Imagine if you woke up this morning jolly as ever, went onto ebay, and to your horror your account had been restricted for 30 days as your performance had not met eBay standards.

That’s exactly what happened to UK Platinum PowerSeller electronics-save this morning.  They state,

“There was no warnings or anything All my listings have been removed.  Yes I have had a few problems lately but I have been solving these issues like any other business.   As a platinum seller and the shocking amount of ebay fees i pay im just gobsmacked.  My feedback is not perfect its not that bad either.   I have not spoke to my account manager yet as im just trying to get my head around it.  I have another account can I still use that or is it straight to the dole queue.“

Is this the first victim of a new policy by eBay UK, whose paying customers growingly believe they have severely overstepped the mark?  In another eBay UK PowerSeller forum thread, seller greatbigbeadshop relates, “I’ve just received this from my account manager in what I assume is a mass-mailout to all her accounts:”

“Although it has not been announced, eBay are taking Seller Non Performance very seriously with regards to the negative and neutral feedback that you receive as a seller. Whereas in the past you would receive a phone call giving you a 30 day grace period to resolve negative and neutral feedback on your account before action was imposed, we are now taking a more aggressive approach to this policy and there will be no more 30 day grace period.

“I understand that this may seem harsh and that is why I am emailing you to let you know.  If you have any negative or neutral feedback in the last 90 days, I urge you to file a Mutual Feedback Withdrawal form.  This form can be found by typing ‘Mutual Feedback Withdrawal’ into the help pages and clicking on the first option that appears.  Halfway down that page you will see a link for the form.

“If you have tried this and the buyer has not responded, please email me the item number of the feedback in question as it may be removable according to internal policies.  Also, if the buyer has acknowledged via email that they wish to cooperate and have the feedback removed, you can forward me a copy of the email.  Please be sure to include headers so that I can determine that the email is genuine.”

Those are just the first indications that eBay UK is implementing a “shoot to kill without warnings” policy, and it appears they are doing so unilaterally with no other eBay site displaying parallel policies.  Is this a pre-global trial they have been ordered to undertake?

As ajs0074646 said in the second thread,

“That does not seem to be at all a proper attitude.

“If one of my buyers were unhappy with my service or product, I should by no means attempt to silence him or to “persuade” him to retract his considered opinion.  If several of my buyers were unhappy, I should concentrate on improving my own practices rather than trying to pretend they weren’t unhappy.

“And I should take a similarly dim view of any buyer or seller who asked me to withdraw feedback which I had given.

“For an eBay employee to advocate the wholesale wiping of feedback left by buyers, in order to facilitate the continued trading of sellers who are unable to please their customers, is little short of a disgrace.”

This of course ignores the fact that in roughly three weeks time, sellers will not be able to leave any feedback that buyers would be willing to mutually withdraw.  Perhaps that is the trigger for the mass mailing from the account manager?  “Do it now or lose the ability to do so”?

However, there is a deeper legal and contractual issue behind these events…

When eBay as vendor, and the eBay seller as purchaser, have entered into a contract for (on the UK site) 90-day shop listings, that were placed and billed BEFORE this change of policy, are eBay then in legal default of their contractual obligation by pulling listings using the terms of this post-contractual new policy?

That’s one for the legal beagles to chew on, but I’d love to hear your views about it.  Especially any advice anyone has gleaned from Trading Standards, or the Consumer Protection Agency.

Ed