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Griff: Jason, welcome.
Jason: Thank you Griff.
Griff: Since you’re going to be starting your own show, the PayPal Radio Show, on July 11th, I will allow you to ask the trivia question. And as a reminder, our toll free number is 877-474-3302. Okay, Jason, hit us with the trivia question.
Jason: How about I do the one I remember?
Lee: Oh, he doesn’t have the trivia question.
Griff: This is brilliant.
Lee: Someone should have given him the trivia question.
Jason: I received an email yesterday and I know the question is related to two major milestones that were announced at eBay Live.
Griff: That’s true.
Jason: One of them was customer count, total number of registered accounts with eBay.
Griff: Right.
Jason: And the second one had to do with eBay Motors.
Lee: It was how many registered users and how many cars sold.
Griff: Right, so these were recent milestones at eBay. If you think you know the answer, you have to know them both, not just one, dial 877-474-3302. And of course, the prize is the brand new eBay Radio eBay Live 2006 button which we had a few printed up. Hopefully they’ll last throughout the year.
Jason: So you’re making them answer two questions, but you’re giving them one button.
Griff: Jason.
Lee: Yeah, goodbye Jason.
Griff: We’ll talk to you later, okay.
Jason: Goodbye, it was nice talking to all of you.
Lee: Go to your room (laughter).
Griff: Picky, picky, picky.
Jason: (Laughter).
Griff: And if calling in the Open Phones segment is not your thing, try emailing me at griff@ebay.com. If possible I’ll read your email question over the air, but I’d rather talk with you on the phone. And of course, you can only enter the trivia question over the phone, so it’s time to chat with us now at 877-474-3302. Talk with me in person any time during the next three hours and you’ll automatically entered into the eBay bible drawing to win a copy of The Official eBay Bible personally autographed by me. Let’s go right to Doug in Santa Rosa, California. Welcome, what’s your question?
Caller: Hi Griff again. I got a notification of change to your feedback today because a buyer bought something from me and was suspended indefinitely from eBay because of their ninety days within registration. Now, I was wondering if there is any way I can find out who it was, because it was not a negative feedback, so I’m wondering why are we penalized if we receive a positive feedback from somebody that’s later kicked off. The purpose of this policy I thought was for leaving negatives.
Griff: No, no, it’s for anything.
Caller: Oh.
Griff: It can’t be one or the other. If the policy states that somebody is kicked off of eBay within the first ninety days of their registration, it’s not just negative, it’s all feedback.
Caller: Oh, I thought it was just for basically the negatives.
Griff: No, we couldn’t do that, that brings up some really thorny potentially high liability questions for us. So it’s all the feedback left. You should be able to find out who the person is by the item number.
Caller: It doesn’t say anything about item number. It’s just very generic. I’ve never gotten an email like this before.
Griff: Hmm. Does it have a link in it?
Caller: No. It just says, notification of change to your feedback.
Griff: Have you checked your feedback?
Caller: Yes. And my score actually went down. They took off the one feedback.
Griff: Right. And it’s completely removed, you didn’t see it?
Caller: Right, because I went back a couple hundred feedback and no trace of it.
Griff: Yeah, unfortunately that’s how it works. I was wondering if maybe it was just withdrawn, but no, it sounds like this person’s been suspended and all their feedback has been removed.
Caller: Yeah. And one quick comment, I guess those “it” TV commercials are pretty successful because now Gatorade has one that says “it” in it.
Griff: I know, I saw that.
Caller: I just saw that last night. What does eBay think about that?
Griff: Imitation is the most sincere form of flattery.
Caller: Because it’s funny, I just thought, wow, here’s a different eBay commercial I haven’t seen and then at the end it was Gatorade.
Griff: Yeah, and I think what’s interesting is when somebody attempts a program like that is if the first thing everyone’s thinking is eBay, then our job is done.
Caller: Oh, should I blurt out half that answer to the trivia?
Griff: Yeah, do you know the answers?
Caller: Half of it.
Griff: But if you answer half you don’t get anything.
Caller: I know, but I could help somebody else.
Griff: It’s a true community spirit. Go ahead.
