EBay - Buyer Beware!

SunDevil

I've just had my account blocked for 7 days for violating Ebay policy

I'm looking at a slightly tatty R8 which happens to be 5 miles away from my house and my crime is asking the seller if I could come and have a look at it?

Note that I didn't share or encourage the vendor to share any email or phone numbers, in fact I actually had a conversation with him advising him not to try doing that and commenting on how ironic it was that Ebay own Gumtree, where you can place contact details and not pay any commission (in the hope that he'd twig and list it on Gumtree.)

I rang Ebay to complain and get the call centre chappie to read the thread, he agreed that I hadn't tried to do anything egregious, but told me that it was more than his job was worth do unblock me.

Anyone who's willing to put down £2k on a tatty guitar they've not actually seen has much deeper pockets than I have.

You have to assume that Ebay don't actually want to sell high value used items, as you'd have to have several screws loose not to want to get eyes on something like a guitar, amp, computer, cook-coo clock etc etc before you commit

So if you're Ebay account matters to you, firstly give yourself a long, hard look in the mirror and secondly, don't ask if you can see something before you buy it

TTony

How to destroy a market place business.

1.  Piss off your sellers by making you wrong whatever the situation.
2.  Piss off your buyers

mellowsun

And meanwhile eBay looks after sellers:

https://www.pressreader.com/uk/the-guardian/20170819/282583083124788

Strangely this article has been removed from the Guardian website 

Alegree

ebay looks after sellers? I assume that's a joke, have a LOL.

Bygone_Tones

It is run by idiots and has been for a long time. Every change they make is focused on clinging onto their precious fees instead of clinging on to their precious customers.

It is a very slowly sinking ship.

Strangefan

I used to bloody love eBay it was my second income, but now I haven't used it for nearly a year due to its rediculous policies and being happy for scams to take place as long as they get their fees. 
I will never sell anything on eBay now.  Thank god for Gumtree (still run by the bellends, which is also slowly getting worse. ) Schpock  and Facebook groups. 

Flink_Poyd

I only sell stuff under £50 nowadays, i.e what I can afford to lose. Buying is pretty much limited to cheap stuff like cables etc. I get most of my stuff from Amazon as it can be £1.99 next day delivery to an Amazon locker. I ordered a book Thursday night at 9pm and it was there by 9am waiting for me to collect, eBay could have been up to a week.

octatonic

I haven't bought anything on eBay for about a year.
I haven't sold anything eBay for about 6 years.

Basically, fuck them.

Plectrum

I buy quite a few low cost items off Ebay. The most expensive thing by far was a Chromebook but that was a factory refurb with a 12 month guarantee from Argos's Ebay outlet so nothing like buying a guitar.

mbe

I only use it for buying various widgets.

57Deluxe

/\ widgets, knobs and cables... I tried buying other stuff but I seem to pick things that 'don't exist' and the buyers never accept the money in paypal. or eBay cancel my order .. so fuck em all...

RandallFlagg

My wife just got a 7 day ban on Friday for the same thing. We're selling my sons old mountain bike and someone local asked if they could come and try it to see if it was the right size for their lad. My wife explained that the auction would run until it closed and the highest bid would win and was trying to find a way to share our address when she got blocked and had the bike listing removed along with a load of other listing of items she had for sale.

She had a webchat with Ebay and got stonewalled and a load of flannel about the rules etc. 

Pile of shit.

BloodEagle

I got an email 'warning' me about dealing off ebay, my crime - suggesting that someone come and have a look at the £2k guitar they were thinking of buying before handing over any money, i mean, what a ridiculous idea. The guy found me via facebook anyway and is coming round in a couple of hours, so yeah, fuck you ebay 

bacchanalian

That is alarming.  After a rash of buying and selling over the last couple of years I have decided to stop gear shopping.
I used to really like eBay and may well use still use it for low value items. It was great for buying stuff that could not be found elsewhere

The only thing I can imagine is going on is that they have decided to make eBay a professional seller and business startup site.  Perhaps they plan to use Gumtree for private sellers and introduce fees of some sort.

SunDevil

I think this is probably spot on, @bacchanalian ;;;

It's also very unlikely that they will be able to integrate the two data sets into a single system (it's technically possible, but cost and downtime tend to prevent this kind of 'good on paper' move happening.)

With that in mind, there's no reason not to put you're item on both, note on Ebay that 'the item is on sale elsewhere on other free ad sites' and use this as an idiot filter, so that you don't have to deal with so many tyre kickers, asking questions you've already answered in the description.

Thank god (and the Mods) for the thriving For Sale section on here and Reverb, who have a much more grown up attitude towards this than Ebay - take a profit, but don't be greedy and kill the golden goose

KrisGee

Happened to me too. Nice coffee table that retails at £329, seller says good condition and wants half of the rrp, just few miles away from me.
"Hi, can I come to see the table first?" Boooom, 7 day ban! Fucking joke they are, usually very happy with buying and selling on there, this time it's a big goodbye from me.

andrewaward

I think ebay must be wondering why, after tripling there fees, there profits haven't tripled..........maybe even they have went down.....That's a possibility, just a guess from me.

Ebay was great at the start, 3% selling fee (and paypal also took 3% - but in the early days paypal wasn't jammed down your throats like it is now). Anyway, people started to build smallish sideline businesses, based on a 3% cut to ebay (or 6% cut if paypal was also used).............and I think these sideline businesses really made ebay boom...............at that time everyone seemed to be happy.......... ebays name was "good" and rarely did anyone look to do deals outwith ebay.

Then ebay tripled its sellers fees...............and then all those peoples sideline business models didn't work anymore, with a (now) 10% to 13% cut they would either cease trading, or look elsewhere for other platforms to sell.

So it's not so much that ebays current 10% sellers fee is high for what you get, its just that its too high for the business models that people used in the early days (which  I  think made ebay a success in the first place).

Then add all the other changes they made (ie sellers not being able to leave neg feedback, you must accept paypal etc etc) and you can see why its probably not the success it once was.

TTony

SunDevil said:

Thank god (and the Mods) for the thriving For Sale section on here and Reverb, who have a much more grown up attitude towards this than Ebay - take a profit, but don't be greedy and kill the golden goose

If only we took any sort of fee, let alone a "profit"

Gagaryn

mellowsun said:

And meanwhile eBay looks after sellers:

https://www.pressreader.com/uk/the-guardian/20170819/282583083124788

Strangely this article has been removed from the Guardian website 

https://www.theguardian.com/money/2017/aug/20/ebay-fraudster-selling-electric-guitar

octatonic

TTony said:

SunDevil said:

Thank god (and the Mods) for the thriving For Sale section on here and Reverb, who have a much more grown up attitude towards this than Ebay - take a profit, but don't be greedy and kill the golden goose

If only we took any sort of fee, let alone a "profit"

Get back to work!

BloodEagle

Aaand, just been restricted for 7 days because some guy came and looked at a guitar I was selling before deciding whether to bid. Spoke to someone on the phone and she agreed nothing was amiss, but she couldnt change anything. Never using ebay again