Never Make eBay Your Only Option

[plsrequestdisputeifitemnotreceived]

This is something all new sellers on eBay need to see. I never type rants or ratings of anything, but eBay has created an immense amount of stress for me over the last year.

In the last year eBay has posed constant issues with my account, despite being 99.7% positive rating on 3,000+ items sold. The percentage recently dropped because of issues I will describe soon.

Here are the basics of why you should not depend on eBay, before I get into my year of experience here.

1. Customer service does not care nor understand your concerns. They are 95% from India or the Philippines, speaking with a heavy accent and are there to repeat eBay policies you already know. Nothing is completed by them or supervisors, it’s all in the systems. No exceptions can be made. If you get the agent Rimsha, just skip and try a different one.

2. eBay is extremely greedy. The fees are already bad enough but they try to take every extra bit they can. When they take fees, it’s on the price+tax, which should be illegal at least.

3. Seller protection sucks. Buyers can leave negative reviews saying something wrong about the shipment or quality and it won’t be removed. You cannot leave any negative feedback. If orders are delayed from issues out of your control, over $20, buyers can dispute it and you take a double loss. Again, no exceptions can be made.

My account was first accidentally restricted in March 2023, where they apologized but said they could not do anything to bring back my listings with thousands of watchers. I paid a ton for them with eBay promotions & other types of marketing. I had enough, took a break and came back in September. This was after messaging over 11 associates as most were completely clueless or robots that repeated the same policies.

eBay recently restricted my account again, holding all funds from new orders. They do not allow me to refund buyers using the held funds but only out of my pocket. This makes 0 sense. I spoke to 6 associates all with completely different guidelines to remove the restriction.

Associate 1: Just ship out all the items and the restriction will be lifted.

Associate 2: Wait until the items are fully delivered and it will be lifted.

Associate 3: Please provide an excel sheet with all the order numbers and tracking numbers for the past 3 months, not including presale items.

Associate 4: Please make sure all the tracking numbers are shipped and no cases are open.

Associate 5: Please provide proof of all presale fulfillment or suppliers.

Associate 6: Please have all items delivered including presale items.

I gave up on eBay. I don’t want to get to associate 7. I stated clearly in my descriptions of the time frames to ship. I didn’t take any of the held funds but still shipped out all products like I was supposed to. Items were delivered, funds still held, account still restricted. I hope managers of other platforms can see this and make the selling experience better. 

Thanks for your time.

[chapeau-noir]

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@tobaccocardyahoo wrote:

Whenever I read the words "Seller Protection" in a forum post, I think of sellers who have no clue what has made Ebay an ecommerce also-ran.

Ebay's growth has been limited because in the early days of Ebay there was no buyer protection.

It has never been able to regain the loss of potential buyers which it has suffered.

Every CEO of Ebay since Meg Whitman has tried to improve its image, and large numbers of sellers have been enflamed by any effort to make Ebay a Buyer Friendly venue.

No amount of Advertsing can overcome the damage done many years ago. Ebay's handling of disputes has not made it possible to overcome the long-lasting image because many of its sellers have made it clear that they think any buyer with a dispute is a scammer. And after those sellers they attempt to find another marketplace, and discover none is more seller friendly than Ebay.

As for payment holds, there has been an increase each year in the absolute number of scamming sellers, and every marketplace and payment processor are hold more and more funds. And their support reps are limited in the information they have on security measures to make it harder for scammers to defeat these measures.

The worse things get, the more chances of the government doing what the marketplaces have not done.

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I believe what made eBay an 'also ran' was losing the plot back in the early/mid-oughts and trying to develop this site into another Amazon, but without Amazon's logistics, as well as pushing for it to be some kind of ecommerce tech titan with various tech "Big Commerce" site acquisitions, which eBay eventually had to shed. Both Donohoe and Wenig said they were in the business of getting rid of eBay's yard sale reputation and making it into a force of international ecommerce transformation, which sounded to me like some ego fever dream.

Buyer satisfaction programs are just something that most active websites have put into place down through the years, as well as authenticity programs to battle counterfeits. I agree - they are very necessary.

[chariot_badges]

Keyless fobs are highly specialized?

Most of the small sellers here sell "highly specialized" collectibles or similar goods where the customer has been looking for a while.

Have you looked at Bonanza or iCrater ?  Or for that matter AutoTrader?

Why yes, yes they are.   A key fob is specifically for a certain vehicle, trim level, year.  If you're looking for a fob for your '21 Mustang, you don't care how cheap a fob for a '22 Ford F150 is.

And, also, that's not the only thing I sell.  And, those other things are even MORE specific.

[plsrequestdisputeifitemnotreceived]

I took down all my listings because eBay would let sales go through but the money would be indefinitely held until they resolve the restriction. I also cannot refund buyers with the held funds but would be forced to pay out of pocket. I cannot keep doing this. This is also why I got a few negative ratings lately because I cannot refund them on time.

[plsrequestdisputeifitemnotreceived]

As I said, most negative ratings came in recently as eBay allows sales to come in, but holds the funds indefinitely. I try to refund the buyers but I have to pay out of pocket, the held funds are held hostage and I won’t have access to them. This creates a huge loss.

[bonjourami]

I expect your unhappy buyers have something to do with those holds, Ebay prefers that any refunds come out of your pocket, not theirs. But the refund process is the same for everybody, they dont come out of funds that are only pending, they come from your payment source. Good luck.

[rugerskick]

I agree with the OP.

I would caveat that while eggs should be in more than one basket, remember that every basket has its own stress it will give you.  May be better on certain things but not as good in others.

Its not really getting away from stress, diversifying.  Its just making sure if you lose access to one basket, you are not 100% shut down.