eBay - sellers beware!

I don't known if any of you sell things on eBay, but since 2008 there is a new policy: sellers can only leave positive feedback for buyer; under no circumstances can a seller leave negative feedback.

What this means is that if someone wins your auction but never pays, you can't let others know that this person is a deadbeat bidder. Even worse, if they do pay, they can claim to ebay that you never sent the item, leave YOU negative feedback, and go on to do the same to someone else!

There's also cases of people buying books, receiving them, then telling ebay that they returned the books to the seller, giving ebay a shipping confirmation number, but only mailing the buyer a stack of blank paper!

Sellers beware. eBay along with PayPal are really ripping people off these days with their fees and policies of freezing people's accounts.

There are more horror stories just like these. If you google "ebay cannot leave negative feedback," you will find them.

I've never had problem on Ebay. *knock on wood*

When I did have a problem buying Win 7 and finding out it was fake, Ebay closed their account and paypal made them give me back my money.

I got my money back with no problems.

You just provided anecdotal evidence for a BUYER
the op is warning SELLERS
your experience not germane

Ebay and paypal have screwed over tons of people. There are little loopholes in the paypal insurance which are easily taken advantage of. You just have to be extremely cautious when selling or buying expensive items.

reply to post by Res Ipsa


How's that? The OP is making it sound like all of ebay are crooks and that ebay doesn't do anything to correct the situation.

1/70 of problems is not a bad turnout. 1 being bad, taken care of, fixed, and resolved from Ebay themselves. And 70 with absolutely no problems.

If you notice, there is bad feedback for sellers. And I have seen bad feedback left from buyers as well. I myself have left it after my purchase. But, gave 5 stars because it wasn't the sellers fault. I had a buyer leave me semi bad feedback for the item smelling a tad bit smoky.

Reading something from 2008 is mute. Get back to the times. Why don't you post your own experience rather than reading some website that has some disgruntled ebayers.

And the attitudes on here personally, are for the birds. Some of you all with your attacks, need to grow up.

i repeatedly have buyers not pay.You open a case,they still don't pay and nothing is done.I only post recorded and don't take returns but I know what you mean.why do they click to buy/bid when you do it says it is legally binding etc.but that is bull.If a buyer doesn't get their item the money is automatically taken back,why isn't it the same for buyers not paying?

Originally posted by Manhater
Reading something from 2008 is mute. Get back to the times. Why don't you post your own experience rather than reading some website that has some disgruntled ebayers.

edit on 6-8-2011 by Manhater because: (no reason given)

I am posting this in response to my personal experience. I sold an item but never got paid for it. I gave the buyer 2 weeks (a really long time) and never heard from them, even after I sent at least 3 very polite messages through ebay to them. I saw recent feedback for them from others who had gotten paid (past the time my auction ended, so they were paying people, but not me). So, thinking to myself that at least I could leave negative feedback, I would do so. Then when I tried, I was told I couldn't. Ever try to get in touch with ebay's tech support? Try. You get links to specific FAQ pages, but that's it. I had to tell them that I found a problem with their website to finally get a number (and code) to use to call support.

Go to ebay and you'll see a % score for everyone's account. The assumption is that as a seller, you can look at a buyer's account and see negative feedback if there is any. And, there is, but none of is recent because because as of sometime in 2008, they banned sellers from leaving any negatives for buyers. If you see any negative feedback, it will be only against sellers.

I did a simple search and can't really find any official eBay news for this, but there are people on ebay's forums posting on it.

link to search results

Might want to pass the world along to anyone who uses ebay.

Originally posted by glitchinmymatrix


And, there is, but none of is recent because because as of sometime in 2008, they banned sellers from leaving any negatives for buyers.

Only thing was it smelled like cigarette, Nov-23-10 15:02 Member id 21bo

Left buy a buyer. They can leave negative feedback on a sellers account. Mine is recent. My first time selling and I have learned from that experience. Anything I sell stays outside now in a well vented area to prevent that.

Originally posted by Manhater

Originally posted by glitchinmymatrix
And, there is, but none of is recent because because as of sometime in 2008, they banned sellers from leaving any negatives for buyers.

Only thing was it smelled like cigarette, Nov-23-10 15:02 Member id 21bo

Left buy a buyer. They can leave negative feedback on a sellers account. Mine is recent. My first time selling and I have learned from that experience.

edit on 6-8-2011 by Manhater because: (no reason given)

This is about sellers not being able to leave negative feedback. did you read the OP?


SELLERS CANNOT LEAVE NEGATIVE FEEDBACK FOR BUYERS.

buyers can leave both.

dense hmm?

Originally posted by glitchinmymatrix

Yes, I am blonde and yes, I can be dense.

Don't attack, okay. Do you see me attacking you or anyone else on this forum? It's uncalled for

Scratch that, I did call someone mental. It's okay for me to get attacked by some members but not okay for me to dish it right back.