Caller: 200 million users.
Griff: That’s right. So the first half has been answered, sacrificed I will say, by Doug. So if you knew the other half and didn’t know the first half, now you’ve got the first half from Doug who actually got up there and took a bullet for you, community.
Caller: Can I plug my store then?
Griff: (Laughter) There’s always a payoff. Go ahead, Doug.
Caller: My ID is doug95403.
Griff: What is that, your zip code?
Caller: Yes.
Griff: So you’re California.
Caller: Yep.
Griff: Oh, that’s right, Santa Rosa.
Caller: I sent you a couple of long emails lately, I don’t know if you got backlogged or not. I’m curious when you’re going to respond to some of them.
Griff: I thought I did.
Caller: No, I sent you one quite long one the other day about the excessive shipping.
Griff: Oh yeah. So Doug, the way this is working is at eBay Live Bill Cobb announced the excessive shipping policy enforcement.
Caller: Yeah, I heard that.
Griff: It is not something that’s going to happen overnight. If you spend any time in a particular category, like Memory Cards, it is so rampant and it is going to take us months to get a hold of this. We can’t just suddenly shut down millions of listings, so what we’re doing is going after the most egregious offenders and as we get them back corralled in with more reasonable shipping, then enforcement will tighten up. We can’t tighten it up all at once. So we’re aware of that and you’ll see changes happening over the next couple months. I just reported a bunch yesterday and I noticed that half of them have been taken care of. So report them when you find them because if they’re particularly egregious, they’ll be taken down.
Jason: What an excellent segue for my plug, Griff. I just put up an eBay listing with 26 VHS tapes, $9.50 media mail, and it took a huge box.
Griff: Wow.
Jason: Yeah.
Griff: Yeah, it’s going to be difficult to do this because there’s just so many people who are doing it. We don’t want to screw up some person’s business, so the enforcement will start with the obvious, most egregious, and then as we bring more people into compliance I think the playing field will level off.
Jason: And that $9.50 includes delivery confirmation.
Griff: There you go. Sam from Atlanta, what’s your question
Caller: Yes, I’ve emailed you a couple times in regards to our account. It has been suspended and eBay did not give us any legitimate reason why the account was suspended. It’s in regards to Bella Furniture Imports. I don’t know if you got my emails.
Griff: I did Sam, and I’m not allowed to discuss them over the air, sorry.
Caller: Can you email me something back and let us know the reason why it was suspended.
Griff: All I can do is tell you to email me again, I’ll ask them to send you another note, they tell me they have. I can’t get in the middle of it and that’s all I can say right now. I’m sorry, Sam. Jason, you still with us?
Jason: Yes.
Griff: Oh, you suddenly went very silent.
Jason: No, just contemplating.
Griff: Really? What are you contemplating?
Jason: Hoping that those VHS tapes will sell.
Griff: Oh.
Lee: (Laughter).
Griff: You want to plug them? What’s your user ID?
Jason: clarkent32. It’s the complete set of the Rhino Mystery Science Theater 3000.
Griff: (Gasp) I must have those. Jason, you told me you were going to let me know when you put those up.
Lee: He just did.
Jason: There you go.
Griff: Well Yeah, but under duress.
Jason: (Laughter).
Griff: If you’ve never seen the Mystery Theater 3000, they’re fantastic. They’re very funny.
Jason: Yes. VHS is kind of like using eBay and paying with a money order, it’s kind of last century.
Griff: Yeah, it is very last century. But if you have a recorder you can make DVD discs for your own use, not for resale.
Jason: Absolutely. And that’s what I’m doing, upgrading to the DVDs.
Griff: So are you going to stick around with us?
Jason: I will. Let’s hang out for another segment.
Griff: Okay. Clarkent32, go buy his tapes or bid me up.
Jason: (Laughter).
Griff: I’m going to try and bid on break. Yeah, that’s very cool. This segment has been brought to you by GotVMail, the professional sound of today’s small business. I bet our last segment stirred up a few comments or questions of your own, so don’t be sad because Open Phones and Jason Miner will continue on eBay Radio.
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