Much Ado About Nothing: Defamatory eBay Comments Can Be Hellacious

The San Jose Mercury News is reporting on the long and sordid tale of Kiel Sturm, a guy who makes a hobby of buying and selling gems on eBay. But one buyer purchased a $2.33 piece of quartz, felt it wasn't authentic, and left a nasty note to that effect.

What followed were accusations and, of course, lawsuits. Sturm sued the buyer for defamation, and the case was settled. Both then wrote to eBay asking for the comment to be removed. Oddly, eBay refused.

Sturm then got a court order to the effect that the comment was legally defamatory and that it should be taken down. Again, eBay felt the court order wasn't written in the proper language, and refused.

Finally, Sturm sued eBay for defamation, but under the laws that protect ISPs for being liable for copyright infringement when, say, little Johnny posts the lyrics to a White Stripes song online, the courts ruled eBay wasn't responsible for defamation. Fortunately for Sturm, the issue was resolved a week later when he got the court order from lawsuit #2 written in the language that eBay requested.

I've done a lot of buying and selling on eBay over the years, and I've amassed two negative comments out of hundreds. Both times they were in error: One buyer gave me an incorrect address and never got his item (and apparently had no concept of how the U.S. Postal Service handled "no such address" packages). The other never paid for the item at all.

In both cases, eBay did nothing to remove negative feedback from my account. As an obsessive perfectionist, I can't tell you how much lost sleep this cost me.

Now I've learned to let go: Of all the companies on the internet, eBay is one of the most perplexing and arcane. The company makes rules that are impossible to comprehend, much less follow. Even finding instructions on how to deal with things like defamatory feedback is tedious and difficult. Like Sturm, I'd almost rather deal with the courts than with the eBay bureaucracy.

So what's the moral of the story? Unless you're willing to suffer through long (and expensive) litigation, let negative feedback roll off your shoulders. You can respond to it directly through the eBay system. Remember that a couple of negatives won't materially affect your sales or purchases. But the real lesson is something your mother probably taught you. Don't want to get dragged into this mess to begin with? If you can't say something nice, don't say anything at all.