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eBay screws over sellers again

vwestlife

vwestlife

Veteran Member
Joined
May 2, 2008
Messages
5,400
Location
central NJ
If you thought sellers no longer being able to leave negative feedback on buyers was bad, hold on, it's going to get worse... as of next year, eBay will be forcing all sellers who offer returns to pay for the return shipping. It's their "Hassle-Free Returns" system, which means if a buyer wants to return an item, eBay will automatically generate a return shipping label for them and charge the seller the return shipping cost.

Sellers can still opt to not offer returns, but that will become nearly meaningless, because another change is that in "Item Not As Described" (NAD) cases, the seller will have to pay the return shipping cost as well. And within 6 days of the item being returned to you, eBay will automatically give the buyer a refund, unless you file a dispute against their NAD claim. And anybody who's ever dealt with that can tell you that eBay has a very wide berth of what counts as "not as described", so the chances of your dispute being successful are slim. (And that's not even counting the cases where the buyer breaks the item by their own fault, and then returns it to you, claiming that it was already broken when they got it...)

On the eBay Community forums, many people aren't happy about this, and say that if they're going to continue selling on eBay, they will be forced to raise their prices by the amount of what return shipping would cost them.

Also, eBay will be giving buyers the option to cancel their bid up to an hour after the auction ends. People predict that this will lead to buyers bidding on multiple listings of an item that end around the same time, and then only pay for the one that ended up being the lowest price, and cancelling all the rest.

The eBay Community thread of sellers complaining about the changes:
http://community.ebay.com/t5/Sellin...r-return-shipping-on-SNAD-cases/td-p/22396282
 
I got no problem with that considering some of the times I bought something from China I ended up getting burned because it might be pennies for them but I gotta pay $20 to send it back.
For everyone else, you better quit wasting your time with fancy looking listings and just describe the damn thing, along with taking proper photographs and packing it well. You know, the stuff you should be doing anyways.

On the eBay Community forums, many people aren't happy about this, and say that if they're going to continue selling on eBay, they will be forced to raise their prices by the amount of what return shipping would cost them.
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These people are scum anyways.
I didn't properly describe my listing and my iphone photo didn't show case damage and now I have to pay to have my poorly described item returned!
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Oh, shut up.
 
Not saying all buyers do it, but I've had a few high-end items returned on the "Item Not as Described" BS. That's why I no longer have an eBay store. Still worth the risk with things where the profits on eBay will be *much* higher than elsewhere, but not worth it for items with slimmer margins.

Cancelling a bid up to an hour after the auction ends doesn't make a whole lot of sense. I guess it will reduce the number of "NAD" cases due to buyer's remorse...
 
I don't have much pity for eBay sellers. I have received too many things not as described, poorly packed and damaged during shipment, or even not the same item shown in the photos.

As an occasional selle,r people have tried to scam me as well. Easy solution is to document everything with photos. Tested, working, serial numbers, details, packing, even the address of the buyer on the outside of the box. It's amazing how many scammers will disappear the moment photographic evidence is presented. In case of actual damage during shipment, the photos are also instrumental in a positive outcome for a shipping insurance claim.

Photos, photos, photos. With so many options for taking digital photos, there's really no excuse not to take them. It's not like we have to pay to get them developed anymore :D
 
NeXT said:
I got no problem with that considering some of the times I bought something from China I ended up getting burned because it might be pennies for them but I gotta pay $20 to send it back.
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I forgot to mention... the new mandatory "Hassle-Free Returns" only apply to U.S. sellers... so Chinese sellers can continue selling shoddy counterfeit junk.

Another change is that participation in the "Global Shipping Program" will become mandatory as well, so you will no longer be able to list items as "U.S. bidders only". All items will be open to international bidders. If a foreign buyer wins the item, you'll only pay for U.S. postage to the Pitney Bowes shipping center in Kentucky, where PB will then take care of the customs forms and forward it to its destination. However, PB reserves the right to open up and repackage items, and not necessarily with the same amount of packing material as you originally included to protect the item from damage.

