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

Better not say anything bad about him here...

[MissMyNewton]

...or he'll sue you too!

("sue you! sue everybody!" - Jerky Boys)

Re:Better not say anything bad about him here...

[n0wak]

Don't mod the above post down... or you'll be next.

let this serve as notice...

[macsox]

i am issuing a subpoena to all reader to be deposed in my action against CmdrTaco, et al., for damage done to my technological reputation by poor or uninformed moderation of my comments.

it is clear that the macintosh operating system is indeed superior, indicating that a recent 'troll' moderation was slanderous, and it is too funny to make that beowulf cluster joke -- another indication of improper and damaging moderation.

my lawyers will be in touch.

The comments...

[Anonymous Coward]

...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.

Horray! Lawsuit time!

[gatesh8r]

"I was selling various pieces of crap, er... 'Fine Wares' and I got negative feedback from one of the sucke... er, 'buyers', and he's lying to destroy my image! SUE! SUE! SUE!"

C'mon, you idiot. Not everyone is going to be pleased with your business, and eBay can't say "Only say positive things about the buyer, even if they screwed you over!" People have opinions, and eBay allows you to voice them on the buyer. eBay isn't going to change their policy now over something that has made them sucessful. Deal with it; not everyone's going to distrust you if you manage to keep your positive feedback up.

Re:Horray! Lawsuit time!

[TCaM]

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.

Suit asks for filters

[instantkarma1]

Although libel is obviously not protected under "freedom of speech", the banning of certain words (such as fraud, liar, cheater, scam artist, con man) as proposed by this lawsuit, certainly lends itself to a slippery slope.

How can individual words represent libel out of context? Who is the judge of this libel-ous words? Where does it stop?

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?

[jlower]

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.

Re:Why is this in the lawsuit?

[raju1kabir]

"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?

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.

Re:Why is this in the lawsuit?

[mrleemrlee]

That's the problem. EBay shouldn't be the one to hold the liability for the customer's libel (if it is such). This is an area where libel law falls down in the Internet age. Historically, the owner of the printing press could be held liable for libel. However, (as Slashdot's little reminders constantly tell us), in an era when every post is its own little printing press, the Web site owner should not be held liable for the words of the customers.

I have no problem with the feedback-leaver being sued for libel. However, holding EBay liable for its users' libel isn't the way things should work. The law must adjust to the new medium.

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

[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

[karnal]

To be honest, though, when I buy things on e-bay, I expect feedback after the seller RECEIVES PAYMENT. At that point, my end of the transaction is complete, and the seller should have already updated my feedback profile accordingly.

Anyone who waits for the buyer to leave feedback (regardless of what that feedback is) is just waiting to ding the buyer if said buyer is unsatisfied.....

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?

New News article

[MimsyBoro]

ISRAEL, Jan. 24 An Israeli programmer who says he was libeled in Slashdot Inc.'s "comments" section of its Web site has sued the online Geek News site for refusing to remove statements he says damaged his Karma. Analysts say the case, sparked by an online comment about Linux, cuts to the heart of what makes slashdot work: the power of moderators and meta-moderators to keep an eye on each other.
In his lawsuit, MimsyBoro demands 2.5 million Karma points in punitive damages from Slashdot and [(-5) Redundant] from Neeley. A spokesman for Slashdot said the company would not comment on pending litigation.

Please...

[Heem]

According to the article...

"alleging in the online forum that the magazines he bought had arrived late and in a worse condition than advertised"

It's not like he said anything all that bad - They probably did arrive late, which could be blamed on the shipping company or any other factor, And the part about them being in worse condition then advertised was also probably true, but that is open to interpretation.

Why do people have to be such whining little babies these days? so someone left you bad feedback, which, was more then likely true. EBay gives you a chance to publicly reply to feedback - simply reply there stating your own side of the story and leave it at that. If a user has to worry about being dragged into court for leaving negative feedback, then nobody is going to leave feedback and the system is going to be ruined.

And where does he get these figures?

"In his lawsuit, Grace demands $2.5 million in punitive damages from eBay and $100,000 from Neeley."
I'd like to see him prove that one bad feedback is going to cost him that much.

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!)

Excuse me?

[analog_line]

Although eBay has successfully fended off similar suits, an erosion of the feedback system's credibility could be devastating, said Rashtchy.

Excuse me? This is eBay we're talking about here, right? You mean the feedback system actually has credibility? Did I wake up on an alternate Earth?

What an administrative nightmare

[Occam's Hammer]

If Ebay was somehow responsible for every feedback left on their site, they would shut down rather quickly. Fortunately these kinds of lawsuits are being thrown out of court at a pretty good pace (most recently Obesity v. McDonalds)

Ebay clearly states: "WARNING: Once placed, comments cannot be retracted. If you later change your mind about someone, you may leave a follow-up comment to explain the misunderstanding. See the Feedback Forum for an explanation about how your comments affect a user's feedback rating.... eBay cannot remove a comment once it is submitted, nor edit a user's feedback profile. For this reason, we encourage you to contact your trading partner directly by email or by telephone before leaving a negative feedback comment."

The purpose of the ebay feedback system it to create social governance. If you have one or two negative feedbacks out of a hundred or so, I will still buy from or sell to you. If, however, you have a 50% negative feedback I will not. That is the point.

Read the last P

[mlknowle]

Obviously, the guy is a whiner... but the last paragraph of the MSNBC article is interesting:

" 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."

