I decided against selling, too much bother to get things to the post office for me, most times I can't park close enough to walk to it let alone carry parcels there. But it does seem stacked against the seller . It's gotten more so in the last few years. Feedback worked both ways when I first started buying there and I don't see why that was stopped except it must have interfered with their profit margin to have customers 'not being always right.' I feel sorry for many sellers. I always check out a new one's feed back records but only the negatives and some of the stupid reasons buyers give them negatives for just make your jaw drop. So unfair. I've made just under 700 purchases and only 2 items didn't arrive. That is an impressive record, especially as the majority came from mainland China. Both were only small cost items one wasn't even worth claiming on, the other only about 5 bucks. I left neutral feedback as I had no idea if the seller hadn't sent them or if they'd gone astray on a slow boat from China. I got a lovely thank you message from one of them for not leaving a negative. I thought that was really nice. I continued to buy from the seller and never had any other problems. Probably the mail at fault.
That is exactly what the buyer does, receives the item, someone at his place of business or in some cases someone signs the delivery notice on his behalf. "HE" then says that "HE" never got the items and eBay goes after the seller, who MAY have recourse through the shipper. The seller is then obligated to "prove" that the signatures were the buyers, which we can not. Next the transaction is reversed, you the seller have to refund the sales price and shipping, or reship - at your expense. And now YOU have to locate the item, prove ownership and attempt to get it back, long distance. The other worrisome piece is that the buyer has up to 180 days to dispute this, along with any other complaint - not as shown, used, damaged, etc. And you, the seller, will be out the money - long after the transaction has been complete, apparently to EVERYONE'S satisfaction.
Well, there goes that idea. I'm not one to take with a grain of salt and move on. It hasn't even happened to me and already I feel like I've been treated unfairly. Still the freezing on someone's account sounds illegal to me the more I think about but it is probably in their policy that it can be done.
Never had these scams - had the obvious attempts, like "I'll send a cheque for 5000 [for a 100 dollar item!] and you send back with change please" - so obviously a scam, so tell them to take a long walk along a short pier! Always ship to the PayPal address and always use a courier service with insurance or pickup with cash. Pick up can help actually - I once had a guy turn up to pick up a large fridge he bought from me, on seeing some other things I had for sale (and the fact he had a box van) he bought more in cash without EBay/PayPal charges! There are other sites too which are not so linked with PayPal - like Preloved.
I've heard so many bad things about eBay lately. The place seems rife with scammers now that they've changed their policies. Most of the small sellers seem to feel they are being pushed out in favor of big corporations. Essentially, eBay is trying to imitate Amazon. Ironically, I've also heard that Amazon is now getting more small seller friendly, so they may be a better alternative to eBay.
I received an email today from Ebay regarding the Seller Protection Policy. I did read over it and now I'm wavering again. It didn't say that there was anything new or different but did note how the buyer would be affected for unpaid items and closely monitored should it happen more than once even with different sellers. Anyway after reading it I did feel better about listing again.
Ebay is really black magic for me personally, I wouldn't even know how to buy a product on that website, I'm quite ashamed...
Mostly, it's an auction, although some products include a "buy it now" price. I think you need a PayPal account, although you might be able to pay with a card; I'm not sure since I use PayPal. When you see something you like, the page will tell you how much time is left on the auction, so it's a good idea not to bid right away, as early bids only drive the prices up. I wait until the last minute to make a bid, and you can get some pretty good deals.
I have been selling on EBay off and on for over 10 years. I have had mostly good experiences but I have had bad experiences as well. I love selling on EBay. It is fun to watch your item go up in price when you only paid a dollar or less for it! The one item that I remember to be my biggest sale was an old wooden duck that my son gave me. My son use to clean out houses that were foreclosed on. His boss told him to do with whatever he wanted with any items that were left in the house. So, he usually would box them up and bring them to me to see if any of the items could be sold on EBay. Back to the wooden duck, or decoy. The duck was old, you could tell that right away by it's appearance, it had glass eyes, another plus, there was no makers mark on the duck, or any that I could see, so I thought what the heck, put it on there and see what happens. That duck sold for $460 dollars! I boxed up the duck, and thought surely the guy would get it and give me bad feedback because to me, it was a wooden duck decoy and it wasn't worth that kind of money or at least I wouldn't have paid that kind of money for it. The man gave me outstanding feedback and I was like "really?" So it just goes to show that you can take an old wooden duck decoy, that you paid zero dollars for, and make a huge profit....that keeps me looking for others trust me!! I love EBay...I really do.
I have enjoyed the experience of selling on ebay. I am still looking a few items that sell good so that I do not have to have hundreds of listings to get one or two sales.
I have a whole heap of football (soccer) programmes and fanzines that I've had lying around in the house for years and I've been contemplating selling on eBay. What puts me off - I'm a lazy soul at heart - is the thought of taking photos of every single one and going through the process of putting them up for sale one by one. It sounds like having teeth pulled.
I sold an item on eBay recently, and knew there would be an issue with it. The buyer only had around 35 feedback at 100%, but I had a bad feeling. I messaged her immediately after she purchased the item, to verify that she had carefully read the listing, and was aware of what she was buying, because it was New, Other condition. She ignored my message. I waited until she received the item, and of course, she messaged me, saying it didn't fit her item, which I doubt was the case. I think she had an agenda, and was planning to return her broken part saying it was what I mailed her, or something similar. I've dealt with scammers in the past, and sensed it from her. I know lots of people who've had issues with eBay not standing up for them when they sold to scammers, but I had a positive experience with them a while back, where they went out of their way to rectify an issue for me, so I was hopeful that they'd stand behind me on this issue. I called them to discuss it, and so far, so good. They told me to just tell her I don't accept returns, as stated in the listing, that the model number was posted, and to contact eBay if she had further questions. They released my money to me, and I haven't heard back from her. They also said if she gave me negative feedback that they would remove it. I'm hopeful that means they are now going back to how they used to be, standing behind sellers, as opposed to the period of time where we pretty much had to suck it up and put up with whatever the scamming buyers threw our way.
We do a lot of selling on eBay, my wife more so than myself. Every now and then, you'll run up against someone who is very odd, at best, or a scammer, at worst. Getting eBay to remove negative feedback can be a problem but they will do it if you're persistent, and in the right, of course. My wife had someone who gave negative feedback, yet refused to return the item, since she does accept returns. In a message, she had admitted that she was wrong about the thing that she had complained about, yet she wouldn't change the negative feedback. Eventually, eBay did, but it took a while on the phone for it to be done. It was her only negative feedback, so it was important to her. I have also bought several things on eBay and, while I have been disappointed a few times, on close reading of the description of the item, it was as described; I just hadn't read it closely enough.
I got a message from eBay today about how they've protected my seller reputation, so it could be that she tried to leave negative feedback, but was blocked, or somehow they automatically removed it. I rarely leave negative feedback, unless it was a really bad experience. I have occasionally left neutral feedback, but with a detailed explanation. It seems to be either newbies or scammers who leave negative feedback. I think some feel they have (or had, before eBay changed back to seller-friendly) all the power, and so liberally scam and leave bad feedback, but I guess eBay has woken up to how much it hurt their reputation, and so is standing by sellers now.
Wow, I'm really glad I read all these posts. I have a large (expensive) item that I was considering selling on eBay. I can't even begin to say how upset I would be if someone pretended to buy my item and then I was out hundreds of dollars, not to mention the shipping costs for a heavy item. And freeze my PayPal account?! Wow, I never thought of that. I actually tried to see if I could sell my item on amazon.com but they don't let me unless I'm a professional seller. Darn!