It could be a pivotal case that really has the folks at eBay coming up with these terrible ideas to reverse course.
About me:
I'm an infrequent seller (I generally sell higher value items from our personal items). Maybe 10-20 sales a year. At face-value, I am the target demographic in advertisements to use this platform to sell items? Sell your used items, isn't that the pitch? High-end items nonetheless. Well, I take sparkling photos, write informative descriptions and I'm very reasonable overall about how I engage and work with buyers. I am by all accounts the perfect seller. Also, an eBay member for maybe 15 years.
The result of what you’re about to read:
A self-inflicted wound for eBay. They sabotaged a deal between two established and credible ebayer’s, lost revenue, and in the process, lost additional money to partially correct their mistakes. Seems like this authentication concept is a guaranteed losing proposition for eBay among all the external liabilities passed on to the seller as well. I’m sure the jargon in their terms and conditions, cover all bases for them, on purely legal pretext, but the optics and principal value is awful. It makes their terms and conditions some what moot. If it looks and sounds bad, it probably is.
The goal:
eBay owes me a profound apology. Both the persons who implemented this idea and the "authenticator" who is either wholly under qualified and or wildly overqualified (more on this below). As well as settlement for the loss of sale funds and/or loss of item.
The story:
I am helping my GF sell a few higher end shoes. I have the eBay account and she doesn't have the stomach for stuff like this (she's a doctor ironically). I'm the salesperson in the house and it's worth stating despite my vast experience with sales, this whole charade sent me into a full blown panic attack. Mostly due to the profound lack of reasoning, zero transparency/communication and frankly, enacting a process that moves wildly too fast with zero checks and balances to mitigate liability for “their” clients (that’s us) the “sellers” of eBay. The fact I was sick over this, shows how profoundly this situation with eBay bothered me. We don't need the money, and I regret doing this over $300. How this is constructed will wind up sending someone, at some point, who is a novice or uniformed of what eBay is doing, to the hospital and it’s not worth it for a measly $100, etc. We do this because we think eBay is the place to sell items when we clean out our closets. It's an awful process to sell clothing to be honest. eBay made it that much worse. I did what any A+++ seller would do. I shipped the item first thing this past Tuesday (after a long holiday weekend), upgrading shipping complimentary for the buyer and got these on their way quickly. I’ve regulated all apartment item sales to Offerup, which might single handily be the greatest invention of all digital apps I have on my phone. Period. Unfortunately, it’s not great for clothes sales. It’s a real joy to meet some people in person. I met a guy yesterday buying container store shoe containers and he had his two little twin daughters in the back of his car with their twisted little braids (so sweet) and we chatted for a few minutes. Two people from vastly different backgrounds and races, and that experience was so much more fulfilling than this clown show I am dealing with here on eBay.
The item:
I posted a “new without box” pair of high end Golden Goose sneakers (women's), out of production model and very desirable. These sell for $400-$700. I posted for $350 new, with make an offer. Already extremely reasonable. I quickly procured a few buyers and consummated a deal with one. A buyer with stellar feedback (more on this point below). I noticed when payment was completed there was a C/O address or rather my item was going to someone/somewhere else? Never had I seen this. And I’ve shipped to some shady places and this ranks among the top. This is how ambiguous this is and I still actually don’t fully understand what transpired, who removed agency from my own sale and frankly, exposing multiple people to potential fraud, damage, product loss (more on this below), etc. These shoes that I sold are in fact brand new, but the style is a “worn” look. I took extremely clear photos of the insoles, outsoles, side, serial numbers, etc. Heck even the stickers were still on the insoles. They were listed correctly, despite any statement from eBay’s authenticator claiming otherwise. Even their comments were conflicting. Wearing these around the house to try on still makes these new. And this is where things get complicated and a really dangerous grey area for eBay. Yes I am using their platform and they make all the final calls, I sign off to that, but this is a gross overreach of authority taken by someone who should not have that position or ability to make such a decision. Out of this whole multiple thousand word rant, the greatest take away is that someone - after shipping my shoes - handled my item that was not authorized to do so and should not have had any role with how this deal was consummated. Period. If this person doesn’t exist. I don’t write this rant. They took overriding action for a party who did not authorize this (I spoke to the buyer - more on that much lower). None-whatsoever. Zero. Objectively 99% of the population would also consider these shoes as brand new. Apparently there is a very small subset of buyers, so called “sneakerheads” so I am told, that this whole ridiculous concept is geared too. Compounded by the fact this third party service employed by eBay is specifically geared to accommodating sneaker heads thus likely holding a different standard/expectation of such items. If you step back and really think about it, it makes your head hurt. The literal stupidity.
