Veteran Ebay buyer/seller Monty has just come off a triple play of misrepresented auctions, each from a different seller, and has had zero luck getting things straightened out with any of them.
It seems that eBay’s latest squeeze on sellers is just the tip of the iceberg. eBay’s pressure on their sellers is, if you ask me, having a “trickle down” effect on us eBay shoppers, too. I have over 500 feedbacks and have been with eBay since pretty much they began. Thanks to a string of about three or four really bad auction experiences, however, I am starting to see this trickle-down effect.
It all began with a pair of refurb’d Sony wireless headphones I bought. The seller shipped them to me, but the power supply was the wrong voltage for the headphones. With them being Sony, with everything they sell proprietary, I was pretty much hooped. I called around, and wow, Sony wants $70 for an adapter that’ll power the $56 9plus $20 shipping) headphones I bought! I wrote the shipper and he was dismissive and rude to me. In the end, I ended up filing an “Item Not As Described” filing with Paypal. Check this: 45 days later, eBay tells me I can ship the item back to the shipper, at my cost, for a refund of my purchase price. So… let me get this straight, eBay: I’m going to lose a total of $40 in shipping for my $56 item??
I recently bought a “Brand New, Sealed” laptop from eBay. The auction clearly stated that the item had Windows XP on it, which I wanted, after hearing about all the problems with Vista. It came with Vista, not XP, which promptly crashed. nearly $300 in “Geek Squad” rescue fees later, I had a working laptop, albeit with Vista on, which I didn’t want. The Geek Squad informed me that the laptop had been “used” before, and the manufacturer refused to honour the warranty since it was not a “hardware” issue. I asked the seller to split what I’d spent to get the laptop working– money I spent due to HIS error. Naturally, he refused. I filed with eBay, and it’s been 30 days, and no word.
Just the other day I received a wireless mouse I’d ordered, but it’s dead. The mouse arrived in a plain envelope, with no packaging, dead. Should I even bother? I’ve learned that eBay will leave me hanging and that sellers don’t fear eBay’s totally “nerfed” so-called consumer protection assurances. It’s a load of crap, and I’m going to start shopping elsewhere.
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@Pro-Pain: yeah, thats pretty wishful thinking dude. best buy and ebay are going nowhere at least for the foreseeable future.
A word about shipping
When I sell on Ebay, I charge actual freight + $5 on most items. This is clearly spelled out in the shipping section of my posting.
I charge the additional $5.00 to cover my cost of preparing the item to ship. The cost of the box, packing material, tape and labelling adds up. Obviously this doesn’t apply to the Bozo’s who throw the item in a beat-up used box with no packing material and seal the package with masking or gaffer’s tape. Further, if the customer wants USPS, the trip to the post office (both time and gas) also adds up.
I don’t condone dealers who outrageously inflate shipping charges but I don’t think that a dealer should be expected to ship at a loss, particularly when its spelled out in the posting.
In the past couple of months, I’ve made about 10 purchases on ebay. Mostly small items like books or CDs and a couple items of inexpensive costume jewelry.
Those that have arrived arrived fine with no problems. However, three of the books I attempted to purchase never arrived. All three sellers had ratings over 250 with 99% or better feedback. However, no books. As I’m watching, over a couple days, the feedback starts to plummet. Hundreds of other buyers with no books.
You just know that these sellers pimped out their feedback, then put up a crapton of stuff to rake in some cash and have disappeared.
In their defense, Paypal did eventually refund my money, primarily because the sellers never responded to the complain. But I make sure to always use my Amex on Paypal so I can do chargebacks if necessary.
Ebay was much better when it was younger and simpler. Over time, ebay has become more and more complicated… most of the “tools” and “features” added make it easier for users to sell bulk loads of crap. When it was simpler, it was much easier for an average joe to sell a few misc. items and work out the terms of payment between themselves. Not so much any more. Now, the interface favors people who sell bulk shit and is clunky and inconsistent to use. Using ebay is a pain in the ass, and that’s even before we start dealing with the people on Ebay!
