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asked, only 15% of them said they'd had a generally negative experience. If we look at that as an indicator of the global market, that's a staggering 27,150,000 unhappy customers. Obviously it's not practical to see the results of seventy as the results of the whole world, but it gives you an idea.

So, if there are so many people who aren't so happy with eBay where can we find them? Well, a good place to start looking would be anti-eBay website FireMeg.com'. The name refers to the current CEO & President of eBay, Meg Whitman. Members of the website believe that she is the cause of much of the discontent in the eBay community, and are working towards, as the name suggests, have her fired. I talked to the founder of FireMeg.com, Josh Shaffer.

I wondered what the initial motivation behind the website was.

"It wasn't one singular event, but rather many little issues that culminated in my decision to start the site. My wife and I have been selling on eBay, full-time, for four years now. I had been selling off-and-on for about four years before that." Josh told me "I was prompted to attack' CEO Meg Whitman because many of the issues aside from glitches (fraud, scams, investments, etc.) seem to point directly back to her as the perpetuator of problems."

Josh continued to speak about the increase in seller fees' (eBay charge users to sell their items and take a cut of the profit) over the past two years. He even claims that the biggest gripe his group has with eBay is their "lies and deceit". This refers to eBay stating on more than one occasion this year that there would be no more seller fee increases.

Last June at eBay Live', an annual eBay convention held in Las Vegas, Meg Whitman made a speech regarding the future of eBay's sellers. Josh was quick to point out that Meg did not once mention an increase in seller fees. Then, a month later, eBay announced a fee increase which "caught [sellers] completely off-guard". The site glitches' that Josh told me about are also a major concern, especially when eBay phone reps have, according to Mr Shaffer, been caught lying to users. As Josh puts it "eBay's view on glitches is until it becomes a site-wide glitch affecting nearly all of the users, both buyers and sellers, that it isn't really a glitch."
So, what do you think? Are eBay swindling their customers or do you think there'll always be a few unhappy customers? Would you give eBay positive or negative feedback?

One important thing to remember in a case like this is that eBay is a worldwide company. Every day they have to deal with complaints about fraud, deception, glitches and a range of other issues. Whilst doing this they have to maintain the cost of running all of their global sites. That includes a full payroll - from web technicians to Live Help' reps.

In the world of business there'll always be an eBay and there'll always be a FireMeg.com. Some, much like myself, would rather sit on the fence and enjoy one of the 85% of transactions that seem to run without a hitch.

If I ever find myself in that 15%, though, you can be sure Mr Shaffer will be the first person I'll call!

Learn more about this author, Rob Taylor.
Click here to send this author comments or questions.

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