

Buyer sued for posting factual negative review on eBay - greenyoda
http://www.popehat.com/2013/04/15/the-popehat-signal-stand-against-rank-thuggery-in-ohio

======
downandout
The case is clearly without merit. They almost certainly sued her hoping that
she doesn't have the resources to respond to it, which would result in a
default judgment against her. If she is able to get an attorney, she will wind
up being awarded her legal expenses and potentially other damages since the
case was pretty clearly filed in bad faith.

The choice to include eBay as a defendant in the suit, however, is clearly not
well thought out. Med Express has filed a precedent-setting, must-win case
against a company that effectively has unlimited resources. eBay will
eviscerate this company in court and almost certainly ensure that they never
do business through the site again. Since no attorney in their right mind
would have advised such a move, this sounds like a misguided individual that
managed to borrow enough money for the filing fee rather than a serious
attempt at litigation.

~~~
DannyBee
You are confused. Most likely, EBay will just file a motion to get themselves
dismissed from the lawsuit.

~~~
downandout
I am not sure how would interpret my comment as being rooted in confusion. If
the claims were legitimate, eBay would be an appropriate defendant since they
are publishing the defamatory content. Moreover, if they somehow lost such a
case, it would open the floodgates for anyone that has ever received negative
feedback to sue them. Thus, eBay will likely try to make this publicly painful
for this plaintiff to serve as a warning to others that would pursue such
ridiculous cases.

~~~
DannyBee
Yes, they are an appropriate defendant, i think you are confused as to whether
they want to stay in this. They have a very clear safe harbor here, and
they've never cared about their sellers anyway. They'll likely either try to
get dismissed as a defendant (on some jurisdictional issue, which they'd
likely lose), or, at worst, get it dismissed on the pleadings or on summary
judgement. They aren't going to drag it out and make it painful "as a warning
to others", because it doesn't matter to them. They'll get sued even if they
did.

------
Aardwolf
I think this is a problem with eBay. For some reason, sellers desperately need
and want your good feedback, and a single bad feedback, even for something as
tiny as a $1.44 postage stamp, seems to have a very bad impact on the seller.
In real life, one bad review about something like this on someone with a good
track record doesn't hurt the slightest bit. Why does it hurt so much in the
eBay review system, and can't they improve that? (So that I don't have to feel
guilty when not saying "super awesome 5 stars" to a seller who was just
"good").

~~~
DanBC
I've just started using ebay. I look at the feedback because I realise (from
years of reading Amazon reviews) that people sometimes give bad feedback for
something outside the seller's control, even if the seller tried to correct
the error.

So this bad feedback wouldn't have bothered me.

But I guess some / many people don't check the details. When you have two
sellers listing the same item with similar 'buy it now' prices and packaging I
guess feedback is the only other metric someone can check.

Since ebay sellers cut costs and profits as far as possible having similar
prices is pretty common.

~~~
claudius
> something outside the seller's control

It depends. For me, the seller is fully responsible for shipping, and any
added postage, while well outside the seller’s control, is attributed to the
seller. I also do not want the seller to correct an error, I want the seller
_not_ _to_ _make_ an error.

If you fail at that, I will leave bad feedback, and if it causes you to go out
of business, I couldn’t care less. Do your job better next time.

~~~
MDCore
> If you fail at that, I will leave bad feedback, and if it causes you to go
> out of business, I couldn’t care less. Do your job better next time.

