lems that are undesirable but legal (such as difficulty contacting the seller). To analyze the characteristics of negative comments placed at online auction sites, we developed a complaint categorization scheme that describes the problems buyers can have when purchasing from an online auction. It includes problems related to the payment and shipping of items, problems with the item received, along with refunds or exchanges, communication problems, and bidding. The typology of complaints is shown in Figure 1. It should be noted that the complaint classification system is designed to classify allegations of misconduct that have not been proven. It is possible that some allegations are unfounded; nevertheless, the

Complaint

Example

#
Instances

% of % of
Complaints Complaints
2003 2005

“Disappointed. DVD is not US. Look at PICTURE carefully. Seller did not state on ad”

Quality is low “This leather peels in a weeks time,

and is not of high quality at all”

Wrong item sent “Sent wrong item, 1 month later still
not rectified”

Missing an item or “Pieces were missing promised but parts missing never sent , waiting since February”

Item has unexpected “Jacket was a size small, and smelled!” color/texture/ size/smell

Defective—will not work

Item is not as described

1132

14.94%

279

212

208

123

“RECEIVED IN GOOD PHYSICAL CONDITION, BUT DOES NOT

WORK. WHY WAS THIS NOT SAID?” 385

“WARNING! damaged goods— undamaged packing—denial WARNING” 192

“Listing was for a DVD when in fact it was a VCD burn! Don’t buy, Stay away!” 178

Total for Complaints About Items 2709

Damaged item shipped

Black market item

 

allegations are useful for understanding overall patterns of misconduct and estimating whether those patterns change over time.

Data for this study was gathered from eBay’s reputation system. eBay allows users to post positive, neutral, or negative comments about their transactions. This study classified negative feedback posted about sellers and estimated the frequency of the different complaint types. Initial samples of 6,571 negative comments from May 2003 were used to validate the complaint typology, and to provide estimates of the complaint rates for each of the complaint categories. An additional 867 negative comments from July 2005 were used to determine if the frequency and distribution of complaints changed significantly over the intervening two years. The complaints examined were extracted from a sample of over one million eBay comments (across both studies), providing an overall complaint rate for

this study was 0.73 complaints for every 100 comments made.

The eBay data was analyzed using content analysis—a manual process in which every complaint was read by at least one of the researchers and categorized into one or more of the complaint categories shown in

Figure 1. The content analysis found negative feedback records often referred to more than one seller problem (such as both a communication problem and non-delivery). In these cases, the complaint was placed into more than one complaint category. There were 11,371 different negative comments made in the 7,438 complaints examined. The complaints were grouped into five broad categories: about receiving items, about the item received, about returning items, about communication, and complaints about bidding.

^17.30% Complaints about receiving items. Problems related to receiving the

^{3.74% 3.81%} products are summarized in Table _{2.95% 2.08%} 1. The principal complaint was that the item was paid for but never

2.91% 1.96% received. This accounted for

36.52% of all complaints made. Although this could have been due

1.61% 1.96%

either to seller or shipper error, the buyers largely assumed that sellers

^{5.40% 3.46%} had never shipped the item. Complaints that the item was paid for

^{2.65% 2.08%} but never received usually represent
an accusation of non-delivery
3.69%
fraud. In a very small fraction of the
^36.33% complaints, buyers complained of
non-delivery without allowing suf-
^{Table 2. General} ficient time for the seller to ship the
^{complaints about} _items. item, as in this complaint: “It has
been over a week. Where is the
jacket?” However, in these cases the complaint was
coded as slow shipping as opposed to non-delivery.
The average amount of time buyers waited before
placing a complaint accusing a seller of non-delivery
was 36 days and 74.5% of buyers waited at least 21
days before complaining about non-delivery. A com-
parison of complaint rates for 2003 with those of
2005 showed that a higher proportion of buyers made
allegations of non-delivery fraud at the later date.
However, the overall rate of complaints about receiv-
ing items remained relatively constant.

Complaints that the auction was won but the transaction was not completed because the buyer never heard from the seller, the seller did not follow through with the sale because the price was too low, or the seller no longer had the product to sell were found

2.22%

36.43%