Umm, I’m not selling a rare limited edition pair of Air Jordan’s…And frankly, were I selling such an item, I’d have authenticated by my own third party and sell with certificates, etc, etc. Never would I allow or employ eBay to take on that role. That’s financial suicide as far as I’m concerned. I feel like what happened is a microcosm of our overall society - really shocking when you step back and look at it. eBay is tailoring it’s functions to a very small and apparently vocal group of buyers who serves precisely no one. eBay effectively stepped into a deal without permission, or requests from either party, to I guess, monitor listing descriptions. I mean that’s what they’re telling me. They say authenticator. I say hall pass monitor. There are five other ways to address this type of thing - what transpired with me wasn’t one of those methods. They sabotaged a deal with a 100% feedback buyer with over 1000 positive reviews and a 100% feedback seller with almost 200 positive reviews. One has to ask the question; what in the hell was eBay thinking? I’m not selling you know, a stack of “found” Sony tv’s. To me authentication means chain of custody or ahem, authenticity (i.e. they are not a reproduction, serial number look up, etc). Not a proverbial hall pass monitor to dispute if the item I am selling was tried on once or twice, because effectively that’s where we are at. Splitting hairs. My GF has 10 pairs of these shoes - I know with every fiber in my body they're authentic. I have a perfect 100% feedback. Yet, they failed the "authentication" process.
What is authentication really?
Beats the total heck out of me…
Apparently, some of these items are flagged for the new authentication process. This is apparently a counter measure to buyer abuse. I am not quite sure how this was established or decided, but it makes absolutely zero sense. There is no arbitration, no communication, nothing. I shipped this package to some location in Las Vegas, apparently, and to what I now understand is something called sneakercon. Don’t know, sounds stupid to me.
Additional points:
1. At no point in my listing contract was I advised my item would be handled by a third party. Any seller has a right to be aware that any item we sell, will be handled by another person prior to the buyer receiving. Seems like they do a good job broadcasting this to buyers. But not sellers. We assume tremendous liability now knowing this. This was very unclear initially. I could care less if the 1,5,10 emails sent about these changes and “authentication” is a new tool, etc. There needs to be information at the point of sale. Period.
2. I was not notified who this third party is, their qualifications, and contact info. There should absolutely have been a notification (again chain of custody) that another individual was in possession of my item immediately upon receiving this, as I have a right to call back or decline such handling. This is the exact moment when I should be told who this person is and what their roll is - along with any relevant qualifications. How do I know some overzealous power hungry kid didn’t just do this for kicks (possible reason in my opinion). You know, you give someone overreaching power to control a narrative, trust me, they’ll take it.
- I was not given any opportunity to defend myself, my reputation, and item representation. In this absurd process. I was notified at 7:32PM that the authentication partner declined the…well I still don’t know what they declined, but the sale was reversed. At 7:52PM I received a follow-up email that the buyer was refunded in full, shoes were packaged and in return transit to a very old address that they had taken from eBay. (Another thing I learned last night). So in a matter of 20 minutes, I’m out $328 (refunded to the buyer), out $16.10 for out of pocket shipping and no $500 shoes that are being mailed to an incorrect address. Wonderful and my first thought is I have absolutely no idea who to contact or what to do. That the next step would be a phone call to someone in Indonesia who can’t help me at all. If I were going to have a stroke, it would have been at that moment. You laugh, but we all know I am 1000% correct. It’s frightening in hindsight. It should be stated that the return address I had was not correct in the account. Totally ridiculous since as a private seller who doesn’t accept returns who deals with private buyers “return address” was never relevant. 15 years - never once was relevant. All my other addresses were in fact correct in the eBay system, along with a matching and correct address on the actual parcel. None of this was cross referenced and no attempt was made by eBay to verify such a thing before making a return (gross negligence) and exposed them to serious liability. In the matters of 20 minutes it was judge, jury, verdict..See you later type of thing.
- Third party vendor failed to cross reference buyer and seller info. Whatever algorithm they’re using, it sucks. Straight forward. There was no weight given to either acting party. None. Which is frankly bizarre. This is the part that worries me the most. And why I throw out the whole over zealous kid theory because any functioning algorithm or rational person would see this and be like - all green lights. How anything was flagged needs eBay to ask questions internally.
- Third party vendor failed to cross reference mailing information. Who assumes liability if my shoes are lost or not returned?
- Lacks complete context. Why would eBay ever consider getting involved in a transaction between two eBay people who have perfect history and scores. It evades all logic.
- Why wasn’t the authenticator or eBays immediate next step after giving a failing grade to STILL contact the buyer, report their findings and ask if they would like to proceed. I mean seriously, this is the obvious next step. Had they simply reached out to the buyer saying, our authentication process states that these shoes are in fact “authentic” however we feel there is a little more wear on them. To which the buyer would have responded this is the known style and approved the completion of the deal.
- Why didn’t this authenticator reach out to me the seller to confirm listing details and/or in the event of failure? We believe this error occurred, what next step would you like to take?
Conclusion/Current status:
I spoke to the buyer. This person confirmed none of this was requested or authorized by them. Very nice person also. How about that?! Two quality people come together on this platform and we’re the grown ups here. The buyer understands clearly what was being purchased and wishes the deal was completed. So eBay just sabotaged a perfectly solid deal and lost a bunch of money in the process.
I have no idea where my items are. To be fair in the my hour long problem solving last night - I did get someone from fraud department help clean up this monumental mess eBay made and at face value, seems like a knowledgeable and nice guy. He said he will hunt down the package and fix all of this. We’ll see. As of now - no money and no shoes. Wonderful. And who knows if I’ll actually get my shoes back, even if they get the address straight. What if I get a pair of flip flops or socks in return. Wha the heck know’s, but I have reason to be skeptical.
Regards, M