Wow. One small mistake and they should go out of business. Are you treated
that way in your job?

~~~
btilly
You seem to be unacquainted with the realities of capitalism.

In a retail business, your customers want to be served by you and are willing
to pay for that privilege. They don't particularly care what it takes for you
to provide them with the service, or what the consequences to you are if they
express displeasure over the value not received for the money spent. You are
not a charity that deserves to exist on principle. They have no commitment to
you. In a real sense they fire you every time they choose to go to your
competitor (be that Walmart, Amazon, or wherever) and feel absolutely no
remorse over it.

People move from a contracting relationship to being employed explicitly
because they want more security. That's the deal. Firing employees is
asymmetric because every time you do it, all of your other employees get
concerned that the same may happen to them. Also an employee represents a
fairly large sunk cost to you in your search to find one, and training -
reasonable employers don't throw that away lightly.

These are at opposite ends of a spectrum. Generally the closer and more
complex the relationship between two commercial entities, the more important
maintaining that relationship becomes, and the more that you care about
maintaining the business relationship. Someone who bought something from you
once on eBay doesn't have a relationship to care about, and really doesn't
care. An employer/employee relationship is very close and complex, so you care
a lot. Any kind of frequent commercial relationship (be it going to a
restaurant you go to regularly, dealings with a supplier, etc) will likely be
somewhere between those extremes.

~~~
MDCore
There is a great gap between saying "I will not shop with you" and "I wish
nobody ever shops with you". I wasn't bothered by GP's desire for accurate
feedback, or for consequences for mistakes; I was appalled by their callous
attitude.

~~~
btilly
The attitude was not "I wish nobody ever shops with you", it was, "I don't
care if nobody ever shops with you".

This seems quite reasonable. If you're trying to run a store, the details of
what is required matter to you, not your customers. If the consequence of
negative feedback is that you're replaced by a more competent store, most
customers are quite happy with that.

------
hluska
In the last twelve months, Med_Express_Sales has received two pieces of
negative feedback. The negative feedback in question read:

"Order arrived with postage due with no communication from seller beforehand."

To which Med_Express replied:

"Sorry- no idea there was postage due. This has happened alot from USPS
lately."

In August 2012, another user posted the following negative review:

"Items were listed as new and they were used, they worked good but used"

In this case, Med_Express replied:

"They were new, but you can return them. We'll even pay return shipping!"

Looking at this wholly from a customer service perspective, I think that the
two replies are dramatically different. In the first case, their reply passed
responsibility over to USPS and made no mention of any compensation. In the
second case, the reply specifically disputed the buyer's allegation, but also
promised to make things right.

I think that most buyers are sophisticated enough to weigh the negative
feedback with the seller's response. And, in this case, I think that
Med_Express_Sales damaged their own brand with a less than satisfactory
response.

------
kabdib
A guy sold me an HP calculator, advertised as "in perfect condition" while in
fact keys on it were broken, it was badly warped, and cigarette ashes were
falling out of it.

I gave him negative feedback and he went ballistic, saying "You should have
sent me a message privately, rather than give me bad feedback! I've been on
eBay for ten years with no bad feedback. I would have made it up to you."

I explained that his kind of behavior was exactly what bad feedback was for.

eBay feedback is badly broken if people aren't supposed to actually use it.

------
sdfjkl
I stopped using eBay when they canceled my auction because I had included a
link to the PDF manual (on the manufacturer's site) of the phone I was
selling. This was around 2006 and I assumed their idiotic policies would
quickly see them replaced by a better platform, but for some reason this has
never happened.

~~~
devcpp
The power of ebay resides in being able to find any product that comes to mind
on auction at virtually any given time. Therefore, no one I know bothers to
check the competition (if it even exists) before they bid. The same known
problem occurs with Facebook regarding friends. I don't see any solution, this
ease of use is more important to most customers than ToS.

~~~
dustingetz
this is called <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Natural_monopoly> and is well
studied

------
jnardiello
I work for a popular brand selling accessories on eBay and Amazon. One of my
duties is replying to customer care inquiries. We are a small start-up, our
team is small, therefore happens quite often to spend hours every day replying
to customers having a number of problems (postage problem, usage problem,
etc..).

I do totally understand the seller, they have done everything they could to
make the buyer happy. The buyer, instead of giving a chance to the seller to
make things right just left a bad feedback. I guess anybody can see how unfair
this is.

Feedbacks and reviews are supposed to give a hint to potential buyers about
the service or product they will get. The truth is that more than often they
are a "weapon" for frustrated buyers to revenge and damange the seller,
without being anyhow responsible for it. This is unfortunate becouse bad
reviews and bad feedbacks damage sellers not only with their reputation but
also kill sales. Having a bad review on Amazon means to simply not sell that
very particular product, doesn't really matter if the bad experience was due
to inexpertise of the buyer or from a delivery problem (all things that are
completely out of the sellers control).

When you are a young company, it's hyper-frustrating to be damaged and see
your sales killed or importantly reduced by a customer that was unhappy
because of something you couldn't control in any possible way. While in such a
situation the company must anyway step-up and take action to mitigate the
problem (and they did as they offered a refund) the buyer must be responsible
for actually damaging their business. It requires experience to understand
that sometimes customers are just trolls spoilt by life and to just let it go.
If you have a great company providing excellent products and services you'll
make it up with future orders :)

