If I live 200 miles from the nearest airport, I’m probably not going to spend too much time worrying about a Boeing 747 falling on my home because it came up a little short of the runway. If I live one mile from the end of the main runway of a major airport and their landing lights have a history of malfunctioning, then it might be a different story.

That was my first thought a short time ago when I read Randy Smythe’s post And So It Begins! in which he talks about a new web site for “serious eBay sellers” called BidBlocker.

BidBlocker’s home page says:

“The only way sellers can protect themselves from unwarranted negative feedback is to block problematic Ebay customers. Customers who have left negative feedback in the past are more likely to do so in the future.”

Unwarranted negative feedback? - In more than nine years, selling across six eBay User IDs with a total of more than 14,000 feedback I’ve received a total of eight negative feedback ratings. Were any unwarranted? Two may have been, but even those two were from buyers who honestly felt they had a legitimate complaint.

Problematic eBay customers? - Maybe I missed something, but I thought eBay had pretty good procedures in place that got rid of buyers before they became problematic.

Customers who have left negative feedback in the past are more likely to do so in the future? - Do they mean there are buyers on eBay who for some strange reason expect good customer service and products that are as described?

It goes on to say:

How Does It Work?

• Ebay sellers add buyers to BidBlocker’s database.
• BidBlocker looks at all feedback left by the buyer.
• BidBlocker calculates a Buyer Feedback Rating - a statistic not listed on Ebay.
• Registered BidBlocker users can then copy the list of buyers into their blocked bidder list based on their definition of an “acceptable” Buyer Feedback Rating.

Three thoughts come to mind.

1. Have the owner’s of the site talked to their attorneys regarding their legal liabilities as a result of arbitrarily determining whether I, as an eBay user, am a ‘problematic buyer’ who regularly leaves ‘unwarranted’ feedback? What about the seller who provided them with my eBay ID along with those who arbitrarily decide to blacklist me?

2. More interesting, what would be the reaction of the sellers who utilize this service if their names began showing up on a similar site called “eBay Sellers From Hell”? Whatever their reaction, the inclusion of their seller ID would probably be much more warranted.

3. Sadly, as Randy points out, it goes to show just how far some sellers will go to game the system and get around policies eBay puts in place to protect buyers.

Photograph by Tonamel.

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