eBay has lost their collective mind

I see your problem. Both seller AND buyer can at some degree fu_k up, and I liked it better before when everybody (or most serious ones) wrote what they really ment. Today I think it is to hard to trust anyone on eBay since all the negative feedback cant be written to those who deserve it.

One of the things that I thought was awesome about eBay in the early days was peer review with moderation by eBay. It kept people awesome and if you were wrongly accused, you could get it removed. Simple. It wasn't broken.
The interesting thing to me is eBay's primary revenue stream is auction fees and secondary comes advertising revenue. Wouldn't you want to protect the seller more than the buyer? Yes, the buyers are the "demand" but you also need your supply chain to feel confident.

No doubt eBay has flaws.

Between my seller and buyer accounts, I have over 700 feedbacks. I have 100% positive for both, but that doesn't mean I haven't had my problems.

The eBay system is so damn large it is now broken in many aspects. And it will NOT ever fix itself. It is non-responsive to emails on any matter,that is IF you can figure out how to send them one. Why I even bother at times is still a mystery to me. I do so just to vent, I guess.

It is still (and will no doubt remain) the only game in town to offer what they do - worldwide exposure for sellers and a worldwide market for buyers.

Just as planting a tree means you will have leaves to rake, having kids means you will have trauma and drama, and buying a car means you will have repairs, dealing with eBay means you will have some issues now and then.

Best just to vent and move on. A bit wiser, no doubt.

Larry

As both a seller and a buyer on eBay, I too have had some problems over the years. I have 1600 feedbacks and 500+ buyers that chose not to participate in the feedback program.

Because of my seller status on eBay, I was given a "discrete" toll free phone number to call. Of the few calls that I have made to eBay, there was only one that resulted in any action taken by eBay (in my favor). None of the issues were due to my fault or my auction descriptions. They were all problems caused by buyers.

When eBay announced that they were changing the feedback program so that sellers could not leave negative feedback for buyers, I protested the change with emails and phone calls (to eBay). I was told what Khan was told (post above). The end result is, as Khan posted, a seller can't identify the deadbeat buyer.

A seller can leave a negative comment for a buyer, but cannot select a red (negative) or gray (neutral) symbol.

As Larry posted, it's the only game in town.

Like everything else in life, you either play or you don't.

John

quote:

Because of my seller status on eBay, I was given a "discrete" toll free phone number to call.

I too have that benefit.

Sadly, or else I would pass it on to all, to enter that system requires an access code.

No doubt they would wise up if dozens of folks started using my code.

And like John, I've found even that special number fails to bring any brilliant success.

Larry

I can add that as a buyer who paid and never received what I bought, the PayPal "protection" is a joke. The only protection that exists is if the seller feels like refunding your payment, which in my case he didn't.

But, like you said, it's the only game in town.

Mark

E-Bay is NOT the only game in town. Try these:
Craigs List
Kajjii

Sure, they aren't as big as EvilBay- which may be an advantage.

My opinion- E-Bay derives more than a 'little' of their income from the PayPal system. This forces one to have what amounts to a bank account at PayPal, in which they have access but no interest is ever paid to the actual owner. I do not use PayPal to buy or to sell. Send me a check; when it clears my local Bank, I'll send your stuff.

quote:

This forces one to have what amounts to a bank account at PayPal, in which they have access

True.

But, in close to 1000 transactions, I have never had them take any money they were not supposed to take.

And as for interest, it is just a few clicks to transfer your Paypal balance to your personal bank account.

But when dealing with the De Tomaso Family, I am fine with checks, and thus keeping the money Paypal would have taken for their cut.

Larry

Kahn,

Just do the Non-paying Bidder alert thing.

This puts a ding on the deadbeat's account. Enough dings in a short period of time and he gets the boot.

Second, once you start a NPB claim, the buyer cannot ding you with a negative! This actually protects you from retaliatory feedback.

JUST DO IT!

This second thing is a change that ebay instituted after all the smoke settled from their "no neg's by sellers" policy went into place......

Ebay forgot who was paying their bills.....

My latest negative was from a guy that, after receiving a factory book of truck wiring diagrams, decided that because they were not plastic laminated and in color, that he didn't want them...... I'm thinking that he either fixed his truck or copied the pages he needed....

I 'splained to him that this was not Walmart and you do not have return options unless there was something grossly damaged in shipping, or massively described improperly...or I sent him the wrong year etc. Plus being that this was a paper manual, I couldn't know if he had a)fixed his truck or b) copied the manual....