~~~
cjg
I think you are projecting your extensive experience with the review system
onto the everyday buyer.

eBay asked the shopper to review her transaction: overall her experience was
negative (not enough postage) so she gave a negative review.

------
klearvue
Both parties don't come off well here - the buyer could have given the seller
the benefit of the doubt before posting a negative feedback over a trivial
amount and the seller managed to turn an unjustified, in my opinion, negative
feedback into a terrible publicity for itself.

~~~
ultimoo
I think there is more context to the situation than what is discussed in the
original post. Is the company generally an honest entity who always put their
customers in front of everything and this was a one-time mistake? Or do they
routinely "forget" to pay for postage and hope no one noties. etc.

------
CHsurfer
Personally, I think lawyers should be dis-barred for bring a frivolous claim
to court solely on the hopes of winning because the defended cannot afford to
defend themselves. It is an abuse of the power they have been given with their
right to practice law.

------
pi18n
This is the sort of frivolous lawsuit that makes a complete mockery of
legitimate torts. There needs to be some way to make courts award damages to
the defendant in ridiculous cases without making it difficult for small
parties to sue large ones over legitimate grievances.

~~~
yebyen
Frivolous like posting a 1 star rating because the seller required you to pay
$1.44 in shipping to complete the transaction? I'm not sure it's the lawsuit
that's frivolous.

~~~
pi18n
I'm fairly certain yours is not an objective opinion.

~~~
yebyen
I think they will probably go down in court. Having done Amazon business in
the past, and knowing what bad mojo it is to try to change the terms adding
extra charges after the deal is signed, personally I would have just eaten the
$1.44 fee.

Then again, I never made a dime at Amazon, only just lost money and collected
positive ratings...

EDIT: I am being downvoted up the thread for taking a position that is not
popular. I agree with Med Express that Ebay is culpable for this, as much as
this must put me in the wrong legally. Where are the metamoderators?

A 1-star review is the lowest rating that you can give. The seller took the
item to the post office and mailed it, postage paid. For some reason it
arrived with postage due. Now Med Express will probably be required to keep a
reserve on their Ebay account for the next 6 months.

Maybe it gained weight in the mail?

Maybe buyers should post reviews that are fair and balanced. Was the item as
described? Received on time? Damaged in transit? Did you communicate your
issues to the seller, did they make an attempt to remunerate your concerns?

If the pope hat article is remotely accurate, I would not have given this
company a 1-star review. They did everything they could.

~~~
claudius
There is only negative - neutral - positive on eBay (in the overall rating,
not the specific shipping/as advertised etc. categories).

So it now comes down to expectations and how to match expectations to + 0 and
-. I for one absolutely expect items to be as advertises and delivered within
the timespan indicated. For that, sellers get a 0. If they deliver faster
and/or a better item, they might get a +. If they fail to meet my basic
expectations, they get a -. Hence, by these standards, the - was perfectly
justified.

~~~
yebyen
I did not know this is how the e-bay rating system works!

For some reason given this information, I changed my mind. When the buyer had
5 stars to choose from (in my mind, and I thought they granted only 1) it
seemed abominable to leave the bad rating, given facts. Seemed to me like
their customer service was worthy of at least 3 stars.

Now knowing that the scale is only three wide, it seems like a reasonable
thing to do, leaving a rating of "minus".

That's funny.