So, I’ve been on eBay for many years too, mostly as a buyer. I guess I really blew it. I have a store inventory I need to sell, became disabled and never able to open the store. All souvenir stuff, mostly in the $5-$25 retail range. Anyone have any suggestions? Thought about garage sale, but these same items would sell for pennies. Where’s the competition? I would think one of the big on-liners could swoop down right now with a good anti-eBay marketing campaign and do well—timing’s perfect. Everyone’s looking for an alternative. OTOH, as long as celebrities continue to use eBay for their work and advertise it—Jay Leno even has a weekly segment he does on “Stupid Things Found on eBay,” and though he’s poking fun at it it still gives an endorsement.
Shipping? What a joke. Realizing the USPO has screwed things up with their new pricing structure hasn’t helped, but I buy pretty much the same items for my collection. I have seen shipping on this identical item from $4-$30! I honestly don’t mind paying a little extra for reasonable “handling” fees, but I appreciate honesty. If the seller doesn’t disclose the handling fee it sends a message—at least to me, that this seller is trying to hide something.
As long as we’re all listing our complaints, can someone explain to me why if something goes wrong with the sale that is clearly the seller’s problem I should have to pay return postage to get a refund? I have several items I purchased that would have cost almost half of what I paid to ship it back. It should cost me NOTHING if they messed up. Just spending my time to ship it back is asking a lot, IMO. I doubt I would ever ship an item back—you risk not only losing your what you’ve paid, but now you don’t even have the merchandise (remember you’re already having issues with this seller). Forget the eBay/PayPal protection. Never had to use it, but read enough to know it’s a joke. I NEVER leave money in my PayPal account—that’s just asking for trouble. And—some seller’s refuse to refund the cost to ship the item TO you. Need to watch for that as you browse!
Having said that, I’ve had reasonably good luck, but then I’m generally dealing with people who specialize in one area. Only time I had to “eat it” was a seller who sent defective merchandise and then whined to me that she had 3 kids, was sick, a single Mom, working 3 jobs, yada, yada, yada. So sorry, but you had time to list the auction and collect my money. This is a business deal and though I sympathize it really is NOT my problem. Downside—I didn’t leave feedback and neither did she. I couldn’t risk a negative, since I am trying to build feedback to sell my stuff. She’s probably still pulling the same crap, but there is no way to protect myself from her. She was very obviously mentally unstable and things got to a point where I was feeling threatened. She had my contact info and knew where I lived.
What a disaster! Used to be fun, and is still pretty much the only place I can find the items for my collection at reasonable prices. Guess I’d better treasure what I have, looks like it won’t be the same again.
Oh, and thanks for the info on using a credit card. I have my PayPal attached to my bank account—NOT TOO SMART! Been meaning to change that, but keep forgetting. OUCH!!! Chalk up one stupid for me today!
Wow, the majority appear to be anti-ebay; I wonder how long she’s gonna last at this rate?
FInally! I have been SO over Ebay. Everything I buy always has some sort of unexpected shipping delay. I’m starting to realize that lot of those sellers are a bunch of liars. Call me crazy, but when I buy something online I would like to get it faster than in two weeks. And it sucks because everyone is afraid to leave negative feedback, because it bites you in the a**. Why is it that if I pay the moment I win the auction, do everything by the book, but happen to get burned by a seller, they are allowed to mess up my feedback? I dont trust feedback anymore, nobody will leave negative feedback unless they absolutely have to.
I bought a housing for my cell phone off of ebay that was clearly a fake (Sony Ericsson being spelled Sony Ericcson was a giveaway..that and the poor quality). I left bad feedback, which resulted in me getting my only negative so far. The worst part? The asshat wrote “Asked for illegal underage porn, SICKO.” eBay won’t do anything unless I get a court order..nice.
