eBay

zx_venom · ‎03-16-2016

Well today is the day that ebay claimed my package sent to with full tracking never arrived and settled the claim in his favor even though I provided all the evidence, photos etc.

And so that means today is the day I say goodbye to Ebay forever unless I want to buy something and then I will just flat out lie say I didn't get it and then get the item for free since this is how ebay works now.

I find it hard to believe ebay does nothing about this. OH WELL ON TO BIGGER AND BETTER THINGS THANKS EBAY ITS BEEN REALLY LAME AND FRUSTRATING SO LONG AND GOOD RIDDANCE

dark_phoenix9273 · ‎03-16-2016

Thats your opinion. But for allot of sellers its rather scary to sit and wait to see if the buyer decides to be honest and wether or not you'll get paid (meaning you actually have the money).

hlmacdon · ‎03-16-2016

@dark_phoenix9273 wrote:
Thats your opinion. But for allot of sellers its rather scary to sit and wait to see if the buyer decides to be honest and wether or not you'll get paid (meaning you actually have the money).

It's not an opinion. If your funds are being held they are not going to be released until after 21 days (no buyer will wait that long for you to ship) or the buyer confirms receipt of goods. The only other scenario where you have to wait for funds to clear is if an echeck payment is made or paypal puts a hold on the buyer's funds (for your protection ironically) to ensure they clear transfer from a bank, etc.

ricarmic · ‎03-16-2016

Hi Phoenix!

I think you are misunderstanding hlmac's point.

If a buyer is dishonest, you are going to lose the money either way. The hold ebay places on funds for a new seller is nothing to do with the buyer or the buyer's transaction. It is to protect against bad sellers.

If the buyer decides to be dishonest, it will not make any difference if the seller waits until the money is in their account because once the buyer makes a "valid" claim, eBay will take the money back out of the sellers account again.

The same holds true if the buyer uses a credit card and generates a "valid" chargeback. That is nothing to do with eBay or PAYPAL but in that case the seller may also be at risk.

In the current world, waiting until the money "clears" (as in is released) delays the shipment, which has significant risk in generating a bad buyer experience, including the dreaded late shipping defect which is what we all want to avoid. The buyer will not know anything about the hold, the money went out of their account immediately (which is different from an echeque), and holding the shipment for up to 21 days(??) is really asking for problems.

Hopefully this helps?

dark_phoenix9273 · ‎03-16-2016

Everyone talks about a "bad buyer experience" wheres the concern for a bad seller experience? Why should buyers get complete protection and seller put at risk?

And no once, I have money it in my account, I can then take it out of the account to protect myself.

mr.elmwood · ‎03-16-2016

@dark_phoenix9273 wrote:
Thats your opinion. But for allot of sellers its rather scary to sit and wait to see if the buyer decides to be honest and wether or not you'll get paid (meaning you actually have the money).

As a seller, I have never been scared. That is opposite to the concept of selling.Selling is exciting, a thrill, an accomplishment.

I have had precious few dishonest buyers. So few it is not worth considering.

It falls within my shrinkage budget.

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jersey..authentix · ‎03-16-2016

hlmacdon wrote; Not the case in my personal experience.

Well , you are in a very unique group. In my 16 yrs on ebay , ( and this can be written in stone, ) once the money is back in the buyer's account, Ebay will not remove it . The seller can use any tool available to him. Good luck with that.

Maybe if this went as far as a legality issue, then I would assume Ebay would put a hold or remove the funds. I assume.

I have had enough issues in my time with ebay awarding sellers money that was completely against Ebay's own policies, but that's the way Ebay rolls.

I agree with mr Elmwood. It does happen very rarely.

hlmacdon · ‎03-16-2016

@jersey..authentix wrote:
hlmacdon wrote; Not the case in my personal experience.

Well , you are in a very unique group. In my 16 yrs on ebay , ( and this can be written in stone, ) once the money is back in the buyer's account, Ebay will not remove it . The seller can use any tool available to him. Good luck with that.

