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back to article eBay's dotcom survivor boss to quit auctioneering

Long-serving eBay sultana Meg Whitman is set to hang up her hammer within weeks, it's reported, as the web's number one tat bazaar struggles to restore trust and respond to new challengers in the online jumble racket. The 51-year-old has been gradually handing over her day-to-day responsiblities to her deputies, according to …

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  1. Solomon Grundy

    Craigslist?

    Seeing as how eBay is the largest outside shareholder in Craigslist I'm not sure that Craisglist is doing much damage to eBay. It'd be pretty easy to stop if it were.

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  2. Chris Williams (Written by Reg staff)

    Re: Craigslist?

    "It'd be pretty easy to stop if it were."

    True, but eBay made that investment (and Gumtree in the UK) to cover its rear. Craigslist certainly made a lot of people in the US question if they need to pay eBay for what can sometimes amount to a classified ad where auctions are unnecessary - eg. gig ticket auctions with buyitnow.

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  3. Anonymous Coward
    Flame

    Eh? "struggles to restore trust" ?

    It's not even TRYING to restore trust.

    A simple test will prove it. Pick listings with a hundred different random listing violations and report them.

    Yes, you'll get an autoresponder from ebay saying how importantly it treats violation reports but that's about all. In three days time, MOST of those violations will still be on the site -- and in a week, MOST of those sellers will relist new items showing the same violations.

    Its clear from the violation report form itself how little interest ebay really has in removing violations -- because there's not even space on the violation form to say WHY the listing is wrong.

    That suits ebay, because without the evidence it only needs to give the listing a five second glance and if it doesn't immediately see what's wrong it can let the listing stand.

    And there's no appeals procedure, no random "you reported a violation, was it dealt with properly" follow up. It doesn't matter if the violation is cast-iron and reported every day of the week, the most prolific offenders are still allowed to get away with it.

    Ebay isn't struggling to restore trust, it simply isn't even trying.

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  4. Scott Coe

    This is good news . . .

    Good riddence to bad rubbish. ANYBODY could do a better job than our old Meg has. I'm sure the pasture she's going to will be very green, though.

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