eBay on Probation

Last November, eBay had begun enforcing new policies that essentially gave nearly unlimited power to buyers while discriminating against sellers.

Their most ridiculous example is in their "Seller Ratings". These ratings are done on a scale of 1-5, with 1 the lowest, and 5 the highest. Now, to anyone who wasn't comatose in math classes throughout their education, this means the 3 is average. Previously, you had to be around a 2 to face any restrictions from eBay.

Not anymore.

Now you have to average between 4 and 5 to be considered minimally acceptable. Drop below 4.3 in ANY category, and eBay buries your auctions at the bottom of searches. Go below 4.1 and you can't list any new items until the old bad rating drops off--which can be over 30 days.

This means you, as a Seller, have to not only be nearly perfect, but you are at the mercy of Buyers who give you an "average" rating.

Not great, not terrible, just "average", meaning you did what was expected of you as a Seller, at which time, you lose the ability to list new stuff.


That's not the worst part.

There's no oversight, nobody with ANY authority to make changes or exceptions to this idiotic turn of events. You can be in PERFECT compliance with all their rules and just because a Buyer isn't dazzled by this, your ability to do anything is gone.

This happened to us in November. I entered chats, wrote e-mails, and made phone calls. The only reply I got was a woman on the phone at eBay who called me names. They said, "Write to Security". I did, and haven't gotten a reply to this day. I never did get to speak to a Manager or Supervisor, despite repeated requests.

Essentially, they refused to even speak to anyone who had been discriminated against by their corporate stupidity. I made it clear to them if this was going to be how they behaved, we'd take the bulk of our business elsewhere.

I guess they thought I was kidding. A week later, I pulled over 90% of our eBay listings out, and put them in our store only. All the art from Mike Deodato, Will Conrad, Jonathan Lau and many more besides. All gone. Along with the income eBay used to get from listings and sales.

Recently, I was asked by Dave Campiti to put some items back up there, so I did. Right now, we have listings for Mike Deodato's Dark Avengers and Will Conrad's Kull. I'm leading with our best.

The auctions were buried because of eBay's continued asinine behavior. I've sold more Dark Avengers art off eBay than on it.

I've put eBay on probation and so far, it's not looking good, but I'll give it a full month and see if things improve.

I still encourage our customers to come to our store instead, as anything NOT sold at auction on eBay will be listed soon afterward in our store located at www.artandcomicsstore.com

If anyone from eBay should see this, you might still be able to salvage your chance to do business with us if you e-mail me and apologize...and remove the discriminatory anti-seller practices.

Mike