This seems to have little to do with his complaint; but making everyone register with the state Secretary of State would be a big deal! So your name would be Your Name, d.b.a (doing buisines as...) screename. Christ, what a mess... Can someone who is a Calfornian and or a lawyer comment on paying sales tax on USED items? I know that here in RI, sales tax is only on (some) new sales - used goods (and many new goods) are exemt.

Re:I agree with this

[Anonymous Coward]

Personally I find people take online opinions too lightly

You are right. Where were our manners. The opinions of the goatse man and all the hot grits, natalie portman, etc trolls were overlooked. We appologize as a community. Now get a fuckin clue Stan. If you base your choice of lawyers on his e-bay feedback, I'm sure you choose your doctor on what he's ranked at Yahoogames. I hear DocJones395842 is the man at Hearts.

I'm suing /. !!

[Metallic Matty]

Clearly, the anonymous cowards who troll me should be handled accordingly by slashdot. I am offended to receive their negative feedback; and I hold slashdot fully responsible! /end insanity

$20 feedback removal

[EABinGA]

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.

Re:I have an idea!

[JonWan]

Don't know about that, but it makes a cool new karma sig.

--
Karma Excellent (Mostly due to pending lawsuit.)

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.

Troll sues Slashdot

[Adam9]

Breaking news: After an attorney won a lawsuit over Ebay for receiving negative feedback, a well-known goatse.cx troll was awarded 20 karma by the district court after winning a lawsuit placed against Slashdot (OSDN). The troll claims that the ASCII art of the main picture on goatse.cx was "Interesting" and "Funny."

CmdrTaco recently stated that Slashdot is already planning for an appeal.

Does this mean...

[nochops]

Does this mean that I can start suing the moderators who mod me down as "Flamebait" or "Troll"?

Re:I DO NOT agree with this

[wesmo]

This is totally bogus, and you know it. Accounts on ebay are simply that: an account. There is nothing that says: use your real name or your real business name (mind you, most selling on there (right now) is mostly individuals).

If some company is relying on feedback on ebay for your employment, then it isn't a place anyone should be working at. Anyhow, the point is that feedback on ebay should be held within the context of ebay, not towards anything else. It is an ebay transaction, and nothing more: not personal, not political, and not anything astrological!

In the broader scope, on-line slander is one thing. There is definitely a line, but people have a right to their opinions about a person, place, or thing. Not everyone will like you, and that is one guarantee in life. If they put it in print, so be it.

Anyhow, back to the topic at hand, feedback is feedback. If you get negative feedback, you have the option to respond, permanantly, to it. When future buyers investigate your feedback, they see the negative and neutral (does anyone leave neurtral?!) comments and your responses.

It is the truth about the transaction! Why hide it? It is up to the future buyer to weigh your overall record and your response to the negative feedback before they decide to trust you with regards to a purchase.

For example, if I buy from someone, I check their feedback. Mentally, I make a couple of rules:
o Buying online from some joe schmoe out there is risky. I don't care who it is or via what forum (ebay, newsgroups, etc), you still have no idea who they are.
o No one describes their product as "slightly worn" or "damaged piece of crap I want to unload." Everyone describes their items as being "MINT" or "Nearly MINT" or "slightly used". Consider reality when purchasing a product.
o People with no feedback, sunglasses next to their name, or very very little feedback should be dealt with gingerly as they have a limited record of transactions.
o People with a LOT of feedback (doesn't matter if it is 50 or 50000) can be trusted only slightly more than those with little or no feedback.

With those rules in place, I always look at the feedback. Negative feedback from one person doesn't usually mean crap. There are a whole mess of people out there with chips on their shoulders, and they are usually trying to get something for nothing. However, the feedback record will show trends.

For example, over Christmas, how many people were selling those ZipZap knock-off cars? And how many of them were so overwhelmed with sales that they couldnt keep up, and hence, people left them negative feedback? I would see that and skip right past them because it would show that they could not handle the intense load, but otherwise were good sellers.

YOU need to evaluate the person you are purchasing from. Experience in BUYING as well as SELLING helps make sense of it all.

Don't let one bad apple (or feedback) spoil the whole bunch.

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!

if he wins

[2MuchC0ffeeMan]

if he wins, i'm gonna sue everyone on every internet forum who has ever flamed me.... who's his attorney again?

It's the apocryphal .com step 3! At last!

[Rogerborg]

1. Build up a reputation on eBay selling any old junk.
2. Stop delivering and wait for a negative feedback.
3. Sue eBay for $2.5 million
4. Profit!

All these years, I've wondered what step 3 could be. I should have realised that the only people that every profited from the .com boom were lawyers. We humans can learn much by observing their strange behaviour.

Judge's decision

[PanBanger]

Trial was great! Would preside over again! A++++!!

I'll sue you, and everyone you represent!

[CleverNickName]

Why do people have to be such whining little babies these days?

Well, duh. He's a laywer.

"In his lawsuit, Grace demands $2.5 million in punitive damages from eBay and $100,000 from Neeley."
I'd like to see him prove that one bad feedback is going to cost him that much.

Again, lawyer.

Christ, if I brought lawsuits against everyone who ever said a negative thing about me I'd --

wait a minute! I'd be filthy rich!

I'll sue you!

I'll sue you all!

I'll sue you all to hell!

Bwahahahahahahahhahaahaha!

I just had negative feedback removed.

[rtphokie]

I put a WiFi access point I was no longer using up on eBay, within hours someone had clicked on "buy it now". I emailed the guy a bunch of times but he never responded. After 7 day's I'd had enough so I left him negative feedback, within minutes he'd retaliated leaving me negative feedback.

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.

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.

Found his eBay ID

[topher_k]

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

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.