eBay Fraud Scams exposed

NEW YORK (Reuters) - eBay Inc may cut 1,500 jobs, according to an article in Barron’s weekly, citing a report published last week by investment-research firm Wedge Partners.
The Wedge report, according to Barron’s, said eBay’s business was “deteriorating” and the company was readying layoffs that could affect 10 percent of its 15,000 employees.

How does this relate to eBay burning billions of dollars buying back it’s own shares?

In 2008 eBay profit is roughly 2B and they have already spent 1B or more on eBay stock buy back in 2008 and have a plan to spend another billion by end of 2008. This will effectively wipe out their net revenues for the year.

They sure are not in a cash crunch, they will be just left with little less cash than they had in 2007 (little under 4 billion dollars) and their share price in the toilet inspite of those hefty stock repurchases.

Layoffs plus continued buy back in 4th Q would be a typical eBay’s disregard for their own employees. eBay management will rather layoff thousands of workers, just like they abuse their sellers and buyers while investing obscene amounts of money into attempts to prop up their eBay shares.

If they do layoffs, it looks like a PR move aimed purely at Wall Street… Time will tell.

Net Institutional Purchases - 1s Qtr 2008 to 2nd Qtr 2008

Net Shares Purchased (Sold) (89,598,700)
% Change in Institutional Shares Held (10.8%)

Net Institutional Purchases - 4th Qtr 2007 to 1st Qtr 2008
Shares
Net Shares Purchased (Sold) (30,998,100)
% Change in Institutional Shares Held (3.5%)

So it appears that institutions have dumped three times as many shares in second quarter 2008 compared to first quarter 2008.

No matter how eBay corporate serves their PR Cool Aid, the bottom line is, the company is suffering from MBAaitis : a clueless bunch of MBAs running the auction site to the ground.

Check out the eBay Stock message board on Yahoo Finance or it’s counterpart eBay Stock Message board on Google : it’s carnage time! eBay has been heavily censoring sellers and customers disclosing their dismay with eBay management on it’s own site, so some sellers moved those discussions to the eBay STOCK forums to let the shareholders know “there is something rotten in the state of eBay”

eBay shares have hit 1 year low and 3 year low this week $22.70
Trade Time: Sep 9 and it appears that recovery is not in sight any time soon.

Update 9/25/2008 If you watch volume on eBay shares, you will not be able to help but notice a pattern of someone dumping unusually high volumes of eBay shares past few days right at the end of trading day.

Past 5 trading days a muti-million share dumps end of each day.

The Register reported another security hole and vulnerability in PayPal / Skype. We know that eBay owned companies are quite weak on security, ridden with bugs, lack customer service and sooner of later will overcharge it’s user base for whatever service is provided. Here are some details from The Register article:

Ballard says he sent Skype’s support team 34 emails, one each day since the account was hijacked, but never received a live response. Late last week, a Skype rep contacted him to acknowledge the problem and offered him a refund. He remains locked out of the account he’s used for three years.

Several of the victims work in the information technology industry and say they take pains to use strong passwords and log in to their accounts only from secure machines located at home.

Sounds like a typical eBay owned company, doesn’t it?

Another Class Action Lawsuit against PayPal is being settled. In particular, the lawsuit alleges that PayPal’s policies and practices constitute deceptive trade practices, fraudulent inducement and misrepresentations, and breach of the PayPal User Agreement. In plain English: this Class Action accused PayPal that it illegally cheated it’s customers who were not smart enough to back they PayPal purchase by a credit card.

So if you were denied full refund by PayPal on purchase you have made and could not recover your funds using a chargeback via your credit card, please take a look at the official Steele Case Settlement website for further information. Officially, here is the description of who qualifies:
On July 24, 2008, Judge Glasser entered an order granting preliminary approval of the Settlement and certifying the following “Class” for purposes of the Settlement: all U.S. based PayPal account holders who funded a PayPal transaction after February 1, 2004, using a source other than a credit card: (i) who subsequently requested a reversal of the transaction through PayPal’s prevailing Buyer Complaint Policy and/or Buyer Protection Policy (collectively, “Policies”); (ii) who did not receive a refund equal to 100% of their transaction payment in response to such request from PayPal or their bank; and (iii) who, through the timely submission of a Claim Form under oath, attest to a reasonable and good faith belief that they would have received a full reversal of such payment had they used a valid credit card in their possession at the time of the subject transaction to fund the payment and filed a timely chargeback request with their credit card issuing bank.

