Ebay returns policy

[beatnik]

i found ebay to have become unusable for selling to the point of ridiculousness

in the last year all kinds of stuff happened to me, buyers that invent all kinds of stories to return the items, try to extort partial refunds, the worst one i had shipped a tube amp which had very expensive valves in and the seller returned it with some other tubes ! what a rip off

with its returns policy and money back guarantee ebay seems to exclusively protect the buyers and the seller just needs to keep finger crossed hoping he's not sending the items to a crook

if then you have a problem with a buyer trying to rip you off, you are basically left alone and you have no choice other than accepting a return and a full refund hoping that you are not going to be scammed, because no matter what happens during the return, ebay is not going to help you. as a seller you even have to pay shipping fees both way

you cannot leave negative feedback to buyers anymore, this makes impossible to spot problematic buyers in advance and canceling a transaction when you think it could be problematic, which is probably the biggest contradiction of them all

i have decided to not be using ebay anymore for selling but just for buying. i am wondering if someone has had similar experiences ?

PS on the other hand, i am quite happy using reverb.com in the past year. generally less problematic people, and lower final price fees as well.

 

[emrr]

Yes yes and yes unfortunately.  I walked away in 2008 , and its gotten so much worse since then.  The damn thing is stuff still sells for more there than anywhere else.  Does the margin cover the BS?  I can list things here and other forums and have them sit for years with no inquiries, ebay would be a quick sale and possibly higher amount.  People seem to be moving to Reverb, even some long term vintage parts dealers I know. 

 

[Pip]

I buy stuff on ebay all the time. Had one problem in 10 years! I would never scam anybody! I wouldn't sell anything on ebay with a gun to my head! Most buyers are looking to low ball that is why they are trolling ebay! Yes Reverb is my choice too! That being said not all sellers have it together either!

 

[hodad]

I've vigorously complained to CSRs who can change nothing about the pressures ebay puts on sellers to a) jack up their margins and b) bend over backwards to please buyers.  It puts the squeeze on the sellers that helped build ebay in the first place.  And while I do enjoy buying cheap car door handles from China on ebay,  it would be nice if those weren't the only type of seller they seem to care about these days. 
I think if ebay faces more competing sites like ebay, they may become more responsive to their sellers' needs--or at least drop their fees a bit.

 

[Gene Pink]

Same here, no point in it anymore.

Sold an audio compressor, we fully tested it before it went out, comes back as "Non-functional".

I pull it apart, all the PS caps were dried out, and the PS board had lousy solder connections on the wire posts These caps didn't dry out to near zero uF in a week, obviously buyer bought, swapped PS boards with a bad one he already had, and returned.

Si I fixed, and offered it to buyer again to see what he would say, no reply, what a surprise. Damn thief, and we couldn't leave feedback as to warn other sellers.

Done with ebay.

What is this "Reverb" place?

Gene

 

[Rocinante]

Total loss in sales for 2015:

$450

In one instance i sold a digital mixer to a buyer who had entered  the wrong mail address. The post office tried to deliver it but it didnt make sense. While returning it back to me it disappeared or was sent to "dead mail".
All the while the buyer never said a thing for two months then opens a claim. He never told me nothing arrived or asked me a question.  Eventually ebay sided with the buyer. And i was out the money and the mixer. When i contacted the "dead mail" office they looked for a week supposedly and found nothing.
Bastids.

 

[ruffrecords]

Similar experiences here, one win one loss. I sold a battery LCD oscilloscope. Buyer claimed it only worked on a mains adaptor but not on batteries. I got him to send it back. I tested it with batteries and it was fine. I made a video with it working with batteries with the battery compartment open so you could see the batteries in there. Posted it on YouTube and sent a link to the buyer. I offered to return it to him if he paid postage and he did.

I also sold an M-audio audio card. Buyer insisted it was faulty because she could not get it to work on Windows 10 which had only just come out. I said it was her responsibility to check operating sytem compatibility. She quoted the Consumer Protection Act at me and opened an eBay claim. eBay of course recommended I give a full refund. After some further correspondence she eventually agreed to pay return postage. The card of course works fine.

Some problems are caused by sheer ignorance. I sold  some toroid transformers. I quoted the rated voltage and current. One buyer complained he did not get rated current in his load. I asked if he got rated voltage - he said yes. I told him to go read up on ohms law.

I have not sold anything on eBay since.

Cheers

Ian

 

[beatnik]

the web is full of stories

there are class actions against ebay and paypal but i wonder how can you compete, they have became giants and move a lot of money, and once you are a big fish the other big fishes are going to protect you

 

[Andy Peters]

i found ebay to have become unusable for selling to the point of ridiculousness

Same here. eBay really wants to be in the "storefront" business and as such they're actually appealing to buyers. There is no support for sellers and as should be obvious, eBay doesn't care.

