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."

Comments

Why is this in the lawsuit?

[happyhippy]

"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."

Is this an underhanded way of getting ebay to pay tax? And the rest of it a smoke screen?

Re:Why is this in the lawsuit?

[DDX_2002]

Can anyone explain how an individual has standing to obtain injunctive or declaratory relief requiring someone else to pay taxes?

I'm not up on California law, but this part of the claim looks like a PR stunt.

He's right that it needs revision

[York the Mysterious]

Last summer I stopped selling on eBay. I had been selling since Nov of 97 to make a few bucks on the side. I'd probably sold 2000-3000 items and 99% of the transactions went perfectly. Over that summer I had a huge number of people leaving me feedback for totally bogus reasons. People would pay with a money order with no return address and no note of what it was for even though I e-mail out detailed instructions. When I didn't mail the item (since I didn't know what the payment was for) they would just leave negative feedback without e-mailing me first. I would also get negative feedback from people a week after they made payments. They claimed I had failed to ship items even though these people were paying for parcel post mailing which takes up to 2 week sometimes. I think that there is a new wave of people on eBay that forget they are dealing with people and not businesses. Remember catalogs quote 4-6 weeks. Dont expect a week off ebay. If you need it the next day go to CompUSA or Fry's and pay full price. If you dont want to pay full price dont expect lightning fast delivery and perfect items. They're on eBay for a reason.

Re:He's right that it needs revision

[kmellis]

Tim,

Aside from the fact that your customers were acting stupidly, you undermine the main point of your post:

I think that there is a new wave of people on eBay that forget they are dealing with people and not businesses.

...with these two phrases at the beginning:

...to make a few bucks on the side. I'd probably sold 2000-3000 items...

Dude, you were a business, not a person. You weren't someone selling a few knick-knacks they found in their attic.

Re:He's right that it needs revision

[seanadams.com]

I don't buy this for a second... nearly all of the people I've done business with on eBay have had perfect feedback. Not because I look for people with perfect feedback, but because in general, anyone who's serious about eBay will not have more than one or two of the kind of comments you were getting.

If you RTFA, you'll see that ebay advises that they don't moderate feedback, and any feedback you leave is your own responsibility. That's the beauty of it... everyone needs to understand that USER feedback is left by USERS. Each is responsible for their own words. To hold the medium accountable is just plain stupid. I wouldn't trust eBay if it were otherwise.

BTW if you are buying/selling thousands of items on ebay, then you ARE a business. Ask the IRS...

Re:He's right that it needs revision

[rjamestaylor]

No kidding. I had an auction for some items my company asked me to sell, so I placed a large Dutch Auction. Unfortunately, the company took just over half the items out of the auction (*sigh*). Bidding was starting to pick up and I didn't know what to do -- I had enough product to cover the existing bids but didn't have the quantity stated in the auction any longer. I checked with eBay and realised I needed to cancel the auction. My first cancellation.

A number of people contacted me and inquired what had happened. Most asked if they could still get the item. I told them I would honor the opening bid price (which was realistically what the winners would have paid, anyway, due to the large number of items in the Dutch Auction). Almost all of these people bought the item.

Then there was one guy who wrote to me and said: "This is bullshit! I will have you banned from eBay." I wrote back and explained what had happened and that I was not B.S.'ing but rather trying to be honest by cancelling the auction in accordance with eBay policies. I also told him that every other inquiry I received showed decorum and respect and I had worked out a way to get the product at the low price that was bid to those who asked. He responded, "Sorry, I didn't know the policy. new to ebay." I wrote back and told him to check his bleeping attitude and, no, I would not be working out a way to help him.

People are behind the "screen names." Learn it, live it.

Re:He's right that it needs revision

[cervo]

Definitely the policies need revision, some sellers of CRAP get really good feedback ratings by promising to also leave a good feedback rating. My sister ordered a bon jovi cd which was shown in the sale in its true cover and said original. Then she got a cd-r burned copy(two months after the agreed upon date). In the package was a little note saying lets trade positive feedback. Instead she left neutral feedback because of how late he was and unresponsive he was. And then BOOM he tacks on negative feedback saying she was unprofessional in retaliation. And there are a lot of other people I know who get retaliatory feedback from people too. I only wish that we knew he was a putz so we could have given him negative instead of neutral feedback. There were no mistakes on our part either, he had the address and stuff, he just kept saying he'd ship it and never got around to it. Then he claimed he shipped it two weeks later and finally four weeks later again he claimed he just shipped it in which case we got it within a week. Although he made no claims of two items. The guy types two or three word e-mails in all caps I mean geez where is the troll protection on e-bay?

they don't censor

[diamond0]

eBay doesn't censor user feedback, so wouldn't they be considered "common carrier" and therefore immune from liability for libel?

