Dude,
I don't know who you are and what your beef is, and I have to admit that I'm kind of hijacking this thread, but the title above so NAILS what I DO want to talk about that it doesn't really matter. At this point, even IF eBay's "representatives" ARE deigning to actually bother to read any of what we say is no longer relevant, because any answers or possible "solutions" are no longer relevant, and unless we can somehow acquire a time machine and go back oh, ten years? can we even begin to address the appalling Putin-esque attitude of eBay and PayPal.
Being in Canada as I am, but being a US citizen as I am (I know, so what?) and having been on eBay as both seller and buyer (probably 20 - 80%) since around 1999, and been active -- not moribund for months or years -- I've seen it all come and go, Well probably much like most of you types.
Number one, I know that *nothing* I or you or ANYONE ELSE who are eBay's willing slaves/partners in crime -- whatever you wish to call us -- will ever even prompt an eyebrow-raise at any board meeting of eBay's VERY comfortable owner/managers' conferences.
As far as I can see, as sellers, of which maybe I AM only a 20%er, or a buyer -- as a CANADIAN buyer, no less -- we are $%^&ed and pretty much, it's eBay's way or the highway. need I say it -- it's unnecessary -- but this is MUCH to eBay's liking.
They have us all over a barrel. Every single one of us -- veterans, sellers, buyers, US citizens or Moldavian citizens -- THEY call the shots and we just go along, sheeplike, because THEY KNOW THEY HOLD ALL THE CARDS.
Look, I was hanging around these forums in 2005, when the perennial question "Is there no alternative to eBay?" was still a hot topic. Yep. 2005.
Well, nine years later, the same topic is obviously the biggest in terms of interest, and we all know the answer: How many languages do you want it in? Nein, non, nyet, iie, zenzen, êtes-vous fous? etc. etc.
We know it and they know it. What. Quibids? IBid? WeBid? WhoBids? THERE IS NO EQUAL. I can just take a measure of comfort knowing that they failed most HEINOUSLY in China and Japan because they JUSY DIDN'T GET IT.
But it's no consolation for us punters.
This new "Global Shipping Program" is an affront to us veterans and ALL newbies alike. It's a big fat loogie in the face. Last time I checked, Pitney Bowes was a manufacturer of PRINTERS.
Okay, so maybe you guys down south don't want to ship up to us Northerners, here in our igloos and beaver hats, drinking Labatts and, like, watching hockey, eh, and Rob Ford, eh?
Well hello, shipping to Canada is no more different to shipping to Nevada from California -- really, REALLY, it isn't.
I used to sell Apple TVs. remember them? They were a hot item about two years ago because they could be jailbroken and you could watch first run movies on them and such like.
Well, I was dong nothing illegal, but my point is this: my gamily lives in California, I live in Montreal. It cost me precisely $USD6.47 to put an Apple TV in a bubble-wrap envelope, go to the post office in Oakland, CA, and ship one to myself after filling in a tiny export form. That is $6.47. I must have shipped fifty of them that way. All to myself. I put on the waybill, "Used computer parts, value $25." It was the TRUTH.
EVERY SINGLE ONE OF THEM ARRIVED IN PERFECT ORDER. NONE OF THEM WAS OPENED "FOR INSPECTION." Not ONE of them was molested in ANY WAY. They just simply arrived in my mailbox here in Montreal, having cost a grand total of $6.47.
Wait! you shriek. What if they'd GOT LOST IN THE MAIL????? Excellent question, friend, excellent point! And I'll take the opportunity to state that in over 12 years of cross border shipping of things big and small, cheap and expensive -- we are talking about easily over a thousand separate items -- NOT A SINGLE ONE EVER WENT ASTRAY. Not even one teensy-weensy one was mishandled by USPS or Canada Post. Just shipped regularly, no tracking number, just "Via Air Mail/Par Avion" in an appropriately packed package. NOT EVEN ONE.
I don't need FedEx. I'm not in a hurry. I don't need DHL, Purolator or that master of ripoffs, UPS. I'm NOT IN A HURRY and I DON'T NEED A TRACKING number, because you know why? By the time the tracking software tells me the package is nearing my town, it's already in my hands.
So WHY should I pay brokerage fees, taxes, duties and other means of lining people's pockets if I don't have to? Don't get me wrong. I'm not trying to rip the Canadian government off its due. But a used Apple TV *might* be worth $240 to you an me, but in actual fact, a used Apple TV is worth about, oh, $12 in electrical parts, so WHY SHOULD I DECLARE IT TO BE WORTH $240 just because someone chose to pay me that much for it?
Let's get back to the "Global Shipping Program." last week, I got this astonishing communiqué from the seller of an Apple laptop, for which I paid around $400 (Canadian, US, take your pick): "I'm moving house this weekend, so you're going to have to deal with eBay's shipping program if the address isn't the one I'm mailing it to (unspecified)" -- basically WASHING HIS HANDS of whatever was going to happen to the laptop after he "handed it off to eBay's shipping program."
Whaaaa? After getting a lecture on why "it's a lot of hassle shipping to Canada " (umm, excuse me? "A lot of hassle?" Did I read you correctly? IT'S NO MORE HASSLE THAN SHIPPING TO THE NEXT STATE unless YOU make it so -- unless YOU insist that it has a tracking number, insist on putting the inflated value of the item right there on the waybill so they CAN'T IGNORE IT even though they should -- yeah, sure, it's a lot of hassle. ESPECIALLY if your hippocampus is underdeveloped.. But I digress.)
"But sometimes buyers cause problems, don't pay blah blah blah." Yep. Sure enough. Buyers cause problems. It's a known fact in this busy world of ours: buyers cause problems. But the way I sometimes read it is: "CANADIAN buyers cause problems." Oh, really? And exactly how might that be, Mr. Seller? I'm an American citizen living in Canada (also a Canadian citizen). As an eBay seller, I have shipped both from the US to Canada, the US to other foreign countries, from Canada to the US, and from Canada to other foreign countries, and in over ONE-THOUSAND-ONE HUNDRED TRANSACTIONS IN A SPAN OF OVER TWELVE YEARS I CAN COUNT ON MY TWO HANDS THE AMOUNT OF EVEN REMOTELY SERIOUS PROBLEMS I HAVE ENCOUNTERED.
Maybe I should change my eBay tag to "LUCKYtonbo0422!" Whaddya think?
But eBay's blatant cash grab for the INCREDIBLY inefficient Pitney Bowes -- I mean, I'm in the arts business, yeah, I'd heard of them -- but have YOU? -- "Global Shipping Program" is a total, famously eBay-like spit in the face of all its faithful sellers, and of course, by extension, its often completely naive buyers -- and it is going to continue this way because eBay can DO WHATEVER THE £µ¢≤ it likes because it remains completely unchallenged and unchallengeable in the cutthroat (seemingly) online selling business.
I wish to every god you like that things could change tomorrow, that a "NEW CONTENDER" could somehow appear to curtail eBay's spectacular thumb-to-the-nose attitude to us, buyers AND sellers and EVERYONE ELSE IN BETWEEN but unfortunately this little missive will disappear just like the bark on a moonlit hilltop that it really is.
Happy transactions and a merry live long and buysell to you all.
Nick
AKA tonbo0422
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