Online Marketplaces Editing and Proofreading Services

A buyer says the item arrived broken. A seller says it left in perfect condition and the photograph shows damage that could have happened anywhere. Both are telling the truth as they understand it, both are asking the marketplace to decide, and whatever the marketplace decides, one of them will conclude the platform is against people like them.

We edit what marketplaces produce — buyer and seller protection policies, dispute resolution procedures and their published criteria, evidence requirements for claims, seller performance and suspension policies, listing and prohibited item rules, decision notices sent to both parties, and the appeals process. Our editors work on rules applied to two parties who cannot both be satisfied.

The dispute policy and the criteria it publishes is what makes a marketplace's decisions accepted, and its failure is a process that announces outcomes without stating what decided them. Somebody always loses; the question is whether they think it was arbitrary. We work through these so the evidence that determines each type of dispute is published in advance, since a seller who knows a signed proof of delivery decides a non-receipt claim will obtain one, and one who learns it afterwards will feel ambushed; so the burden is stated for each claim type — who has to show what — because a policy that is silent on this appears to shift with whoever complained more loudly; so the decision notice quotes the specific evidence relied on rather than citing the policy, given that "under our buyer protection policy" explains nothing and "the tracking shows delivery to a different postcode" explains everything; so the timescales are stated for each stage with what happens if a party does not respond; so the point at which the marketplace decides rather than mediating is named, as parties waste weeks negotiating when the platform was always going to rule; so the effect on a seller's account is separated from the money, since sellers fear the metric more than the refund and often do not know which they are risking; so the appeal states what new evidence would change the outcome; and so both notices explain the decision in the same words. Policies written this way keep the losing party.

Everything you send is treated in confidence, including policies, dispute records and account information. We are editors rather than marketplace operators, arbitrators or lawyers, and we offer no view on disputes, policies or any decision. What we can do is publish what will decide it before it happens.