My eBay and corresponding PayPal accounts were closed nearly five years ago, and I haven't looked there for anything to buy since.

 

[JohnRoberts]

There are more buyers than sellers, so they bend over backwards to make buying stuff "worry free " for that majority. Risk has always been part of business for merchants, but kids today are taught that safe spaces and a no-fault life is possible.

Yes there are a fraction of customers abusing the system and this isn't new. I sold mail order back in the '70s and there were scammers back then too.

I choose not to use ebay/amazon for my current business to avoid more customer hassles. I already offer a return policy with a modest restocking fee to reduce the number of unserious customers.  In the very few cases where a customer genuinely couldn't use the product I would typically forgive the restocking fee.

While I would probably sell more product at the end of the day on EBAY/Amazon.  Life is too short to deal with those terms.

JR

 

[ruffrecords]

the web is full of stories

there are class actions against ebay and paypal but i wonder how can you compete, they have became giants and move a lot of money, and once you are a big fish the other big fishes are going to protect you

Sounds just like the EU.

Cheers

Ian

 

[dmp]

It's been several years (8?) since ebay made it so sellers can't leave neg feedback. And the fees are outrageous now - I typically see 10% of the selling price. It seems they don't have much competition, so they can do what they want. And it seems they made a bet that favoring buyers over sellers would increase revenue, and it seems they were right (looking at revenue by year). If they had lost their sellers, they would have had to change course.

But there isn't a good place to sell stuff otherwise. I'll try reverb.com for gear next time and see how it works (I've only bought from there so far). But they really need some competition.

 

[emrr]

They've lost many of their 'yard sale' auction sellers on purpose in favor of turning it to a predominate retail outlet.  Auction is very little of overall revenue. 

 

[beatnik]

they are in a position to do whatever they want and people will still bend to their rules. i agree one big reason is the lack of competitors, but it's also difficult finding alternatives when you need to optimize time and profit

in any case i believe there should be someone stopping them to do whatever they want and force them to give equal rights to buyers and sellers- but if they are increasing profits who is gonna say no ? has the system ever changed its mind when there is money to be made ? give me one example ...

the comparison with the EU is totally realistic

 

[emrr]

There a case to be made against them: they spent years fighting regulation from the argument of 'we are only a venue with no direct hand in the buyer/seller interaction'.  Once they had Congress lobbied up and on their side, they tossed all that and inserted themselves heavily into the actual transaction, and no one's challenged it.  I was really somewhat surprised the USPS/Western Union/Etc didn't sue once they made Paypal the only approved payment method, I can't think of another instance where legitimate payment methods have been banned. 

 

[kambo]

There a case to be made against them: they spent years fighting regulation from the argument of 'we are only a venue with no direct hand in the buyer/seller interaction'.  Once they had Congress lobbied up and on their side, they tossed all that and inserted themselves heavily into the actual transaction, and no one's challenged it.  I was really somewhat surprised the USPS/Western Union/Etc didn't sue once they made Paypal the only approved payment method, I can't think of another instance where legitimate payment methods have been banned.

sorry if i got you wrong, but

there are many web shops that dont do every single available payments methods...
some only do Visa,
some only do mastercard... some does all...

SCE were only taking mastercard couple years ago, they recently added
VISA to their system.

amazon doesnt do paypal...

i remember paypal button on mouser.com  but it kind a disapared for me recently  ???

i dont take it as banning, its just business decision!

 

[emrr]

What I mean is they banned US issued cash and money orders, bank checks, etc.  That is different from not using a particular credit vendor. 

 

[kambo]

What I mean is they banned US issued cash and money orders, bank checks, etc.  That is different from not using a particular credit vendor.

for small businesses cheques, money order etc works just fine...
they usually try ban  edit: avoid all credit vendor based payments anyway...

just curious,
if you had such large online business, would you deal with cheques and money orders,
that you have to deal with manually ?



edit 2: i am with you on US issued cheques and money orders etc btw....

 

[emrr]

Well, I definitely preferred getting stacks of US hundred dollar bills or Japan Postal MO's sent via registered mail from Japan and Korea versus Paypal with no seller protection at all.  At this point you don't really have your money free and clear until 180 days have passed. 

 

[kambo]

Well, I definitely preferred getting stacks of US hundred dollar bills or Japan Postal MO's sent via registered mail from Japan and Korea versus Paypal with no seller protection at all.  At this point you don't really have your money free and clear until 180 days have passed.

getting stacks of US hundred dollar bills sound good to me too
;D ;D ;D

edit:  i liked my own post for the $$$$$ who wouldnt  ;D