This wasn't good enuf for him, so he dinged me for "not working to resolve a problem" (no problem, he bid, he paid, I shipped, he received. No damages mentioned or issues with the condition of the book.....)

AND here's the kicker....he complained about "over shipping fees"!!!! ...it shipped for free. DUH!!!

So, I had already left a positive feedback for his part of the deal, but I get a negative....asswipe!

Now, I was able to go in and effectively enter a rebuttal to his comment...in 75 characters or less! Try and explain to the world that the guy is an idiot...without saying that...! Cuz ebay will whack your peepee if you get out of line with a messed up buyer!!! You could find yourself getting bounced off!!!

I contacted CS about getting it removed....to no avail. Didn't meet their requirements.....

Now, next new feature that ebay instituted to help sellers out, is that negative feedbacks go away in a years time, I believe, as long as you keep your record clean! Certainly it is now a much shorter time frame than the 7 or so years it used to take to go from 99.9% for one neg in 1500....back to 100% Sorta like tickets on your driving record....just need to wait for them to age....and fall off.....hmm reminds me of something else.....

Ciao!
Steve

quote:

This forces one to have what amounts to a bank account at PayPal, in which they have access but no interest is ever paid to the actual owner.

Actually, PayPal has a money market that pays interest. A few years ago it had a rate comparable to most credit unions, but now the rate is a whopping 0.05%. Yes, the decimal point is in the correct place.

I saw something a few weeks ago that a buyer can pay through PayPal with a credit card without having a PayPal account. I haven't read the details yet so I don't know the mechanics of it.

John

In searching for my son's car we were watching and enquiring on a number of Mustangs. I got the same e-mail response about how the family had moved overseas and the car was stored in Florida on no less than four listings. That really woke me up and I filed fraud warnings to Ebay, but they never removed the listings.

This was big reason we decided to focus in on local listings in driving distance for a physical inspection and cash transaction.

Another thing I noticed is that completed listings tend to diappear from search really quickly lately, especially on re-listing so you can't look back at what it bid up to previously.

"Caveat emptor" is foremost in my mind these days, the times of a honest Gentleman's Agreement seem long past.

Julian

quote:

the times of a honest Gentleman's Agreement seem long past.

I beg to differ.

While we surely DO hear of the eBay/Craig's List scams, think of all the auctions/sales that must transpire with both parties leaving satisfied.

I, on at least 5-10 occasions, have used Paypal or a bank transfer to pay for non-eBay goods from overseas sellers. Now I have done at least one previous eBay transaction with them, but nonetheless, I could have found myself out $700 - $1200 dollars on some of those transactions, with no recourse to get my money back.

(Of course, I know the eBay/Paypal buyer's guarantee system is a joke, and likewise offers no real recourse, but I digress.)

The sellers have always delivered the promised goods, and often gone the extra mile when items arrived broken.

YMMV

Larry

I had a EBay seller who was dumb as a rock on many fronts. Sold me a Offy Dual Port for a 4V Cleveland. Well it was for a 2V Cleveland...but the kicker was he wrapped it in a tshirt and shrinkwrap. Guess what it got damaged. I file a complaint and EBay told me to send it back for a refund. A day went by and EBay send me another offer I would get a $75 refund and I keep the intake. Well I could not find a decent box to ship it back so thinking I would cut my losses I accepted the $75 refund and keep the intake. The seller agreed and I waited for my money to get put back in my Pay Pal account. Well the jerk never sent me the money.
Then EBay sends me a notice that they sided with the seller and the case was closed.
I wrote to EBay and told them the seller hasnt given me my refund that he agreed to and to not close the case.
EBay writes back saying they cannot make the seller refund me a partial payment? WTF EBay resolution center are the jerks who sent me the email offering the partial refund.
To make a point I never got my money and the seller got a negative feedback.

I have used ebay since its inception, and I will tell you that over the years it has become more difficult to get things resolved. It was never easy in the beginning, but it has steadily gotten worse as the site has grown. I did have one deadbeat seller who for 3 weeks kept saying he was going to ship, but never did after multiple excuses. Finally I started the process with Paypal before Ebay took them over and I was able to get my money back. I left negative feedback to which he responded with incoherent rambling negative feedback. I was then able to respond once again to his feedback and that was how it ended. I couldn't get the negative feedback removed when clearly the seller was in the wrong. I got screwed and yet I got dinged on my feedback. That was a long time ago and it was obvious the feedback system was broken even then because of all this retaliatory capability. Now paypal sucks sellers dry if you don't have a business account with them in their 3% fees. What a crock.