You have to love lawyers and the Internet

[adipocere]

I'm pretty sure this guy was the lawyer for Bernie Shifman about eighteen months ago.

Feedback headaches

[King_TJ]

Actually, I figured it was only a matter of time before this happened. I believe eBay does caution you to state your complaints concisely and accurately, without letting it reflect negatively on the individual themself. (I don't recall the exact wording, but they do try to warn you about it right before you leave a feedback comment.)

I can see how it could be taken as libel/slander if a negative comment was left in a certain manner.

Generaly, it's been my observation that the feedback feature is very useful, but needs to be taken with a few grains of salt, too. I know I've had times where I wanted to warn others of a problem with a produce being sold, but didn't want to completely "slam" the seller - so I left neutral feedback. Sometimes, this seems to anger the sellers so they retaliate by leaving me negative feedback for no good reason.

(EG. I recently bought 4 sticks of memory for a PowerMac 7600. The eBay seller said the memory being sold would work in a 7500, 7600, or several other Mac models. When the RAM arrived, it was not the right type for my 7600. I was able to get an RMA for a quick refund of my money (good!), but the inflated shipping price I initially paid was *not* refunded. In essence, I was out over $20 because of an incorrect statement on the auction listing.) I left a neutral feedback to warn others that it didn't really work in 7600's - and the seller left me negative feedback saying "Don't use feedback for this! Use our RMA process." (Duh!)

Ridiclous

[LucidVisions]

This guy is obviously a product of the "I-can't-take-responsibility-for-my-actions" generation. If someone gave him negative feedback, then he should act to rectify the situation immediately, not sue the messenger. That's like suing the ISP that allowed someone to send you a bad breath notification. hahaa

you are responsible for the world

[Bob MacSlack]

So I guess this is just pointing out that anything anyone says on any site you have control over is your responsibility. You are responsible for verifying any and all statements for truth to protect yourself from being sued. Is this the way its supposed to be?

Somehow, I think Ebay gets a lot of baseless complaints from people about feedback left by other members. So why would this one be any different? Did he come to them with concrete evidence that the comment was untrue? I didn't read anything like that. Do they have the right or responsibility to moderate what are essentially opinions? I think not.

Why does everyone seem to think that just because a message is hosted by a company, that they should be responsible for its content? If you have a problem with what someone is saying about you, you SUE THEM. If someone spraypaints totally untrue statements about me on the sidewalk, who am I going to sue? According to this guy, the city is responsible because its their sidewalk. Come on people, think before you sue.

I nominate you Robert Grace, for biggest douche in the world. (ok, maybe not biggest, but you're still a douche. enough southpark reference for today...)

One more thing though, about this sales tax plan. WHAT? Ebay sells nothing, so there is nothing to tax right? Unless their services are taxable, this is just pointless fluff to throw at them.

At least this issue is getting needed attention

[ccnull]

6 months ago I would have said this guy is a crackpot like everyone else on the forum -- but then a complete idiot left me negative feedback on my 200th or so sale on eBay -- the only neg I've ever gotten.

This is what happened: Newbie buyer provides mailing address (this is for a Half.com transaction BTW -- where Half is a huge middleman in the operation) of something like 100 North St., with ZIP code, etc. I ship the item Media Mail as specified... 2 weeks later it comes back to me No Such Address. I file a trouble report with Half.com. Hear nothing. File two more. Hear nothing. Eventually after 3 weeks have passed, the newbie tracks me down and angrily wants to know where his package is. I tell him what happened, and by this time I've already fully refunded his money. He is completely oblivious to what's going on -- does not believe I shipped the package (I even scanned the envelope and forwarded the original order with his bogus address -- "That's not my address!" he tells me...) All to no avail. He dings me with a negative feedback claiming I didn't ship the item.

Eventually I take this up with eBay but apparently the guy has been such a nuisance his account has been deleted. They won't do a thing about it, even though a dozen emails explain the situation... and after several weeks even the buyer says he FINALLY understands what happened and will remove the negative feedback. Alas, he's been deleted, so he can't remove it.

