My very bad selling experiences on Ebay

[lctb51]

When I first joined ebay I was very thrilled to start selling and everything. My mother has been a member of ebay since 1999 I believe, which was when Ebay was in its hayday and it was great. I think I must have had retrospective memory about ebay when I joined in 2010, because its clearly a shadow of its former self, especially with all the scammers who ruined it .

1. When I sold a couple of things, Paypal placed very very wrong 21 day hold on all my payments from buyers. I had to constantly call paypal daily to request them to release my funds. At one point, one of my buyers had to call the buffoons at Paypal to explain they got their item and all was good.

2. Fees: Ebay should be renamed Feebay, the amount of fees they have on ebay are excessive. For instance, 50 cents for a subtitle on an auction, reallly? With all the members they have, they couldnt ease up on their fees?

3. Scammers: I had a nigerian scammer come on ebay and buy an auction but never payed and caused me all sorts of trouble following after.

4.  Deliquent Buyers A person came on and won an auction and never payed. I had to open a unpaid item case and the person was making all sorts of excuses.

5.  Poor treatment of Sellers: Ebay treats their sellers like criminals, Ebay treats its so badly that its enough to never come back to ebay. This is epecially when a buyer starts claiming things like the item was damaged or something else. Ebay will go in and hold onto your money in Paypal until the case is closed. Then they will predictibly rule in favor of the buyer.

6. No Negative or not even neutral feedback for buyers: This is just a total injustice. If there are buyers going around scamming people like damaging items and making not as described cases, sellers will not be aware of it though feedback.  Bad buyers will continue to scam sellers. Sure there is a report feature but it doesnt let sellers be aware of the bad buyer.

7. Have to use Paypal: Ebay extremely limits choices of payments other than Paypal which is also BTW owned by ebay thus they are the same company essentially. Ebay can easily go into paypal and screw with your bank account.

[komokwa]

& that's why you should have come here first before all this trouble befell you.

BUT.....

now that you're here..........there's help ! 

( & maybe a couple of.... why'd you do that's...)

[lctb51]

I am on the verge on never selling again on Ebay. Especially on how Ebay completely failed at handling a buyer/seller case of mine and completely ignored evidence that proved my item wasnt damaged! Ebay ultimately ruled of course in favor of the buyer and is making me refund their money or else.

[treasurecove123]

And you missed out the great yearly eBay community get together where eBay employees treated the Sellers with a great festival!  Than Megan left and its all about the Buyer now.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G_FL-jYgStU

[lctb51]

Now Ebay seems like this dictatorship and all sellers shouldn't be trusted company. Ebay really does treat their sellers like garbage! I think I will be selling things else where after my bad experiences now on like on craigslist where you aren't treated like a baby and a criminal on ebay!

[flyingtraveler2]

I agree with everything the OP stated and then some. I used to have a great little business on Ebay several years back and thought I'd try again. Good grief its ridiculous. Instead of making a little money on the side I feel like I'm selling just to pay my Ebay Paypal fees. Thats not really the worst of it though. The OP is so right about buyers and the increased trouble THEY seem to cause. My son in law is in charge of Ebay sales at a national retailer and even HE stated its become increasingly more stressful dealing with the buyers who dont pay or who complain and want "partial" refunds. In just the last month selling, out of 5 items I've had two sellers do this to me. My son in law has now helped me to word my listing in the most legal of terms in order to protect myself the best I can and even THEN you have people trying to pull something. He's been running the Ebay unit for his employer for 5 years and said the climate at Ebay has changed dramatically. Bottom line its just not any fun anymore. Too stressful. Craigslist up where I live doesnt cut it so I'm not really sure what the alternative is these days to selling besides a garage sale, which I've had and have determined is too much work for the pennies you recieve. Anyway I'm just posting to give my support to what the OP stated.

[komokwa]

Ahh craigs list..................never a problem there !!

Oh , wait.......who's at the door..........................................aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaahhhhhh!!!!

THUNK.....BONK.......GURGGLE>>>>>>>>>>>>>>

[komokwa]

No Returns.........on a diamond ring.....????

I think your SIL...missed a couple of pointers to keep you safe !!!!!

[lctb51]

Craigslist is great because

1. Its free

2. You can find things in craigslist that are not local

3. You can upload 24 Images to craigslist

4. No fees

5. No Nazi-esque Paypal that decides it can do what its wants with YOUR money.

6. No shipping issues, meeting people is not bad if you meet in public. You can ship

7. No waiting to get paid

8 No bullcrap, sham, onesided buyer protection cases

Everything else that is horrible wrong with ebay

[komokwa]

oh what the heck........

Craigy List............

1. buyer never shows up at the mall 20 minutes from your home, where you've been waiting for over an hour.

2. buyer shows up drunk.

3 buyer shows up high on crack in the mall parking lot and dents your car to the tune of $ 1200....and flees the scene.

4. buyer shows up 30 minutes late and demands to pay with paypal.

5. buyer shows up.....in a Fiat 500 , to pick up your snowblower that will not fit in his car. ..Says thanks...and leaves.....

6. buyer calls you asking if you'll accept $50 for your $588 mountain bike.  You politely say no thank you.....whereupon he starts a rant that curls your toes and makes hookers blush two states over.

