Complaint Review: cows-tail - Internet

No, in reality I did nothing "wrong" and I've already had this out with eBay - THEY were wrong and couldn't offer any good reason, either. I did not violate their feedback extortion policy or even come close to violating any of the examples of it that were given. Nothing I did could be considered extortion. In eBay's policy, as in "real life", that would be threatening to do something undesirable if they didn't do what I wanted (no, expecting to hear how the seller wanted to proceed wasn't "wanted/demanded" in exchange for certain feedback, it was just plain NECESSARY to proceed). There were no threats, implied or otherwise, only a statement of fact of what would be the obvious outcome, just as I did with the telemarketer - it was so obvious she was trying to trick/trap me into something when she said those magic words.

About the telemarketer, it was so long ago that I can't remember whether I said police, lawyer, newspapers, a combination of those or what - I used "police" here for brevity. In any case, even assuming I DID say "police", that WOULD be public. If the police could do anything, it would be known; if they sent me to an attorney, it would become known. I suppose if someone breaks into my home and I tell them I'm going to record them for all to see IF they don't leave immediately, that would be extortion (it very well may be, but CLEARLY, the point wasn't to extort)? Extortion (including eBay's definition) is about intent. Feedback (positive AND negative - arguably, how a negative is handled is a more important indicator) is what POLICES eBay sellers AND buyers.

This doesn't even address the other, more important half of my report, which is that removing a negative from a dishonest seller, completely undermines trust. Do you think I enjoy doing this? I don't even like to give negatives if I can avoid it (I don't recall ever giving one before, though I've dealt with people sending me bootlegs, etc). I've already gotten a refund, so why should I be going through all this trouble, except that I believe in doing what's right? I've got a lot of problems, but I'm taking extra time to do this.

Anyway, as I said to eBay, I did NOT violate policy and nothing you can say will convince me otherwise. I have to admit, though, that I'll be obeying the UNWRITTEN RULE that you can't say the words "negative feedback" (or similar) in ANY context, anymore - once upon a time you could.

There's an old saying, attributed to Edmund Burke, that I'll use the simple version of here, "Evil prevails when good men do nothing."

Even though in your mind you did nothing wrong, the fact is that you have violated their policy.  But while you haven't posted more than a couple of statements you wrote to the seller, and did not post any details of your actual review.  It can be seen that what you wrote could have been considered extortion.

What you did was "threaten" to make this "public" by leaving a negative feedback.

Had instead of saying "you were left no choice but to leave a negative and contact ebay", had you just said "you were left no choice but to contact ebay".  You would have not violated the policy and been totally fine.

It is this "public" portion that tends to get more people in trouble.  As an example with your telemarketer.  You only said you would contact the police. Of course you also admited to "much arguing" so we really have no idea what else was said.  Had you said you were not only going to contact the police but post on every social media site you could if they continued to call...then that could be seen as extortion.

FYI, as for your telemarketer.  The Do Not Call list has no consumer enforceable actions.  That is the best you can do as a consumer is report it to the FCC and hope that some day they get enough complaints to take action.   Had you actually called the police they would have told you to call an attorney.