Maybe if this went as far as a legality issue, then I would assume Ebay would put a hold or remove the funds. I assume.

I have had enough issues in my time with ebay awarding sellers money that was completely against Ebay's own policies, but that's the way Ebay rolls.

I agree with mr Elmwood. It does happen very rarely.

If a decision has been incorrectly made against you (and there are cases where algorithms are in place to automate things and do cause false positives on occasion), you can make a case if you have a valid reason. Does it work 100% of the time? No but in most cases I have received funds back from ebay as well as paypal. The biggest mistake most sellers make is dealing with the call center folks rather than the appropriate parties. If you are a business, register on paypal as a business and deal with their business support people directly. If you are not a business, follow the contact flows to get past the line level call center folks who don't understand policy in detail.

Whether those funds are recovered from the buyer or provided direct by ebay or paypal is of no consequence to me. While it would be nice to see the buyer get their just deserts as it were, I'm not going to burn any more cycles on it at that point. The same scenarios apply with any merchant account you deal with so there is nothing unique here, other than ebay being an intermediary between you and the payment processor.

dark_phoenix9273 · ‎03-16-2016

The problem is many sellers don't have a "shrinkage" window in their funds.

Everything seems geared towards buyers, they are completely protected, they cant receive negative feedback, they will always get their money back. But Sellers are not protected anywhere near that level and why? Why is a buyers experience worth so much more then a sellers?

ricarmic · ‎03-16-2016

Hi Phoenix!

Regarding the money, well, yes you can take it out of your account, but ebay will just use the bank account or credit card you attached to your PAYPAL account when you joined to recover the funds. The only way to avoid that would be to close your account, which kind of defeats the purpose as that would also end your selling experience too.

All sellers, here on ebay, at shows, in brick and mortar stores and even at yard sales have bad experiences via bad customers. I have a chargeback underway at the moment.

Folks earlier gave some suggestions about starting small, learning the ropes and working up to larger/riskier sales.

There is an awful lot of valuable information shared on this board, I've been selling here since 1999 and I still on a frequent basis learn things. I wish there was a board and source of information like this back when I started, I would not have had to learn so much the hard way.

dark_phoenix9273 · ‎03-16-2016

And that didn't address anything I said in my response. Thank you for the hearts and flowers response but as I said:

The problem is many sellers don't have a "shrinkage" window in their funds.

Everything seems geared towards buyers, they are completely protected, they cant receive negative feedback, they will always get their money back. But Sellers are not protected anywhere near that level and why? Why is a buyers experience worth so much more then a sellers?

I like being an honest seller, so far I've had no complaints. I had one package mistakenly sent back to me, so I sent it back out with tracking at my own expense to be sure.

And I don't want to make my buyers wait 21 days, I honestly hate the idea, but if it the only way to protect myself, then it's my only choice, because as a seller, if something goes wrong, paypal has told me, neither them nor ebay are guaranteed to be there to help, so I literally have no other choice.

ricarmic · ‎03-16-2016

My wife will get quite a chuckle out of me being hearts and flowers!

Not that long ago, if one asked folks why they didn't buy on eBay one heard the stories about buyers being ripped off. I was working a real job and eBay at the time and of all the many people I asked only 1 person had actually ever purchased anything from eBay. Everyone else was to afraid to do it.

I believe that is why we've seen the perhaps extreme strengthening of the buyers rights, to help them feel safer so they will buy.

It is kind of chicken and egg, others believe the opposite, but my own perspective is that if there aren't buyers there aren't sellers. Selling isn't a right, it is a privilege buyers grant us for delivering what they want.

I suppose the above will be interpreted as another round of hearts and flowers but anyway, a couple closing points:

If you have a bad buyer, you cannot protect your funds unless you leave ebay, please re-recheck my 2nd response.

Buyers do not always win, if you check out the threads here, there are examples where sellers have won/prevailed. Normally by following the processes. I myself have prevailed a couple times in the past.

