Extortion Email

[arrowfletcher]

EBay sent me an extortion email with no explanation.

They do not respond to posted phone numbers. 
My rating has always been 100%.

I see nearly 20 years of purchases coming to an end.

[arrowfletcher]

Your feedback is 100% positive because only positive feedback may be left for buyers, so everyone has 100% positive feedback as a buyer.

That may be true, but they certainly do not have to write what they have written in 17 years worth of transactions. A simple cursory review of the seller comments over years bears me out on this point.

Go back and read the actual feedback and stack it against my purchase record.

It is not simply the result of the policy as you imply.

[house*of*paws]

Hi @arrowfletcher 

Forgive me if someone's mentioned this before ... but I didn't have time to complete reading the thread.

If you say that several negative feedbacks were removed at the same time ... that suggests that the account was hacked by a scammer and that you weren't dealing with the real seller at all.

That would explain why eBay would remove so many negs at once:  they didn't reflect the behavior of the real holder of the account.  eBay doesn't remove a bunch of negs at once ... unless they all dealt with the same problem, and it was proven that the member wasn't at fault.

[house*of*paws]

[I ran out of editing time.  Here's the complete Reply]

Hi @arrowfletcher 

Forgive me if someone's mentioned this before ... but I didn't have time to complete reading the thread.

If you say that several negative feedbacks were removed at the same time ... that suggests that the account was hacked by a scammer and that you weren't dealing with the real seller at all.

That would explain why eBay would remove so many negs at once:  they didn't reflect the behavior of the real holder of the account.  eBay doesn't remove a bunch of negs at once ... unless they all dealt with the same problem, and it was proven that the member wasn't at fault.

As far as the 'extortion' accusation ... the word is not used on eBay in any criminal sense.  It's used more loosely as someone (buyer or seller) mentioning feedback when asking their transaction partner to do (or not do) something.  eBay refers to it as 'feedback extortion'.  Just ignore the 'accusation' if it doesn't fit.  [It likely was sent by a bot ... and bots are not good at judging people.  🙂  ]

[redmodelt]

WE are not ebay.

[arrowfletcher]

[arrowfletcher]

Based upon additional emails from EBay they are reviewing the issue.

All I want is for legitimate ratings of sellers to be maintained so that when I pick sellers to buy from I have a way to approximate their reliability. Scrubbing legit neg feedback hurts the credibility of all sellers because I no longer trust the 100% ratings.

[arrowfletcher]

Above I posted a screenshot I took of my feedback at the time before ebay scrubbed all negative feedback from the seller.

[house*of*paws]

@arrowfletcher 

Thank you for the screenshot.  I can't say I understand the reason for the removal ... as I have no idea what 'evidence' the seller may have presented to the eBay rep to cause the removal.  [Remember it was an individual rep who did it ... who may or may not have a clue about eBay policy.  It changes so often.]

BTW, I think we should always take feedback with a grain of salt.  From years of reading feedback profiles of posters (in responding to their question) ... I know that feedback comments often contain distortions and omissions of important information.  They shouldn't ever be trusted as 'fact'.  

[arrowfletcher]

 I agree, but like I say it serves a purpose, has served me well over many years and many purchases, and I can usually reasonably well discern when the neg feedback is B.S., but only if I can read it.

I look at time as seller, types of items listed, types of complaints, rep of those who post neg feedback.

This recent bad experience simply makes me less likely to make purchases in the future.

[house*of*paws]

@arrowfletcher 

I buy from the site that's most likely to have the item I'm looking for ... at a reasonable price.  They all have their issues.  [Amazon probably has the best CS in the universe ... yet is dealing with a scandal involving fake feedback, which I think is worse than feedback removal.]  

Anyway, have a nice day ... and good luck wherever you buy.

[maxine*j]

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@house*of*paws wrote:

@arrowfletcher 

Thank you for the screenshot.  I can't say I understand the reason for the removal ...

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Maybe it was simply the mistake that an eBay CSR told OP it was.  With 25 million sellers and 1.4 billion listings, I think we can count on mistakes happening and maybe this was one of them. 

In any event, the $18 transaction was cancelled so OP suffered no loss or damages, at least.

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[arrowfletcher]

He cancelled $90.00 in transactions over the $18.00 item in the group that he mis-listed and did not have. Then he relisted them at higher prices. 

[7606dennis]

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@arrowfletcher wrote:

When I spoke to the EBay reps. Twice, they assured me they made a mistake sending me the emails before reviewing the messages between myself or the seller, apologized for their mistake, but said they could not restore the negative feedback. As of this morning, the seller’s multiple negative feedbacks from multiple buyers remains scrubbed restoring his rating to 100%.

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Frankly, the credibility of eBay CSR's has been somewhat suspect in the past.  They tend to tell people what they think they want to hear regardless of the veracity of that information.  

[7606dennis]

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@arrowfletcher wrote:

It is very simple and explained.
Read through the replies again.

AGAIN.

They accused me of extortion for leaving legitimate negative feedback that simply outlined documented communications and actions of the seller.

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Did you mention feedback in any way during any of your communications with the seller?  If so, that was probably taken as extortion by eBay's bots.  Thus the warning that you received.

[arrowfletcher]

Absolutely not.

Never mentioned.

Never implied.

Never even hinted at.