Pretty shocking given the totally useless customer service!
Paypal (who are owned by Ebay) will withold payments over £50 until the seller stumps up to send off their goods without having received a penny. The status remains like this until the buyer leaves positive feedback (which of course is optional), or possibly at the end of a 45 day wait. It's 45 days if no dispute is raised and no feedback is left. If a dispute is raised, who knows when, or even if you will get paid. Paypal take their cut from you immediately when the auction ends, but before you get the payment. How convenient and hassle free this is for Paypal!
Sellers can't leave negative feedback for bad buyers either.
I conclude Ebay don't want to encourage private sellers anymore.
All very one sided!
All very greedy!
Can anyone recommend alternatives?
It's a monopoly innit 🙁
Yeah, I discovered that today. I didn't like eBay before, now I REALLY don't like it!
Paypal (who are owned by Ebay) will withold payments over £50 until the seller stumps up to send off their goods without having received a penny.
Isn't that just for new ebay users though until your feedback reaches a certain rating, or is it a new rule for everyone? (if it is, then it will certainly scupper my frame swap plans 🙁 ). I sold a GPS unit recently and the money was available in my Paypal account straight away.
Don't use it - just walk into the buyers bank & deposit the money in his account?
Isn't that just for new ebay users though, until your feedback reaches a certain rating or is it a new rule for everyone? (if it is, then it will certainly scupper my frqme swap plans ). I sold a GPS unit recently and the money was available in my Paypal account straight away.
Dunno, my feedback's only 50 so I guess it could be.
I don't sell on ebay, or indeed much at all. What do you reckon the uplift in market price you get from advertising to such a large audience is?
There seem to be bargains on the classifieds here in a way that there just aren't on ebay. So I reckon people on here are selling quickly, into a relatively small and trusted group and without fees at considerably reduced prices.
14% commission for stuff you would end up binning or have sitting in your garage/shed/house doing nothing and cluttering the place up.
Sounds fair enough to me.
I reported EBay & Paypal to Office of Fair Trading - got nothing back from them in the way of acknowledgement at all. I think forcing users to offer a payment system that Ebay owns is restrictive practice. But IANAL
Don't just complain here - Give it a whirl with the OFT - http://www.oft.gov.uk/ - the more the merrier.
Their greed and the uselessness of their customer services are a textbook example of why monopolies are a bad thing.
We should have supported QXL then Ebay would still have competition....
I've been an Ebayer for years. I've made a few quid here and there and bought and sold a lot of stuff, my feedback is over 300, 100% positive.
Whan I sold my Yeti and some motorbike parts last year I did notice how high the fees were and since then I've stopped selling on there and done all my selling on the STW classifides, including our car.
Now I've read that, they can pretty much shove it, TBH.
I'd rather sell on here and give the STW coffers a small boost now and then.
No, you don't get as much for bike partsd on STW as people drive a hard bargain and know what they want, but TBH it's less faff, much faster, and you don't get knobbled with the charges
Oh, I recently changed my email addy from peterpoddy@aol.com to peterpoddy@googlemail.com. Went to do the change on Ebay and was told I can't have the same email address as my username, despite the fact it already is!!
15% comission? Seems reasonable, given they have created a market for your old crap.
Maybe you should go to car boot sales, hold garage sales, explore other markets for your old crap
Or maybe just not buy as much new crap in the first place??
Ebay isn't a monopoly. eg, classifieds on here. Classifieds every-bloody-where. QXL existed, Ebay is just better at it.
It's more like "the people's choice". Thats how it got so massive anyway.
[i]Or maybe just not buy as much new crap in the first place?? [/i]
Shut it commie. 😉
I always try and sell bike stuff on here first. None of you wanted it 😉
I'll keep buying on ebay cos of the choice but i wont sell again, to pay 14% for the priviledge of having your payments held by paypal is too much to stomach especially since paypal instantly take their slice.
