Posted on 10/23/2014 5:12:14 PM PDT by Bettyprob
We hear from another reader who has been left out of pocket because of eBay's money back guarantee scheme
Is online marketplace eBay really protecting the interests of its users? It claims to take action in 30,000 cases each month when something goes wrong and users are out of pocket.
Yet after Telegraph Money reported on a case where the online giant’s user protection systems failed to help one reader, others were quick to comment and email about similar poor – and sometimes costly – experiences.
Ebay’s main protection for buyers is its Money Back Guarantee service.
This was launched last year, and promises to refund the buyer with the cost of an item if it does not arrive or is not as described. If such a refund is made the seller has the money deducted from their account.
But eBay’s protection policies appear to be failing. Last week we reported how Matthew Wright had lost £160 and was locked out of eBay indefinitely after he sold a phone to a buyer in Hungary who claimed they had not received the item.
(Excerpt) Read more at telegraph.co.uk ...
It is eBay. How is getting lousy service news?
Note to people who sell on e-bay: tracking. Never send anything before it’s paid for, never send anything without tracking - and specify “no international sales” unless you’re willing to take the risk.
Loved ‘em, now I hate them.
Did lots and lots of biz with nary a single problem but THEN:
Ran my PayPal account down to exactly exactly zero, and they demanded 10 trillion very private documents from me, “send them TO US”.
Wah..? To exactly WHAT address…?
A simple question, but only robots spoke back to my email, and in TOTAL GIBBERISH.
I politely and concisely asked for a human —ANY human— and that was over 18 emails, back and forth.
Finally I simply blocked them, and I refuse to do business with them.
Too bad, cuz I really liked them for a long time there.
I’m 100% Amazon, now.
Ebay forgot that the Sellers are their customers and pay their rent. Sellers are treated terribly.
Things are only going to get worse starting in November when Paypal implements their 6 MONTH return policy.
“Note to people who sell on e-bay: tracking. Never send anything before it’s paid for, never send anything without tracking - and specify “no international sales” unless you’re willing to take the risk.”
That is what I do when I do sell something. Cash in hand before shipment and no international sales.
I’ve never bought or sold anything on eBay, and I’m very happy about that.
I’ve purchased from at least four different vendors on eBay with good luck each time. Granted that’s a small sample size but I still look there for hard to find items.
eBay is like a snake, might not bite anyone for a while, but when you do get bit there is nothing you can do and it hurts.
They suck you dry as a seller.
Its a buyer’s paradise though. I’ve left only one negative feedback in the last couple of months there.
I am very happy buying and selling on eBay for 13 years or so. Most of my hobbies really wouldn’t be possible without it, especially the vintage motor vehicle ones.
That will make it so that the seller is responsible for paying for the return shipping if a buyer wants to send an item back (currently, the buyer pays that). So that means, on a bad deal, the seller is out for both the original shipping and the return shipping, maybe gets their item back, and probably gets a negative feedback. The buyer is out no money and gets an automatic positive feedback (with their new impending system).
Why anyone other than big box retailers would want to sell there any longer is a mystery.
When it all began, eBay was really fun and safe. I bought lots of wonderful stuff there and the few vendors I complained to issued immediate refunds, even before I sent their stuff back.
Now? I wouldn’t dream of buying a single thing at eBay. Nada, zilch.
I will never sell anything on eBay again.
Next year, eBay is going to force their Hassle Free Returns policy on all their sellers.
I looked into the Hassle Free Returns policy today. From what I understood they will force sellers into it, but if you do NOT accept returns at all then you aren't part of it. BUT you will no longer be a Top Rated Seller and get the discounts (boo hoo).
I've been selling on ebay for 10 years now. It was my main income. No more. I've moved most of my wares over to Ruby Lane. Less expensive and you are not treated like the enemy. Higher class buyers too. Tried Etsy but didn't like.
My next project is to find a new way to electronically accept payment and get off of paypal. There is no way I'm willing to essentially "rent" my items out for 6 months.
Guess I must just be snakebite not, because of my twelve eBay experiences, seven were bad.
I don't go near them anymore.
Snake bitten...
i’ve done low volume buying on them for years saving a lot of money.
I finally got ripped off this year. Ebay covered my full loss without any trouble. I was surprised.
I have heard things are bad for sellers but I am mostly a buyer.
That’s all true. And I would add - document the condition of anything you sell.
I once sold a used hard drive, and included with the drive as shipped a current condition report generated by a utility that spent all night testing the drive for bad sectors, etc.
A few days later the buyer sent me an e-mail claiming that the drive was defective; that I had not provided him with the “password” and for that reason his reformatting had failed rendering the drive useless.
I refused him a refund, he took it to eBay, I presented all the evidence, including proof that no drive has an “internal” password, that the drive was good when I shipped it, and that by his own admission his own ignorance had cost him the drive.
eBay saw things my way. This was the worst experience I ever had buying or selling on eBay - literally hundreds of transactions. And it really wasn’t that bad.
I keep my eBay purchases small just in case. They’ve all been for less than $50. Did you use paypal and does that offer any extra protection?
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