Twelve Black Code Monkeys

My first transaction ever on eBay, back in 1997, was selling an old VCR to some guy in Texas. The guy sent me a bad check, but I didn’t quite understand how banking worked back then and after the amount showed up in my account several days later, I assumed it went through ok and sent the VCR. Then I learned it bounced and I was charged $5. He eventually sent another check which bounced as well for another $5 fee. After that he basically told me that it was my fault for sending him the VCR before the check cleared and I didn’t hear from him again.

I didn’t use eBay again for another year or two. We did trade negative feedbacks for each other, but in any case, I think it’s a little odd that if a buyer rips you off, you can’t mark them as being just as dishonest as a bad seller. Both sellers and buyers have responsibilities and you can usually tell if a seller gave a negative mark just in retaliation to a buyers if that buyer has an otherwise prestine record…

Quoting from techDirt:

eBay has been making some changes lately that aren’t sitting well with eBay sellers. First, it announced fee changes that initially were promoted as “lower fees,” but the details showed were only lower for goods that didn’t sell. The fees on sold goods were actually higher. Now, the company has banned sellers from giving “negative” feedback on buyers.