I enjoyed being an active participant in these threads in the past and I enjoyed my initial business on eBay. I particulary enjoyed the comradship amongst fellow Power sellers (Cdns in particular).
I battled CP and won my battles in the short-run. In the long run I lost my battles with major fee increases and deteriorating service, especially State-side and internationally.
So was it with eBay and fee increases, their blind eyes to scams and cheats and to those who sold copyright materials, especially knock-offs intended to raise money for charities. In the end, one must examine the profitability of what one does against the time they spend fighting the system.
I am returning to my consulting practise having experienced the worst December in 3 Decembers of selling on eBay. Not only were the sales disasterous, the profitability was non-existent, and when now spending so much time dealing with the reprucussions of late shipments, destroyed items and the ensuing and continuing customer emails and complaints, well its no longer worth the exercise for me.
Patty you are 100% correct in continuing your fight with CP and in addressing this to the Ombudsman. Just as we are held responsible by our clients for our decision as to who we select as the carrier of choice, so too is CP responsible for their relationship with USPS as well as Customs.
As I pointed out, at the very least, CP is responsible for advising us IN ADVANCE OF ACCPTING OUR ITEMS that shipping via Expedited to the US during Christmas, may take 6-weeks for delivery and then allowing us the choice of who to use.
Similarly when handling complaints or claims for loss, damage or delay, accept the fact that they are responsible and not give us a hard time, which I am going through right now over a few claims.
As a good and honest business person, I will be setting the record straight with my customer in Nova Scotia and upgrading him to a better product than what he paid for while all CP will do is pay me my cost for the original lesser-priced instrument, a process that promises to take upwards of 3-weeks or more.
The bottom line is that with the resources presently available to me to sell on eBay and to ship internationally, eBay is not a viable option for me in the context of the income I want from it so I will be gladly hanging up my salesman's hat and only using my eBay userid to ocassionally peddle one or two items I may have lying around the house rather than throwing them out.
Malcolm
