Angry eBay Sellers Plan Week-Long Strike

Angry eBay Sellers Plan Week-Long Strike

Ever since eBay announced changes to its feedback rules and fee structure last week, sellers have been irate, exploding onto message boards and blogs with discussions about how the new policies will affect their businesses. But when the idea of a strike was floated, some sellers and buyers decided to get more organized about expressing their displeasure.

A discussion thread on eBay's own forums with the title "Sign the pledge - no sales Feb 18-25!" has received 4,000 posts in nine days, many expressing members' intentions to join the boycott. The strike is scheduled to overlap eBay's planned Feb. 20 launch date for its new policies, which include fee hikes, a 21-day hold on some funds sent through its PayPal payment service, and disallowing sellers from leaving negative feedback for their buyers.

Facebook and MySpace pages dedicated to the strike are circulating, along with an online petition, and a mailing list called the Online Seller Cyber Union has gathered more than 700 emails in a week. A YouTube video on Google entitled "Feb 18-25th 2008: Worldwide Ebay Strike" has racked up more than 16,000 views since Saturday.

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