EBay - Buyer Beware!

crunchman · August 2017

Even the business sellers are trying to use Ebay as a shop front though. If you do buy something off of them, you often get a little leaflet with your purchase giving you the direct link to the business website.

I do know of at least one guitar shop that has an Ebay shop, where prices are higher there than direct from their website.

ICBM · August 2017

crunchman said:

Even the business sellers are trying to use Ebay as a shop front though. If you do buy something off of them, you often get a little leaflet with your purchase giving you the direct link to the business website.

I do know of at least one guitar shop that has an Ebay shop, where prices are higher there than direct from their website.

They need to be, to cover the fees.

mikeyrob73 said:

i have text him advising to relist it for 24hrs at a stupid price that no one will pay ;-)

This is the problem for Ebay - the more they try to clamp down on sellers, the more creative ways are found to get around it, and they're always one or two steps behind.

They've probably gone too far down this path to be able to just put up their hands, admit they've got it wrong, and go back to how it was ten years ago now.

UnclePsychosis · August 2017

ICBM said:

crunchman said:

Even the business sellers are trying to use Ebay as a shop front though. If you do buy something off of them, you often get a little leaflet with your purchase giving you the direct link to the business website.

I do know of at least one guitar shop that has an Ebay shop, where prices are higher there than direct from their website.

They need to be, to cover the fees.

mikeyrob73 said:

i have text him advising to relist it for 24hrs at a stupid price that no one will pay ;-)

This is the problem for Ebay - the more they try to clamp down on sellers, the more creative ways are found to get around it, and they're always one or two steps behind.

They've probably gone too far down this path to be able to just put up their hands, admit they've got it wrong, and go back to how it was ten years ago now.

-even if they did go back, they'd still have the problem of tight-arse musicians wanting to use eBay's resources but doing everything possible not to pay for it.

Over at Basschat they've got a classified section that used to be run on an honour scheme - it is a community much like here and was (is) an excellent place to buy and sell bass gear. There were no fees, but users were very nicely asked that if they sold something on the site maybe they could throw some virtual coins in the virtual bucket to help the site keep going. They eventually had to change to a formal upfront fee because despite repeated requests to users, only something like 3% of classified sales were generating any money at all for the site.

Given that that happened on a site like basschat, where the owners were members too, and not a big faceless corporation like eBay, it's hard to imagine that there's any level of fee that wouldn't see entitled cheapskates doing their best to take ebay's resources for free.

I think I've had this moan before, but as much as some of eBay's policies make me incredibly annoyed at the sheer stupidity of their decision making, I equally get pissed off at the people who think it's OK to just take something without ever intending to pay for it---if this behaviour didn't exist lots of these moronic policies wouldn't exist.

Chalky · August 2017

@UnclePsychosis Ebay quite happily use their monopolistic position to screw Sellers, business and private, whenever they like. They play judge, jury and prosecutor. Unethical behaviour by any measure. Without the monopoly position and a business model that prevents sellers from easily taking their regular trade and customers elsewhere, they would have sunk a long time ago. And we do pay them by having an account with them - if they didn't have account holders then they'd have no customers.

They are a tax avoiding abuser of what in any other sector would be seen as a monopolistic position. Stop making them sound like a hard-working bunch of nice folks just trying to earn a crust.

UnclePsychosis · August 2017

That's a perfectly justifiable reason not to use eBay.

But anyone who knowingly signs up for a service for which there are fees and then deliberately avoids paying said fees loses any right to complain about unethical behaviour, because principles are only principles if you stick to them when they're going to cost you money

UnclePsychosis · August 2017

I mean, seriously, record companies are, on the whole, a bunch of unethical see you next Tuesdays who have done their best to screw musicians over generations - but I don't use that as an excuse to steal records. Why is eBay any different?

Chalky · August 2017

Where are 'principles' when Ebay willingly side with the buyer despite the seller getting ripped off? You're suggesting we should be principled because we signed up to Ebay, whereas they get a free pass to behave however they see fit?

SunDevil · August 2017

So this is how it goes:

New Director (often a high-functioning psychopath) brought into Company, wants to make their mark
Ignores any form of common sense and makes changes because they need to be seen to be 'moving the dial'
Pushes through changes at the expense of everyone else's health, wealth and hapiness
Is instrumental in either causing a null change to the 'bottom line' whilst destroying what's left of the goodwill of the client and employee base, or actually presides over a drop in the company profits
They point the finger at everyone else
Are either promoted into an even bigger job or paid off handsomely
Pop up at another company
And repeat
..And repeat

UnclePsychosis · August 2017

Chalky said:

Where are 'principles' when Ebay willingly side with the buyer despite the seller getting ripped off? You're suggesting we should be principled because we signed up to Ebay, whereas they get a free pass to behave however they see fit?

-whataboutery.

If you're unhappy with ebay's principles (or lack thereof) then that's fine by me. Don't use their service. Perfectly understandable position (one I'm tempted by myself).

Signing up for their service and then ripping them off isn't cool, no. Two wrongs don't make a right.

I can only assume that you'd have been happy using fake bank notes to buy a guitar from Music Ground? After all, the owners were crooks so that excludes you from any principled behaviour yourself, right?

mikeyrob73 · August 2017

TBF I have paid over £55 in eBay fees in just the last month, so it's not like I am fucking them over, but if I saved the guy £5 or whatever it was then so be it. I was not better off I still paid what I would have done anyway

Jack_ · August 2017

UnclePsychosis said:

Chalky said:

Where are 'principles' when Ebay willingly side with the buyer despite the seller getting ripped off? You're suggesting we should be principled because we signed up to Ebay, whereas they get a free pass to behave however they see fit?

