eBay India launch Community Court for feedback
14/10/2008 at 21:52
While many other eBay sites are rolling out feedback revision, eBay India are launching their own solution to ‘unfair’ feedback: the Community Court. This will allow sellers to appeal non-positive feedback which they believe to be unfair or unjustified; their claim will be judged by 21 randomly selected members.
The Community Court process will collect input from the buyer as well as the seller. If a majority (11) of jurors agree that the feedback is unjustified, it will be removed. There is no further appeal beyond this.
In order to participate as a juror, members will have to have been registered on eBay for six months. In addition, they must have participated in at least ten transactions as a buyer, or have twenty feedback stars with an overall rating of 97% feedback plus at least one transaction as a buyer. Anyone wishing to register now, though, seems to be out of luck, as the link from the announcement to sign up doesn’t appear to work.
This is not the first time we’ve seen the Community Court idea. eBay UK was due to lauch a similar project earlier this year which would have been open to both sellers and buyers, but this was abandoned when non-positive feedback for buyers was abolished. Now that buyers cannot be left negative feedback, the whole Court process seems unnecessarily formal, antagonistic and heavy-handed: giving sellers the facility to simply ask their buyers to remove feedback seems, in most cases, to be more than adequate.
ebuyerfb says
10:04 pm on 14/10/2008
Are these jurors anonymous?
The reason I can see this as a good idea is that there are buyers that can’t be pleased out there and who leave unjustified feedback. Try getting a NPB to leave their negative feedback voluntarily or people just trying to mess with the whole feedback system. Also consider the case where something happens to the buyer and they can no longer revise their feedback or even be contacted.
This does go against eBay’s core value that they believe everyone is basically good.
lancashiresteven says
2:07 am on 15/10/2008
Get real…..if they wanted to fix feedback they would have done it a long time ago. Like I want to go through this whole big process taking weeks to get a neg removed from some moron who can’t follow directions. They should have just kept unlimited feedback withdrawal and let buyers/sellers work out everything.
Typical Ebay…..throws a carrot to the sellers…..but nothing of substance and nothing that the sellers who have left are coming back for now.
Sue Bailey says
8:18 am on 15/10/2008
I’m pretty sure Lancashire isn’t in India, Steven, so I don’t think this one is going to apply to you.
Whirly says
9:48 am on 15/10/2008
Sounds like Judge Judy.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZJDK6ctRjqw
forgasms says
7:09 am on 16/10/2008
Hi … Am from india The scene on ebay india was like the account managers had to intervene and get negatives removed more often than they had thought ! Sellers would openly write on community boards that if the negatives were not removed , they would quit ebay
Even sometimes when a seller was wrong …. http://forums.ebay.in/thread.jspa?threadID=500002526
So instead of repeated interventions , they decided to set this so called community court. Not a bad ieda !!though
Sue Bailey says
9:33 am on 16/10/2008
Good to have an Indian point of view – thanks, forgasms. I’m intrigued by the idea that this is different in India to on any other eBay site though: in the UK, US and France (to name the three I know about) sellers complain that if they don’t get negatives removed, they’ll quit selling. eBay don’t take any notice of them
I wonder what makes India different?
lancashiresteven says
10:14 am on 16/10/2008
Sue, I know (in response to your post directed at me) but alot of times these measures used on the smaller Ebay sites are pilots for the bigger sites like ours’ and the .com, .de sites.
Hey I have an unrelated question in terms of PP disputes counting towards a seller’s SNP. Do all PP disputes count towards the dissatisfaction rating or only those PP disputes that are escalated to a claim by the buyer? Also, does the INR stop counting once a buyer closes it as resolved….again….I am talking about only PP disputes/claims….not the Ebay ones. Cheers.
ebuyerfb says
10:49 am on 16/10/2008
@ # 5
I’m with Sue on this one. I read the forums on .com constantly and a lot of the threads are basically what you describe. I wonder what the real reason is. Sounds to me like they are trying an experiment.
Sue Bailey says
10:54 am on 16/10/2008
Steven: I don’t honestly think they’ll roll this one out anywhere else… but we’ll see.
Re .the PayPal thing, afaik there have been no announcements about this, but it is my impression that everything counts, whether it’s escalated or not, and whether it’s resolved or not. I must emphasise that’s based on sellers saying what complaints they’ve received (e.g. “I’ve got one INR that we’ve resolved and one neutral and I’ve been suspended”) where I have no proof whether what they’re saying is accurate.
Sorry, I don’t suppose that’s what you wanted to hear.
northumbrian says
11:13 am on 16/10/2008
its the knock on the door in the middle of the night from paypal/ebay black shirts
thats the most worrying
the INRs are nowt
Sue Bailey says
11:22 am on 16/10/2008
First they came for the people with DSRs below 4.3…
forgasms says
12:17 pm on 16/10/2008
#6 …
Hi Sue
Indian buyer community is being considered as still not as used to the online scene as Elsewhere.
Online selling is still considered as in nascency over here , though growing full throttle.
Perhaps thats the reason What makes India Different .
forgasms says
12:54 pm on 18/10/2008
Must be you’ll are not trying hard .
In India … A little help of account manager and negative feedbacks get removed even if the buyer is from France or UK
http://forums.ebay.in/thread.jspa?threadID=500002526
northumbrian says
6:15 pm on 18/10/2008
I take back everything I have ever said about ebay support,
we have just had an unfair negative removed on another ID
the buyer was simply irrational, deranged ,and repugnant,
they did not even receive the item,
we complained to ebay , they removed the negative just about instantly
after they just about told us how to ,
We are quite simply utterly and totally impressed
we will never ever say a bad word about them again,
well at least until tomorrow
Andy says
7:45 pm on 18/10/2008
How the hell did you manage that? What process did you have to follow?
northumbrian says
8:40 pm on 18/10/2008
the buyer emailed us to say they did not want it , we did a mutual, they agreed , then they left a neg because they then decided they wanted it after all and we had told them to bog off
Hanafi_H says
10:11 pm on 18/10/2008
http://www.petitiononline.com/jdonohoe/petition.html
Online petition calling for the sacking of J Donahoe.
Another kind of community court.
Andy says
11:30 pm on 18/10/2008
#16 That’s fantastic. Hope we won’t have to follow your lead!
#17 Why bother. No petition you sign online is going to get rid of John D. If you don’t like what he’s doing go and sell on ebid or buy enough shares in ebay so you can get him sacked yourself as the majority shareholder. That’s going to cost you around $10.5 billion so I guess you’d better start saving. Alternatively give it up and b*%%* off to ebid.
Andy says
11:32 pm on 18/10/2008
Update: I have just visited your petition and see 31 people have signed it. I bet JD is packing his stuff up as we speak. I hope no-one starts one to have me sacked…
northumbrian says
8:50 am on 19/10/2008
its all a bit pathetic to blame ebay and JD for anything and everything,
if things are not working as we hope,
we look at how we can actually change and influence things ourselves,
and the most effective use of our energy , is altering how we do things in our own business
ebuyerfb says
11:04 am on 19/10/2008
@ #17
The most you can do to take JD down is sell on Amazon and do it well. As far as I can tell that is the only company eBay cares about.
Hanafi_H says
2:32 pm on 19/10/2008
#18-#21
That’s a really impressive rationale why something that costs you nothing and takes thirty seconds of your time isn’t worth doing.
No wonder Ebay is the way it is.