Is eBay the largest PRICE-GAUGER and biggest THIEF of all?

[vivmar68]

eBay is so full of it!!

eBay is praising themselves with their fancy price-gauging policy ... bla bla bla ... they don't allow new sellers of masks at this time and supposedly take all the "bad guys" down, or you can report them to be taken down! However, that's all just smoke and mirrors!   Its sounds great but it's all just BIG **bleep** they are hiding behind!!

Selling a box of 50 masks for lets say $45-50 is kinda pricey, yes, but I think at current times, with it's supply and demand right now, and the seriously increased wholesale price from manufacturers, for the most part it is somewhat acceptable / tolerable. (At least I think I can live with it right now)

Now, try to list your masks at that price, and eBay won't even let you list it due to as they call it "price-gauging"!  Just for the sake of argument ... I tried actually at least 20 times (at $40-45 for 50 masks) ... and I got blocked every single time!

I went even a step further, and tried to be sneaky and listed in a different category, just to see what happens! Hey, the listing went actually up, BUT was shut down within 12 hours by the next morning and I got an email from eBay with some warnings and for price-gauging.

It may seem they are really on top of it you think, HOWEVER, it's all just HOT AIR!

eBay still has DOZENS OF SELLERS, worst of all they are all US based sellers, and so called "authorized sellers" which eBay vetted" .... but they are selling for higher prices, even far higher prices, some as much as much as $59.99 or even $69.99 for a pack of 50 ... and for $19.99 for a pack of 10 ... and nobody is doing anything about it!

I even tried to report them to eBay ... as offered and suggested by eBay in their policy ...  but of course NOTHING happened to them, they are still there and selling happily thousands of masks/packs every single day!

It's definitely not rocket-science and/or like you couldn't easily find those sellers ... I mean simply type mask or medical mask or surgical mask, and you have DOZENS of sellers still popping up immediately! Come on price-gauging police ...

Besides, look at all those sellers "sold quantities" ... we are talking hundreds, thousands, some of them with tens of thousands of sold packs of masks.

HMMMMMM?! eBay is really not aware of those?

So, making $20-40 profit on a pack of 50 masks, or in other words more then doubling your cost, that's not called price-gauging?????

The only 2 logical explanations I can come up with at this point:

OPTION ONE:     I have to assume that eBay is behind all those dozens of seller accounts themselves and set up dummy names, which makes eBay the largest national price-gauger and thief themselves?

Or  OPTION TWO:      eBay is getting some far higher "seller-fees" or under the table kick-backs from those sellers/companies!!

You'd think generating more then $10 Billion a year in revenue, you are doing well enough for yourself and you have a lucrative business ... so you really don't need to cheat and/or take advantage of the little people or sick people!

I'm sorry,  but ... eBay you are truly full of it!

Your POOR Actions are speaking definitely a lot louder then your FAKE words!

I truly hope that some Newspaper or TV or News Station or DISTRICT ATTORNEY out there has the balls to take you guys on ... make you pay for it, for every single box of masks you permitted to be sold over-priced ... and give you what you truly deserve!

Karma is a **bleep** ... even to billionaires.

[inhawaii]

Price has nothing to do with it.  Ebay has banned the selling of masks at ANY price.  

As far as "authorized sellers".  I'm not sure about that. I've heard people talking about it but i'm not sure it's for real. 

[tdumonde2014]

Someone did post a screenshot of an "Authorized Seller" with the "Authorized Seller" badge.

[gracieallen01]

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@inhawaii wrote:

Price has nothing to do with it.  Ebay has banned the selling of masks at ANY price.  

As far as "authorized sellers".  I'm not sure about that. I've heard people talking about it but i'm not sure it's for real. 

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This is true.  There is something about letting some sellers be 'authorized' that doesn't ring quite true, even for ebay. 

However, according reports from almost day one, if the seller were someone that owed ebay money, hadn't paid their monthly fees, the 'bots would be all over them like 'aroma' on doggy-do.  The account would be shut down/restricted and the collection agency on it in a flash.  Just another one of those things that makes one go, 'Hmmmmmm', in the night.

[the*dog*ate*my*tablecloth]

eBay is only allowing sellers to sell masks who sold them before Covid. They’re trying to prevent scalping. They allow toys at Christmas when scalpers clear they store shelves. This is different. Masks and cleaners are a life saving necessity.

