I love it when companies that create a problem  take corrective action against their best customers. actually make that their customers period.  This is the mentality that decides the easiest solution to a health problem that disproportionately affects  a segment of the population has to be  inflicted on the general population that don’t have the same predisposition. 

A real case of the cure being worse than the disease. 

Such a case is Ebay’s recent decision to remove the ability for sellers to rate buyers.Couple this  with a new fee schedule that is  argued by Ebay to mean a reduction of charges for “most” people which seems counter to my experience.  If they mean per 1000 items listed it’s cheaper for mass sellers there’s a case for that.  For the  occasional seller  all I see are increases

It’s an election year after all and   I think they’ve been nicking plays from the politician’s play book.  Reducing an insertion fee by 5c while adding on the

From the Auction Bytes blog.

If
you list 100 items with a starting and ending price of $9 with a 50
percent sell-through rate (50 items out of 100 actually sell), it would
cost you a total of $63.63 in fees under the old structure and a total
of $74.38 under the new structure. This is a fee increase of 17 percent.This
is based on the old insertion fee of 40 cents plus commission fee of
5.25%, and the new insertion fee of 35 cents plus 8.75% FVF. If
you list 100 items with a starting price of $9 and sell 50 percent of
them at a selling price of $35, you would have paid $121.75 in total
fees under the old pricing structure. Under the new pricing, you would
pay $162. That is a 33 percent fee increase.

Which is in most of the cases for my personal use  + paypal fees =  usuary?    I really liked Ebay and  apart from rare items now  I’ve abandoned it. Two reasons.  One  the curse of “perfect information”  There’s just too many people using it with an appreciation for the value of items that  there’s little deviation in the  price of gear.   Secondly I’m   painfully aware that additional fees  are passed straight on to me.  It’s bad for me on both counts. 

 I found the presence of  neg feedback generated by a seller VERY instructive  with regards to demeanor and professionalism of the seller .e.g  “loser didn’t read ad properly  , get a life”     killed my  desire  straight away to deal with them.   Mistakes happen,  it’s the only way you see  where customer service promises transform into action.

 No longer  having that insight is a disservice to buyers as well as sellers and   I swear I  looked up Ebay’s new management to see if they’d used a “buy it now” option to bring in  Fema’s ex director. Yer doing a hell of a job Ebay.

eBay’s new feedback policy: no real feedback