eBay Fraud Scams exposed

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

================================

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.

============
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)