The concern of Al is a concern of all sellers: the featured plus option does not give a plus anymore. They are honest enough to say that the featured item should ‘normally’ appear featured somewhere (without guarantee), but anyway, not on page one. The policy of EBay is getting more and more seller unfriendly. Everything is done to protect the buyer and Paypal. E.g. I had sent an album via registered mail, like I do for all Paypal paid packages. The package has never arrived. The buyer claimed his money back under Paypal’s buyers’ protection scheme. Although I had the proof, which I sent to Paypal, of having shipped the parcel, Paypal ruled that I had not delivered and they debited my Paypal account for the claimed amount. The contactual clauses in my sales conditions, that all shipments are for the risk of the buyer, were ignored by Paypal. They do as they like, but don’t care for the sellers. I am gettng fed up, but the bastards have a quasi monopoly. They also introduced this freight calculator, although not based in the U.S. they oblige me to calculate freight, as if I were based in the US. If I quote the freight from Europe to the US, they say too high (over $ 4.00) and I cannot list the item. If I list my items on EBay.nederland, -.france, -.italia, -.deutschland or -.italia, which average Japanese or American is going to see my items, because they don’t read Dutch, French, Italian or German. So I am forced to use EBay.com.
I have not seen yet the impossibility to leave positive feedback fo the buyer, but a non-paying buyer, cannot get a negative feedback, if he has not paid. The non-payment procedure is only aimed at crediting to the seller the EBay sales commissions.