Same song, different verse for me. I used to have a small, on the side ebay business, but scammers and ebay fees made it not worth my time.
True story – I sold a laptop to a guy who filed a bogus not as described complaint (essentially, I left software on the hard drive that did not include the original disks) This was clearly stated in the auction, but after some back and forth, I said ship it back and I’ll refund you.
The dude shipped me a box of rocks with a tracking number. Needless to say, with Paypal’s resolution process, they asked for a tracking number – which he was able to verify that he had shipped a 10 pound package to me – and they sided with him. Dude kept the laptop and I have some rocks from Illinois.
I lost $1800 and have not sold anything on ebay since.
@spoco: wow. i don’t blame you. i buy my vacuum cleaner bags from ebay, because there’s only 1 place in my town that *might* have them, and even with shipping, buying online is cheaper.
i did sell one collectible item on ebay, and it worked out fine. but people i’ve talked to about their experiences, if they’re buying or selling computers, music equipment, amps and the like, they’ve pretty much all had bad stories to tell.
i doubt i’ll be using ebay to sell stuff, unless it’s a one-time situation like i had before. too many scary stories.
Just a warning about chargebacks with Paypal. If you bypass Paypal and deal directly with your credit card company, Paypal will close your account. They state that somewhere in their convoluted user agreement. And NEVER count on Paypal to get your money back. The only protection you have is with your credit card, not Paypal. Paypal encourages buyers to pay with their bank account or their Paypal balance to save Paypal credit card processing fees. How sleazy is that? They even refuse to let users set their credit card as the default payment method. You have to switch over to that payment method EVERY time you pay for something with Paypal. Unethical, to say the least.
I’ve been on ebay for almost 10 years now. Because of a buy flurry, I’m now up to a whopping 10 feedbacks. 100% positive. I haven’t sold a thing (and I don’t plan to either).
I’ve been looking for cars, but I’ve given that up for Craigslist. I don’t care to be making a bid and find out that the reserve still hasn’t been met, especially when that’s about what the car is worth to start with.
I’ve made two glassware purchases (old Pyrex to replace a piece that I broke) recently which went fine. They’re in better shape than the one I broke…
We bought a Persian rug for 99 cents. $124 in shipping. It got shipped FedEx, it was well packaged, and well worth the $125 getting it. Too bad it’s 4 inches too wide for where we wanted to put it. Luckily we have a workable plan B.
The problem is, I’m looking for a now out of manufacture trackball that Microsoft used to make. It used to go for $50. It now goes for $100-$200. I’ll pay $60, but not that. Haven’t found any other place that sells it either, which is what I’d truly like to find.
I’ve actually never had a problem with ebay, but I don’t use it much anymore, mostly because the seller ratings are ridiculously inflated and there are really no deals left on the site. A site that used to be pretty much the world’s largest garage sale has turned in to scammer and ripoff central. Plus, since ebay all of a sudden turned in to a money hungry machine, all of the sellers have been inflating their shipping costs to avoid ebay’s bullshit fees and outright stealing of seller’s money. Honestly I don’t really have a problem wit seller’s charging crazy fees to ship a product, because they’re just really screwing over ebay, which it deserves.
As for the comment that you shouldn’t buy any electronics on ebay, I have found that not to be true, but that is just my experience. For example, I had to get some RDRAM for a computer and managed to find a seller who had great RAM for a great price (at least half of what any other place would have charged me). So while I wouldn’t make a habit of buying stuff from ebay (especially since the deal factor is pretty much gone from ebay and you can find lower prices at other places), if you look carefully you can find a good deal. Just don’t expect to find them often.
BTW, I’ve gone back to flea markets to get most of the stuff I would normally get on ebay. If I’m gong to buy junk, at least I can try it out first.
It looks to me like ebay is caught between the need to produce continually increasing levels of profit (corporate imperative) and the buyers having a declining level of disposable income.
