I am pretty sure you all know what eBay is, and starting today I will begin to urge everyone I know and meet to stop using it to buy or sell items. Their policy changes this year alone have cost people more money and have made it even more difficult for honest people like me to sell items. Here are the three staws that eventually broke my back and made me leave eBay for good:
- On February 20th, 2008, eBay changed several policies, including the ability for sellers to leave negative feedback when a buyer does not complete a purchase. This also leaves sellers open to unwarranted negative feedback as the buyer no longer has to fear retaliation with negative feedback. eBay claims that is the purpose – so that buyers can leave negative feedback without fear. But it left sellers with no way of telling other sellers that this person did not complete the deal. And it goes beyond that – sellers can’t even leave neutral feedback – it’s positive or nothing!
- On September 20th, 2008, eBay stopped allowing sellers to accept mail in payments, favoring PayPal over all other forms of payment. PayPal is an eBay company – so go figure. They do allow you to accept credit cards and ProPay, but only if you can figure out how to turn those options on as they are disabled in the seller form by default.
- On November 24th, 2008, a buyer of one of my items left positive feedback stating “Very Good Transaction, Excellent Communication – The Best !!! 5 Stars !!!” but then marked the shipping time in the “Detailed Seller Report” with 4 stars because it took too long for USPS to deliver the item, after 3 failed attempts mind you. This caused my account to be in violation of one of their new policies, which is hidden on the site, and prevented me from listing any other item. Now here is the kicker – in order to increase your DSR, you have to get better ratings from buyers. This means you have to sell an item, which of course I can’t do because my DSR went below 4.1. Circular logic has no place in cyber space, but eBay seems to be using it.
So I have resolved to close my eBay account and never conduct business on that site again. And it’s a shame, in the past 2 years I know that I have paid them over $2,000 in seller fees from all the items I have sold on ebay, and have earned much more from the $6,000+ worth of items I have purchased on eBay. They’ve lost a loyal customer, and it is my hope that after reading this, they will lose you as a customer as well. Share your thoughts – I really do want to hear them.