I just realized I have not taken a look at our scammer who specializes in hijacking eBay seller ID’s with 100% feedback and then posts fake auctions on eBay site, so unsuspecting eBay buyers would send him hard earned dollars and receive northing but a callous email from eBay that they fell for a scam. We check on this eBay scammer about once a month for past 3 years to see if eBay fortified it’s security to protect unsuspecting victims who think buying on eBay from 100% feedback seller is safe. Every time we check, this scammer has active auctions on hijacked seller accounts, as documented here hundreds of times.

So what do you think? Did we find him today? You Bet we did!

Right now he has hijacked two different sellers and posted identical auctions with the identical image:

Here is a screenshot of some of the auctions with 3 hours to go (so much for eBay’s clain they locate and take down these scam auctions quickly). Naturally these auctions show the scammer’s trademark image email inserted to the auction, urging eBay buyers to contact the scammer to a disposable email address wesleyjr12@gmail.com .

The hijacked seller is Seller: nadpnutt79 (16) Feedback: 100 % Positive and the fake scam auction screenshot is here.

The other hijacked eBay seller is nshiraef ( 7 ) Feedback: 100 % Positive and the fake scam auctions screenshot is here.

One thing, this scammer opened up a new photo album with his scam images, the new album is here. His old album we have located over a year ago was just deleted.

Shame on you eBay! It is so very easy to locate these account hijackers and scammers : we can do it any day and any time with NO TOOLS, no special access to any security databases and you with 2,000 employees in Trust and Safety Department are so indifferent to buyers getting scammed on your site, you let this fraud flourish on your site for years.

Incompetence and Greed. (of eBay management is just astounding).

To this I just have one more comment. Remember we published back in April an important message from eBay security Chief anouncing that eBay is now taking note of computer ID that seller normally uses to list their items. Should the computer used change, a Seller will be required to go through additional phone verification to assure the seller has not been hijacked. The data gathering was to take place till June and as of June the new seller hijack protection was to take place. Well? How does our eBay scammer / hijacker continue to successfully publish fake auctions on hijacked seller accounts? Obviously eBay botched this up and whatever they put in place is being easily bypassed by even most amateurish eBay hackers.

Evidence is clear: do not trust eBay management. eBay site is not safe.

How does PayPal protection scam work?

In this case I am referring to a scam perpetrated by eBay who owns PayPal, not by some nickle and dime scammers utilizing eBay platforms.

There have been many accusations that PayPal Purchase Protection policy is only illusionary and that PayPal is by far not as safe as using credit cards for payment.

Here are some real time facts that will illustrate how eBay frauds victims when it comes to presenting PayPal Purchase Protection as a selling point but when it comes time to “make good” on this protection, real users report they are getting screwed by eBay/PayPal.

OK, let’s get to it:

• One of the top ten eBay Australia sellers appears to have skipped the country leaving what looks like close to 1,000 or so eBay buyers who paid for product during past 60 days without receiving their product. The seller’s feedback is currently logging over 650 negative feedbacks in past 30 days from defrauded buyers.. Todays estimates (and this number may grow) range from $500,000 to over $1,500,000 in funds this seller accepted without delivering the product.
• IT Wire published this article about PayPal Protection being completely illusory. This article cites a group who warns eBay PayPal users against using PayPal because the buyer protection is very limited and definitely not as advertised. They also point out that eBay Forums have had numerous warning posts about this failed seller and eBay Censors deleted those posts. The article links to one eBay Forum thread that seemed to escape the censorhip, so far.
• The eBay seller ebusiness_supplies is still a registered user, however all their auctions have been terminated on about July 8th. We have archived screenshots of the feedback page, just ready to publish in case eBay censors it out and tries to hide the evidence on their site.
• Anticipating the censorhip, as it is a favorite eBay way to prove there is no fraud on eBay, we are also archiving the current eBay Forum thread, as it is in a danger of being dissappeared by accident.

