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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
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.
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.
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