Letter: eBay Negligence in Seller Rating System

eBay has a severe flaw in its procedures and system, causing sellers to lose hundreds or thousands of dollars. They refuse to recognize this flaw or fix it. I am currently a victim of this flaw and as a struggling, disabled single father, it may very well destroy my business.

eBay has offered me no solutions or assistance. I have already been damaged by eBay’s refusal to remove feedback when wrongly issued (a topic for another day). The feedback problem compounded with their flaw in Seller Ratings may lead me to lose everything. As a unified force, I hope we can force eBay’s hand so it does not happen to you.

Each month, eBay conducts “Seller Assessments” to determine each seller’s rating as either Top Seller, Above Average, or Below Standard. These add or take away privileges such as the ability to promote your listings, add or subtract final value fees, and determine the visibility of your listings in the algorithm.

Being Below Standard means you cannot promote your listings, your listings get seen by significantly fewer buyers, and you pay an additional 6% fee on your sold listings. In other words, you lose a lot of money. Even when Below Standard is justified, the consequences are far too severe. One day, you may find yourself there even though it is undeserved.

These assessments are done on the 20th through an automated process reviewing your defects and shipping stats (shipping stats can prevent Top Seller but not cause Below Standard). The flaw occurs when you receive a defect near the 20th that was wrongfully issued and removed in an appeal.

If this appeal and removal are not completed by the 20th, you will be downgraded if that defect puts you over the threshold. Filing an appeal and removal takes anywhere from 2 to 5 days. If you receive a defect leading you below their thresholds on the 15th or later, you may be downgraded. Even after your appeal is approved, it can take 48 hours for the defect to be removed in the system.

Common sense tells us that if you receive a punitive action and are later found not guilty of the violation, the punitive action is reversed. This is seen throughout society. At eBay, this is not the case. If you go Below Standard, you are stuck until the 20th of the following month. They have no way to repair your rating, which is negligent and unacceptable.

eBay not having overrides in their internal systems is extremely concerning as this is standard practice in proprietary systems. This is an issue that we need to be asking eBay to fix if it is true. Seller Ratings should be able to be adjusted by Customer Service reps through a careful review of your account, much like increasing Selling Limits as they do everyday.

This has happened to me 3 times since 2023, including the current month (April 20th to May 20th, 2025). The two previous months in 2023, my impressions were down 88% and sales 78%. I lost thousands in sales and paid an extra 6% fee on the sale I did make.

I am 10 days into my current cycle and my impressions are down 91.3% and sales down 60%. That would be higher if I hadn't sold one of the more expensive items in my store.

When I won my appeal on the 19th, I was assured my Seller Rating would not be impacted which was untrue. I have gone back and forth with the Social Media team and Customer Service. The social media team has told me I could request a manual review from the Seller Performance team. Customer Service tells me there is no Seller Performance Team or Manual Review.

If the process is automated, it makes sense no team exist. The system should be designed so that the assessment recognizes an appeal is in process. The assessment can either be delayed or kicked to an agent for manual processing. These ideas are just two ways this can be handled to avoid this problem.

I was told in 2023 that this would be examined and fixed. Not only has that not happened, but they now refuse to recognize this is a problem. They tell me the “Good News” that I will be restored to Above Standard on May 20th.

No matter how much I express the losses and impact on my life, they refuse to take further action. I have not been offered a credit, have my promoted listings privileges manually restored, have my listings boosted in the algorithm or some other gesture to make up for their procedural negligence.

There is no way I am the only Seller that has faced this. There are likely dozens or hundreds of sellers every month dealing with this problem.

Any seller is a potential victim of this flaw and it must be fixed. Even if you are a Top Seller and not at risk of Below Standard, you may lose your Top Seller status. eBay relies on us Sellers to trust them with our livelihood. Without full-time Sellers, eBay would cease to exist.

Why should we trust them with our businesses and ability to pay our bills and buy groceries if they have such clear and negligent flaws that they refuse to fix or even recognize?

I spent over 20 years working in Customer Service, much of it spent writing procedures and determining how the departments operated, including building a couple of CS departments from scratch. Gaps and errors in procedures happen, even big ones like this. However, when you find them, you fix them.

In a serious gap like this, which is victimizing customers severely, it is an emergency situation. I have been in these situations in my past work. We get in a meeting room immediately and find a solution to implement ASAP. It is basic human decency to prevent the customers who keep your business afloat not have their life damaged by your company. The lack of empathy and compassion is astounding.

I first sold on eBay in 1998 and have gone from casual user to full-time seller to part-time seller a few times over the years including leaving the platform altogether a couple of times. I returned to eBay in 2022 after losing my business and facing new disabilities that prevent me from working in my past career.

I love helping families liquidate estates and helping find vintage items a new home. I want to do this for the rest of my working life, but it is all at risk now, and if these things keep happening, I am not sure what I will do in the future.

eBay Customer Service fails to recognize the stakes at which they are operating. They treat every situation like it is a buyer upset about the broken DVD player they received, in contrast to issues like this, which can be a Seller’s ability to pay groceries or keep the lights on. We need to demand better. We deserve better.

I am unlikely to find a resolution in my current month and will have to find a way to get by, but I hope you will take action and contact eBay about this. If enough people let them know they are concerned about this and the potential risk to their business, they will finally take action.

I let it go in 2023 after I was told they would repair it. I should have followed up. I am not going to make this mistake and ask that you do what you can to push eBay to make this right so it does not happen to you.

Randy Robbins
Foxx_Resell

Editor's Note: the opinions expressed above are those of the letter writer, edited by Value Added Resource for formatting and clarity only.

eBay's Service Metrics policies have been almost universally hated by sellers since they were introduced in 2018, largely because this rating is based on the number of cases opened - regardless of the actual outcome.

That means even if a claim is ultimately decided in the seller's favor, it still counts and can lead to being charged a 6% penalty (on top of existing Final Value and Ad fees) on all sales for 3 months to a year or more, depending on sales volume - which creates a conflict of interest since eBay stands to gain financially from the way they impose and enforce these policies.

Value Added Resource has previously reported on similar situations where Service Metrics penalty fees were charged in error or were the result of obvious fraud that was acknowledged by eBay.

In these situations, while eBay technically cannot "remove" cases from Services Metrics, they can "whitelist" them so they are not counted in the calculation to determine if the extra penalty fees should apply - but unfortunately, eBay typically only does this when the seller is a loud enough squeaky wheel and/or the company is publicly shamed into doing the right thing.

While it is understandable that eBay has these policies in place to ensure sellers meet set standards, the company can and should have systems in place to assist sellers who have had the Below Standard rating unfairly or incorrectly applied.

I encourage sellers who believe they have been rated Below Standard and charged penalties in error to report the junk fees and conflicts of interest involved in eBay's Service Metrics policies to the FTC.