While reading an article about eBay hiring new Director of Reputation Management and giving him a $1,000,000 plus sign up bonus… (later post will probably follow on that topic alone), I hopped through footnoted.org blog post on the subject who had a nice link to eBay’s filing for 2nd quarter 2008 which offers wealth of interesting information on PayPal policies and strategy. Here are some quotes from this document that appear to be relevant as you read on:

• In addition, because a large percentage of PayPal transactions originate on the eBay platform, declines in growth rates in major Marketplaces markets also adversely affect PayPal’s growth rate. The expected future growth of our PayPal, Skype, StubHub, Shopping.com, and other lower margin businesses may also cause downward pressure on our profit margins because those businesses have lower gross margins than our Marketplaces platforms.
• PayPal is subject to anti-money laundering and counter-terrorist financing laws and regulations that prohibit, among other things, its involvement in transferring the proceeds of criminal activities. Although PayPal has adopted a program to comply with these laws and regulations, any errors or failure to implement the program properly could lead to lawsuits, administrative action, and prosecution by the government. In July 2003, PayPal agreed with the U.S. Attorney for the Eastern District of Missouri that it would pay $10 million as a civil forfeiture to settle allegations that its provision of services to online gambling merchants violated provisions of the USA PATRIOT Act and further agreed to have its compliance program reviewed by an independent audit firm. PayPal is also subject to regulations that require it to report suspicious activities involving transactions of $2,000 or more and may be required to obtain and keep more detailed records on the senders and recipients in certain transfers of $3,000 or more. The interpretation of suspicious activities in this context is uncertain. Future regulations under the USA PATRIOT Act may require PayPal to revise the procedures it uses to verify the identity of its customers and to monitor international transactions more closely.
• Negative publicity and user sentiment generated as a result of fraudulent or deceptive conduct by users of our eBay and PayPal services could damage our reputation, reduce our ability to attract new users or retain our current users, and diminish the value of our brand names. We believe that negative user experiences are one of the primary reasons users stop using our services.
• Although there have been no definitive interpretations to date, PayPal has assumed that its service is subject to the Electronic Fund Transfer Act and Regulation E of the Federal Reserve Board. As a result, among other things, PayPal must provide advance disclosure of changes to its service, follow specified error resolution procedures and reimburse consumers for losses above $50 from transactions not authorized by the consumer. PayPal currently voluntarily reimburses consumers for all financial losses from transactions not authorized by the consumer, not just losses above $50. PayPal seeks to pass most of these losses on to the relevant merchants, but PayPal incurs losses if the merchant does not have sufficient funds in its PayPal account.
• PayPal pays significant transaction fees when senders fund payment transactions using credit cards, nominal fees when customers fund payment transactions by electronic transfer of funds from bank accounts, and no fees when customers fund payment transactions from an existing PayPal account balance or use buyer credit issued by GE Money Bank. Senders fund a significant portion of PayPal’s payment volume using credit cards, and PayPal’s financial success will remain highly sensitive to changes in the rate at which its senders fund payments using credit cards. Senders may prefer funding using credit cards rather than bank account transfers for a number of reasons, including the ability to dispute and reverse charges directly with their credit card provider if merchandise is not delivered or is not as described, the ability to earn frequent flier miles or other incentives offered by credit card issuers, the ability to defer payment, or a reluctance to provide bank account information to PayPal. The proportion of PayPal’s payment volume funded using credit cards has increased over time.
• In September 2006, PayPal entered into a settlement agreement with the attorneys general of a number of states under which it agreed to pay $5.2 million to the attorneys general, shorten and streamline its user agreement, and communicate more information regarding protection programs to users. Also in September 2006, PayPal announced that it had reached a preliminary settlement agreement under which it agreed to pay approximately $3.5 million into a settlement fund for the benefit of a class represented by plaintiffs in a suit that alleged, among other things, that PayPal’s disclosure regarding the effects of users’ choice of funding mechanism was deceptive. Although PayPal did not admit any liability for any of the allegations in the two cases, changes to our disclosure practices could result in increased use of credit card funding, which could harm PayPal’s business.
  .

