After Nearly Ten Years Of eBay, I Am Off To CL

[martin]

http://www.paypalsucks.com

I sell (and buy) on eBay. But it is, undoubtedly, devil spawn. I so wish for a well-known, useful alternative to eBay.

http://db.powersellersunite.com/auctionsitewatch.php

[decocritter]

I just sold my first item on ebay in a long time. I shipped it using the shipping wizard, suggested by eBay, which under estimated the actual shipping (does not always use Postal standards girth and oversize package guide) After the box and bubblewrap, delivery confirmation, I still ate $5 in shipping costs. No place on the wizard to show delvery confirm fees. So you show a small handling fee and get slammed with neg feedback on high shipping.

With paypal holding fees, but requiring seller to ship anyway, so they can get postive feedback, so PP will release the fees...is just not going to work for me, on any valuable item or item expensive to ship.

eBay is leaning hard on sellers to eat shipping and packing costs by allowing buyers to give detailed DSR ratings on shipping. If you use Priority Mail as your shipping option you show up way down the search (cheapest shipping is on top) . If you offer Parcel Post, you get slammed for slow shipping. Buyers are holding sellers responsible for USPS shipping times and slamming sellers. All of this matters because fee discounts and search results are dependent on these factor. Any kind of weak feedback hurts. I just got an email suggesting I offer "free" shipping. I sell antiques, not cd's. I am not going to eat $15 plus shipping.

eBay is also going away with buyer feedback from seller. My sale, payment, and shipping is OK so far. But I have not had one bit of communication from the buyer. I ask for an email with correct address at the end of the auction. I emailed him that he won. I then emailed him that I was shipping and tracking #. This kind of buyer will be the first one to go nuts if something does go wrong.

Problems come in when there is NO communication.

eBay is also using some un-named criteria for pulling auctions, monetary limits and "risky goods" and other reasons known only by them...to prevent fraud. Yet they are doing nothing to slow down fraudulent buyers, except to tell you to call the police.

eBay/PP need to be held to some type of banking practices..they are tying up more and more sellers money and making a fortune off the interest. I was required to use it because I have not sold in some time.

[katkramer]

eBay is a scam.

I've had problems with sellers who are manipulating feedback ratings...I brought it to eBay's attention, and I was actually THREATENED by eBay with "transaction interference."

A seller was selling Swarovski crystal beads, but not delivering. I had looked at the seller's feedback rating, and it "seemed" alright at 99.6%. Because it was so high, I didn't look at the detailed feedback. It was a mistake.

After having a problem with payment with them (they didn't accept PayPal, and you had to go through a third-party system to pay), I tried to contact them, and they didn't respond. As I got frustrated, I started looking into their feedback ratings, and found that the seller was "pumping up" their feedback ratings with bogus purchases of "penny ebooks" and penny recipes. Other people were having problems, and when all was said and done there was about $2000 of purchases that people hadn't received. I contacted other buyers, and we tried to get eBay to do something. However, since the auctions were small...<$25, they were exempt from any rules...and we contacted eBay's Safe Harbor Department.

I discovered a whole underground network of feedback manipulation. One of the penny ebooks being sold even told sellers how to achieve "Power Seller" status by selling phony ebooks. One seller would put them up for sale...then other people would buy them...then they give each other favorable ratings. And after so many sales, the seller becomes a Power Seller.

So I started buying the ebooks, and using the feedback system to warn other buyers of what was happening. I also contacted the credit card processing company that the seller was using, and they shut the seller down. eBay still wouldn't do anything, and threatened to revoke my membership...which had been perfect. They also refused to shut the seller down, and threatened me with a lawsuit if I didn't stop interfering with the seller's ability to do business on eBay. I tried to use their chat boards to get help from other users, and they would shut my chats down within an hour of me posting a question. I had been a good eBay citizen for many years. And now this jerk who was scamming people and getting away with it. After that, I never used eBay again.

Anyway, I've found CL to be great, and the people honest. I've sold my car and gotten more for it than expected, sold exercise equipment, and just this week sold my iBook G4 within 24 hours for what I was asking for it. I've also bought things and paid more than people asked because I felt guilty that they weren't asking enough.

Craigslist ROCKS.

[katkramer]

Check out these pages...the navigation links on the web page don't work, so you'll have to click each link separately. Some idiot in England tries to scam some American guy in a PowerBook purchase on eBay. This is a hysterical story of how they got him back.

http://www.newssocket.com/features/article/231/page/1/
http://www.newssocket.com/features/article/231/page/2/
http://www.newssocket.com/features/article/231/page/3/
http://www.newssocket.com/features/article/231/page/4/
http://www.newssocket.com/features/article/231/page/5/
http://www.newssocket.com/features/article/231/page/6/
http://www.newssocket.com/features/article/231/page/7/

[decocritter]

Craigslist is fine for cars, junk, etc, but not for antiques or expensive collectibles.

It is a big garage sale, and is really only local. Small market.

I also don't and won't have folks coming over to pick things up at my home or to "see" them.

[decocritter]

Crooks ruin everything.

[Kiva]

peter, i'm not sure craigslist is too interested in letting ebay in any further...and, actually, they want ebay out:

"As the complaint indicated, last year Mr. Buckmaster wrote to Meg Whitman, then the chief executive of eBay, saying, “We are no longer comfortable having eBay as a shareholder, and wish to explore options for our repurchase, or for otherwise finding a new home for these shares.”


http://www.nytimes.com/2008/05/12/techno....html?_r=1&8dpc&oref=slogin

[hal]

"So I started buying the ebooks, and using the feedback system to warn other buyers of what was happening. I also contacted the credit card processing company that the seller was using, and they shut the seller down. eBay still wouldn't do anything, and threatened to revoke my membership...which had been perfect. They also refused to shut the seller down, and threatened me with a lawsuit if I didn't stop interfering with the seller's ability to do business on eBay. I tried to use their chat boards to get help from other users, and they would shut my chats down within an hour of me posting a question. I had been a good eBay citizen for many years. And now this jerk who was scamming people and getting away with it. After that, I never used eBay again. "

There are thieves in the world. Get used to it. CL is full of them! Leave the thieves alone. Mind you own business - literally. Thieves and the idiots that fall for the scams have always been with us and always will. You can spend your whole life reporting the scammers on CL too, but it won't get you or anyone else any more safety than if you left it alone.

I find this kind of behavior very strange. Do you march into seedy parks and try to break up drug deals too?

[PeterB]

Kiva, I know some of them aren't interested in letting ebay in any further. It's not entirely up to just them, however... if someone within the company sells their shares, ebay will hold a majority stake.

[hal]

Craig hold the majority of shares - it'll NEVER get into ebay's hands. I think it was only a 10% stake.