EBAY has finally killed the golden-egg-laying, Goose!  They have blatently abused the very people who made them billionaires and continue to do so, with this latest round of stupidity and callousness.

They claim that they "listened" to their customers and made changes to support what they wanted.  That is pure, unadulterated BS!  WE, the sellers, who have worked so hard for so many years to get and maintain our good reputations via feedback are the CUSTOMERS, NOT a bunch of newbie buyers.  BUYERS do NOT pay EBAY a cent!  EBAY takes their profits from SELLERS, in the form of fees,  PLUS the shipping & handling fees for sales.  This latest round of stupidity on the part of EBAY management is a proverbial slap-in-the-face, and an insult to the intelligence of every seller who uses EBAY!  Their "carrot on the stick" of "lower" listing prices is a boldfaced lie!  YES, they did lower SOME of their listing fees; but, they more than made up for it by INCREASING other fees to sellers, over the past 2 years!  Now their pet dog, PAYPAL, is threatening something even more dastardly; and, ridiculous.

This "star" so-called rating system and it's associated "feedback" avenue WAS a decent measurement of integrity and reliability; and, one that sellers could use to make decisions about accepting personal checks and other amenities we could offer deserving customers.  This latest "improvement" from EBAY has completely destroyed any relevance or use that system may have had, and made it completely useless for anything but EBAY's propaganda popups about how they care for their "customers." 

Buyers always could "screw" sellers in the star system; because, it's annonymous and because NO explanation for their ratings was required.  I have  researched the feedback records of several POWER SELLERS, whose feedback is twenty thousand or more, and in 99% of the cases, poor ratings were rendered by newbies who had less than 50 ratings themselves.  These people should not even have the RIGHT to render ratings; much less, be front-loaded as outstanding, as is the result of this latest change.  Many times, I have seen ratings of 4 stars, with absolutely nothing in the narrative to support any problem or dissastisfaction.  That is blatently wrong!  NOW, sellers cannot even rate their buyers, so it's impossible to separate the deserving from the bums!  Yes, EBAY, you DO have a lot of BUYER BUMS out there. Wake up and recognize  them!

Under the current system, I, as a seller, could ruin the reputation of my competitors very simply.  I could find a cheap item in their inventory and purchase it.  Then give them 1 star in all categories and an unremarkable rating, and it would take the seller 1000 sales to get those bad stars eradicated!  I could also give  less than outstanding feedback, and under the new system, the seller could not say nor do anything about it to reflect in MY ratings.  Does that sound like a fair, equitable and reasonable system to you?  To me, it sounds like the thoughts of Chairman Mao, being personified by the management or mismanagement as you will, of EBAY!