eBay

[Philip Ayres]

Paid for this start of September cgi.ebay.co.uk/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=180153878316

Start of October it didn't show up so I contacted the buyer who said they were expecting them that week.

Heard nothing since. Contacted them the start of the week, nothing. I note they're not currently registered with eBay and others haven't recieved theirs !

Toy seen in TRU yesterday.

Hit em with a claim in Paypal.

Off to TRU tomorrow to buy a Y-Wing.

[Dave]

That is the same user I won my Holiday special Boba Fett from. After lots of waiting I contacted them and they said how they were expecting them soon. After more waiting it still hadn't turned up so I filed a claim with PayPal. They were all "waah that's not fair, we're getting them soon, honest", so I decided to put off escalating the claim for as long as possible. Then I got distracted with lots of other stuff and the dispute closed whilst I was in Wales. Bugger.

[Gav]

That's what you get for liking Star Wars, boys!

[Philip Ayres]

They've deregistered from eBay now so I've got no hesitation in claiming.

[Philip Ayres]

A week later and I don't see any effort to respond by the seller. Good, increases the chances of my £36 coming back.

[Hero]

Maybe the seller has been suspended from e-bay ^_^

Holiday Boba Fett sounds cool! Is that this years Christmas figure? I have the red Darth Vader from a couple of years ago and he's awesome!

===KEN

[Philip Ayres]

I've emailed the seller as well ! I know he's no longer registered so my bet is he's been suspended.

Holiday Fett: Actually called Boba Fett Animated Debut No it's a figure based on his first appearnce in the infamous Star Wars Holiday Special.

[Andy Turnbull]

Oh dear lord why did you mention the Holiday Special, I just had a flashback to it!

Andy

[The Doctor]

It's always available on youtube, Andu...

-Ralph

[Dark Stranger]

Just got an email from eBay, they're reducing listing fees by 5p!!!

While at the same time increasing your sold item fees by a couple of percent.

[Andy Turnbull]

It's a good thing I am such a rare seller on ebay these days as I'd be getting very annoyed with them.

Andy

[Dark Stranger]

I plan to do a whole pile of selling to raise funds for the summer festival jaunts to Belgium, Holland, Germany and Greece, and this just pisses me off.

[Nigel]

Yes, this was part of a raft of changes announced a few weeks ago. www2.ebay.com/aw/uk/200801.shtml#2008-01-28175357

Their line is that lowering the listing fees and raising the final value fees will mean that an individual's fees will better reflect their selling success. (The total fees before and after the change will actually work out much the same for a sold item.) I am rather of the opinion that they are making the change so that it looks to sellers like they are spending less on fees than they actually are, eBay taking the fees at the back end rather than up front.

What I find most galling about eBay's fees is that they could charge a penny a listing and still be absolutely raking it in. There are currently over 11 million items available on eBay.com.

[Bogatan]

Suppose its a bit better if if an item doesnt sell. Im actually coming around to thinking that maybe the feedback thing isnt so bad. Sellers should have some recourse against buyers but, someone gave the example of sellers that state First class postage and charge 10 pounds or whatever then the item arrives by standard parcels for 5.00 or whatever. Its happened to me a few times, but I'd never leave negative feedback over it because Id expect negative in return. Its one thing if the item comes by first class mail and only cost 5 pounds I except sellers inflate postage sometimes. (I usually round up to the nearest pound just in case. I used to always try being exact but ended up undercharging. Usually all the tape and wrapping would nudge it in to the next price bracket) But not getting the service paid for is really annoying.

Andy

[grahamthomson]

eBay to stop sellers leaving negative feedback

This must surely be bad news for those who use eBay to sell things.

[Andy Turnbull]

It's utter bollocks. Ebay in their "infinite" wisdom have given asshole buyers the opportunity to screw over sellers.

I don't sell regularly but from time to time and thankfully have never had negative feedback but I've seen the assholes who leave it who haven't read the listings properly.

The problem is Ebay as it stands is pretty much a monopoly. No other auction site comes close, owning paypal as well means a hefty chunk of change.

Andy

[Dark Stranger]

Absolutely terrible idea. This gives crooked buyers free reign to scam sellers without fear of retribution. What's to stop every single buyer filing Paypal chargebacks or claiming that every single item they get "goes missing"?

[Bogatan]

It does raise the question, what is the point of feedback?

So can you leave positive feedback and just rip into bastards if you dont like them?