I have been thinking of selling on Ebay for quite a while. Looks like it is getting difficult. Does anyone know other ways to sell over the internet?

reply to post by glitchinmymatrix


glitch i've been selling (and buying) on eBay over 11 years, my feedback is in the thousands. newcomers would be wise to spend a good amount of time thoroughly familiarizing themselves with policy and procedure, which gets piled deeper and higher with every passing year.

years ago eBay placed sellers nearly in a stranglehold with having to use their online bank PayPal almost exclusively. PayPal puts eBay to shame; one has to spend serious time reading many pages on their site to really familiarize oneself with their business extremes.

on the big picture eBay tries to make things as fair as can be as they eliminate what they perceive to be problematic issues. it's a far cry from the easy to use little site that once made it so easy to unload yard sale type goodies for a little profit. the scammers, cheats and scumbags took a mighty toll on that site.

sellers took it the hardest as eBay implemented rule after rule to ensure protection to buyers. over time it came full circle. now sellers have very little protection against any buyer who chooses to make whatever claim they want. 'seller beware' is the watch word these days.

my own participation on eBay slowed to a near halt because of the sky-high costs of shipping. buying or selling it's a consideration.

probably the most important thing you can do as a seller is to pay the extra fee at the post office and put Tracking Confirmation Service on every parcel you ship. staple the stub to your documentation and share the tracking number and USPS website name and phone # with you buyer when you send them notification of shipment -- using eBays own 'email' system. contact & respond to buyers & sellers only through eBays own system. if need be, they can review all communication after you grant permission for same.

auction listing photo-images: save yourself $$$ by learning to use a (free) photo image sponsor site that you upload your item photos onto. then, use the instruction on eBay to 'add pictures using HTML'. it's not hard, i'm an idiot and i do it. you can place several photos of good size to each auction at No Charge, instead of paying for 1 tiny image.

look around online --- there are many alternatives to selling on eBay these days. some of them are free, or dirt cheap. eBay opened a site to compete with Craigslist; it was called Kijiji -- but i don't know if they still use that name. free listings, pretty sweet.

there are also sites you will find by using keywords on google that gives backgrounds on all sorts of eBay and similar site problems / problem account holders. the more you know...

Originally posted by Manhater

Originally posted by glitchinmymatrix


And, there is, but none of is recent because because as of sometime in 2008, they banned sellers from leaving any negatives for buyers.

Only thing was it smelled like cigarette, Nov-23-10 15:02 Member id 21bo

Left buy a buyer. They can leave negative feedback on a sellers account. Mine is recent. My first time selling and I have learned from that experience. Anything I sell stays outside now in a well vented area to prevent that.

edit on 6-8-2011 by Manhater because: (no reason given)

don't feel bad. in every one of my auctions i clearly state items are used from wherever, we have a dog, we are smokers, etcetera. even though i warn people, mostly in case of allergies, i've had at least 3 brilliant buyers leave similar feedback for me too.

while i appreciate that smoke smell is very apparent and may be offensive to non-smokers, i warn people every time, in each and every auction listing. but like comedian Ron White says: "ya can't fix stupid!"

I used to make a fairly good supplemental income through selling vintage clothes on ebay, I can't seem to manage to make anything off of it anymore though.

I guess that ebay is trying to go with the old "the customer is always right" bit, but in my experience there definitely such things as bad customers. Over the years I've had people damage items specifically so they could claim that they were not as described, people writing to me after actions have finished trying to negotiate on the price and even people completely deny that they have received things when the parcels have been sent registered and signed for.

Ebay has sided with the buyer on everyone of those occasions more or less instantly, the balance has gone way to far in the buyers favor in my opinion.

reply to post by glitchinmymatrix

Been selling on ebay since early 2000. I gotta laugh at people who tell me they're going into selling on ebay because their cousin's brother's girlfriend makes enough money off ebay to quit her job and work from home.

DON'T DO IT! IT'S A TRAP!

What these people don't tell you (or they haven't found out about yet) is that in addition to ebay's listing fees they also charge a final value fee. If the transaction goes through Paypal, (as most of them do) Paypal also gets a cut of your money.

One of the latest things ebay has started doing is to charge a final value fee on shipping charges. When I asked ebay support about that I was told it's to get sellers to offer free shipping on their items.

Also in the latest seller email came this little gem: "In 2012, whenever returns are accepted, a minimum 14 day window and a money-back option will be required." No more 3 or 7 day return policies, ebay is pushing sellers towards a 30 day return.

Here's an example of ebay's seller fees from my current statement for an item selling for $27.96 + $3.75 shipping:

Insertion fee..........................US $0.50
Final Value fee....................... US $2.80
Final Value Fee on Shipping.....US $0.37
Shipping costs.......................US $3.75
Paypal fees............................US $1.22
-----------------------------------------------------------------------
Total Fees..............................US $8.64

So right off the bat, ebay and Paypal take almost 30% of the gross sale price. Subtract the $15.00 cost of the item sold and my net profit is down to about $8.00. My time to take pictures, list an item, answer questions about the item and pack and ship takes maybe an hour.

So I've done the math for you but it's easy to see that unless you are selling 20 - 40 items a day on ebay, it's not some great money making proposition (unless you are ebay.)

Oh yeah, in my rant I almost forgot that buyers can pretty much leave any negative comments or poor DSR (detailed seller ratings) that they want. The buyer has very little to no recourse against a buyer. Recently lost my Top Rated Seller status because of a case of buyer's remorse. They left all 1's for my DSR.

reply to post by survivalstation


In regard to people trying to quit their jobs, my only intention was to get rid of a pair of shorts I don't wear any longer. I paid 50+ bucks for them and knew I could get a few dollars at a thrift type store (that offers money for used clothes), but I knew I could get more on ebay. I was just unlucky.

reply to post by glitchinmymatrix


Just post them again and resell it. I know the listing fees stink, but there are honest people on there who will buy them. Especially if you had bids on it. Just sell it to the next person in line and send them an offer. Mostly likely, they will buy it.