I mean, they've always been a little crappy(as a combo, whether its toward the buyer or seller), but they both have their perks. What really gets me is that I just sold an $800 item, that cost me $25 to ship. Paypal apparently holds ALL OF IT for 40 days or until feedback is left. I dont mind, but wouldn't common sense tell them to at least release the $25 for fricken shipping?? How is this even normal? This is the first time I've used ebay in 2 years and I'm sad its the easiest most convenient way to get rid of items quickly.
It's been that way for a while now. It's a security measure more than anything to prevent people from scamming. I sold 400$ worth of fishing reels about a year and a half ago and the same thing happened. I actually like the feature because i've paid for stuff before in years past and gotten ripped off with an item that was never sent/etc. And I never got my money back because Pay Pal couldn't recover it. Once I lost about 100$ I think and I got like 15$ back from my paypal complaint. So I like the new system.
PayPal are stupid. I'm in a legal dispute with them at the moment I sold a month or so ago. Sold an item as broken no refunds, shipped to germany (Cost me £60GBP), she did a paypal claim of it being broken, got her money back and I'm £60 out of pocket. Made me very annoyed!
Its horrible, I hate how they merged. Its just a giant monopoly, and Ebay was already a big enough monopoly as it was. All you can pretty much do is just deal with it, that or just don't use it; but thats not really a choice for me. The fees just keep rising and rising... Things were a lot better about 6 years ago or so. They know that they have a monopoly going, so they pretty much do whatever they want.
:nod: Exactly :nod: But they do everything they can to annoy their user base, I use alternatives whenever I can (forums, hood.de etc.)
Wait, so now if you sell something, Paypal doesn't give you the money until your customer leaves you feedback? What if they leave negative feedback, they get their money back? When the hell did this start happening? Sorry, but that's bullshit. That leaves far too many openings for sellers to get ripped off.
I buy things from time to time on eBay, but have given up selling on there. If anything they've actually made it such a one sided experience that there really is no point any more. The final straw was their ridiculous feedback system and being railroaded into using PayPal. Alternatives exist, plus for such a niche interest as gaming / arcade (my sideline) then there are plenty of forums, sites, individuals & companies out there selling precisely what I am after, that eBay really isn't so useful as it used to be. Actually, I tend to contact the seller and negotiate with them directly. That way we can arrange payments differently. Thus far no issues. eBay are shooting themselves in the foot with all of this bullshit.
Yup! That's eBay for ya, they are about as dumb as a bag of bricks. I caught someone selling fake BBC CDs of audio books. I contacted eBay expecting them to be grateful and pat me on the back for having done their job for them. It was actually a crap experience, I had to call them 3 times, they didn't do a damned thing and the seller is still up and running. I left feedback to the effect that "this seller is peddling fakes" and she blocked me. eBay came back and said "we cannot investigate a specific seller, we need to have a specific item". I sent them the details of the specific item and they said "we need further information". Like what precisely? DNA? The size of the sellers breasts? What more do you need? In the end, I thought "fuck this!" why bother? eBay only makes a fuss when it's them impacted, but as they are actually making money from this seller and her endless supply of hooky audio books, what do they care? So, what to do? I contacted the BBC themselves next and got through to the department responsible for sales. I spoke to a manager, logged my concerns and nothing happened. In my view if the BBC and eBay are happy for this crap to be going on then why should I give a monkeys? I used to enjoy eBay and be sympathetic towards them when various countries and companies started taking them to court for allegedly assisting in the sale of counterfeit goods. I thought "how can they police every item?" but now I realise they don't give a shit in the slightest unless they know the company involved would spank them hard. Long and the short of it is that frankly, once they have their money for something, they hold onto it and they neither care about you or your complaint.
I do most of my deals on forums like Assembler where users have a chance to make a reputation for themselves (Ie. Actually care about their own conduct). Then its: Me: "I have to sell this. Any takers?" Someone: "I'll take. Shipping?" Me: "$13 bucks. You can Pay here." Someone: "Awsome! Payment sent, thanks for the kit!" The end. No BS.
Unless they vanish and don't have the decency to tell you if they're backing out or not. That happens so often of forums, I've actually found it harder and harder to find people that are reliable. Bad enough a lot of them keep speaking to me only in small caps as if they want to appear stupid...
