 Seeing as eBay is such a large part of our hobby for both game enthusiasts and those trying to make a dollar, I thought I'd bring an interesting new policy to light that greatly changes the whole eBay experience.
As many of you may or may not know, that starting in May, eBay will no longer allow negative feedback from sellers to buyers. According to eBay's own statistics, sellers are 8 times more likely to respond to negative feedback with retaliatory feedback of their own.
The President of eBay North America Bill Cobb, said in a community forum post: "Today, the biggest issue with the system is that buyers are more afraid than ever to leave honest, accurate feedback because of the threat of retaliation. In fact, when buyers have a bad experience on eBay, the final straw for many of them is getting a negative feedback, especially of a retaliatory nature."
Although I can certainly understand their concerns, taking this away from sellers isn't going to solve the problem. In fact I can see many potential problems popping up and eBay hurting it's own growth with this. It's poorly conceived ideas like this that are making sites like Craigslist and others more popular every day.
I freely admit that I've swallowed my own neutral or possibly negative feedback a few times because of this retaliation threat. I mean really, who going to suffer more, a buyer with a few dozen feedbacks but one negative, or a seller with one negative amongst a thousand positives that month, and thousands more positives to their credit? Surely there has to be a better way to handle this trend?
In any case, if you read through the source article and check out the eBay forums, you see the growing animosity from sellers. Talk of work stoppages and protests, sellers switching to other services and auction sites. So as much as this may help buyers in some ways, it also hurts because many Powersellers are taking their wares elsewhere where buyers may not be able to access them.
In their own defense, eBay has instituted a few more seller protection policies to offset this inability for feedback. If a buyer fails to complete the transaction or have their account suspended, negative/neutral feedback will be removed. Also, buyers will have a shorter window for leaving feedback and a 3 day delay after the transaction is completed. Small comfort for either side I'm sure.
So what's your take on all of this? I know here at RFGen we have many sellers and buyers who will be greatly affected by this. Do you think it's fair? Is there a better solution?
Original source article:
http://arstechnica.com/ne...icy-no-real-feedback.html
Chrono Trigger. What an amazing game. The pinnacle of SNES RPGs, possibly even the best RPG ever made. Seriously, what a treasure. Turns out that this game is up for grabs on eBay. Even more so, the game is factory sealed. Such things, shall we say, are expensive.
So, who wouldn't want to fork over $400 for a copy of Chrono Trigger, sealed? If you are crazy, and would like to bid on this rare item, then go ahead. But, isn't the purpose of games to be played? What would you do with it? Place it in protective casing? Worship it nightly? Play it? That's for you to decide, I only will provide you with the link.
Better hurry up. Bidding ends tomorrow at 3:14 PM PST. Get your bids on, if you dare.
[via Kotaku]
 Some lucky guy in Marina, California managed to snag Rock Band early from the local Best Buy there. Instead of setting the game up as a demo, the Best Buy accidentally put it out for sale. This guy, "timenz", spotted it, bought it, and put it up on eBay. Needless to say, EA was not very pleased by this at all and gave the man a call asking him to return the game to the store. However, he did not do that. Then he got a call from Best Buy saying that if he returned it, he would receive a full refund and a $100 gift card, but he still refused to do it. He kept the eBay listing up, and now it is going for $326 (as of the time this article was posted).
So, fellow gamer nerds, what would you do in this situation? Auction it or return it for $100?
I'd auction it. He's doing quite well for himself if I must say so myself.
Source: Engadget.
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