• Our PayPal website has suffered intermittent unavailability for periods as long as five days.

• Reliability is particularly critical for PayPal, especially as it seeks to expand its Merchant Services business. Because PayPal is a regulated financial entity, frequent or persistent site interruptions could lead to fines, penalties, or mandatory changes to PayPal’s business practices, and ultimately could cause PayPal to lose existing licenses it needs to operate. Some of our systems, including our Shopping.com and Skype websites, are not fully redundant, and our disaster recovery planning is not sufficient for all eventualities. We do not carry business interruption insurance sufficient to compensate us for losses that may result from interruptions in our service as a result of system failures.

How are all these recent changes a new CEO John Donahoe made since early 2008 working for everyone? We know that eBay Sellers are screaming bloody murder and abandoning the site for fairer pastures. We know that media hates eBay this year. Cramer keeps telling shareholders that eBay is in trouble. eBay employees give eBay very low ratings. But the eBay CEO continues on his path of self destruction maintaining “We may have some sellers that make some noise,” [eBay CEO John] Donahoe said, “but we’re absolutely confident of the direction we’re going.”

What do the buyers think?

The above graph clearly illustrates that over the past 13 months eBay has lost 9% of it’s visitors, while craigslist gained 61.9% new visitors and Amazon gained 17.1% new visitors over the past 13 month period.

This is not a new trend. New York Times blogger reported in January 2008:

• Now the latest audience figures from Nielsen Online confirm that the e-commerce traffic crown has changed heads. For the month of December, for the first time, more Americans clicked over to Amazon.com (59,624,000) than eBay (59,374,000).
• According to the Nielsen data, the number of visitors to eBay.com dropped 10 percent from December 2006 to December 2007.

The fact that eBay is losing buyers was again confirmed by the Internet Retailer report in February 2008 :
Unique traffic to eBay.com slipped 5% in February from February a year ago, to 56.6 million
The top 10 online shopping destinations in February, with unique visitors in millions this year and last and growth from prior year, according to Nielsen Online, were:

* eBay, 56.60, 59.42, -5%
* Amazon, 47.67, 40.76, 17%
* Target, 22.57, 20.14, 12%
* Wal-Mart Stores, 21.35, 20.11, 6%
* Shopzilla.com Network, 21.16, 16.86, 25%
* Shopping.com Network, 16.36, 17,82, -8%
* Yahoo! Shopping, 16.08, 11,46, 40%
* Dell, 16.06, 13,96, 15%
* Circuit City, 14.30, 9.39, 52%
* Best Buy, 13.45, 12.66, 6%

Did you notice that the only other online retailer experiencing slowdown in unique visitors is Shopping.com = also eBay owned company! eBay has a special knack for ruining any company they purchase. It all boils down to incompetent management running down everything they touch.

The credit for bringing this to our attention should go to this post on eBay Stock forum poster on Yahoo Finance Board: Wanto to see a scary eBay graph

There is a brand new site online that lets current and past employees rate their employers. It appears that eBay sellers and buyers are not the only ones disenchanted with eBay CEO and the company management. Take a look how eBay employees rate eBay.

Here is a summary of 10 ratings out of 100 today as of writing of this post:

Aug 22, 2008
3 found helpful
“eBay attracts a lot of great people, then the company culture beats them down and they leave within a couple of years.…”
Senior Product Manager in San Jose, CA (United States)
…
Sep 5, 2008
“Great company! Wouldn’t work anywhere else…”
Anonymous
…
Sep 5, 2008
“Exciting things are happening at eBay!…”
Visual Designer in San Jose, CA (United States)
…
Sep 3, 2008
“If you’re considering a job at eBay, look elsewhere.…”
Interaction Designer in San Jose, CA (United States.)
…
Sep 3, 2008
“Don’t treat us like th paper you you wipe with.…”
Customer Sercvice in Vancouver (Canada)
…
Sep 3, 2008
“Used to be a great place to work, now it’s just a job…”
Senior Director in San Jose, CA (United States)
…
Sep 3, 2008
“If you’re bright, passionate, and energetic, you’ll eventually become drained and resent everything you ever worked for.…”
Marketing Manager in San Jose, CA (United States)
…
Sep 2, 2008
“Ebay can be better with changes.…”
Software Engineer in San Jose, CA (United States)
…
Aug 22, 2008
“Too many MBA’s - not enough people who love the web…”
Senior Content Manager
…
Aug 20, 2008
1 found helpful
“ebay stuck in a wheel which goes round and round and never goes up…”
Senior Software Engineer in San Jose, CA (United States)
…