------
tunesmith
Boy, if Ebay's policies are such that someone has incentive to sue someone
else just for one negative feedback... I'm glad I don't use Ebay.

------
jvdh
This seems like a very unfair situation for the company.

Think about what would happen if this were the other way around. For example,
buyer returns an article, sends it through the post, and for some reason it
ends up at Med Express door with postage due. They leave a negative feedback
on eBay about the user.

The Internet would then also be up in arms about the company, 'abusing' its
position to harm an underdog user.

~~~
joahua
The notion that negative feedback ought somehow only be posted in event of
egregious misdescription is a bizarre, Ebay-centric one.

It was a bad customer experience - of course her response is negative!

eBay have designed it this way, but many users probably aren't aware of the
consequences of leaving feedback.

You'd write a complaint card in a hotel with nary a second thought and no ill
consequences. To be sued for what appears to be the same thing online is at
best a gross overreaction.

~~~
Karunamon
>The notion that negative feedback ought somehow only be posted in event of
egregious misdescription is a bizarre, Ebay-centric one.

When you keep in mind the effect bad feedback has on a seller, you really
should stay your hand unless you feel they were really out to screw you (or
you're just plain vindictive).

It's a buck in shipping. I'd pay it, blast them an email asking WTF, _maybe_
leave a neutral at worst. Bad feedback is reserved for fraud, IMHO.

Then again, the seller in this case appears to be a litigious asshat, so fire
away.

~~~
thedufer
> Bad feedback is reserved for fraud, IMHO.

As someone who has never used ebay, this way of thinking sounds ridiculous. I
can't imagine that this is what the average persons thinks negative feedback
means (it means "my experience was less than satisfactory" pretty much
everywhere else) and this sounds like an enormous problem with ebay.

------
Karunamon
Negging someone on eBay for a buck in shipping is a pretty crappy thing to do,
but then taking the other guy to court over the feedback is even worse.

There are no winners in this situation.

~~~
ScottWhigham
The seller made sure that there would be no winners in this situation when
they sent the item with insufficient postage. If that doesn't happen, the rest
of this likely does not happen.

"Negging someone on eBay for a buck in shipping is a pretty crappy thing to
do"

That's just not true - that may be your opinion but that's the opinion of a
very small number of people. The majority - an overwhelming majority - believe
that it one valuable part of such community feedback systems to provide a way
for buyers to notify other perspective buyers of potential problems.

~~~
Karunamon
>That's just not true

Yes it is. I can forgive someone for being ignorant of the way the eBay
feedback system works, but when you push that button, you are not just
"notifying other perspective buyers of potential problems". It hasn't been
that way for years. Not since eBay removed the ability to leave negative
feedback for buyers, anyways.

If I were the seller in this case, rather than going to court, and negative
feedback was still around, I'd have left them the same with something like
"PITA buyer, - feedback for being off $1 in shipping. AVOID."

What you are actually doing when negging a seller is deciding "This seller
made me so mad that I am going to cost them large amounts of reputation, raise
their fees, restrict their ability to list, and possibly help drive them out
of business". This is not an idle threat. Feedback is calculated over a 12
moth period, meaning if you only sell a couple things a year and get a single
neg, you'll trip over _all_ of the eBay restrictions and fee increases.

Now let's get some perspective here. The seller delivered the item, as
described. There are no complaints about the item itself, so we can assume the
buyer is happy with it.

Buyer's willing to mark the whole transaction as terrible over _a freaking
dollar?_

There are some levels of shenanigans to which this is an appropriate response.
$1 is not.

The more I think about it, the more I think there may be some merit to this
case. If the seller offered to make the problem right and the buyer hit them
anyways, given the effect that hit will have, is it possible they have a case?

~~~
cykod
If instead of showing up at my door I got a note that said you need to come
down to the post office during business hours and pick up your package and
bring an extra $1.44, I'd actually be kinda put out.

