no.
I don't know how hot you take your coffee, but it's not 180+ degrees F, which is how hot McDonalds used to store their coffee. There's no good reason to have coffee that hot. They were wrong, they got sued, and they changed.
If you spill hot coffee on yourself, yes, you get burned. If you spilt *THAT* hot coffee on yourself, you'll have 3rd degree burns and skin grafts like she did. As a company, you have to be pretty frigging dumb to sell something that can cause serious injury on contact with human skin, and have it be meant for immediate ingestion.
I think the no retractions policy is to protect eBay from lawsuits. If they don't allow retractions, they will claim that they are an arms length from the process, and they can't be accused of selectively allowing some changes and disallowing others. There are plenty of problems with eBay's feedback mechanisim; I think the no retraction policy is probably a good idea. I think Phil Agre wrote an excellent piece on what's wrong with the system.
IANAL, so take this post as coming from such. One, the guy read and agreed to eBay's terms of service when he created an account on their system. In that terms of service agreement, it states: "Release. Because we are a venue, in the event that you have a dispute with one or more users, you release eBay (and our officers, directors, agents, subsidiaries, joint ventures and employees) from claims, demands and damages (actual and consequential) of every kind and nature, known and unknown, suspected and unsuspected, disclosed and undisclosed, arising out of or in any way connected with such disputes." And.. "In no event shall we, our subsidiaries, employees or our suppliers be liable for lost profits or any special, incidental or consequential damages arising out of or in connection with our site, our services or this agreement (however arising, including negligence). Our liability, and the liability of our subsidiaries, employees, and suppliers, to you or any third parties in any circumstance is limited to the greater of the amount of fees you pay to us in the 12 months prior to the action giving rise to liability, and $100. Some States do not allow the exclusion or limitation of incidental or consequential damages, so the above limitation or exclusion may not apply to you." And... "Indemnity You agree to indemnify and hold us and (as applicable) our parent, subsidiaries, affiliates, officers, directors, agents, and employees, harmless from any claim or demand, including reasonable attorneys' fees, made by any third party due to or arising out of your breach of this Agreement or the documents it incorporates by reference, or your violation of any law or the rights of a third party." Lastly: "If you do not agree to be bound by the terms and conditions of this Agreement, do not use or access our services." As for the sales tax nonsense, eBay is currently complying with all federal tax regulations governing their conduct, and therefore, cannot be penalized. A lawsuit cannot seek to force an entty to collect and pay sales tax when the laws currently in force do not require that taxes be collected. The same with being foced to register eBay user ID's as fictitious business names in your state of residence. Since governing law does not require it, a lawsuit cannot seek to enforce it. Sheesh! I wish that guy would get a life!
Looking at this clown's feedback, this looked like this was how he got his jollies. Usually used "buy it now" so that the seller wouldn't have a chance to remove the bid.
So I filled a non-paying bidder complaint, and a request to have the feedback removed. Ebay not only removed the feedback (mine and his), they suspended the idiot's account, and refunded the fees on the auction, all within 36 hours of my complaint. Sure Ebay has a few hoops to jump through but they dont make it needlessly hard. If this lawyer really thought the feedback was wrong and it was going to cause him harm he should have gone through things the right way and not run off to court. Heck he could have hired an arbitrator for $20 and gotten it removed.
This guy (Roger, not Robert, by the way) uses the ID rgrace@metnews.com.
You can view his feedback profile at http://cgi2.ebay.com/aw-cgi/eBayISAPI.dll?MfcISAPI Command=ViewFeedback&userid=rgrace%40metnews.com&i tems=25
They'll get my encryption algorithm when they pry it from my cold, dead hard drive.
This makes interesting reading The Value of Reputation on eBay: A Controlled Experiment by Paul Resnick, Richard Zeckhauser, John Swanson, and Kate Lockwood[1]
Abstract
Many empirical studies assess the effectiveness of reputation mechanisms, such as eBay's Feedback Forum. These investigations involve products ranging from pennies to collector guitars; they vary widely in their conclusions on how well reputation systems perform. Part of the explanation for the disparity among prior studies is that they merely collect samples from the eBay population. Such observational studies significantly increase the number of other variables that are left uncontrolled. This makes it difficult to isolate the effects of reputation on auction outcome.