Starting small and learning the processes reduces the risk.

Another person on these boards regularly advised folks to "sell what you know and know what you sell". The cost of goods sold has to include the shrinkage and other costs which are a natural part of doing business, otherwise it isn't a viable thing to be selling online.

dark_phoenix9273 · ‎03-16-2016

It does nothing to reduce the risk. I've followed the rules and now I have no seller protection at all.

And what good is Ebay without sellers? It's just as bad to scare them away to other sites as it is buyers. Sellers deserve protection too, they can be just as honest as a buyer can be. And buying is a privilege too, it's a privilege that we as sellers are making what they wan tto buy available to them.

And I'm glad everything has gone great for you, but try to imagine what its like for people who are not you for a second.

sylviebee · ‎03-16-2016

ricarmic wrote:

Not that long ago, if one asked folks why they didn't buy on eBay one heard the stories about buyers being ripped off. I was working a real job and eBay at the time and of all the many people I asked only 1 person had actually ever purchased anything from eBay. Everyone else was to afraid to do it.

I believe that is why we've seen the perhaps extreme strengthening of the buyers rights, to help them feel safer so they will buy.
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Yes, all of that. You can send money at the touch of a button to a stranger anywhere in the worlld and be reasonably confident that the stranger at the receiving end will deliver.

How amazing is that?

dark_phoenix9273 · ‎03-16-2016

Ok, walk up to someone, hand them an item, let them go home with it on the promise that 3 days later they will pay you.

ricarmic · ‎03-16-2016

Hi Phoenix, everything has not gone great for me... I've lost as much as $700 in a single bad transaction, wayyyy back in 1999 one of my first 10 feedbacks was a neutral... I've had many scrapes and scratches over time...as has been the case for probably all the other folks who've been here a long time.

I've learned too many lessons the hard way, especially before I discovered these boards.

My point earlier was that much can be learned from others experiences here.

My goal in spending the time writing these responses was to help you and anybody else who can learn from it.

That's all I can offer.

mr.elmwood · ‎03-16-2016

@sylviebee wrote:
@ricarmic wrote:

Not that long ago, if one asked folks why they didn't buy on eBay one heard the stories about buyers being ripped off. I was working a real job and eBay at the time and of all the many people I asked only 1 person had actually ever purchased anything from eBay. Everyone else was to afraid to do it.

I believe that is why we've seen the perhaps extreme strengthening of the buyers rights, to help them feel safer so they will buy.
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Yes, all of that. You can send money at the touch of a button to a stranger anywhere in the worlld and be reasonably confident that the stranger at the receiving end will deliver.
How amazing is that?

and, all of that. I have a very high rate of "0" buyers. Why? They have the confidence to buy.

I have shipped to about 75 countries.

My "bad" experiences for the last three years? That I remember? In 3,000 sales in that period? None.

"How amazing is that?"

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dark_phoenix9273 · ‎03-16-2016

Thats fantastic, not everyone is as lucky and why should any seller be cheated out of 700$? Just to keep buyers happy?

mr.elmwood · ‎03-16-2016

@dark_phoenix9273 wrote:
Thats fantastic, not everyone is as lucky and why should any seller be cheated out of 700$? Just to keep buyers happy?

It is not luck.

It is hard work. It s smart work.

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dark_phoenix9273 · ‎03-16-2016

Ok, I did everything write, provided tracking, used the exact shipping method I had in my listed, sent out the very next business day, I did everything write and ebay purposely told paypal not to cover me with seller protection.

pjcdn2005 · ‎03-17-2016

@dark_phoenix9273 wrote:
Ok, I did everything write, provided tracking, used the exact shipping method I had in my listed, sent out the very next business day, I did everything write and ebay purposely told paypal not to cover me with seller protection.

I don't understand why you were not covered then. Did the buyer claim that the item was not received? Did delivery confirmation show that it was received at the time they made the claim?