"eBay buyer faces libel action after leaving neg feedback" Topic

Surprised nobody has brought this story up:
link

I saw it yesterday, but was busy.
I also did not want to give away that I read the Drudge Report for my weird links. (Either that or National Review Corner.)

It was a rather mild negative, too, I thought.
At the time I thought about how really broken the whole eBay feedback system is. Now, the SELLER is not allowed to leave feedback, unless it's positive. Tell me how useful that is. Please.

I read about this in the Metro a few days ago. It's such a non-case. For it to be libelous, the comment has to be untrue as well as damaging – and the seller doesn't seem to have argued against the truth of the feedback at all. He just doesn't want a negative feedback for selling damaged and badly described goods, and seems to believe he should be able to buy exemption from honesty with a refund.

Incidentally, I utterly despise ebay's current feedback system and I'm not defending it here, but this seller is a moron. How much worse is his reputation going to be after raising this case than if he'd just accepted the negative feedback and moved on?

"…but this seller is a moron."

I hope he doesn't read that. I read somewhere that he has a history of trying to sue people who say bad things about him. No matter how silly the lawsuit or how justified the remark.

He gave a refund. I don't understand what was the buyers problem if he got his money back. well Maybe I read the story incorrectly.

reeves lk – you or I may not have given a negative feedback in this situation, but it's not outrageous that the buyer should have done so. Refund or no, he was still sold a damaged phone of the wrong model, and had to deal with the inconvenience and delay of pursuing the problem with the seller and returning the phone, all because of misrepresentation on the part of the seller. That's not a positive buying experience.