The eBay rant thread

[bodhi_tree777]

My wife and I sell vintage clothing and toys on eBay. I'm having trouble wrapping my head around the sheer number of flaky buyers that flock to that site. I've probably sold 3-400 different items over the last 2 years or so and in that time I've had to deal with 25 different "non-paying bidder" disputes (that's a pretty high deadbeat to customer ratio). These aren't claims made by the buyer, I'm talking about a person dropping a bid on an item and never following through. Why would someone do that? To what end?It's a frustrating process. Ebay has recently shortened the amount of time it takes to wait out a claim (from 14 days to 10 or so) but it's still frustrating. Ebay also doesn't refund the listing fees, only the Final Value fees. Sorry just felt the need to rant due to this particular auction that I've got up. Guy bid on it two weeks ago and never paid. Filed a dispute, he never responded and the dispute was closed. I re-listed the item and THE SAME GUY under a slightly different screen name just bid on it again. GRR.

[Kari]

I think you can delete his bid if you notice it's the same person...no way to guarantee you won't end up with another though.

[keithvibe]

I had a few non payers. But my biggest issue was the "customer is always right" attitude that ebay and paypal have. I sold an internet camera and described it to a "T". The buyer wanted something more for what he paid for. The old saying goes, you get what you pay for.He turned around filled a claim with paypal. Doing so freezes the account till the issue is resolved.I had to go to the PA State police to file a fraud claim because he opened the camera and cut wires on the inside to make it appear the camera was broke when I sent it to him.He scratched the install CD so it wouldn't read in the drive.After 6MONTHS of fighting with PAYPAL to get my account unlocked and my money back I did WIN but I spent lots of hours trying to prove my point.

[bodhi_tree777]

Quote, originally posted by keithvibe »I had a few non payers. But my biggest issue was the "customer is always right" attitude that ebay and paypal have. I sold an internet camera and described it to a "T". The buyer wanted something more for what he paid for. The old saying goes, you get what you pay for.He turned around filled a claim with paypal. Doing so freezes the account till the issue is resolved.I had to go to the PA State police to file a fraud claim because he opened the camera and cut wires on the inside to make it appear the camera was broke when I sent it to him.He scratched the install CD so it wouldn't read in the drive.After 6MONTHS of fighting with PAYPAL to get my account unlocked and my money back I did WIN but I spent lots of hours trying to prove my point.ugh. nightmare. I've never had my account frozen, but I have had funds within the account frozen for more than a month while PayPal sorted out some buyers remorse. Buyer wins, I lose and I'm out shipping to Hong Kong. Hooray.I've actually had buyers bid items up to amazing high amounts and then send me a message at the end saying "Geez, I never thought it would actually get up that high. I don't have that kind of money, would you take $xx.xx?". Your situation sounds worse, no wonder you're anti-PayPal Kari: You're right, and I think I will cancel his second bid, but I wrote to eBay first to see if they can just block the guy's IP address or something. I'm pretty sure its a violation to use multiple accounts to get around being blocked or banned. I never would have noticed except the guy used an almost identical user name on his 2nd account

[jake75]

Selling to someone in Hong Kong seems like asking for trouble. I have never sold anything on eBay, but have bought 500+ items in the past several years. If you make a mistake you can retract the bid - happened to me a couple of times as if you accidentally insert a comma instead of a period between the dollars and cents it reads it all as dollars. That is, $4,50 gets recorded as $450. For awhile I just bid in even dollar amounts e.g. $5, to avoid that. I understand that sellers can no longer give buyers a neutral or red flag. Evidently some sellers were punishing any buyer who gave them a neutral or red flag. Also, all sellers must now accept Paypal - is that right? I used to get some good bargains from sellers who did not accept Paypal as many bidders would not deal with them so the bidding competition was light.. Same for sellers with less than 100 transactions. Not worth worrying about for a transaction that might be only $20. I have saved a lot by checking eBay first. Example, replacement grids for my Weber grill 40% less than I could buy locally. A bargain on a patio umbrella. Replaced the Owner's Manual for my '03 Vibe for less than $10. A new rear view mirror for less than half the $77 dealer price. Buy most of my genuine HP Laser cartridges on eBay. However, my overall impression is that eBay is not as much fun as it used to be.

[bodhi_tree777]

Quote, originally posted by jake75 »Selling to someone in Hong Kong seems like asking for trouble. I definitely had reservations about shipping items internationally at first but once you get a handle on quoting accurate shipping costs you find that most people in other countries are just like people here (mostly honest, some pretty shifty and some out and out scam artists). I've shipped items all over Europe, Asia, the Middle East, South America etc with very few issues. In fact, I've had more non-paying bidders from the US than anywhere else. The strength of some foreign currency vs. the dollar also helps drive up selling prices which is nice.As for the buyer who started this rant, he's from Maryland and is on his way to being banned, hopefully. I checked, eBay definitely prohibits "unwelcome bidding" (i.e. creating a second user account to circumvent being blocked from bidding on your original account). Still a pain, and all over a Toronto Blue Jays jacket

[ou.grizzly]

ebay can go bad or good. I never sold anything on ebay and just usually purchase. I purchase from sellers with good ratings, have been around for a while, an do not molest you with shipping charges.