Ebay ignores members
Back on the 1 April 09 eBay AU rolled out its new forum software along with a major restructure of the content.
Two of the most useful sections were totally removed: M2M (Member to Member) and Round Table.
M2M was well used, and served many eBay members who had problems or questions with valuable advice.
Most noticeable and very well supported was a dedicated group know as The Hijack Hunters. This group scoured over eBay listings looking for and finding hundreds of hijacked accounts every day. This was something eBay either couldn’t do or doesn’t bother to do in order to find and prevent this type of fraud.
These hijacked accounts listed expensive items like cameras and laptops.
Then there were the members who just needed advise from experienced members who looked out for fellow eBayers, forming a community of help and friendship.
Then there was the Round Table; this was a very active board that could have many threads (anywhere between 20 to 100 active threads on some days).
The Round Table was primarily for discussion on eBay policy and problems that members felt eBay needed to address.
Some of the most recent issues that were dealt with included a couple of scams that affected thousands of eBay members with millions of dollars involved in just one Powerseller rip-off.
The issues concerning these scams were brought to eBay's attention, and a lot of advice was given to the victims that allowed them to be compensated after lots of lobbying.
If it had not been for the RT, no one would have realised just how big this scam was, and thousands of eBay members would have been denied compensation.
Then there was eBay's push to make PayPal the only payment method available to eBay members in Australia.
This caused a major backlash and a major effort was made with submissions to the ACCC and complaints to the banking ombudsman.
After many months of campaigning, eBay withdrew its application just before an ACCC ruling that was going to go against them was made. It's possible that this withdrawal (to avoid a formal denial) leaves it wide open for them to try again, but at least eBay were clearly not granted permission to contravene Australian legislation on this forced payment method.
That is why sellers can now still offer other methods of payment at this time; however, PayPal must be one method offered regardless of what else is offered.
There were many hundreds of much smaller issues discussed that brought many changes and improvements to eBay, not to mention helping thousands of eBayers sort out issues and informing and enabling them to get protection or redress within their legal rights.
This could have played a large part in eBay's decision to remove these boards,
eBay has now effectively removed any method of individuals getting real help with these issues, and in my opinion this helps to hide fraud and keeps members ignorant of their rights under Australian legislation.
Now back to the vote of eBay AU members about the new forum restructure and restrictions - the AU moderator created a launch board for member feedback.
The over-all consensus was the new format was a total failure and members wanted a discussion-type board to be reintroduced.
A post was started asking for a yea or a nay. This was supported by 105 replies giving heartfelt yeas with only 2 nays.
This clearly shows what the community wants, and yet eBay has said no way.
eBay has also evoked the strongest level of censorship to prevent any member saying anything negative against eBay or PayPal or its policies - even if eBay or PayPal remove legislated and consumer rights - and IMO this level of enforcement would rank with those of the worst dictatorships around.
See poll results:
This is from the now removed
New discussion boards - launch board
http://www.buckthesystem.info/yayornay/rtpoll1.htmhttp://www.buckthesystem.info/yayornay/rtpoll2.htmhttp://www.buckthesystem.info/yayornay/rtpoll3.htm