I first found a mention of this on Yahoo Finance Forum for eBay stock on 9/3/2008 and it looked like this:

Overall Company Rating 3.2
CEO Approval Rating 32%

1 - 10 of 91 Reviews by eBay Employees

Aug 22, 2008
“eBay attracts a lot of great people, then the company culture beats them down and they leave within a couple of years.…”
Senior Product Manager in San Jose, CA (United States)

Aug 22, 2008
“Too many MBA’s - not enough people who love the web…”
Senior Content Manager

Aug 20, 2008
“ebay stuck in a wheel which goes round and round and never goes up…”
Senior Software Engineer in San Jose, CA (United States)

Aug 26, 2008
“tremendous opportunities, if only we would get our heads on straight and choose a visionary plan and leadership…”
Product Manager in San Jose, CA (United States)

Aug 24, 2008
“Wounded company that needs to find its way again…”
Senior Marketing Manager in San Jose, CA (United States)

Aug 22, 2008
“Corporate politics is rewarded over hard work and dedication.…”
Account Manager in San Jose, CA (United States)

Aug 20, 2008
“eBay stuck in a wheel which goes round and round but never goes up :(…”
Senior Software Engineer in San Jose, CA (United States)

Aug 19, 2008
“Great place to work with opportunities to grow…”
Software Engineer in San Jose, CA (United States)

Aug 19, 2008
“stuck in “turnaround” hell — we’ll see how it all shakes out. a lot (too much) change going on right now…”
Senior Category Manager in San Jose, CA (United States)

Aug 21, 2008
“Decent place to work…”
Product Manager in Campbell, CA (United States)

Next I found a similar post on eBay Seller Central forum, that one was dated September 2nd

So apparently this website must have come to attention of eBay corporate PR people as they have promptly sent two faithfull employees to give it such a nice rating that glaringly contradicts those 90 plus other rating: see the two latest ratings from Sept 5th.:

Sep 5, 2008
“Great company! Wouldn’t work anywhere else…”
Anonymous
…
Sep 5, 2008
“Exciting things are happening at eBay!…”
Visual Designer in San Jose, CA (United States)
…
It’s a shame that eBay feels they have to censor and decieve on all fronts. Those two consecutive emplyee praises from yesterday are just way too obvious when compared with the rest of the reviews. But again, eBay top management is not very bright so you cannot expect them to be very sophisticated in their efforts to censor out the truth.

The eBay Message Forum at Seller Central posts a full version of those 10 reviews and those are quite enlightening in case a shareholder wants to know what’s really going on in the company and what eBay will not tell you in their quarterly report. Here are full versions of the 10 employee reviews of eBay as posted on eBay Seller Central forum.

Aug 22, 2008
2.0
Details
Career Opportunities 3.0
Communication 2.0
Compensation & Benefits 3.0
Employee Morale 1.5
Recognition & Feedback 3.0
Senior Leadership 1.0
Work/Life Balance 3.5
Fairness & Respect 1.5
Disapproves of CEO

“eBay attracts a lot of great people, then the company culture beats them down and they leave within a couple of years.”
Senior Product Manager in San Jose, CA (United States) Past Employee (2007)
Pros
It’s a good name to have on your resume, and you will be working for a company that provides a living to millions of people. Bonus structure is good for a tech company.
Cons
Upper management is inept and tends to “swoop” in and make arbitrary changes to projects without supporting data. Politics is nasty, especially on the business side of things. There is significant favoritism given towards skinny blonde chicks by some senior managers. It takes a lot of work to get products out. John Donahoe is, I expect, going to run the company into the ground; he doesn’t understand the eBay ecosystem, and driving Rajiv Dutta out of the company was a truly crazy thing for him to do.
Advice to Senior Management
Ditch your CEO and start LISTENING to your wailing employees.

