eBay UK is testing a radical new system for dealing with unfair feedback. eBay members in the UK who receive a negative feedback rating from their trading partners can now let a jury of other eBay members decide if the feedback was fair or not. If 70 of the 100 jurors feel the negative feedback was unfair, eBay will remove it; a "hung jury" results in no action. eBay is calling the program "Community Court."

Sellers first heard of the new system in the eBay Business Newsletter that eBay UK sends to PowerSellers. The announcement read in part, "So you don't lose business because of unfair negative feedback, we're launching Community Court" and linked to more information on the website.

Both parties in a dispute must agree to a Privacy Policy in order for the jury to see photos of evidence, otherwise the jury would be told which party did not agree to it. The Community Court only considers one side of the case at once. If users want to appeal against negative feedback that has been left for them as part of the same transaction, they must initiate a separate appeal.

The jury is unable to ask for information beyond that provided through the Community Court process. There's no appeals process, so the jury's decision is final. More information is available on the eBay UK website.

http://pages.ebay.co.uk/help/policies/community-court.html