So they’re responding with the only workable (bad, but workable) plan they have. Increase fees, cut expenses (eliminate customer service), and tweak the rating system to provide a greater level of “feel good” to try to entice a few more transactions. Requiring PayPal payments is just another way to prop up the profit level.
The real problems are yet to come. If they’re grasping like this already, what will they do for an encore? They are still faced with the need for more profit every reporting period and all the easy ways have already been used. As they dig even deeper, they’ll drive more and more business away.
I’ve bought many things through ebay – mostly books and jewelry, and I’ve only had 3 issues. 2 were sellers that just ignored me after I paid and one was my own fault – seller didn’t accept paypal.
In all of these situations, the situation was resolved within about a month, with no harm / foul to my ratings or any money lost (for me).
Ebay is the worst place to buy most things unless you are looking for used cheap stuff or the company is directly selling refurbs. The absolute worst is cameras. Nearly every seller who is selling brand new cameras are selling aftermarket versions and try to scam you after the auction is over. I don’t know how they manage manipulate the feedback system, but they do so very efficiently. Maybe google will setup and setup Gbay?
I didn’t see anyone pointing out the absolute insanity of paying $20 shipping for a pair of headphones. You got scammed before you even received the item. Then when you paid $300 to Geek Squad you got scammed again.
I’m all about consumer protection, but come on, you gotta help from your end, too, by not being so easy to scam.
Easy solution: don’t buy expensive electronics from eBay! I looove eBay for things like cell phone chargers (you know, a penny for the product. $6 for shipping and they only pay $.85 postage, but STILL a great deal), vintage items, books, and kid clothes. I would never even consider buying a laptop from eBay. OP, ya made a mistake. Next time, go to Fry’s.
@freebirdtim: Just open a new one. There are ways to go around their stupid system.
@tikuahote: cell phone chargers are a bad idea, if your phone fries…
Get a grip and try a reality check while you’re at it chum.
@Mr. Gunn:
The reason the shipping charges are so high is that ebay rapes their sellers from item posting to item payment with bullshit fees and percentage cuts. Ebay can’t take a cut of the shipping charges, so people inflate them to make money, and that is why you see $20 shipping on a $5 item.
@whuffo:
Ebay had customer service?
@HexiumVII:
The feedback system is really easy to manipulate. First sellers can start off selling small stuff to build a huge feedback rating. Then, they can move on to profitable stuff that people will bid on because of the reputation of the seller. Then, after the seller fucks buyers, the Buyers are afraid to give negative ratings to the sellers, because they see this giant seller with a ton of positive feedback and know that if they give the seller a negative rating it will do little to them while destroying their ebay reputation, as the seller will almost certainly give a negative rating to the buyer.
If you look at certain ebay seller accounts you’ll see tons of “mutually withdrawn feedback” posts–that is the seller extorting the buyer in to reversing his/her negative feedback rating by threating to destroy the buyer’s ebay rep with an undeserved negative feedback. You can never trust a seller’s feedback rating–you must go through a lot of the posts to look for patterns of fraud or seller intimidation.
Ebay sucks now.
I’m always skeptical about the stuff I get from ebay.
I got scammed for a PS2 once when they first came.
Now I’m careful. I don’t make large purchases anymore,
maybe just a used game now and then.
If you want computer stuff, go to Newegg not ebay.
I’ve been reamed by buyers who bought my PSP, a laptop, and a desktop, then say it’s ‘not as described’, and eBay automatically gives the buyers a refund.
There is no recourse for a seller if the buyer just picks ‘not as described’ when they open a case. eBay does NOT inquire about any specifics, it’s automatically won by the buyer.
Electronics are the best selling items but also the biggest way to get scammed by buyers and sellers.
People swap out parts for electronics bought on eBay, then file ‘not as described’ cases, ship it back to you, then get a full refund….you then have your product back with broken or missing parts and you still have to pay your ebay and paypal fees.
Needless to say, I’ve given up selling on eBay for exactly these reasons.