In truth I understand the problem that if you leave negative feedback for a good reason theres nothing to stop the other party leaving you with it as well just out of spite. This doesnt seem like a good solution though.

Andy

[Hero]

Can't see this lasting.

[Deleted]

If you're not happy with a purchase under these new rules I suppose you could always not leave any feedback. Has the neutral feedback also been abolished because if it hasn't that could well become the new negative feedback.

[kayevcee]

That strikes me as completely nuts. Both parties in any eBay transaction have a high potential for assholery.

-Nick

[legios]

zudobug said:

If you're not happy with a purchase under these new rules I suppose you could always not leave any feedback. Has the neutral feedback also been abolished because if it hasn't that could well become the new negative feedback.

It's not buyers that are losing the ability to leave negative feedback though, it is sellers. Buyers are still going to be able to leave positive, neutral and negative feedback. Sellers are only going to be able to leave positive feedback.

So basically if a buyer doesn't pay, pays very late or is otherwise isn't good to deal with, then you can't leave feedback to that effect. Ebay's arguement is that if a buyer is troublesome then the seller can use Ebay's dispute resolution mechanism. But surely that would also apply if a buyer has problems with a seller. On the basis of their own logic I would conclude that they should allow both sides to only leave positive feedback. (I'm not advocating that, but that is where their own argument logically leads).

I personally reckon this is a fairly rotten idea to be honest.

Karl

[Andy Turnbull]

Now would be the time for some new online auction company to jump in and win everyone away from Ebay.

Google, can you save us?

Andy

[jameso]

I don't really agree with this new idea, but I also put the blame firmly on too many sellers giving retaliatory negative feedback, this open policy many sellers have of 'I'm not giving feedback until I get some off you' and the occasional incident that always seems to be on stuff like watchdog of bullying sellers using feedback as bargaining tools and with intimidation factors.

[Nigel]

Absolutely ridiculous. I fully support preventing retaliatory feedback, but this doesn't address that (directly).

To my mind, a bad buyer is likely to also be a bad seller, yet sellers won't be able to tell anyone about their poor behaviour. Yes, there is the Unpaid Item Dispute, but that isn't public, unlike feedback.


eBay is gradually skewing everything in favour of buyers. (Considering that the company makes its money from sellers, that is ludicrous.)

One more reason for me to be glad when I am able to stop selling on eBay.

[Nigel]

Of the top of my head, I can only think of two scenarios when the seller shouldn't be able to leave negative feedback.

Retaliatory feedback. Some sellers unjustly leave negative feedback when a buyer (deservedly) leaves negative feedback.

Distance Selling Regulations. Under these, the buyer has a seven day cooling off period. As long as the buyer communicates his decision not to buy, then the seller has a legal responsibility to accept that. This doesn't apply to auctions and of course applies to business rather than personal sellers.

[Hero]

Talk about one sided.

[Denyer]

jameso said:

I don't really agree with this new idea, but I also put the blame firmly on too many sellers giving retaliatory negative feedback

I put the blame on eBay's open encouragement of this by instituting a system for mutual withdrawals and making the negs no longer count, personally.

Doubt I'll be selling much after April. Particularly since, as an extra kick aimed at small private sellers, eBay are writing off feedback older than twelve months for purposes of calculating percentages -- six or seven years of good trading record becomes of even more dubious worth than it already was.

For clearing out books/music/films Amazon isn't bad, but the eBids, Tazbars and CQouts don't have the momentum for specialised stuff like TFs. Forum trading it is, then...

As a buyer, I haven't had difficulty spotting dodgy/abusive sellers. As an occasional seller, I'm unsure what they're smoking. And as a rather cynical amateur analyst, I think pricing out the volume sellers who do provide good customer service -- whilst simultaneously making vendors of commodity goods their main focus -- is going to prove a stock market mistake.

[The Doctor]

Ebay's latest e-mail says this:

'Buyers tell us they love the reassurance they get when sellers, especially new ones, offer PayPal as a payment method. That's why from late February, you'll need to offer PayPal if you have less than 100 Feedback ratings.'

That seems a bit shit.

-Ralph

[legios]

thedoctor said:

Ebay's latest e-mail says this:

'Buyers tell us they love the reassurance they get when sellers, especially new ones, offer PayPal as a payment method. That's why from late February, you'll need to offer PayPal if you have less than 100 Feedback ratings.'

That seems a bit shit.

-Ralph

That is extremely silly - and if it had come in this time last year would have meant I couldn't sell on ebay at all.

Karl