I sell a lot of junk on Half and eBay and though I have a 240something rating, there are some buyers who simply will not bid if you have a single negative rating. I can certainly understand that, and I may or may not take the time to dig down as to why negative points were received. I don't blame the idiot for giving me the negative point -- I blame eBay for not employing common sense in removing it.

The lawsuit is right in that the policy is totally unworkable and is abused frequently. His call for fictitious business names and tax collecting might be a bit much, and in the end I doubt this guy will win his case. What will have far more effect is when a similar case becomes a class action lawsuit -- and then eBay might finally realize how rife the system is with abuse.

As a Russian

[Anonymous Coward]

As a Russian all I can say is if your courts take this case its a sad thing. Here civil cases almost never go anywhere. The government can kill 129 people in a botched rescue attempt and they arent responsible for a thing. In America Ebay refuses to fix some pricks feedback and he sues them! Yeah life is fair. Frankly lawsuits are generally a good thing. In Russia they are rare and that is the single bigest cause for Russias problems there is no way to resolve problems without bribing someone in the government. So ultimately I dont know if lawsuits are goof or bad. They create a financial burden on society since unproductive people can sue productive institutions for vast sums, but they do address problems that otherwise would fester and ultimately destabilize society. Russia is slowly developing a workable civil law system, but its years away.

I don't

[PotatoHead]

So rather than change the entire Internet, why not consider carefully what you do online. We spend our young lives dealing with conflict resolution only to get online and regress back to age two. Sheesh, why do people do this?

This guy is acting the fool. Before ebay, nobody heard of him and whatever reputation he has was of little consequence to anyone but the locals in his area.

After the ebay transaction, a few more people get to know him but are very likely not to care. Sure you can bring up the google thing, but I think that is far less important than this guy makes it out to be. So, he quits ebay, or changes id, or some combination of the two along with a short explanation about his side of the story. Wait a while and it all goes away.

After seeing this would you seriously consider that minor exchange to be an issue? I would not because I understand how the Internet works and would consider the matter accordingly like any sane adult would.

Now he files suit and makes the front page of /. Sure, this is a smart move because now everyone knows and will pass judgement far more easily. Kind of hard to undo that one now isn't it?

Would you hire him now?

It is not reasonable to change the workings of the Internet just to make it easier for people like this to exist online because they are the problem, not the structure of the Internet.

Put another way, this is a people problem, not an Internet problem. When you have large groups interacting this will happen and everyone knows it.

This guy should have considered some advice before doing anything rash over something as minor as an ebay negative feedback. If he had, the obvious consequences would likely have resulted in some other course of action than this lawsuit...

What gall!

[philosophyandrew]

Let me get this straight -- it is Ebay's fault that a seller can't keep straight what he has sold and ends up not being able to associate payments with auction. And what gall: to complain about buyers who have the termerity to give negative feedback when the item they paid for never arrived!

Digestive End Product of Male Bovines

[jefu]

According to "Penn and Teller's Bullshit", a new Showtime production focussing on hoaxes and hoaxers, they could not call the people involved "liars", "con men" and the like, nor could they claim that they were lying or cheating or so on.

They could call the people involved "assholes" and "motherfuckers" and say that the hoaxes were "bullshit". Go fig.

An interesting first episode, by the way. Probably worth following.

As a seller and buyer ... this is interesting

[adzoox]

Transactional feedback and limiting comments to few remarks was a good idea on eBay's part. If you have ever read a Yahoo negative .... well.... some can go on for pages. It's beyond absurd.

As a seller, I can see how ONE negative comment in my 1500 affects some bidders/sellers opinions. I have 10 negatives. Some are unfair comments. (IE, "Broke after a couple of uses" - how that's my fault, I have no idea) I think ALL negatives should be be "warned" and then posted 30 days later if no mutual resolve. For instance. If I want to post a negative, I should have to go through the same laborious process a seller has to go through to get a fees credit. That system prevents mass fraud because it is COMPLICATED. Often negative feedbacks and Neutrals for that matter are posted hastily and emotionally. I think if the negative poster had to wait 7 days for a response and then another 10 days for the comment to post (maybe a time for the receipient of the negative to work something out with Squaretrade) a lot of problems could be avoided.

