Ebay is very unfriendly to new sellers

[dipmicro]

Was helping a friend start selling on Ebay.

He opened paypal account, added credit card, bought some items he wanted, so account is not completely new when selling.

When buying was completed and feedback was 4, he listed his first item. Confirmed ebay billing agreement and PayPal hold.

Then he realized he forgot something and wanted to revise the item. Ebay refused revision, because his limit is 1 item in that category. Please call customer service to "confirm identity". They already have his confirmed bank account, credit card that was used for purchases, home address, phone numbere verified via PIN several times.

He has phobia of calling customer supports because he believes they will just give him runaround and waste his time. Cant' blame him. 

[dipmicro]

Ebay removed conclusion of my rant, because apparently I violated policy of "Enabling, encouraging, or instructing others to leave eBay so that they can sell, buy, or participate on sites other than eBay ...".

So my bad and I apologize, I thought that policy only applies to forums. Lizzier, what am I supposed to tell him? "Keep trying" ? The guy owns 2 succesfull franchised B&M locations and soon to be 3. He isn't trying to break it online, just clean-up the garage. To be honest, I actually told him to hire a consignment agent instead of wasting the time himself. It's a shame, because with his skills, if he got a good taste of the site, he would probably be titanium seller by end of 2013.

[bb_cool_stuff]

Are they being that restrictive now ?

I cannot recall you ever posting something that would be considered out of bounds.

I guess venting is good, ranting is not.

Who knows anymore.

[pierrelebel]

dipmacro - you raised an important question.

Most of the regular posters are aware of the board policies and rules.

When LiveWorld monitored the boards, they seem to respond to "reports" of infraction from other readers/posters. Often they would simply pull the post or thread and send the poster a "pink slap", regardless if there was a policy infraction or not.  At one time I had a long list of pinkslaps removed from my record by eBay staffers but eventually stopped caring about it.

With Lithium now monitoring the boards, I seem to perceive a more pro-active approach. 

Instead of pulling a post or thread, they will edit the portion deemed to be in contravention to the rules and policies.  Also, I get the impression - I may be wrong on this - that Lithium does not wait for a post to be "reported" to act.  If they spot an infraction, they will edit the post accordingly.

At first sight, I think it is an improvement.

[dipmicro]

I wrote a story in which I discouraged someone who will never come to this board. My understanding of the policy was we should not discourage people here on board, while I may have helped discourage someone "off-board", although I think Ebay did the most of the discouraging themselves.

[surplusdealdude]

I have to point out that, if your friend is that easily discouraged, perhaps selling online is not for them.

[rykkm]

Had similar circumstance in a post of mine, where it was edited because I too apparently encouraged leaving ebay. Thd post was one where the amount of ebay fees was in question. My reply was that there were other venues, including one owned by ebay, available to them. A first grader could have easily understood the context, but apparently not this individual. Proactive is good, but even that can be taken a bit far.

[inuk_the_polar_bear]

I sign in every day just to see if I can. I have been "away" a couple of times already.

I don't know that eBay is unfriendly to new sellers so much as they are religiously protecting their venue to keep out the true thieves. There is a learning curve and a series of checkpoints to prove that you can do it. Too many sellers want to start at full speed and that will cause more problems, I "think", than the way they are doing it now.

[asyahijab]

I was going through the limitation when started here.

In case I could not revise the item because of limitation, I end the listing and create new one.

If the listing is free nothing to lose to do that.

[reallynicestamps]

I'm fascinated that sometimes the bots (I doubt there are real people involved) will tell me they have edited my post. But I often write out my posts on a text document before posting and there actually is not change.

I think it has something to do with Asimov's Three Rules.