Aug 22, 2008
2.0
Details
Career Opportunities 3.0
Communication 1.0
Compensation & Benefits 2.5
Employee Morale 1.0
Recognition & Feedback 2.0
Senior Leadership 2.0
Work/Life Balance 3.0
Fairness & Respect 1.5
Disapproves of CEO

“Too many MBA’s - not enough people who love the web”
Senior Content Manager Current Employee
Pros
Good intentions of management on work life balance. Free soda. Staff cafeteria. Bus with wifi between San Francisco and campus. Most people are great to work with. Good christmas parties.
Cons
Good intentions on work life balance worthless when unable to hire even replacement staff while increasing the workload. Decisions made by MBAs who don’t know anything about the web or web design, so user experience is awful. San Jose is a hole. Stock options worthless. Too much consensus decision making which means decisions are too slow to make and end up sub-optimal just to compromise. No one single visionary you can believe in.
Advice to Senior Management
Stop taking your staff for granted. You are breaking them.

Aug 20, 2008
2.0
Details
Career Opportunities 3.0
Communication 1.5
Compensation & Benefits 3.0
Employee Morale 2.0
Recognition & Feedback 2.5
Senior Leadership 1.5
Work/Life Balance 3.0
Fairness & Respect 1.0
Disapproves of CEO
“ebay stuck in a wheel which goes round and round and never goes up”
Senior Software Engineer in San Jose, CA (United States) Current Employee
Pros
Culture, history, nothing, else, tocomment
Cons
politics, bickering, weak management, unfairness, low morale
Advice to Senior Management
hopefully solve problems of employees and give them a passion and reason to contribute.

Aug 26, 2008
4.0
Details
Career Opportunities 4.0
Communication 2.0
Compensation & Benefits 3.0
Employee Morale 3.0
Recognition & Feedback 3.0
Senior Leadership 2.0
Work/Life Balance 4.5
Fairness & Respect 3.0
Disapproves of CEO

“tremendous opportunities, if only we would get our heads on straight and choose a visionary plan and leadership”
Product Manager in San Jose, CA (United States) Current Employee
Pros
For better or worse, eBay is a large company. Even if you start at eBay doing one job, there’s tremendous opportunity to more around the company if you are apt and willing. eBay also attacks problems of tremendous scale, unmatched anywhere on the web. How we handle them is sometimes questionable, but there’s no doubt that we are the biggest game in town.
Cons
Management is schizophrenic and quarter-driven. Even when we were promised that we were NOT going to be quarter driven, we still see a highly detrimental focus on making the projection for Wall St.
Internally, everything not aligned with the current soup du ‘jour is likely to be canceled, paused, downsized or outright ignored. Also there are far too many doers and not enough thinkers hired here. This company is run by people who “have ideas”, whether they are well-planned or not.
Advice to Senior Management
Settle down. STOP focusing on the near term. Chill out, plan ahead and start treating this company like it’s going to be around for 100 years. If you don’t treat it that way, then it won’t be. If you keep treating it like it will only be around another 3 to 5 years, then Wall St. will assume that too.

Aug 24, 2008
2.0
Details
Career Opportunities 2.5
Communication 2.0
Compensation & Benefits 3.0
Employee Morale 2.0
Recognition & Feedback 3.0
Senior Leadership 2.0
Work/Life Balance 4.0
Fairness & Respect 3.5
Disapproves of CEO

“Wounded company that needs to find its way again”
Senior Marketing Manager in San Jose, CA (United States) Current Employee
Pros
Used to be the quality of the team - smart, vibrant people and a clear, defined mission for the business. Those things are changing, so now I’d say it’s still a company with potential, as soon as the “turnaround” is over.
Cons
Unclear decision-making, lack of accountability and disregard for critical functions that aren’t directly driving the business, but are still indispensible.
Advice to Senior Management
Articulate a vision and get people invested in it. Right now, people are operating in crisis mode, but there isn’t a lot of compelling reasons to stay. As the good folks hit the road with more and more frequency, “put your head down and get your work done” is less a rallying cry and more a threat. And even if the job market is so-so right now, attrition isn’t going to get any better without inspiration from the leaders of the company.