Luckily I haven't had any problems with this in the few times I've used the GSP, but there have been cases were PB repackaged the item and then it got damaged, and eBay does not protect the seller from getting negative feedback if that happens, even though PB is supposed to take the blame and cover the cost if the item gets damaged after it leaves their shipping center.
 
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Indentured Servitude to eBay:

Indentured Servitude to eBay:

glitch said:
Not saying all buyers do it, but I've had a few high-end items returned on the "Item Not as Described" BS...
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You might want to check that the returned item has everything you sent originally. eBay's easy return policy could allow unscrupulous buyers to trade bad integrated circuits for good ones on socketed boards they buy then return. If an electrical appliance goes bad, buy one on eBay and return the bad one. Buyers should be aware of this potential and check serial numbers and wax-mark ICs that might be swapped.

Hmm, as an illuminating example: you could never have to pay for light bulbs again if you were an unscrupulous eBay buyer that bought good bulbs online and had the seller pay for shipping back your burned out bulbs.

All things being equal, I'd rather sell new products via Amazon.com... eBay is getting a rather black-market reputation for stolen goods. I did a biz-consult years ago and among other idiocies, found several of the company's manufacturing employees selling the company's product discounted on eBay with no record of purchasing the original.

To make matters worse they were sold as, "Still under manufacturer's warranty" and no serial numbers were used so nothing could be validated. Products that were rejected by quality control, had been sold on eBay and were returned for replacement due to the same quality reason that got it rejected; company had to buy raw materials and labor for two units: the rejected one assumed destroyed and the one they had to replace! The company didn't make a dime on either of those.

Cameras secretly installed showed employees walking out with product to their trucks. Thereafter the company started permanently marking production rejects so that they could be identified and closed the employee store. The company still doesn't use serial numbers due to the nature of the product materials used. :S


It looks like eBay is making their sellers take the pain for eBay's plans to increase membership and revenue. If you have to raise your prices to maintain the status quo, eBay is still taking the additional profit. This will work in the short-term. Eventually they'll reach the revolt threshold.
 
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Stating the obvious here, but shipping fees are already high enough. A $10 item can easily cost $20 or $30 after shipping and whatever a seller has added on for eBay fees.

This is all just asking for more vintage stuff ending up in the chipper shredder.
 
vwestlife said:
giving buyers the option to cancel their bid up to an hour after the auction ends.
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Another brick in the wall.
eBay needs a serious competitor.

I remember when they had real auctions (not a sea of BINs) with information-dense listings.
Listings now are click bait.
No, I REALLY DO NOT WANT YOUR SUGGESTIONS FOR OTHER THINGS TO LOOK AT, eBay
Sadly, addblock thinks this is 'content'. meh..
I'm not going to create lists of things I'm interested in, nor am I interested in what others think are related.
I also don't look at them on a smartphone and find wasting 2/3 of my horizontal screen real estate annoying.
 
Did you guys all forget about our own VC Forum market?

http://marketplace.vintage-computer.com/

The market exposure for items posted there is far lower than on eBay. So if you are looking to make a hefty profit, it is not for you. But if you want to get your excess vintage computing items to a like minded collector, this is the way to do it.

No fees. No BS. Courtesy of Erik.
 
mbbrutman said:
Did you guys all forget about our own VC Forum market?

http://marketplace.vintage-computer.com/

The market exposure for items posted there is far lower than on eBay. So if you are looking to make a hefty profit, it is not for you. But if you want to get your excess vintage computing items to a like minded collector, this is the way to do it.

No fees. No BS. Courtesy of Erik.
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Yes, DO USE THE MARKETPLACE! I personally have gotten some outstanding deals here. I haven't sold anything yet, but so far I haven't had any problems as a buyer.
 
JDallas said:
You might want to check that the returned item has everything you sent originally. eBay's easy return policy could allow unscrupulous buyers to trade bad integrated circuits for good ones on socketed boards they buy then return. If an electrical appliance goes bad, buy one on eBay and return the bad one. Buyers should be aware of this potential and check serial numbers and wax-mark ICs that might be swapped.
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I've only had one case of this as a seller, and couldn't prove it to eBay's liking. Someone swapped worn-out tubes for the NOS ones in a piece of audio gear and returned it.
 