This was a mistake by the shipper for mis-weighing the package (as they note
in the feedback "This has happened alot from USPS lately." - maybe they need
to get themselves a new scale) it should get negative feedback, and if this is
the tactic they take to get rid of that negative feedback, then that seller
shouldn't be selling.

~~~
illuminate
Right. This was an intentional attempt to cheat the system that the seller
fails at, repeatedly. They attempted to screw the USPS and the customer got
the bad end of their incompetence.

~~~
Karunamon
>This was an intentional attempt to cheat the system

You don't know that. Say the seller has a faulty scale and does large numbers
of transactions at once. 100 packages go out, and 100 postage due complaints
come in.

Oops. Clearly the seller is a scumbag. </s>

~~~
illuminate
A non-scumbag would resolve the issue for the customers and fix the systemic
issue. That this continues to be a problem is a sign of a bad seller. The
first time this happens, you need to re-calibrate your scale.

In their defense, at least they offered to refund the extra shipping cost, but
relying on not being caught to save a small amount of money is not worth it in
the long run.

------
DigitalSea
To be fair the buyer sounded like a big douche. Med Express immediately
offered to reimburse the buyer for the $1.44 postage fee they were charged,
it's a minor mistake that the buyer overreacted about. I find it kind of silly
Med Express thinks they have a case here though, they probably have more money
and will end up settling because the buyer won't be able to afford to fight.

~~~
bdfh42
Trouble is - you have to stand up to the bullies - even for those with whom
you are less than sympathetic. Bullies must be stopped as if they succeed it
will be you who they will come after next.

~~~
xarien
When is the last time a bully offered to buy you lunch because he accidentally
took yours by accident?

~~~
Drakim
And after you blog about your negative experience of having lunch taken away
by accident, the bully sues you for slander.

In my book everybody acted within acceptable reason until they sued him for
leaving a true review on ebay.

~~~
xarien
Let's put things in perspective. The post was short under 2 bucks and the
seller was more than happy to cover it. So at what point does one think to
themselves, hey let's go ahead and leave a negative feedback because there was
a kink with the transaction? Hell, if every transaction had to work without a
hitch, the majority of us wouldn't even be able to ship a product not to
mention release an MVP...

~~~
bdfh42
You have probably focused on the true problem. It looks like any negative
element to the rather simplistic feedback model represents an issue for the
seller. Why is that? - an issue ultimately fixed should be viewed as neutral -
unless it is repeated too often.

~~~
Drakim
And how often can the mistake be repeated before I can blog about it without
being sued? Two times? Three times?

------
mnarayan01
The feedback in question [1] appears to be a one star rating on a $175.00 item
where $1.44 postage was required. I would guess that the seller's complaint is
on the one star rating, not the message content (and on this I tend to agree
with them -- the buyer is being a huge ass). That said, the one star is
clearly an opinion, and thus not subject to slander laws.

1:
[http://feedback.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewFeedback2&...](http://feedback.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewFeedback2&userid=med_express_sales&iid=-1&de=off&items=25&which=negative&interval=180&_trkparms=negative_180)

Edit: I would also note that while generally I think popehat does good work,
the part around "Mr. Amodio responded with an open, contemptuous, and
contemptible threat to abuse the legal system" is...not so good; the following
quote does not come from Mr. Amodio and does not contain anything obvious that
would indicate either an open or contemptuous threat to abuse the legal
system.

------
robryan
eBay has one of the tightest set of rules of any marketplace sit on what
constitutes something that they will remove. The guidelines pretty much state
that legal action is your only option.

Someone can for example leave a feedback stating 'item fake, seller a fraud'
without the slightest piece of evidence (item may simply be from a different
batch the customer is used to or defective) and there is nothing you can do,
no process.

Also when you want things from eBay such as a higher selling limit they raise
individual negative feedbacks in an accusing way despite them being 0.1% or
less of total feedback.

I don't think this seller would have been effected by the feedback but I can
certainly understand their frustration. The negative press from the case will
do far worse for the seller. What buyer will feel safe buying from them?

------
xarien
People need to look up from their computers / phones once in awhile and tone
down the passive aggressive nature that pseudo anonymity has instilled in the
lot of us. How hard is it to work things out without escalation?