Aug 22, 2008
2.0
Details
Career Opportunities 2.5
Communication 2.0
Compensation & Benefits 2.5
Employee Morale 2.0
Recognition & Feedback 1.0
Senior Leadership 1.0
Work/Life Balance 2.5
Fairness & Respect 1.0
Disapproves of CEO

“Corporate politics is rewarded over hard work and dedication.”
Account Manager in San Jose, CA (United States) Current Employee
Pros
Good benefits package. Great coworkers.
Cons
Incompetant supervisors who micro-manage rather than encourage and support.
Advice to Senior Management
Trust and respect of employees could result in a more loyal and dedicated workforce.

Aug 20, 2008
2.0
Details
Career Opportunities 2.5
Communication 1.5
Compensation & Benefits 3.0
Employee Morale 2.0
Recognition & Feedback 2.5
Senior Leadership 2.0
Work/Life Balance 3.5
Fairness & Respect 1.0
Disapproves of CEO
1 of 2 people found this helpful
“eBay stuck in a wheel which goes round and round but never goes up ”
Senior Software Engineer in San Jose, CA (United States) Current Employee
Pros
The brand is well recognized. The company is full of intelligent people to learn from. A good place to learn about how internet business works.
Cons
The middle management is very incompetent and totally screwed up. They are busy in too many useless meetings and keep dishing out BS to employees.Too much politics.
Compensation here is lower than average. Promotions are given based more on politics than actual job performance.
Bloated infrastructure and organization. Change is slow and by the time it happens is often outdated. Very few opportunities for career advancement.
Advice to Senior Management
Clean up the fat layer from the middle. Get rid of middle layer instead of getting rid of engineers. There are way too many directors and VPs for a company this size

Aug 19, 2008
4.0
Details
Career Opportunities 4.0
Communication 4.0
Compensation & Benefits 3.0
Employee Morale 4.0
Recognition & Feedback 5.0
Senior Leadership 3.0
Work/Life Balance 4.0
Fairness & Respect 4.0
No Opinion of CEO
“Great place to work with opportunities to grow”
Software Engineer in San Jose, CA (United States) Current Employee
Pros
With a great work atmosphere, there are various opportunities provided for individuals to shine and grow within their teams. Employee training is encouraged, and management makes every attempt to provide projects based on the type of work employees want to do. With the number of changes happening this year, senior management has been very communicative and responsive, which is great to see.
Cons
A better work-life balance atmosphere would be beneficial. Due to the large nature of the organization, decision making takes a long time as you have to go through a lot of red tape. Company seems to be more reactive than proactive, always trying to catch up with competition as opposed to setting trends.
Advice to Senior Management
Biggest question most employees ask is - Are we a Business company or a Technology company? To me, it seems we are a business company that tries to behave as a technology company. It should in fact be vice versa. Senior management needs to cleary define who we are, and work towards implementing the same. They should take calculated risks, become more proactive, and need to make decisions quicker.

Aug 19, 2008
4.0
Details
Career Opportunities 4.0
Communication 2.5
Compensation & Benefits 4.0
Employee Morale 4.0
Recognition & Feedback 2.5
Senior Leadership 3.0
Work/Life Balance 4.0
Fairness & Respect 3.0
Disapproves of CEO
“stuck in “turnaround” hell — we’ll see how it all shakes out. a lot (too much) change going on right now”
Senior Category Manager in San Jose, CA (United States) Current Employee
Pros
great brand name, real impact on people’s lives, removing inefficiencies from marketplaces - its nice to work for a company that is universally known (but sometimes passionately hated as well)
Cons
way too much bureaucracy - too much “its not on my list”, and this year, a lot of fear around layoffs and constrained resources. product changes are slow. existing processes are inflexible. the company has carved work into so many little pieces that its hard to find any ownership. too many ex-consultants and ex-bankers in leadership - we need more operating expertise to run a company. much too focused on powerpoint decks instead of real bold action and experience.
Advice to Senior Management
stop changing things - its makes everyone dizzy! buyers, sellers, employees, etc, are just trying to earn a living and do good work. you make it really hard when policies, resources, fees, headcount keep changing.