One thing I have come to realize is that there are just rear ends every 1000 or so people. It doesn't matter what went right and what you can do, you are wrong and a scammer. The problem is, when people with big wallets and even bigger mental and social instability are able to get something in the media's eye and they lash out against eBay - it HURTS MY SALES TOO.

Have I done everything right on eBay? No. Have I made mistakes? yes. Have I learned anything? Yes. I encourage all to read and actually learn from my eBay ME page. I have been on eBay almost since it's inception. I find the issue of this article and the previous article about "scamming on eBay" very informative. I hope you find my eBay ME page informative as well and how I typically can avoid feedback problems. Also note how I handle my feedback by actually clicking on the number next to my name.

http://members.ebay.com/aboutme/adzoox

He's got a point

[vocaro]

The individual bringing the lawsuit is clearly overreacting, but he does have a point about eBay's feedback policy. Their feedback system has no preview mode, and there is no mechanism to take back one's own feedback comments in the event of a simple mistake or typo.

A couple years ago, I accidentally gave a seller a "negative" feedback rating when I had meant to click on "neutral". eBay refused to let me retract my own comment, and neither the seller nor I was happy with the result.

I suspect the "no retractions" policy is mostly a way for eBay to save money in their customer service department.

Re:What did either of them expect?!

[Timmeh]

It my not be cheating but as a costumer you certainly feel cheated. $10 for what? I doubt his time is that expensive, and I don't doubt that he has either other business to attend to on the same trip out, or that he has other packages he needs to send.

The best way to do it is to figure out how much it will cost to send BEFORE hand, and be as upfront as possible with your buyer. I was selling some GeForce 3 Ti200's a year ago and I listed all the prices as they were, albeit rounded up to the nearest dollar for convenience's sake. Call the post office and ask how much it'll cost to send, ask about insurance if you're sending expensive, possibly fragile items, etc. And then on your auction give them all the options, would you like insurance? how quickly do you want it to arrive, etc.

This does not take as much work as it sounds like (christ, I'm sure USPS/UPS/FedEx have this information on their webpage if you can sift through it all), AND it leaves the buyer feeling satisfied that you actually give a rat's ass about them, with very little extra work involved.

..Or why the feedback system is flawed

[topologist]

1. Feedback is generally far more important to sellers - negative feedback can be awfully damaging, especially if you've worked a while to build up your reputation. 2. "Feedback wars" - posting negative feedback can lead to retaliation from the postee. This is a serious disincentive when considering posting negative feedback, and it's quite possible many people don't leave feedback if they have a reputation to protect..they just avoid future transactions with the person in question. One idea that I had was to have ebay periodically purchase something from each auctioneer, and check for quality (at random intervals), masquerading as a regular buyer. The terms of ebay's contract would of course let ebay return the item at no charge. This would let ebay say that they had made a good faith effort to maintain quality, at any rate.

Re:I agree with this

[teamhasnoi]

Could you point out ONE instance of a search I could type into google and get a feedback page? I think this is a non-issue. I don't believe Google even spiders the feedback pages at ebay.

I happen to be a 'ebayer'; you want good feedback? Send your check/item when you are supposed to, immediately after the auction ends, not 'when I get around to it.'

I had a guy wait a month before he sent the item (to the wrong place) - that is bullshit.

It's dumbasses that can't get their shit together that deserve bad feedback. If you get a bad one for no reason, so what? Intelligent people can make their own decisions whether or not to buy/sell from/to you. 3 bads in 1000 good mean nothing.

This laywer guy should should be smacked.

Happened to me though - reply if you want details.

[Skuld-Chan]

I left negative feedback for a guy who was advertising a somewhat rare anime calendar, but what arrived was a CDR with some scanned pictures of a calendar.

Asked for my money back, with the threat of going to ebay - he gave me back my auction cost, but not the shipping. I claimed that I wouldn't be out 12$ if it wasn't for him - I complained to ebay, but they claimed his seller rating proved he was a good seller.

Anyhow - after leaving negative feedback saying that the auction description was fraudulent he wrote back saying "Yeah....whatever! >8^P"

Out of prinicple I would have sued this guy if I had the money since what he did was pratically mail fraud (which the postmaster - according to what he said to me is where what someone says your getting is different that what you are actually getting)

What's the threshold?

[kien]

I remember in the 80s when software companies tried to enforce DRM...and ran head-first into the will of their customers. So they gave it up for a few years but now it's back.

