Yet more Ebay BAD NEWS for New Ebay Sellers

[colyn]

It is dishonest sellers that has made ebay what it is today.

I can agree with this..but........

It's also dishonest buyers who screw honest sellers by filing false claims..

 

[sevo]

My take as an economist:
Just imagine how much money they are/will be making by investing that 'held up' money, and most likely, earning a huge interest payments and potentially other financial benefits, even though the principal is not eBay's to begin with. I have not read into financial regulations of EU, FSA and NA's equivalents. But it certainly a thing that they ought to check. I would urge some experts to look into it.

You do know what a bank (and PayPal Europe at least is a regular licensed bank) is and does?

written on the road

 

[Frontman]

As much as I tend to see this whole thing from the sellers point of view, I think eBay's problem is that they are losing buyers. All the moves they've come up with in the past couple years are targeted at buyers so they can say, "Come Back, it's safe to buy on eBay."

The problem with this is that many buyers are in fact sellers as well. Who here only sells on eBay, but doesn't buy as well? Buy making it easier for people to sign up and become sellers, many of these new sellers will become buyers as well.

I have been selling on eBay for a long time, and I have seen a lot of negative changes along the way. The biggest of these changes was when eBay and Google got in a spat of some type or another, and eBay stopped paying for higher visibility results. Before this happened, if someone did a search for a particular camera, my eBay store came up at the top of the search results. After the change, the eBay results were pushed lower, my items were mixed in with everyone else's, and my store not mentioned at all, this caused a near 90% drop in my traffic. I pay extra money for an eBay store so I can get increased visibility. If there is no increased visibility, what is the point?

Next, getting help with selling issues at eBay is next to impossible. I have spent hours on the phone trying to resolve common issues. In the past, eBay assigned a personal representative to higher-volume sellers, whom I could call and talk to directly. They no longer provide this service, and many problems simply remain unresolved. I can't call anyone, I have to submit a question, receive a one-time phone number and code, call and wait on hold, then talk to someone who can't help me. If I ask for someone to call me back, they say they will, but never do.

And there are bugs on the site which remain unfixed. I can no longer link my credit card to my account. I go to the menu to set update my credit card info, which has all the proper fields. I live in Japan, so I select "Japan" from the drop-down menu, press "next", and then am told that my zip code is not recognised. Since I am in Japan, I have no zip code, pushing "next" seems to revert the form to the default US setting. If this problem is widespread, and exists in other countries, it is major issue. But this problem has existed for more than a year. I contacted eBay about this, they walked through the problem, and said "gee, that's not supposed to happen", and have done nothing about it.

I hate to see eBay going on like this, it is as though the company were being run by a bunch of senile idiots.

 

[ashfaque]

You do know what a bank (and PayPal Europe at least is a regular licensed bank) is and does?

written on the road

I thought we were discussing eBay, not PayPal. Regardless, I still think that FSA should look into the amount of time it takes to release the money in relation eBay's (or X's) qualitative assessment. It would, at least, be quite an interesting academic (financial modeling) project to see how they marry their qualitative and quantitative assessments.

A personal experience: I'm well aware of interest and compound int. rate. So I always pay my card bills every month. Anyway, I even got the fines back in 2013 that they charged me in 2010! Initially they denied (sent me this silly template response). My bank really hates me! My point is people who earn their hard earned money through eBay should at least look into this relatively longer assessment time and complain to the relevant authority.

Bests,

Ashfaque

 

[Beemermark]

I have never had a problem with ebay. It is dishonest sellers that has made ebay what it is today.

As a seller I'd love to know how people get taken by dishonest sellers.

If you buy from eBay and file a complaint you will get your money back. Period. So how can you have a problem?

I've never heard of anyone not getting a refund when they filed a complaint. Likewise I've heard (and experienced) plenty of buyer remorse when the buyer makes unsubstantiated claims for a refund and then the PayPal account is frozen until the buyer returns the goods and the money is refunded. I had one buyer play with my camera for a month before filing a compliant and after he won he wouldn't return the camera. My PalPay was frozen for months. Now a buyer has 6 months to use it before deciding he doesn't like it.

eBay and PayPal protects the buyer and screws the seller. After 20 years I no longer use it. You'll also notice that most items are listed far higher then they are on comparable internet stores. Tells you something right there.

 

[Tejasican]

Everybody is out to get me, isn't that so.

I think there enough examples of dishonest sellers frontloading goods to gain a good feedback score while waiting to score their own big fraudulent hit. New accounts should be treated exactly like anybody else's new account, what gives anybody the right to walk rough shod over other new sellers by claiming 'superiority'? It's just arrogance to rile against a market where proving yourself as an honest seller (or buyer) has always been the underlying criteria of good commerce. I mean do you walk into your bank and demand an unsecured loan by giving a new business address and no accounts for that business? But you expect your buyers on Ebay to provide that 'loan' while you prove yourself?

V

I believe true issue is about established sellers who have already proven themselves and are opening another account with which to sell (accounts which can be linked to the identity of an established seller, or at least are advertised as such by eBay). And to answer the question, yes if I walk into the bank where my business accounts are held and have been doing business for several years, I do expect to be treated differently than an unknown person off the street.