-whataboutery.

If you're unhappy with ebay's principles (or lack thereof) then that's fine by me. Don't use their service. Perfectly understandable position (one I'm tempted by myself).

Signing up for their service and then ripping them off isn't cool, no. Two wrongs don't make a right.

I can only assume that you'd have been happy using fake bank notes to buy a guitar from Music Ground? After all, the owners were crooks so that excludes you from any principled behaviour yourself, right?

I used to tape songs off the radio when I was a kid, u mad?

UnclePsychosis · August 2017

mikeyrob73 said:

TBF I have paid over £55 in eBay fees in just the last month, so it's not like I am fucking them over, but if I saved the guy £5 or whatever it was then so be it. I was not better off I still paid what I would have done anyway

-honestly, I'm really not bothered about stuff like this.

It's the guys who repeatedly went into the whole process with the intention of doing it that miff me.

ICBM · August 2017

UnclePsychosis said:

I can only assume that you'd have been happy using fake bank notes to buy a guitar from Music Ground? After all, the owners were crooks so that excludes you from any principled behaviour yourself, right?

Actually, come to think of it… since the guitar would almost certainly be a fake as well it would only be appropriate, really

.

For what it's worth it's not the fees I object to on Ebay - when I did sell there, I never once pulled a listing to do an off-site deal - actually as much for the protection Ebay offered to sellers back then as anything, but also because I agree with you. What made me stop was the unjust changes which tilted the field so heavily in favour of the buyer, with no recourse - the change that tipped it over the edge for me was stopping sellers leaving negative feedback for buyers, and it has just continued getting worse as far as I can tell. (I haven't sold there for six or seven years I think.)

prowla · August 2017

Well, my ebay count is 1338, so they've done pretty well out of me over the years.

The way I see it with ebay fees is that they make my sales available to a wider audience, so I'm more likely to sell.

I've had a couple of strange ones recently, when I've personally collected items, though: i. I went and collected something and paid cash and when I got home and checked, the seller had cancelled the deal (ie. cut ebay out) and ii. I went and collected something with cash in my pocket and the seller insisted on paypal (so I paid using my phone stood in his living room).

I've sold a couple of thinsg of late and the buyer has come and collected, for cash, no problem.

If I were buying a guitar, I would expect to collect and would also decline if it turned out to be wrong.

I've also recently had a couple of things not arrive (including a vintage synth and a guitar body) and ebay backed me up and I got my refund, so it does work positively too.

As far as ebay goes, it is not a monopoly: there are specialist sites (like here), facebook groups, online shops, and general buy&sell sites; whilst it suits me, I'll shop there, but if they upset me I'll wander off.

UnclePsychosis · August 2017

ICBM said:

UnclePsychosis said:

I can only assume that you'd have been happy using fake bank notes to buy a guitar from Music Ground? After all, the owners were crooks so that excludes you from any principled behaviour yourself, right?

Actually, come to think of it… since the guitar would almost certainly be a fake as well it would only be appropriate, really .

For what it's worth it's not the fees I object to on Ebay - when I did sell there, I never once pulled a listing to do an off-site deal - actually as much for the protection Ebay offered to sellers back then as anything, but also because I agree with you. What made me stop was the unjust changes which tilted the field so heavily in favour of the buyer, with no recourse - the change that tipped it over the edge for me was stopping sellers leaving negative feedback for buyers, and it has just continued getting worse as far as I can tell. (I haven't sold there for six or seven years I think.)

I really don't understand the grumping about eBay fees. The cost of selling there is absolutely justified by the exposure you get. Its everything else that's the problem.

SunDevil · August 2017

At the risk of dragging this thread back to the original point, the issue here was not rate of the fees that EBay charge, but their refusal to allow potential buyers to view high-value, used items before committing to buy.

Could you commit to buy and then say no when you saw the item in person? ..sure, but I'd be staggered if EBay didn't start coming after anyone taking that approach too?

Was EBay a profitable business before the policy changes? ..I suspect so.

Were people doing deals deals outside EBay? Yup and I've no doubt that they were more than capable of going after people who were really taking the piss, whilst turning a blind eye to the odd 'off-books' deal from folks who were also running with deals that paid them fees at least some of the time.

The issue then, is there desire to maximise their 'take' and leave nothing on the table for anyone else. That's bad business.

BloodEagle · September 2017

Oh well, just been suspended indefinitely from ebay because.... im not entirely sure why tbh. Someone sent me a message offering cash on collection on a guitar and i said no thankyou, that was it, so i guess im done with them too now. Weird policy, the amount of money theyve made from me over the years is a joke, and they pursue someone like me (100% feedback, pretty much immaculate trading record) yet continue to do nothing about the millions of counterfeit items they have on sale. ll use reverb from now on

andrewaward · September 2017

^^ have you had a "warning" email in the past from them (ie resulting in a weeks suspension)?..............or did ebay go for the kill after just this one incident?

BloodEagle · September 2017

I had a one week ban after someone messaged me asking if they could come and look at a 2k guitar - no subtext, no suggestion that I would dare comprehend dealing off ebay - before deciding whether to buy it. Its just a dumb ebay acccount and life goes on but its pretty annoying that they take this heavy handed approach

andrewaward · September 2017

Ah OK - I was just wondering because I have had the one week ban also similar to yourself........

Its certainly not going to help ebay improve its image, all this heavy handedness

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