So what's the threshold that must be reached before companies, organizations, and lawmakers realize that they're pissing people off? I was too young to care back in the 80's...I just bought whatever cartridge allowed me to make backups of my C64 games and pressed on. But there must have been some point at which the software companies realized that they were wasting more money on ineffectual copy-protection schemes than they were making on legitimate software sales.

I wonder if any of you folks with more historical background can offer some insight about issues like this. This E-Bay case is barratry. I'm sure there have been eras in the past where lawyers ran amok, else there wouldn't even be a word such as barratry. So at what point does Joe_Everyman and Sue_Everywoman get pissed off enough to spout off?

--K.

Re:What did either of them expect?!

[shylock0]

Actually, that's not true. You bring to light the invention of the term "shipping and handling."

It is illegal to advertise a "shipping" cost of $10 when the actual "shipping" cost is only $5, and then charge the buyer (on eBay or through or a catalog or anywhere) the full advertised $10.

However, long ago retailers figured out the loophole: lump "shipping" and "handling" together as one charge. Then you can quote (and charge) the highest possible shipping cost, and if the shipping actually ends up being any less, well, that was "handling."

This is completely common practice in the catalog industry (among others). It's not at all unique to eBay, and completely legal -- provided that "shipping and handling" and not just "shipping" is quoted.

eBay feedback system sucks anyhow

[Arethan]

Honestly, I'm not surprised by this. eBay has had a poorly implemented feedback system for quite a while now. The main problem with feedback, is that the other guy gets to see the feedback you left right away. This causes 2 problems.

Firstly, no one wants to be the first to leave feedback, since they are then helpless to react if they leave nice feedback and get bad feedback in return. Secondly, the idea that you can retaliate to the feedback you were given is completely fucked.

The best way to fix eBay's feedback system is to make a transaction's feedback completely invisible until the transaction is fully completed. That means that you don't get to see what feedback the other guy is leaving you until you've BOTH left feedback. This keeps everyone honest. If the deal goes sour in one person's eyes, then it will be reflected appropriately.

The biggest drawback to this system is the ability to stall feedback from showing. By never leavnig feedback, you could effectively keep a transaction in limbo. Thus, if you knew you fucked the other guy over, you could easily just never leave feedback and your rating would be unaffected. The solution to this is to enforce a timelimit on feedback. Once the other person leaves feedback, you have 30 days to leave feedback of your own. If you let the time limit pass, then you are assumed to have left neutral feedback, and a nice generic comment. Something like "".

Anyways, until eBay fixes this, I pretty much ignore the raw numbers that feedback provides. The aggregate data is completely useless. *shrug* Maybe they'll catch a clue and fix it one day.

And the real issue here is...?

[KC7GR]

Having read the article, this little snippet near the bottom provided much food for thought.

"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."

Interesting! Now, ignoring the fact that the buyer was a lawyer, and taking into account that the whole spat is alleged to have started simply because of comments in the 'Feedback' areas, why in the Multiverse would the filer of this lawsuit want to use it to try and force two other requirements that are (in my view) utterly irrelevant to the original issue?

Perhaps someone should have a look at any connections Mr. Grace may have to the State of California's Franchise Tax Board, or other California state politicians, direct or otherwise.

On a more personal note: I sincerely hope this is one lawyer that loses his case, big time! Regardless of the condition of the magazines, it sounds like he does indeed need to "get a life." I know from direct experience that it is simply not possible to sell for more than a year or so on Ebay and -not- get a negative feedback or two. It Just Doesn't Happen that way.

He's welcome to try

[msobkow]

It's this kind of "lawsuit" that is turning the US into a joke and killing it's industry.

I've said it before in this thread, and got modded as flamebait. Go ahead and mod me down again. Karma is useless, and I don't give a rat's fat ass whether I offend the so-called "lawyer" involved.

Any societal leech who thinks this kind of lawsuit deserves anything but being laughed out of court with court costs levied against the suitor deserves to suffer the economic damages the US is working it's way up to.

Here's one finger on high for the lawyer who initiated this case. Another for those who were offended that I challenge the useless sack of flesh to try such a lawsuit outside the US. And a third for anyone stupid enough to think this is an anti-American rant. And a pair for anyone else wasting society's time through such frivolous self-serving bullshit lawsuits.