You need to keep up with prohibited items. Having listings removed twice means your account is in jeopardy.

[luckythewinner]

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I went even a step further, and tried to be sneaky and listed in a different category, just to see what happens!

You knowingly violated eBay policy in order to try to circument the ban on a restricted item. 

Karma is a **bleep**  ... even to billionaires.

Not just to billionaires. 

[lex-talon]

I went even a step further, and tried to be sneaky and listed in a different category, just to see what happens! Hey, the listing went actually up, BUT was shut down within 12 hours by the next morning and I got an email from eBay with some warnings and for price-gauging.

What did you expect to happen? Some people just never learn I guess.

[bar-29368]

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@the*dog*ate*my*tablecloth wrote:

eBay is only allowing sellers to sell masks who sold them before Covid. They’re trying to prevent scalping. They allow toys at Christmas when scalpers clear they store shelves. This is different. Masks and cleaners are a life saving necessity.

You need to keep up with prohibited items. Having listings removed twice means your account is in jeopardy.

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I know the vetted sellers part is true as I saw the post from trinton regarding this, but AFAIK ebay hasn't deigned to inform anyone of the criteria for being such. I highly doubt the only vetted sellers are those who sold these before the COVID19 outbreak.

[the*dog*ate*my*tablecloth]

Shipscript posted here, he usually knows what’s going on

https://community.ebay.com/t5/Member-To-Member-Support/Authorized-Seller/qaq-p/30856573

someone sharing what they were told by support (not that they’re always correct)

https://community.ebay.com/t5/Selling/Are-certain-quot-Approved-Sellers-quot-able-to-sell-masks/m-p/...

I saw it somewhere else that I can’t find. Consistent answers that make sense are likely to be true

[pburn]

And this one . . . 

Authorized Sellers seen in searches. 

[bar-29368]

Well I haven't seen anyone from ebay say it's because they were selling them beforehand. In fact one of the highest volume "authorized seller" in title mask sellers hadn't sold any masks earlier than about a month ago even though one might have expected they would have being they sell dental supplies.

Oh, and ship is a she btw.

[kensgiftshop]

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@vivmar68 

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Doesn't matter what you try to list them at, you can't sell mask.

"Beginning on March 5, we implemented a ban on certain items listed on our site, which includes blocking new listings and removing existing ones that sell: masks including N95/N100 and surgical masks;"
https://community.ebay.com/t5/COVID-19-Community-Hub/We-are-Actively-Removing-Price-Gouging-Prohibit...

[vrie39]

These discrepancies you speak of exist all over ebay, it's not just face masks.... Thousands of different items are seeing what I consider listing abuse and policy violation, some categories it is so rampant that it is all the whole category consists of... For example the same item listed a thousand times with just a one or two letter / word change in the title and often there are different accounts listing the same item but it's all the same seller (mostly because they're all from the same location and the listings are basically identical to one another, granted it could be various sellers but hmmm)... And nothing ever happens to them, reporting them does nothing, all the great articles on ebay it is all hot air. Then ebay tells me all I can do is follow policy to the utmost of my ability.

Is that fair?

No, no and no...

But it keeps my account in good standing, and that also contributes to my happiness.

The trick therefore is to pick only those battles I can win.

Fight those, by following the policies I can follow and I get to live to sell another day.

You know it's a good deal, I just have to be willing to do it that way.

[upgradedendmills]

Most of the time, if you can let go of built up anger from perceived unfairness or personal slights, you will see the facts of any situation more clearly and be able to better address the ones you can change.

     Lots of positive things going on in the world to focus on and participate in. If a seller has a bunch of items that would help first responders and the medical community and made a documented, verifiable donation to those groups, I would be happy to donate financially to that cause. If a seller just wants to pad their pockets with ill gotten gains from the same items, I have no use for them and feel they should be sanctioned and prosecuted to the full extent of any existing rules and laws.

[vivmar68]

Just to clarify, I didn’t list like that TO BE sneaky!! Only did that to see if eBay actually removes items for price-gauging, which they did pretty fast! On the other hand dozens of other sellers (at even far higher prices)  were NOT removed .... and are still not removed till today. My only question is WHY is that?  That’s all.