~~~
kls
Agreed this is becoming a huge problem in today's society. People interact
with one another in a completely different manner than they do in the offline
world. It is like when you remove the human interaction, the humanness of the
other party is somehow diminished and that is a scary reality. Because when we
as humans loose our association of another person being human, the worst of
our nature rears it's ugly head.

------
Kiro
I've never understood why it's so easy to sue people or companies in the US.
What are the positive aspects? For me as an outsider it only seems to create
fear and ridiculous warning labels.

~~~
nnnnni
IDEALLY it's so that "the little man" has some course of action against
negligent entities.

~~~
oblio
And ideally, too, "the little man" should also have a gun, for a course of
action against aggressive entities.

I'm an European, I guess we just don't get it (the US legal system or the gun
laws).

------
zero_intp
Streisand effect incoming.

Clearly the only answer is to engage in business with this entity for lowest
value items available and then post negative reviews of their legal behavior.

------
jakejake
I'm surprised eBay's term of service don't have something that would prevent
suing over feedback.

~~~
dagw
A ToS can never prevent you from being sued. At best they can help you get the
case thrown out.

~~~
entropy_
Well, if the seller relies exclusively on eBay for sales(as appears to be the
case here) then the threat of having their account terminated over ToS
violation would be a huge deterrent against doing so. It still won't prevent
you from being sued but it would definitely reduce the chances of it happening
to near zero.

------
ryanmarsh
"Med Express immediately offered to reimburse Nicholls for the postage due
amount. Despite this offer, and before giving Med Express a chance to
reimburse her, Nicholls on February 26, 2013..."

It looks like Med Express didn't have the opportunity to fix their mistake
before Nicholls started posting negative reviews. I don't understand why
everyone is hating on Med Express. Imagine a similar hypothetical: If I made a
mistake and offered immediately to correct it but instead was blasted via
social media before I had the chance to correct things how would I feel? I'd
be pretty upset.

This is what the system is for, actors that are personally unknown to each
other, not a part of the same small scale geographic community, seeking a
resolution to a perceived wrong.

Who on HN thinks Med Express should have been compassionate and understanding
of Nicholls response without regard for the fact that repuation is critical to
the survial of Med Express on eBay?

~~~
darkarmani
> Who on HN thinks Med Express should have been compassionate and
> understanding of Nicholls response without regard for the fact that
> repuation is critical to the survial of Med Express on eBay?

The feedback only commented that they had to pay shipping costs and that it
wasn't mentioned by the seller up front. What is the problem with truthful
statements using a system designed to give feedback?

> If I made a mistake and offered immediately to correct it but instead was
> blasted via social media before I had the chance to correct things how would
> I feel? I'd be pretty upset.

And that would give you the right to use any means to get back at the person?
This wasn't social media. This was a forum designed for feedback.

------
afhof
So if the buyer just left a bad rating, but no words, could she still be sued?
One one hand voting seems like an extension of free speech, but on the other
it feels that online voting shouldn't be counted as slander / libel.

~~~
OGinparadise
They would win but after going to court and spending money. The main problem
is that anyone can file almost any type of lawsuit

~~~
pacaro
And (in most jurisdictions) the tort of barratry[1] is no longer recognized.

[1] <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Barratry_(common_law)>

------
fooie
for $5 you can leave your own opinionated first amendment protected review:
[http://www.ebay.com/sch/med_express_sales/m.html?_ipg&_f...](http://www.ebay.com/sch/med_express_sales/m.html?_ipg&_from&_nkw&_armrs=1&_sop=15)

------
emitstop
I'm okay with this.

------
lucaspiller
I'm guessing his comment is a bit more like "THESE GUYS SUCK!!!!1111111" than
"I had to pay $1.44 more for postage". IMO that is fair enough, he is in the
wrong. OTOH I'm sure eBay have a process in place for this - I think suing him
is a bit much.

They could also just leave him negative feedback...

~~~
Deestan
> I'm guessing his comment is a bit more like

I cannot fathom why people prefer _guessing_ things that are publicly
available and only takes a few seconds to check.

