I should not write my blog early in the morning without at least 2 cups of coffee in my system. I did just that this morning, and realized that I had not talked about what I should have.

As I wrote earlier, President Lorrie Norrington (OK, President of eBay North America) wrote abut the Feedback Protections policy. In the annoucement she stated:

"As a result of our conversations with many of you, we are adding two Feedback policy changes to be rolled out in May to better protect sellers from this kind of behavior. First, while threatening to use negative Feedback to force an unfair deal is both extremely rare and grounds for permanent buyer suspension, we recognize it has happened in the past and will be tried in the future. If you experience this sort of behavior, please report this to eBay by using Contact Us from this page.

When we identify a pattern of abuse, or the evidence is clear from your report, we will remove the negative or neutral feedback — retroactively. But, we can't identify those patterns without your help and reporting. This is a call to action for every seller."

My question is why does it require a "pattern" of feedback extortion? I believe eBay needs to rethink this policy. If a buyer threatens any type of feedback extortion, and eBay is provided with the copy of the email or other evidence, that should be the end of it. Done deal, no questions asked, the culprit should be permanently removed from the site IMMEDIATELY. No pattern, no second chances, that's it. Why does eBay continue to side with buyers and let them file PayPal disputes and freeze funds immediately without getting the sellers side of the story before taking action? Why does eBay not require the same information from buyers as it does from sellers to verify buyers identity BEFORE allowing them to bid?

Secondly, in the announcement Lorrie says:

"we have listened to your thoughts on Unpaid Item (UPI) reports and our decision to remove negative or neutral Feedback from a buyer who fails to respond to a UPI. And what has become clear from our conversations is that we need to build in more flexibility for what happens when a buyer responds to a UPI report. What we have determined is that if the buyer does not specifically call out poor seller performance, item condition or transaction problems during the UPI process, eBay will remove the seller's negative or neutral feedback — retroactively."

Again, eBay sides with the buyer. All the buyer has to say is the item not as described because it doesn't fit me and eBay will forgive them for not paying. Again, eBay gives all the weight of a dispute to the buyer and the seller has to defend themselves.

On a personal note, I have had more deadbeat buyers in the past 4 months than I have had in the past 10 years on eBay. Each one of these transactions take a minimum of 15 days to be resolved, way too much time in my busy life, and as a result, most deadbeats go unreported because I have lost enough money on the transaction without spending more time making reports to eBay. In the old days it was the principal of the thing, now it is more of a business decision based on economics.

As you may have guessed by the tone of this blog, I still am dead set against the majority of the feedback changes, and until convinced otherwise, feel that now more than ever internet marketers need to investigate additional venues to market their product.