2003 I signed up on ebay.
It used to be fun. it is no longer fun.
I used to make money, that's not happening here anymore either.
Ebay has made so many negatively impacting changes that it's simply not worth the effort for no return any longer. Ebay has literally watched the entire eCommerce world pass them by and now they panic and wonder what has happened?
They are trying to compete in the Indy 500 while driving a 1950 Deux Chevaux. To anyone that knows what to look at it is easy to see what a mess the site is, the code, the structured data that they harped and harped about, what a joke! There is no excuse for this other than ebay not caring a whit. Ebay has no interest in being, nor any intention to go back to being, an actual marketplace other than the incidental sales that haphazardly occur as a result of people posting items in order to pay the advertising company that ebay has now become. The hilarious thing about that is that ebay isn't even any good as an advertising entity, at least not for themselves anyway, lol...
Wenig said it himself when he answered questions about ebay increasing revenue streams by saying they were going to focus on taking more fees from people vs actually doing anything to increase sellers' ability to sell therefor generating those additional fees.
Every change that has been made in at least the last 5 years has either been horrendously negative in its impact for the average seller or something that was completely misrepresented or outright lied about. New stores with SEO Optimization? hahahahaha No such thing, never happened. Oh there was a store format change but absolutely nothing "optimized" for SEO. there's no one at Ebay that even knows what SEO is beyond the words themselves. GTC is great for sellers? Nope, wrong again. GTC is not great for all sellers and forcing people that it isn't good for into doing it was reprehensible. Many attempts to have someone from Ebay, anyone from ebay, explain exactly why it is good/beneficial to sellers who list only inventory count of 1 items has yielded 0 relevant or factual info. I don't need them to explain it to me you understand, I am more than well versed in all things Google/SEO/SERP/Schema (all of which people have tried to connect to the GTC change) etc but in the latter stages of this it did get a little fun listening to people twist themselves up in knots trying to explain something they were completely clueless about and then finishing by saying "So you see it's really great for all sellers right" I can almost see them nodding their heads, as if I could truly see them, trying to encourage me to do the same and get on board the GTC train with them lol.
Fees go up, sales go down, ebay collects taxes from Canadian sellers that they are 100% not entitled to collect but that hasn't slowed them down doing it. Before setting up to operate out of the US I did business in Canada for 30 years. I have been through multiple audits, with multiple companies, in several different industries, I know the tax code and laws and ebay is not entitled to collect taxes from Canadians in the manner they are taking them from sellers, PERIOD!
There is literally no longer any support of any type. No help for anything other than perhaps the most mundane of clerical errors and even that might be the luck of the draw for who you get on the phone.
The narrative though never waivers. Full steam ahead we're still one of the top marketplaces, lol. Yup that's why you are purchasing 400 million bot hits per month to the site so the numbers don't obviously crash. That btw is the easily verified minimum. The actual number is likely much higher but 400 million is the number that anyone knowing what they are looking at can see in about 30 seconds reviewing the traffic stats. Ebay should have spent the money on a better service that masks the traffic a little better making it not so obvious lol. But they probably took advice from the same bottom of the barrel 3rd world, rubbish developers they are using to do anything on the site.
I could go on...and on...and on...and on......but I won't.
The straw that finally broke the camels back was this week ebay trying to force me to accept a fraudulent return. There is no doubt about the fraud. In fact, the fraudster was so ridiculously stupid, as to make claims in the reasons for the return that are quite literally physically impossible! I've spoken to several people in "non support", all of whom agree with me and can see the obvious nonsense but it doesn't matter. My 16 years on the site without a single return, doesn't matter. Feedback, nope, that doesn't matter either. Despite being no help, a few of the people I spoke to were friendly enough but did nothing to help, despite agreeing with me after my pointing out the ridiculous nature of the claim. However, I spoke to 2 managers who both encouraged me to accept the return as "the right thing to do" and both of whom insisted that the Ebay Money Back Guarantee stated clearly that I had no other option and that I must accept the return. Well it DOES NOT say that, not anywhere, but that doesn't stop ebay from offering absolute no option in the return screen for me to tick off "NO" in response to the return request.
The system says I must respond by Thursday 27th but doesn't elaborate what will happen if I don't. Support will not allow me to involve ebay to any extent until Friday the 28th however the systems keeps insisting that if I want to involve ebay I need to make sure and request their assistance "BY" the 28th. It DOES NOT say that I need to wait until the 28th. Someone is lying! I call in and ask "so what happens if I do nothing and wait until Friday and call and ask you folks to step in?" I'm told nothing will happen. So if that is the case then why does the system insist that I MUST respond by the 27th and leave it hanging with no explanation of what will happen if I fail to respond? Why am I being told that despite this being an obvious fraud I am likely going to lose the case? At least the river tells you up front you must accept returns but ebay lets you think you can until they force you to accept one proving you have no say in the matter. Once you are under the boot of their in house payment system they will have you, you will be theirs to do whatever they want with and have 0 recourse in so far as anything you might now be able to do through PayPal to try and protect yourself in a situation like this!
Even if there is nothing nefarious at play here, this is without a doubt one of the most absolutely messed up processes that any nightmare could come up with to give you fits over! It is obviously set up/geared to force sellers, or at least rty to force sellers, into accepting returns, even fraudulent ones without any concern whatsoever for the circumstances or the seller's well being.
So after spending hours on the phone this week trying to ascertain the best way to deal with this, after being turned down flat to have it closed in my favor immediately, I have decided I'm done. Despite them trying, ebay can offer nothing of value for justification as to why they would force me to accept a fraudulent return. There is 0 benefit to anyone except the fraudster and I suppose the fees that ebay will undoubtedly keep. Any company that would put a seller like me through the wringer like this, with nothing but callous disregard for my well being as a seller, my reputation after 16 years, the fact that in all that time I have never had a single return other than a couple other frauds (both of which I won having them immediately closed shortly after they were instigated but that was some time ago), anyone that would call themselves my partner all these years and then hand the knife to someone so they can stick it in my back, anyone like this that places 0 value in my integrity as a seller, my history of nothing but ethical behavior and outstanding customer service, anyone like that....I no longer want anything to do with them and good riddance!
treasure.hunter.d
2003-2019
RIP