7. your listed items just sit there and never sell.

oh...........and there's more.....

[flyingtraveler2]

How does accepting returns keep me safe? Seriously since Ebay will allow a buyer to return an item damaged and know they will STILL get their money refunded....in fact buyers have been known to get their refund BEFORE returning the item. Explain how accepting returns keeps ME safe and I will gladly follow your advice.

[komokwa]

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@flyingtraveler2 wrote:

How does accepting returns keep me safe? Seriously since Ebay will allow a buyer to return an item damaged and know they will STILL get their money refunded....in fact buyers have been known to get their refund BEFORE returning the item. Explain how accepting returns keeps ME safe and I will gladly follow your advice.

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OK.

New part time sellers who have a No Returns policy are a magnet for scammers and crooks , who will buy your items and chance that when they get it and open a SNAD case against you , that you will reply to the case No Returns.....instead of hitting the " Return for refund"  relpy, thus almost insuring that they will win the case , recieve a refund...and not have to give you back your item....

A Returns Accepted ( of 14 or more days..) policy where the buyer is required to pay the return shipping , turns off the vast majority of sleezebags looking to scam you out of your hard earned time and money, and they will look elsewhere for victims to fleece !

That and a solid return policy shows the bidder that you stand behind the quality of your item, and the reliability of your service!

[anonymoose99]

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1. When I sold a couple of things, Paypal placed very very wrong 21 day hold on all my payments from buyers. I had to constantly call paypal daily to request them to release my funds. At one point, one of my buyers had to call the buffoons at Paypal to explain they got their item and all was good. - Upload the tracking #, get your money in less than 10 days. And why should PayPal trust you when you have no track record?

2. Fees: Ebay should be renamed Feebay, the amount of fees they have on ebay are excessive. For instance, 50 cents for a subtitle on an auction, reallly? With all the members they have, they couldnt ease up on their fees? - Subtitles are worthless; if you don't like the fees, there are other auction sites, and there's C-List, if you don't mind being robbed and beaten.

3. Scammers: I had a nigerian scammer come on ebay and buy an auction but never payed and caused me all sorts of trouble following after. - Do you have your bidder blocks set to block buyers who don't have a PayPal account? If not, why not?

4.  Deliquent Buyers A person came on and won an auction and never payed. I had to open a unpaid item case and the person was making all sorts of excuses. - Why listen to excuses? After 48 hours, file the UID. After 96 more hours, close it. What's that, maybe a dozen mouse clicks? Oh, the humanity!

5.  Poor treatment of Sellers: Ebay treats their sellers like criminals, Ebay treats its so badly that its enough to never come back to ebay. This is epecially when a buyer starts claiming things like the item was damaged or something else. Ebay will go in and hold onto your money in Paypal until the case is closed. Then they will predictibly rule in favor of the buyer. - Repeat after me: return for full refund.

6. No Negative or not even neutral feedback for buyers: This is just a total injustice. If there are buyers going around scamming people like damaging items and making not as described cases, sellers will not be aware of it though feedback.  Bad buyers will continue to scam sellers. Sure there is a report feature but it doesnt let sellers be aware of the bad buyer. - Now I'm sure you don't have your bidder blocks set. How does feedback help you if someone bids at the last second? It doesn't.

7. Have to use Paypal: Ebay extremely limits choices of payments other than Paypal which is also BTW owned by ebay thus they are the same company essentially. Ebay can easily go into paypal and screw with your bank account. - No, you don't have to accept PayPal. Use ProPay. Or Skrill. Or set up your own merchant account.

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You jumped into the deep end of the pool without bothering to read a thing. But everyone except you is at fault, right?

Wrong.

[billy_biggle_fan]

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@lctb51 wrote:

I am on the verge on never selling again on Ebay. Especially on how Ebay completely failed at handling a buyer/seller case of mine and completely ignored evidence that proved my item wasnt damaged! Ebay ultimately ruled of course in favor of the buyer and is making me refund their money or else.

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I know no one ever reads these things.

But, had you actually read eBay and PayPal's terms of service, you would have known about all of the issues you posted about in advance, and would have been prepared.

Yes, eBay is very different from what it was in 1999.  So is most of the world.

It's easy to pine for the "good ol' days."  But the good ol' days, weren't really.  If anyone wants, I could post a list of things that were allowed in 1999 that would make sellers shiver today.  For example, negative feedback for anyone, anytime, and any reason, even you didn't have a transaction with them.

[nosguitarwebsite]

This is why its important to utilize Ebay as simply part of your online presence and not your total online presence. Ebay has consistantly knocked off sellers with poor decisions and rapist like policies. Yes the traffic is way down compared to 10 years ago. I mean 10% what it used to be if even that.

But from every negative you can make a positive. As many have. Start your own webstore. The writing has been on the wall for years. Ebay doesnt want to be an auction site. They want to be another Amazon. Which is silly of course but until stockhodler realize it Ebay will continue their course and having a liferaft is your responsibility. Myself I have a webstore that does alright and I never would have opened it if Ebay hadnt taken such a dive and treated me like **bleep**. I know others who have thriving webstore now who were loyal powersellers. They will never go back.

The thing is we all used to love Ebay. But its not our company. Ebay does what Ebay wants and its up to us how to deal with it.