FINALLY the rest of the world caught onto Ebay and many of the deals have dried up and lots of idiots on that site driving used items past what they could be had for on the net or at retailers Brand New just so they could BEAT other bidders. Stupidity at its finest. A lot of false advertising on ebay as well as people have pointed out. All it takes is getting burned a few times and you will find its not worth it for the risk you take buying stuff on ebay. Shipping schemes are rampant as well. I was selling my used books from school and didn't have tracking in the beginning to keep costs down. Well some guy back east said he never got it and I couldn't prove he didn't so I was out 40 dollars and the book was a loss because media mail wasn't insured. He could very well have gotten the book but I couldn't prove it. So after that I always paid for the stupid tracking or delivery confirmation. There are a lot of Scams on the net and you have to be aware of them. There are so many variables involved, especially assuming the buyers know their own damn shipping address.

Even on craigslist I had a guy tell me the part number for an oil pan off a box that was for another oil pan. I show up after driving 45 minutes and it turns out the pan I was expecting to get was mounted to another engine "they didn't want to part out." The pan he was offering was a different pan and the kid was "selling it for his dad." Idiot didn't even know what he was selling. I wanted to smack the idiot on the head, too bad there there is nothing to replace the wasted gas and time I spent driving out there.

The one thing I like about the forum here is its small and people's reputations are at stake. People are more trustworthy, whereas on big sites like ebay, people just don't care. They are more anonymous and that is what shady people enjoy the cover of.

Not to diminish your thoughts, 3% (actually 2.99) is what I have to pay (business owner) when a customer decides to pay by credit card vs open account billing. You buy $5,000 of product, I'm paying $150 out of the profit.

Actually, for sales within the US, the fees are 2.90% plus a $0.30 transaction fee (for under $3k in sales per month). For outside the US (called cross border fees), the fee is 3.90% plus a $0.30 transaction fee.

The Seller also pays a listing fee and a final value fee (based on the selling price).

Final value fee for most items except cars:

For an auction style listing:

$0.01-$25.00 8.75%
$25.01-$1,000.00 3.50% (+ the 8.75% above)
$1,000.01 & over 1.50% (+ the 8.75% & 3.50% above)

For fixed price auctions:

$0.01-$50.00 12.00%
$25.01-$1,000.00 3.50% (+ the 12.00% above)
$1,000.01 & over 1.50% (+ the 12.00% & 3.50% above)

Some categories of items have slightly different fees, but the above covers most items. Cars have a completely different fee schedule.

Link to most eBay fees:

http://pages.ebay.com/help/sell/fees.html

John

I had a flawless EBAY seller account with perfect feedback. I sold this character a item for almost $1400 and when he recieved it he complained to paypal that it wasn't as described. And the item was exactly as described, but the buyer needed an excuse to return it I guess? Paypal froze my account for over 45 days then later forcefully deducted the $1400 and gave it back to the buyer as soon as he proved that he returned the item through the mail. They also froze my EBAY account in the middle of 15 active auctions which it cancelled (But EBAY still charged me for the listings!!!!)!!! Unfortunately I never recieved the item back, because all he sent me back was an empty box!!! I called Paypal and they locked my EBAY account and would not return the $1400, because the buyer had provided them tracking!!! I threatened to sue PAYPAL over the situation as I was out a $1400 item and $1400 cash, so they flagged my accounts. I have never been able to resolve this issue and EBAY has never allowed me to use my account again. They won't even let me open a new account because PAYPAL flagged me! The buyer then later closed his account so he couldn't even be contacted anymore? What a horrible experience! The connection between Paypal (Where you are pretty much forced to use Paypal whether you want to or not!!!) and EBAY has created a monster!!!!! I will never use either again after that experience, and I had been using Ebay for over 5 years!!!! Beware of a bank that can decide when you pay for something or not, especially when they are benefiting on the transactions. Conflict of interest?!?!?!?!

I would have called the P.D. wherever the guy was and reported Fraud. Many places will investigate mail fraud by people. I feel your pain with Ebay though, the support through them is nonexistant. Don't even want to know what their Paypal support is like now. That guy that tried to screw me over ended up changing their name soon after, probably hoping they could escape their bad feedback. Right after I had left my feedback he had other complaints as well around the same time, so I think the guy decided to abandon ship and screw people. The best part was Ebay wanted me to pay another 20.00 dollars to have a 3rd party mediator to get us to agree to mutually remove the feedback. I told ebay to go f' themselves.

I tried...the police said it sounded like a civil matter and to get an attorney???? It was such a hassle I just gave up!