Suing eBay Inc. (Corrected)

Hello friends,

I live in Ohio (USA). I need to know what you guys think about this. I was wondering if I could sue eBay Inc. What happened is that, they have messed up my eBay profile, which took me almost 3 years to build. I had a 100% feedback from a total of 171 feedback ratings with no negative feedbacks ever.

Now all the sudden, my feedback ratings changed from 100% to 98.4% (and for the fact 98.4% was considered to be a poor seller prior to eBay's feedback changes.) This happened because they just recently introduced their new feedback policy on May 14,2008. Under this new policy neutral feedbacks do take your percentage down. But the catch here is that this new policy was never their before May 14, 2008. I received this neutral feedback back in January 2, 2008, when they had the their old policy, in which neutral feedback could not take your feedback ratings percentage down.

So in simple words .... That neutral feedback must be calculated under the policy that was their in January, 2008, which was their "old feedback policy" , since that feedback was received in the month of January NOT May.

Now I know this might of happened to lots of other eBay sellers, but most of them do not have 100% feedback anyway so I do not think they would care a lot, but those like me who had a perfect hard working 100% feedback would also be very angry and disappointed with eBay. But the only difference between me and lot of other angry and disappointed people is that, I would like to turn my anger into a law suit.

So the bottom line is that I am a US citizen , and I would like to know if I could sue eBay Inc. and win the case. I would probably hire a good lawyer if I have a good chance of wining the dispute. Please guys let me know what you guys think about this, I would really appreciate any amount of advise that you guys can give me.

THANKS !!!!!
Ravi

Update : I also asked this question on eBay forums and got lots of great helpful response. eBay Forums: Suing eBay Inc. ...

Based on what you say here, you could file suit against them (or at least threaten to do so) in small claims court or in regular court; filing in small claims court is easier and requires no attorney...you could try to collect all of the costs and damages that you suffered due to their behavior... You may also report them to the state attorney general's office.

But maybe just encouraging a change at ebay by mass customer input is the best way??

Even if you go small claims you'll have to do it in San Mateo, CA because of the venue clause in your user agreement. You can try to defeat the clause but good luck with that without a lawyer - and if and when you do be prepared to face a claim that the UA requires mandatory arbitration (which you will NOT win).

For the feedback claim there are two more obstacles. California's CDA act is used to indemnify them against feedback defamation. Even though Grace v eBay weakens that it's been practically an automatic cookbook win in these types of cases. You're dead certain to see it. The second obstacle is a clause in your User Agreement which indemnifies eBay from any claim arising from the actions of third party users of the site. Such as posting feedback.

I am not a lawyer - get one even if you're looking at small claims.

my account has been restricted for a minimum of 30 days. My ads have been all removed even the ones that have bids on them because of seller non performance.Alert MCO63 SNPD. I have been on Ebay since 1999, I have over 25,000 feedbacks and my ads have not changed in six months but as soon as Ebay changed the rules on feedback I got 8 negatives in 3 weeks. I have not got but one in the last 30 days and I only have 2 in the six months prior to the new Ebay rules and one of them was a negative where the guy didn't even pay me for the item. I live in Memphis TN and I am ready to take whatever legal action I can to protect my lively hood. Which is 95% on Ebay. Any help would be greatly appreciated. Thanks

Originally Posted by Unregistered

Even if you go small claims you'll have to do it in San Mateo, CA because of the venue clause in your user agreement. You can try to defeat the clause but good luck with that without a lawyer - and if and when you do be prepared to face a claim that the UA requires mandatory arbitration (which you will NOT win).

For the feedback claim there are two more obstacles. California's CDA act is used to indemnify them against feedback defamation. Even though Grace v eBay weakens that it's been practically an automatic cookbook win in these types of cases. You're dead certain to see it. The second obstacle is a clause in your User Agreement which indemnifies eBay from any claim arising from the actions of third party users of the site. Such as posting feedback.

I am not a lawyer - get one even if you're looking at small claims.

I wonder if they could be sued from the standpoint that the ebay member is a representative of ebay, and sued in the state of the member instead.
Especially since not sellers cannot leave feedback for buyers even if they do not pay for the item.
If a member of ebay did not pay, what qualifies them to leave feedback at all since they have no business relationship with me ? The only business relationship they have with me is being a member of ebay and thus they are a representative of ebay at that point since they are not a customer of mine.

Guess they removed all talk of suing them over at the ebay forum???

The link is no longer active.