eBay Sellers Speak Out Against Feedback Policy Changes

This thread pretty much says it all.

Hope you don't plan on buying much from eBay after May. There may not be many of us around by then.

But on the bright side: Check out my eBay store as I am clearancing out EVERYTHING and closing as soon as the inventory has sold out.

This is the pertinent information on the new changes, directly from the eBay site:
http://pages.ebay.com/services/forum/new.html

eBay Shoots Itself in the Foot - Signs Its Own Death Warrant

From the latest changes in the [sarcasm]wonderful [/end sarcasm] world of eBay, to be taking effect soon:

This comes directly from an eBay email

Seller Update: Fees, Rewards & StandardseBay buyers want value and selection from sellers they can trust--and good sellers deserve rewards for delivering great customer service. That's why we're making a number of important changes that may affect you:
Reduced Listing Fees You asked, we listened. We're reducing Insertion Fees and adjusting Final Value Fees to lower your up-front cost to sell on eBay. You wanted free Gallery, now you've got it--plus more feature discounts.
Lower Insertion Fees
Making Gallery free
Lower fees for Gallery Plus, Picture Pack, and Feature Plus
Rewards for great sellersThere will be discounts and incentives for those who satisfy customers best. Who decides who gets rewarded? Customers do, by giving sellers high Detailed Seller Ratings (DSRs).
More search exposure through Best Match
Fee discounts for PowerSellers
Increased protection for PowerSellers
Feedback ChangesSignificant changes coming soon will increase buyer confidence and showcase good sellers.
Buyers will only be able to receive positive Feedback.
Positive repeat customer Feedback will count and Feedback more than 12 months old won't.
Negative and neutral Feedback left by the buyer will be removed for transactions in which a buyer doesn't respond to the Unpaid Item (UPI) or if the member is suspended.

Check out that part that's bolded in bright red. Nice, huh? Way to encourage those sellers!
The new changes are going to kill the site. The rate changes aren't what's upsetting people, its the new no bad-feedback-for-buyers thing. LOOK AT THE EBAY MESSAGE BOARDS AND READ THE 800 THREADS GOING ABOUT HOW WRONG THIS IS!!!!! Ebay has always catered to buyers, and pretty soon that's all they're going to have because sellers will be leaving in DROVES over this. This new system will leave us sellers wide open to scammers and untrustworthy buyers. Buyers may be supposedly more fair about the ratings they leave, but it opens us up to NUMEROUS false claims. This new change is akin to signing the death warrant for an already faltering site! Don't they care about sellers? You know, those of us people that are the ones paying THEM all the money to list? They are so concerned about getting buyers to the site that they forget buyers don't pay eBay ONE RED CENT! I can tell you one group that will be thrilled about these changes - eBAY COMPETITORS!

eBay has always told us that Feedback is both trading partners voluntary opinion of a transaction. Well now, that means my opinion can only be positive? I don't think so!

Now, we can have buyers bid or BIN our listings and then send a nice ASQ that states "Leave me a glowing positive feedback within 24 hours or you'll get a big fat NEG" And what are we going to do about that if it happens? Nothing....eBay has taken that right away from us!
Not only is this supremely unfair to those of us who are trying to make a (substandard) living, but I'm fairly sure it is not entirely legal.

Please, any eBay sellers reading this: Add your voice to the rest of ours. There are currently multiple petitions on the eBay forums to stop these outrageous changes.

At least we're safe until she procreates....

I'm going to preface this post be saying I hate to cook. Or at least I used to. Then the kids came along, I became a SAHM, and fish sticks and take out pizza just didn't cut it anymore. I am not known as a fantastic cook, but I am infamous as a creative cook. I think it's my inner Mad Scientist that loves the idea of combining many foreign items and turning them into something edible. Usually. I can turn a Thanksgiving turkey into 20 different incarnations. Pork chops and chicken breasts are my medium for art.

Now I am going to relate a story that is entirely true, but names have been changed to protect the terminally stupid. Our characters today are SP {Smarter Person} and DA {Dumb Assistant}. Admit it, you thought I was going to call DA something else. Geez you've got a mean streak!

