eBay UK Forum Censorship Stifles Feedback On Private Seller & Buyer Fee Changes
eBay UK users are increasingly finding the company's official community forums to be hostile territory as some posts expressing concerns and opinions about private seller and buyer fee policy changes are censored and temporary or permanent bans are being handed out for dubious reasons.
Buying and selling on the platform has changed dramatically for UK users in the last few months including: eBay dropping private seller fees in October; instituting new policies which which first changed payouts from an automatic to a manual process and then delayed payouts until after delivery; mandated Simple Delivery managed shipping coming soon; and the introduction of Buyer Fees last month.
Liz Morton
In the midst of this whirlwind, many have taken to the eBay UK community forum to discuss the changes with other buyers and sellers - but some have found their questions, concerns and opinions silenced by heavy-handed moderation doled out by eBay's chosen third party forum provider, Khoros.
Since private selling went fee-free in October, it brought longstanding issues about businesses being incorrectly registered under private accounts to the forefront.
While some posts about the topic can tend to get contentious, some users report they've had posts removed and received warnings and/or temporary suspensions for comments on the subject which are relatively tame and fact-based.
For example, one reader who reached out to Value Added Resource provided screenshots showing community moderators had removed their post and sent them a warning about "being respectful."
Their transgression? Suggesting to another poster who was expressing concerns about the upcoming Simple Delivery mandate that since it appeared by their account information and history they were likely a business, correctly registering as a business would solve their problem since Simple Delivery only applies to private sellers.
For context, the eBay UK community rules about being respectful state:
Courteous and respectful postings are expected from all participants. We welcome debate but content that is harmful, hostile, hate or racist speech, threatening, abusive, attacking, baiting, name-calling, profane, vulgar, defamatory, harassing, misleading, attempts to circumvent this policy or content that is otherwise objectionable will not be tolerated and will be edited or removed.
While I will not post the exact wording of the supposedly "offending" comment in order to protect the anonymity of the seller who posted it, I have reviewed the comment and the thread it was posted in for context and can honestly say there was nothing in it which would rise to the level of any of the criteria listed in that rule.
I've received other similar reports which say they were given even more vague and dubious reasons for posts being removed and warnings or bans issued - including the laughable idea that posts about the problems posed by business sellers being incorrectly registered as private were somehow off topic in a thread titled "The eBay of 2025 - What To Expect As A Small Private Seller - Should I Stay Or Should I Go."
That thread received almost 600 responses on a wide range of issues which were very relevant to the original post before being unceremoniously locked by moderators with no explanation given, preventing any further replies and shutting down the conversation.
Similarly, a post about the Buyer Protection Fee which had almost 800 replies was also locked with no warning or explanation. even though the vast majority of posts were on topic and complied with forum rules.
Another seller who reached out to Value Added Resource says they've received a 30 day suspension from the eBay UK community forum for creating more than one thread on the subject of the Buyer Protection Fee, which the mods called "posting spam."
While there isn't anything in the forum guidelines defining what might be considered spamming, there is a section which prohibits repetitive, disruptive or inappropriate posts.
Repetitive, disruptive, or inappropriate threads or posts.
Members should only post one thread per topic on the most relevant board for the issue or question. Topics or posts that are inappropriate or disruptive serve no value in the community and may be removed without notice.
That seems unnecessarily and ridiculously restrictive in limiting users to only one thread per topic while also being vague enough to grant moderators carte blanche to label any post "disruptive" with no justification or explanation required - a policy which the seller in question calls Orwellian.
While there are also many posts on these topics which are not being censored, the reports I have received are still troubling and cause for concern, particularly where rules appear to be being applied unevenly or unfairly.
Beyond the posts which are being removed, the eBay UK community forum also appears to have pre-emptively blacklisted a wide swath of keywords which the Khoros programming will block from ever even being posted.
For example, it is forbidden to post the name of eBay's ex-CEO Devin Wenig - and any attempts to do so are met with a message saying that "is not permitted in this community" - though oddly enough, it does allow current CEO Jamie Iannone.
Ironically, that bit of censorship is likely an effort to prevent users from discussing Wenig's connection to the eBay cyberstalking scandal which was the catalyst for his departure from the company.
The bizarre corporate plot unfolded in the summer of 2019, targeting Ina and David Steiner for their reporting on eBay at EcommerceBytes and seeking to unmask the identity of unsuckEBAY (also known as FidoMaster/Dan Davis) an anonymous commenter and source who sparked the ire of top executives at the company, including Wenig, Chief Communications Officer Steve Wymer, and SVP Global Operations Wendy Jones.
Court records revealed sordid details of the harassment that included disturbing deliveries of live insects, bloody pig masks and funeral wreaths as well as threatening messages, doxxing that ultimately escalated to in-person stalking and an attempted break-in at the hands of high-level eBay security personnel all in an effort to curtail free speech and commentary which "vexed" the executives.
Liz Morton
While the First Amendment of the US Constitution obviously doesn't apply any direct legal restrictions on eBay's moderation decisions in their community forums either in the US or elsewhere, the underlying principles valuing free speech have wide reaching implications and applications - or at the very least might offer eBay some wisdom on more productive ways to engage with their customer base.
In fact, in the wake of the cyberstalking scandal it would have been smart for eBay to reflect on how past overzealous moderation of their community, including several major perma-ban purges in the US community in particular, forced users to take their concerns and critiques to other places across the internet where they were allowed to post more freely - and where those comments gained much wider visibility and amplification across social media as a result.
Unfortunately, eBay appears determined not to learn many lessons from the cyberstalking debacle, particularly around how to improve seller engagement or address root causes of issues rather than obfuscate, ignore or bury them.
The eBay US community forum has gone through smaller scale moderation crackdowns in the last few years, though for the most part it seems the strategy there has been more one of disengagement and significantly reducing official participation, like the discontinuation of regularly scheduled chat events with eBay staff.
Liz Morton
Some sellers have also raised concerns about special programs or opportunities to speak directly with higher level executives at eBay which may require signing non-disclosure agreements, sacrificing the right to speak publicly about their experiences in order to have their feedback heard by decision-makers at the company.
Liz Morton
And I've personally experienced how arbitrary and capricious eBay's account suspensions can be. In 2022, my account was "permanently" suspended after being deemed "a risk to the eBay community" - a decision eBay themselves eventually admitted was only overturned due to my "social presence".
Liz Morton
Given all of that history, you would think eBay's new Chief Communications Officer Gigi Ganatra Duff would have set out new guidelines for how the company communicates and interacts with their customers and the press, but a recent job posting for a Crisis Communications position shows eBay is actively looking to recruit someone with a history of "preventing high-impact media coverage."
Liz Morton
Free pro tip for Ganatra Duff and the rest of eBay's executive leadership team:
If you want to avoid having legitimate user concerns escalate into full blown media, governance, or financial crises, you might want to try engaging in good faith and really listening to and considering their feedback rather than trying to shut down the conversation.
Issuing instructions to Khoros staff to loosen the reins a bit on moderation and giving users who have received temporary or permanent bans for dubious reasons another chance would be a good place to start.
Have you had comments about recent private seller changes and buyer fees censored or been suspended or banned from any of eBay's community forums for discussing these or other relevant topics? I'd love to hear about your experience - leave a comment below or contact VAR!
TaiapanPenguin
