I agree with Asterixx regarding eBay's protection of buyers

Submitted by mkarias1 on Mon, 10/26/2009 - 5:50pm

I have been on both ends of the spectrum (non-paying bidders and also once a seller who stole my money).  When I was the buyer, this was maybe 3 or 4 years ago.  It was a relatively painless process and PayPal refunded me part of my cost but I still lost out.

However, I have experienced the non-paying bidders.  eBay protects them more than the seller.  Asterixx is right that sellers cannot leave negative feedback to a non-paying bidder.  Actually, I couldn't leave a negative feedback even before I file my complaint.  WTF, ebay?  They are always raising fees although now they offer "free" insertions (no more insertion fees when meeting certain criteria).  However, they make doing business difficult.  

 I wish there are an alternative although sell.com is OK.  You pay one time fee and that lasts for 30 days.  However, their traffic is no where near eBay's.  Thats the advantage of being the biggest one.  Once you gain market share, you can screw your customers.

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Nunc est bibendum! Since

Submitted by Asterixx on Mon, 10/26/2009 - 4:51pm

Nunc est bibendum!

Since 2000 I had relied on eBay for the bulk of my income. I'd watched eBay wage a war against its sellers while doing absolutely nothing to prevent some of sellers' biggest issues (such as non paying bidders, retaliatory negatives, etc). In fact, they have made it even worse by making it so sellers can't leave negative feedbacks to non paying bidders, thus making sellers afraid to file non-paying-bidder complaints. eBay has also astronomically increased their fees while providing worse service and manipulating search results to force buyers to do things "their way" (such as making you offer free shipping whether you can afford to or not, or else they'd put your listings at the bottom of the search results). On top of all of this, they have embraced large Chinese sellers and have made it quite clear that they have no use for smaller sellers. They have destroyed eBay.

 Two weeks ago I had enough and quit. I pulled the plug on my small business and went back to my trade (auto mechanics). eBay sucks. eBay buyers suck. And I am so glad I will never have to deal with either again. My only regret is that I didn't make the move 5 years ago. I'll take dirty fingernails, greasy mitts and a steady paycheck over dealing with douchebags 24/7/365 who buy something Monday and threaten me with negative because they don't have the item on Tuesday, then nail my "DSR" ratings because USPS took its time delivering the package. For the past two weeks I feel as though the weight of the world has been lifted from my shoulders.

Yeah, eBay can suck my tinkywinky. 

/rant

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I don't sell very much on

Submitted by aerotive on Mon, 10/26/2009 - 4:34pm

I don't sell very much on ebay but when I do I always sell using buy-it-now with immediate payment required.  Doing it that way eliminates many problems on the front end of the transaction.

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