So the characters: SP and DA. The setting: A normal kitchen

SP is at the counter, showing DA how to make homemade taco seasoning mix. Cheap, tastes better than the storebought, easy. There is a skillet of ground beef cooking on the stove. It is time let loose the inner Mad Scientist and begin mixing things. Ground beef is drained & rinsed. Seasoning & water have been added. SP is adding a little extra salt to the mix, and salt shaker slips from hand, allowing some salt to pour into the burner SP & DA are using. Some, for people who can eyeball measurements like SP can, being about a teaspoon or so. Here's where it gets interesting.

DA: Whips skillet off burner and quickly turns the dial to off
SP: What in the hell are you doing?
DA: You spilled salt on the burner! Are you trying to burn down my kitchen?!?
SP: Calmy brushes excess salt away, turns burner back on and replaces skillet
SP: Do you remember before Christmas when the grease caused a little flare up on the back burner?
DA: Yes.
SP: Do you remember what I poured on the burner to quickly stop small fire from becoming big fire?
DA: Yes. You grabbed the big container of salt and dumped it on there.
SP: Gives DA a fixed stare, trying hard to keep hands on skillet and off of DA's neck
DA: (realization sinking in) Oh! Hahaha!

In all fairness, DA is not truly dumb. Clueless and naive....yes.

Okay, end of narration, confession time begins. When I first started cooking I cook make about 3 things that didn't come out of a pouch or box that you just added water to. Spaghetti, scrambled eggs and baked potatoes. (But I could bake a mean corndog, damnit!) I learned, with a lot of help from those pouches and boxes. I was clumsy at first. (But again, in all fairness, I am uber-clumsy IRL. Walls walk in front of me and I trip over lint on the floor) I spilled ingredients, cut myself, and burned everything from the corn muffins to my fingers. I can now cook a full T-Day dinner while reading a Harry Potter novel and teaching math to a second grader at the same time. So, I can forgive some initial stupidity. Hell, I invented intial stupidty.

But if I, oops, I mean SP, am to continue giving DA cooking tips, I need to know if anyone out there has a hard hat, an asbestos suit and some strong sedatives for sale.

Geez I stink at this

You'd think by now I'd have the hang of all this html junk, but....no. So I'm still playing around. Consider this another test. But this was so damn cute, I had to try it:

Big Crumbs??

Just one more bit of shameless plugging. Trying out yet another new site to try and get some traffic to my store. Let's see if this works:

BigCrumbs Shopping for eBay and more!">

Amanda's Little Bit of Everything

Okay, a little bit of shameless self promoting here while I try out a link to my eBay store.

http://stores.ebay.com/Amandas-Little-Bit-of-Everything_W0QQsspagenameZMEQ3aFQ3aSTQQtZkm

Books, DVDs & VHS, games, clothes. I guess that's why I called it 'a little bit of everything.'
I also work as a Trading Assistant, and am always willing to take on new clients. Contact me through eBay if you're interested.

Okay, end of self-promoting. For today anway. But expect more to come if I can ever get the ebay-to-go logo thing to work. ;-)

I'm back! New...not so improved

I can't believe it's been almost a year and a half since I posted. I actually surprised myself by even remembering my original log-in and password to the site. My life is so hectic, I almost forgot my address when I was ordering pizza earlier.

I wish I could say that my life has changed soooo drastically, but really, not so much. With 2 elementary-aged boys around the house all day, plus the Toddler, I'm in a bit of a rut. Even if the older boys were in regular public school it would still be rough. Ugh..terrible twos. And if one more person tells me that the three-year-olds are worse, I'm going to do one of two things. I'll either A) get myself fitted for a straight jacket and rent a nice padded room with a view; or B) smack them. Option A is not as much fun, but probably won't get charges pressed against me either.

Well, there is good news. we finally moved into our house about a year ago. we'd been remodeling forever. It's still only about 2/3 finished, but it's better than shelling out rent. There are bonuses to living in a house-in-process. Firstly, we don't have cabinet doors or anything on the kitchen cabinets, so grabbing things and putting dishes away is easy. But we don't have any regular doors on the interior of the house either. Like, for instance, on the bathrooms. Now, I live in a male-dominated household. I gave up any pretense of privacy or dignity a long time ago. But visitors still find it a bit disconcerting.

And the biggest bonus of all was getting rid of my pain-in-the-ass mooching brother-in-law. One day, when I can look back at the year and a half he lived with us and find humor in it, there will be a 20 page blog post about him. And if you're reading this, BIL, you know who you are, and good godamn riddance.