I was about to put a few thing on there last week and then I read the fees page. Thought it was rather steep, I'd prefer to knock the money off teh asking price than pay 10% for a 'service' that's very hands off...
uselessness of their customer services
I just bought something, seller refused to refund postage (just purchase price) although the item was materially different than the picture showed. I raised a complaint and it has just been found in my favour. This means that his PayPal account will be automatically debited and I get my full refund.
Not that useless IMO and the benefit of both parts of the transaction being run centrally.
It's useless as a seller, totally biased towards the buyer, as you've just found!
Yup, I've sold nothing on ebay in a long time, buy stuff occasionaly, but thats becaue as you pointed out the whole system is now biassed towards the buyer.
Shame realy because it was a nice way of getting rid of loads of stuff with minimal hastle. Now I'm just puting it on classifides for the lower end of whatever it would make on ebay.
It's useless as a seller, totally biased towards the buyer, as you've just found!
Why is that a problem? you are a seller and just like any shop you have a responsibility to the buyer, of course you can get chancers trying it on but if youve been honest in your description and packed/posted correctly then you will have no problem defending your sale against a complaint.
Why is that a problem? you are a seller and just like any shop you have a responsibility to the buyer, of course you can get chancers trying it on but if youve been honest in your description and packed/posted correctly then you will have no problem defending your sale against a complaint.
Except that they will almost always side with the buyer anyway, regardless of how good your argument/evidence is. I have a mate who used to run a business selling on ebay, he has pretty much given up as it's such a nightmare now.
I think it's too expensive now. I just sold a fair bit of bike kit and got stung for £80.00 ebay charges and £35 paypal. I'm just going to put it on there and wait for the email offers to come along, as they always do. Then pull it from the auction and just do a paypal deal. If you have good feedback, people will trust that your not a rip off merchant!
because theres an ever growing scam on ebay, say i want a new bike.....
bid on ebay, doesnt matter how much as i wont be paying anyway......
win, pay, wait for it to arrive, then magicaly claim it never did.
Even if the seller sends paypay the delivery slip with my signature they won't believe him.
Result, I get a free bike.
I just got an email from Paypal, after asking them why they'd suspended my account and claimed that it had been accessed by a third party (when I'm pretty sure it hadn't).
Leaving aside the fact that I've had scam emails with better grammar, I can't say it's really reassured me very much. Judge for yourselves...
[i]
Thank you for contacting PayPal. My name is Jay-R and I will do my best to
make sure that you get all the required help regarding your concern.
I understand that you are enquiring about the email you have received from
us informing you that a third party user had access your account.
Mr. King, I have reviewed your account and I was able to see here that your
account limitation was already lifted last June 23, 2009 and your account
was already returned to its normal standing again.
The reason why your account was flagged to provide information it is
because our system detects that there might be a possible unauthorised
access to your account and to secure your account we have put a limitation.
Possible reason why our system detects that there is an unauthorised access
on your account is there might be a possibility that your account was
accessed using other computer or your account had been accessed on other
location.
Nothing to worry because in PayPal we always make sure that your account is
safe and secured in which this was the reason why a limitation had been
placed on your account.
I hope I was able to help you today. To serve and assist you is my top
priority.
Thank you for contacting PayPal with your concern, please do not hesitate
to email us back for further assistance.[/i]
What rankles me is the paypal option even if the auction is collection only. I mean, the buyer is collecting/inspecting secondhand goods. There is no way anyone (Allah willing) you can offer a guarantee/warranty and the buyers received/checked before handing over money so why the need to offer Paypal?! Plus if you say- cash on collection due to collection only etc' your listing gets pulled.
Ebay are moving their business model away from individual sellers to becoming a portal for businesses to sell through. That's why you are being priced out - they don't want your business as a seller anymore.
Just factor the 15% into your postage and packaging? If people don't like it, they won't bid.
As we all know, you can sell sand to the Arabs via eBay if you've got a good description, plenty of pics and it's..umm... still has the tags on. So to speak.