Any thoughts of this guy's idea?
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I hate to write these type of posts, I really do. It’s a balance of necessity and anger, anger which will undoubtedly pour down on me from those I’m targeting with the post.
Who’s today’s target? No surprise, eBay. See, about a month ago, eBay decided to start temporarily banning sellers over the Detail Ratings System (DSR), if their scores fall below 4.1/5.0. And, by temporarily, I mean anywhere from 30 days to a full year.
Only a very small percentage of eBay buyers leave Detailed Seller Ratings. Those are the five star optional ratings that appear below a feadback window for a buyer. Most buyers don’t think they matter, and thus, don’t leave them. Of course, this system is ridiculous if it winds up barring sellers… under eBay’s vision (or lack thereof), an 80% positive rating in any one of five areas, translates into a failing grade. This type of groupthink is why I find most curved grading systems to be morally objectionable.
So, what can I do? Easy… tell you how to break the system. I want you to leave positive feedback, but give each and every seller one star on every detailed rating. Harsh? You bet. But, it will only take a small portion of eBayers to make massive waves. Remember, most don’t leave detailed ratings, that makes you exponentially more powerful in devastating a seller’s detailed seller rating.
And, we want to devastate those ratings. We want massive hemorrhages of seller bans to happen at once. Doing so will cause a shell shock to the system. eBay sellers will unleash complaints that will lock up eBay’s phones for months to come (literally… they won’t be able to sell their inventory, all they can do is call eBay to complain).
Hopefully eBay will learn their lesson quickly, and remove the DSR system. Even if this is effective though, I don’t see eBay doing that. Instead, I see them dropping the ban-able DSR level to something like two out of five stars. More reasonable, but still a mess for eBay.
Oh, and in case you were wondering about retaliation from sellers… there isn’t any anymore. eBay took away seller’s ability to leave negative feedback, in another moronic move. So, the worst a seller can do is not leave feedback on you as a buyer… and to that, I say, who cares?
How You Can Help Destroy the eBay DSR System | Christopher Price .net