Why eBay is Crap
Recently I've been selling a few bits and pieces on eBay. It's a good marketplace with loads of potential buyers. Some buyers though, suck. And eBay makes it easy for them to be as sucky as is possible.
I sold an item for a few pounds. The buyer asked to make payment in a weeks time – well, I didn;t want that as I wanted an instant payment. So I went through the laborious process of cancelling the transaction. When you cancel a transaction the buyer has to agree.
Guess what; the buyer did not agree to cancel, so the case was closed and I have to wait until the buyer wants to pay me, which could be never. Why never? Once a case has been opened and closed, it cannot be re-opened. And any transaction can only ever have 1 case.
This means that if the buyer never pays I cannot open an unpaid item case, as my 1 and only available case has been used!
What a great way for crappy buyers to game eBay and game sellers. eBay customer services see things only from the perspective of the buyer, never the seller. Even though the seller is the one who pays ALL the fees.
And now, guess what?
The buyer has now decided he does not want the item at all. So I am stuck in limbo, with eBay telling me I have to complete the transaction and the buyer telling me they do not want the item.
eBay, you are shit.
Now lets talk about customer services
I managed to get hold of a customer services rep to see what could be done about a non-buying-buyer. Answer: nothing, as I already used my "one shot" case. The rep did as much as he could including placing a "goodwill" credit onto my account (equivalent to the listing fee and final valuation fee of the item that the buyer is not buying). I did not ask for this, and asked him to remove it (which he could not do). Apparently only the billing department can remove a credit. Ho hum.
Next, I asked to speak with his Manager. The manager refused to speak with me. I asked for the line manager of that manager in order to raise a complaint, to be told "we don't give that type of information".
So, it's now impossible to;
1. speak with a manager
2. get the name of that persons line manager
3. open an unpaid item case
The upshot?
I'm expecting this non-buying-buyer to give me a negative feedback. We will see if that happens. And what can I do about it? Nothing.
eBay, you really are shit.
Comment by Bill — June 9, 2012 @ 9:58 am
I feel for you. Ebay is just as crummy to buyers. They do nothing to weed out rotten behavior from buyers or sellers. Ebay has "we are fair to everyone" lies plastered all over their site but the truth is they do almost nothing to restrict rotten behavior as long as it lines their pockets.
I wrote a seller asking if they would give reduced shipping if I bought multiple items they said "sure" so I bought 4 items, then the seller refused to send a reduced invoice and simply won't respond. Ebay says I have to pay the full shipping on each item even though he agreed to a specific reduced rate in private messages.
My wife bought "rainbow" roses but when I looked at the listing, it seemed a bit suspicious. I did research and found out rainbow roses don't exist- scam seller from Tiawan. I reported the listing as a scam and got ebay form letter "we'll immediately review this listing and take action" repLIE- the listing is still up! I can get the back $3 I paid for the seeds if I ship the them back to Taiwan with a tracking # (costs more than $3). Ebay does nothing. I've had dozens of similar experiences as both a buyer and seller. Ebay support is just useless.
There are a lot of good buyers and sellers on ebay but about 10% of the people are total jackasses -sometimes or all the time. Ebay does nothing to weed them out. Personally, I'm done with ebay. I'd rather use Craigslist or do yard sales than support ebay.
Comment by cindymom — June 9, 2012 @ 11:33 pm
lol so true Ebay sucks these days. They don't provide any protection from crappy scam artists – sellers or buyers. I've had sellers refuse to send items because the final price was too low and there's nothing you can do about it. They relist the item with a higher minimum and ebay does nothing. Ebay says all kinds of garbage about bids being a binding contract, but you can't give sellers a non-sending strike and even if a buyer or seller gets banned for being bad, they just open a new account and ebay does nothing. Like the post above says, there are some good people on ebay, but there are just too many rotten thieves on ebay for it to be worth it. Ebay doesn't care as long as they get money. I mostly use Amazon these days.