In our main experiment, we worked with an established eBay auctioneer to sell matched pairs of items -- batches of vintage postcards -- under his extremely high reputation identity, and under newcomer identities with little reputation. Our second experiment followed the same format, but compared sales under newcomer identities with and without negative feedback. Having controlled the content of the auctions, and the presentation of item information, we were able to minimize the effects of variables other than reputation. As expected, the established identity fared better. The price difference was 7.6% of the selling price. Back-of-the-envelope calculations indicate that this amount is reasonable, given the level of risk that buyers incur. Surprisingly, one or two negative feedbacks for our new IDs had no price effects, even though these sellers had few positives.
base page for California State Bar lookups:
2 19C.pgm?13432 8D
T 219C.pgm?13432 8S
http://calsb.org/mm/sbmbrshp.htm
searching for a Robert Grace only returns one name:
http://www.calsb.org/cgi-bin/NT201C?134328
Member# 134328
Robert L. Grace Jr is an ACTIVE Member
Only ACTIVE members may practice law in California
5533 Garth Ave
Los Angeles, CA 90056
Phone: (213)974-3562
FAX:
E-Mail:
Admitted in California on June 14, 1988
Undergraduate: Univ of California at Los Angeles; Los Angeles CA
School of Law: Loyola Law School; Los Angeles CA
(This person *does* show up as the only Robert Grace that lives in Los Angeles and is a member of the California State Bar)
No Public Record of Discipline:
http://www.calsb.org:8080/cgi-bin/NT
No further information:
http://www.calsb.org:8080/cgi-bin/N
--
Could it be?
Besides, the important part is the way the buyer has tried to rig the suit to get the government of California on his side:
In other words, if that provision of the suit had already been in effect, when I bought that pair of speakers from somebody who turned out to live here in the same county in North Carolina, California would have gotten some of the money even though North Carolina didn't collect any sales tax on the deal. Then again, if you have to register with the state of California just to buy something off of eBay, it might be a good time to unload your eBay stock.
I see even classic Slashdot is now pretty much unusable on dial up anymore.
When you are acting as a seller on eBay, just how do you overwhelm yourself? eBay sellers set the quantity of items they are selling. I don't see how a responsible seller can become overwhelmed, unless they are in fact irresponsible sellers and are listing items with higher available quantities than they actually have. I sell on eBay, yet I've never been overwhelmed with too many sales because I only list what I can ship. What am I missing here?
Putting moderation advice in your
Note, IANAL, but this is what I understand about defamation (libel/slandar) laws...
...". That way, there's no doubt it's your opinion, which isn't libel (only statements of fact can be libel). That's the safest way -- otherwise, you have to determine whether your statement was one of opinion or fact.
:)
If you're ever unsure when you're about to say something negative about someone, preface it with "In my opinion,
With public figures, such as the President, there's a stronger standard, as well. I believe that the person actually had to know that the statement is false. (I don't remember the exact details, but I know it's harder for public figures to win defamation suits).
I don't think making the defamation into a song would protect you. You could just charge royalties for anyone else singing it (but they might get sued by the victim as well).
Oh, and to be defamation, the statement must also be false. So, if someone actually is an asshole, and you could convince a jury of that fact, then it wouldn't be defamation either.
Basically, defamation suits are intended to discourage from people lying about others. So, if I say "Walmart is a terrible store. All their food is rotten, and they overcharge me all the time.", that would be slandar because it's not true, and tarnishes Walmart's reputation. But if I say "RoadRunner is a terrible ISP. They block incoming port 80 so I can't serve web content.", that would not be slandar, since it's true (they actually just started doing that -- I think they're trying to get people to use their business class service). Note that in both cases, "terrible" is a matter of opinion.
Basically, if all your statements are true, then you don't have to worry about slandaring anyone. Of course, consult a real lawyer if you plan to do otherwise
"Save the whales, feed the hungry, free the mallocs" -- author unknown