Stone said:
EBay never had real auctions. Their method of bidding bears zero resemblance to any auction on earth! It's more like a guessing game for pussies. :) If it were a real auction it might actually be interesting.
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Years ago, you could see the full user names of other bidders and be able to send messages to them. Users' feedback records had links to all the items they bought and sold and showed the buyers/sellers of each. And if a seller accepted a "best offer", that sale price was shown on the listing. Now, public access to all of that information is gone, which reduces the openness of the marketplace and the ability to accurately judge the fair-market value of an item.
 
From the buyer side.
Shill bidding is still being done. Allowing buyers to
back out easier just increases that.
There is no way to mark an item as:
"Won't buy, at any price. Don't show it to me again on search"
Without that ability, I just don't have the time to scan listings
any more.
Dwight
 
Note that seller-paid return shipping in "Item Not As Described" cases takes effect September 15th this year. Mandatory seller-paid return shipping in all cases (even buyer's remorse) on listings allowing returns won't take effect until "Holiday season 2015", so until then, sellers can still opt to make buyers pay for return shipping. But guess what... all the buyer has to do is hit the item with a hammer, then claim it's "Not As Described" and presto, they get free return shipping!

eBay says they need to make these changes to "better compete with other eCommerce providers" (i.e. Amazon). But some are calling for the Antique and Vintage categories to be opted out of the changes, because Amazon doesn't compete in that field and brick-and-morter antique stores are virtually all NO RETURNS ACCEPTED.
 
On an eBay topic, I got to wondering about those outrageous prices for old gear that you see on eBay--you know, the $400 floppy drive...

Do some eBay sellers use price-setting software for their offerings? By that I mean software that searches out competitor's prices and then sets the price either higher or lower. There was a publicized case of this involving two book sellers on Amazon that resulted in a price of somewhere around $23 million for a not-terribly uncommon 60-page booklet.

I'm certain that some web vendors are doing this--taking a competitor's price on an uncommon item and adding a bit to cover their costs (they don't actually have the item, but figure that they can purchase it from the original vendor, then pass it on).

So does this happen on eBay?
 
One feature I'd like to see removed is the reserve price option. Sellers should just put the starting price as the minimum price they want to sell it for and be done with it.
 
TanruNomad said:
One feature I'd like to see removed is the reserve price option. Sellers should just put the starting price as the minimum price they want to sell it for and be done with it.
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I wouldn't be surprised if eBay eventually forces all sellers to post a Buy It Now price on all items. eBay doesn't care about being an "auction" site anymore. They just want to get more buyers and make more money.
 
eBay Ridiculous Pricing Examples of Money Transfers or Laundering?

eBay Ridiculous Pricing Examples of Money Transfers or Laundering?

Chuck(G) said:
...resulted in a price of somewhere around $23 million for a not-terribly uncommon 60-page booklet...
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Its wouldn't be the first time that memorabilia or baseball cards etc were used in illegal money transfers or laundering schemes.

Mobsters can get legitimate looking transfers of money to them by selling a fake baseball card and telling the guy he's extorting, to buy it from him online (or at his Baseball Card shop... pawn shop etc).

Shortly later the baseball card is lost or destroyed so authenticity can never be confirmed. In fact who can say the baseball card ever even existed in a transfer of ownership?

On the other hand... that $400 floppy drive could have been previously owned by Pablo Picasso. ;)

In regard to the future policies of eBay... its easy to see where its going:
All sellers will have to buy their very OWN stuff online and just give eBay a commission.
That will end the gripes of shipping costs and returns.
 
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Costs and warranty issues are keeping people from dumping vintage items on ebay (plus the local demand from scrappers). Quite a bit of common stuff that is being auctioned off goes for higher and higher prices because of ebay fees and issues with some buyers.

The flip side is people will now be joining here just to flip items (lots of scrappers do already) and along with legit sellers we will be seeing scammers as well.
 
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