eBay User Feedback, Fact or Fiction?

Consumers mislead by deceptive practices and altered feedback

June 07, 2016 - Los Angeles, CA – eBay^® (EBAY) User Feedback should provide accurate and valuable insight to the Buyers and Sellers involved in a transaction, allowing each to build reputations that are based on ratings and comments left by their trading partners – but it doesn’t.

The information available in each member's Feedback Profile should boost consumer confidence and indicate the honesty of both buyer and seller by providing a Positive, Negative, or Neutral rating, along with a short comment, but;

• Under eBay Policy¹; "Sellers can leave only positive ratings for buyers. That means buyers should feel free to leave honest Feedback without fear of retaliation."
  
• eBay admitted to Business Insider² as true, allegations by The Counterfeit Report, a popular consumer protection advocate, of altering and removing eBay feedback. “Counterfeit" feedback left to protect consumers from dishonest seller practices just disappeared in over 10% of the confirmed counterfeit item cases opened by The Counterfeit Report. eBay’s Leadership Team had no explanation why the “in policy” feedback was removed, while eBay Senior Director and Counsel, Amber Leavitt, acknowledged, but never responded to The Counterfeit Report’s inquiry.

Apparently weary of The Counterfeit Report’s continual exposure of the practices and flourishing market in counterfeit goods listed on the eBay website, the e-commerce giant notified The Counterfeit Report that all its accounts again “were terminated" from the use of the site, despite its 100% positive feedback rating.  Perhaps the last straw was the in-depth exposure³ of the trafficking in fake FBI and Police badges and made-to-order identification on the eBay website, and the resulting danger such fraudulent items posed to America detailed. Alarmingly, the eBay counterfeit sellers remain.

Inexplicably, eBay removed The Counterfeit Report’s feedback left for over 2,000 counterfeit products received from eBay sellers, which served to warn prospective or actual purchasers of over 400,000 counterfeit items offered, or sold, to eBay consumers. Without accurate feedback, unsuspecting eBay users have no means to determine buyer or seller integrity, or that they received a fake.

eBay is no stranger to allegations of selling counterfeit goods and faces a “credibility crisis” for failing to adhere to its own policies, crack down on counterfeit goods listed on its website, altering feedback, and making it easy for counterfeiters, the world’s largest criminal enterprise, to peddle $1.7 trillion in counterfeit goods to unsuspecting consumers⁴.

Rather than vilifying The Counterfeit Report, some introspection is in order addressing the obvious failures in its feedback and counterfeit practices, policies, and procedures. Companies that facilitate criminal activity and profit from the proceeds of dishonest actions which impact jobs, consumer safety and public trust create a public perception of deception and impunity. However, reputation damage is only a small part of the problem: counterfeiting costs US manufacturers over $250 billion, US workers over 750,000 jobs⁴, and funds organized crime and terrorism⁵.

Footnotes:
¹ eBay Feedback Policy;
http://pages.ebay.com/services/forum/feedback.html
http://pages.ebay.com/services/forum/feedback-foundersnote.html
² Business Insider Article;
http://www.businessinsider.com/ebay-admits-it-banned-a-whistleblower-2014-11
³ Press Release: eBay FBI and Police Badge Sales Endanger the Public;
https://TheCounterfeitReport.com/press_release_details.php?date=2016-05-09&id=524 
⁴ United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC);
https://www.unodc.org/toc/en/crimes/counterfeit-goods.html
⁵ International Chamber of Commerce (ICC) 2016;
http://www.iccwbo.org/News/Articles/2016/ICC-s-BASCAP-highlights-link-between-counterfeiting-and-terrorism-at-the-United-Nations/