Fair Outcomes Inc. CEO James Ring said his new dispute resolution system helps buyers and sellers deal with eBay's controversial changes to its feedback policies, including helping to solve the problem of feedback extortion sometimes faced by sellers.
Ring was responding to alleged incidents of extortion of eBay sellers by buyers reported on the AuctionBytes blog over the weekend (http://blog.auctionbytes.com/cgi-bin/blog/blog.pl?/pl/2008/6/1212292804.html).
"That was one of our main motivations for introducing this system when we did - it was obvious that, once sellers could no longer leave negative feedback for buyers, there would be a substantial increase in unfair or extortionate feedback and in claims by sellers, justified or otherwise, that they were being subjected to extortion," Ring said. "The same thing would happen to the legal system if someone were to reconfigure it so that defendants could no longer bring counterclaims against plaintiffs."
Fair Outcomes Inc. introduced the Fair Reputations system 3 weeks ago and hopes that ecommerce sites begin discounting negative feedback based upon members' use of the system. eBay recently ended its "Mutual Feedback Withdrawal" policy and prohibits sellers from leaving buyers anything but positive feedback, a cause of concern for many sellers since radical changes to feedback were first announced at the end of January.
AuctionBytes has published an audio interview conducted with Ring last week on the Ecommerce Industry Soundbytes podcast program. In it, he explains how the Fair Reputations system works using an example of a typical ecommerce-related dispute (http://podcast.auctionbytes.com/cgi-bin/podcast/pod.pl?/pl/2008/6/1212374367.html).
Ring also said the company plans to add a new verification feature similar to a seal program that would allow sellers to subscribe to the system and make it easier for buyers to verify that a seller has done so. Buyers could also use the program to verify that sellers dealt with negative feedback through the use of the Fair Reputations system.
"In the short period of time that has elapsed since we rolled this system out, we've already had usage in North America, Europe, Asia and Australia, and we're delighted to note that settlements have already been achieved in cases involving claims of "item not as described" and "item not received."
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