Aug 21, 2008
3.0
Details
Career Opportunities 3.0
Communication 3.0
Compensation & Benefits 3.0
Employee Morale 3.0
Recognition & Feedback 2.0
Senior Leadership 2.5
Work/Life Balance 2.5
Fairness & Respect 3.0
No Opinion of CEO
“Decent place to work”
Product Manager in Campbell, CA (United States) Past Employee (2006)
Pros
Great projects to work on, with tons of users and lots of strategy behind what is built. ROI drives everything. You also get to work with great people who really know what they’re doing. Usually, people are nice and helpful. As with most places, there is the occasional jerk or sycophant but overall, the people are great. Benefits are also on par with most large companies in teh bay area. maybe a little low, but not much. I’d prefer working at eBay over Google for sure.
Cons
Too much work, too much expected of employees, not enough recognition given for the right things - probably the same at most large companies
Advice to Senior Management
Improve work/life balance

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Did you notice those CEO Approval ratings?

John J. Donahoe
President and CEO
31% “Approve”

Yahoo
Jerry Yang
40% “Approve”

Amazon
Jeff Bezos
68% “Approve”

Google
Eric E. Schmidt
87% “Approve”

I guess Donahoe is as popular with his employees as he is with his customers.

Since eBay shares hit another 52 week low yesterday
Day’s Range: 23.24 - 24.45
52wk Range: 23.24 - 40.73
Volume: 22,776,993
Avg Vol (3m): 15,025,90
Last Trade: 23.77
Trade Time: Sep 5, 2008

So it appears eBay shareholders are not thrilled with Donahoe and his management team either. Just take a look at Yahoo Finance Forum for eBay - it if full of unhappy shareholders, eBay sellers and scammed buyers complaining about eBay’s mediocre management.

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Update 9/24/2008
Now that the eBay PR plants washed away under real posts, just a quick pulse check to see how eBay employees continue to feel about their employer. I see the CEO’s rating went down from 30 plus % down to 28% since we found the site where employees get to rate their employer and CEO less than a month ago.

1 - 10 of 129 Reviews for eBay

*

Sep 9, 2008

7 found helpful
“Why is management trying to kill the golden goose?…”
Software QA Engineer in San Jose, CA (United States)
*

Sep 8, 2008

7 found helpful
“One eBay insider’s point of view…”
Program Manager in San Jose, CA (United States)
*

Sep 12, 2008

6 found helpful | 1 comment
“Nearly 5 years there - what was I thinking…”
Senior Staff Software Engineer in San Jose, CA (United States)
*

Sep 11, 2008

5 found helpful
“Horrible for engineers.…”
Senior Software Engineer in Campbell, CA (United States)
*

Aug 22, 2008

7 found helpful
“eBay attracts a lot of great people, then the company culture beats them down and they leave within a couple of years.…”
Senior Product Manager in San Jose, CA (United States)
*

Sep 19, 2008

4 found helpful
“Great company, great purpose, no leadership, no willingness to admit mistakes…”
Senior Manager in San Jose, CA (United States)
*

Sep 21, 2008

3 found helpful
“Ebay needs to get back to what made it great, being a unique force in the online marketplace.…”
Independent in San Jose, CA (United States)
*

Sep 8, 2008

4 found helpful
“John J. Donahoe does NOT know how to run a company!…”
Software Engineer in San Jose, CA (United States)
*

Sep 16, 2008

3 found helpful
“ebay - not what it used to be!…”
Senior Director in San Jose, CA (United States)
*

Sep 10, 2008

4 found helpful
“Used to be a good place to work….…”
Program Manager in San Jose, CA (United States)