I was feeling charitable, so I clicked the message "please take this survey about your recent selling experience".
I lasted 4 questions before exiting. "how satisfied are you...", "how likely are you to continue...", "how do you rate..." etc...
But then I see "What, if anything, are you likely to tell other people about selling on eBay?".
Oh my god. With the options presented, I was stumped. I could not in good faith choose any of the answers.
What I would tell people about selling on ebay is an hour long conversation. How long do you have? How serious are you? How much do you want to know and how much do you care about managing the pitfalls that myself and so many other sellers have fallen into and managed to climb out of only through sheer grit and determination?
Of course, not everyone is so lucky. A recent poster comes to mind - the guy who sold a $600 graphics card to a buyer who after 20-something days claimed it was "not as described" (the instant Nvidia announced a newer, more powerful graphics card and thus plunging the value of the card from $600 to $300), and who denied the return (because it was an obvious scam) and now is about to lose both the card AND the money.
Would I recommend ebay knowing they let buyers (fraudsters, usually) keep the money and the merchandise when unwitting sellers deny returns on principle?
Would I recommend ebay knowing they let buyers keep the money and the merchandise when an INR claim is granted while a package is in-transit but delayed, only to show up late?
Would I recommend ebay knowing they increased buyer return time to something like 30 business days during Covid (which can amazingly be stretched into the 50 actual days time frame) while reducing the time sellers have to refund a return from 3 days to 2?
Would I recommend ebay after my experience of yelling for a month here on these message boards about Seller Metrics being destroyed by USPS issues and Covid, only to be ignored and, in one case (which is worse), being given a canned reply that didn't address the issue?
You know, I probably would, but this would be an hour long conversation because it requires some very serious warnings. I would only recommend ebay to someone if I could also express these warnings and tell them how I think they might manage risk given the pitfalls I have experienced personally and read about here on these message boards.
I understand not every person here posts the complete facts when describing their situation, but I have a very good **bleep** detector, and I am inclined to discount hyperbole as far less weighty than verifiable or even likely facts, and then of course, I have my own experience, which is 100% true and known to me...
and so I had to exit ebay's survey after 4 questions because there is no way I could answer the "what are you likely to tell people about selling on ebay" by clicking any of the 5 canned responses. No way at all. I sat there for 15 seconds, stumped. I finally closed the browser window.
And my decision to exit was a matter of conscience. I could not answer this question as written in good conscience. How silly is that?
I think this - if ebay is listening - is the most valuable survey information they are ever likely to receive.
Posting ID
