@southern*sweet*tea - that's a fair point, but I think your first paragraph actually points out how the Seller Metrics are different than other metrics which in the past would have lead to a permaban. To me the big difference is what is being measured and against what is it being measured.
Other seller metrics (like tracking uploaded on time, seller initiated cancellations, and transaction defect rate for example) are more related specifically to each individual seller and things they actually have some control over. The terms of what is being measured are pretty well defined, whether or not you actually did something "wrong" is verifiable in reports, and for the most part your score card is being measured as a percentage of only your transactions. The percentage eBay is looking for as far as above or below standard may still be a bit arbitrary, but at least it's not a moving target. You know you have to hit a certain fixed number and you can figure out what you need to do to get there. In that scenario, being allowed an opportunity to pull yourself up before being kicked to the door as you described may be a fair way to handle things.
The Service Metrics are a completely different situation, mostly because there is no transparency or visibility into who you are being compared against or where eBay gets their numbers. In one category you might be OK with a 1.5% SNAD return rate, but in another category that is "very high". One month that 1.5% might be average and a month or two later, that same 1.5% in the same category might be high, depending on how eBay shuffles the numbers based on a "peer group" that we have 0 insight into.
it's easy to say with some of the other metrics "the seller must be doing something wrong or struggling in some way to have negative results and they need to address those issues" but with the service metrics you simply can't make the assumption that "very high" means the seller has failed in some way or that there is actually anything the seller could address to improve the outcome.
We were targeted by a malicious scammer at the beginning of this year. I won't get into the whole story here, but I do have a very lengthy thread on it if anyone is interested. The relevant part is that due to that malicious scammer, in one month our SNAD return rate almost doubled. We didn't suddenly became a bad seller or have a problem fulfilling orders or anything else that would indicate a failure or struggle on our side, it was 100% the result of fraudulent returns. Luckily we were able to still barely stay out of the "very high" rating, so we didn't incur the extra fees, but if we had not caught on and stopped sending orders to that scammer, it would have only taken a couple more false reports from him to stick us with the fee increase. eBay refused to do anything to help.
That is just one example, but hopefully it illustrates how the Service Metrics don't necessarily measure anything helpful as far as actual seller performance. To me the whole extra fees thing isn't a question of "what punishment fits the crime better (increased fees or permaban)?" It's a question of "is there even any proof that a crime was actually committed (seller failure of some kind)?"
To charge sellers extra fees as a penalty when they haven't even done anything wrong and/or can't do anything to improve the outcome is wrong, no matter how you slice it. For many sellers it could be the difference between their business staying open or shutting down, so in effect it may not really be much different than a permaban.
