Taking a beating on EBAY lately

[Screwjack]

Just not the same...

I have been mostly buying on eBay almost since it started. I have sold a few items. I have only had one bad transaction and it was resolved quickly way back in my beginning with eBay. Since then I have always had a positive experience until about two maybe three years ago, actually maybe more. I noticed three things happening, the deals were not deals anymore and almost everyone is ripping people off on shipping an lastly people started being weird with the feedback. I find that lately if you spend a little time looking around the internet you will find just as good of a deal if not better most of the time. So eBay will have t have something I really want and can not find elsewhere. The last two things i mentioned really get me. The shipping prices are for the most part flat out ripping people off. We ship stuff everyday here where I work and we receive shipments everyday. I know what we pay to ship and what we pay vendors to ship items to us. We do not ship enough to get any special deals. Shipping rates have gone up significantly lately, but most people on eBay are looking to make a few extra bucks with theirs shipping prices. I really don't wan tto get into the feedback thing, this isn't the proper place.

But, eBay just is not the same as it used to be. It has become basically another store and I feel the bidding gives most people the false sense that they are getting some kind of deal, and really they are not.

Hey just my 2 cents on the issue, hope I did not offend anyone

 

[Selector]

This will be taken as a bit of a diversion, and not unjustifiably, but the shipping thing bothers me in one respect (I acknowledge the comments just now about inflated shipping to pad profits if you are an ebay denizen...) but some etailers, no matter where they be, insist on using UPS or that other racket KDL...whatever it is called. (I think they are crime fronts, but what do I know..) For receivers in Canada, me among them, these carriers charge a minimum of CDN$40 to "facilitate" or broker the item through customs. That more than doubles the shipping charges. Do you suppose the etailers get a weeeeee, tiniest bit of a kick back for placing the items with the carriers? If they don't, they're downright stupid.

I attach comments to all my online purchases with strict instructions to either ship by USPS or ignore the order...it is null and void. So far, all those receiving such instructions have been willing to accommodate me. In three orders I "save" the cost of a nice RTR DCC-ready engine!

-Crandell

 

[mikeb2008]

Following that diversion, for a moment: I ship to Canada all the time and only use Postal Mail for this very reason. Though it is technically a bigger risk to ship by Postal, it is worth it to me to have many happy customers. I know UPS and Fedex and others all have "customs broker fees". UNbelieveable!

 

[Vyceroy]

I have a story about Ebay but i am the one with the problem .. I bid on 3 items and won them .. went to pay and couldnt get paypal to take it out of my checking .. come to find out my wife had been fired from her job and didnt want to tell me .. we had been using up the money in the account like mad since we didnt have her income.. the sellers on Ebay were upset at the delay in payment but all 3 have worked with me and i am finally able to make the payments Tomorrow (Friday Oct 16th) .. i am really really appreciative of these guys trusting me .. sometimes tough times are real .. Ron

 

[malletman]

Ebay really has changed over the years, like others I have a few certain folks I buy from most of the time. This is about the best buying spot when your building a Marklin European layout, which is what I was doing the last 5 years. Now that I am back into USA modeling, with brass engines and older models. I save up my pennies and go to the huge 4 building train show at Wheaton IL each month that I can, I find much better deals there than on ebay. I still watch ebay for pricing trends and odd ball items. I love watching stuff sell for more than you can buy it from a online retailer or even the local hobby shop. I am also on the HOYARDSALE yahoo group, deals are far and few between, but they are there. I do have a hard time selling there though, guys want to doller for thier stuff but wont pay a fair price themselves. And there are a few deep pocketed snobs on there as well. It is a good site to post wanted to buy items, espicaly when you looking for a hard to find item and are willing to pay a good price for it. Mike

 

[stationmaster]

Mike, I do agree, eBay has changed in the past 3-4 years. There are about a dozen sellers that I really enjoy. I even buy from them off the eBay site. One helped me to rebuild a severely damaged Rivarossi Mallet that belonged to my dad. Once you start dealing with sellers regularly, a confidence, even a relationship, is built between the two.

As a seller I have three fellas that have been very faithful. Before I list an item, I contact them to see if they are interested. One is a BIG collector of TYCO. Whenever I buy a lot of trains and the package contains TYCO, I drop the guy and email.... He usually snatches the items right up. Another models NS on the 1980-90's. I get a decent engine, I drop him a line. So deals can be made even on eBay once that bond is formed.

Still, I despise the guys that overcharges shipping to make a dollar more. They are cheating everyone, from eBay(with diluted fees), to the buyer, to other sellers(since eBay doesn't make as much money, they raise the rates for all). It really is a pet peeve. I'll get off my soap box now.

Bob

 

[ST214]

I cannot use Ebay anymore, cause i no longer have a PayScam(paypal) account.

Long story short...i decided to sell something on Ebay...i'd had no problems ever as a buyer, and had a great rating....Still do. What happened is after i sold the item, i paid all the fees, got my money, and was done with it. The next week, PayScam tries to pull out the fees again, but i didn't have enough in my bank account, so i got hit with a overdraft fee....my bank account was so empty cause i had no automatic transactions due, and i needed $$$$. I contact PayScam to get a "we never tried to withdraw from your account" response....2 days later, they tried again....another overdraft fee(still not payday yet).....On the day i got paid, PayScam tried AGAIN to withdraw it, unfortunatly, they tried a hour before my paycheck went in, Another fee from the bank. I went down to my bank(Bank of America) to get this crap stopped. At first tehy tell me the only thing they can do is block PayScam, and do nothing about the fees since BoA had at the time been having LOTS of problems with the same kind of activity from Ebay and PayScam that i had gotten....i pressure them and finally, they tell me i will get info in the mail about how to get my money back. After this, i headed to the club i belong to in Worcester,MA to run some trains...need to release stress after all. A few days later, i get a big envelope from BoA...it's the instructions on how to go after PayScam to get my overdraft fees back. I read into it to find out that BoA will hire me a lawyer(free of charge) to get the fees back if i go to court...in VIRGINIA. Great, i'm in Massachusetts. So if i want my money back i have to take time off from work and go to Virginia to go to court, with no guarantee of anything. I ripped up the papers and threw them away, chalked it up to one hell of a bad experience, and left it at that....


Basically, thanks to PayScam, i now have 3 overdrafts on my bank record(before, i had ZERO), and am out around $100.

I refuse to ever use PayScam...EVER....

There is also a block on my account for them....if they ever manage to get in there again, i will have a major federal case against them.

After all that, i was still getting emails from them trying to get me to sign up for another account. They stopped, as i replied to every single one of the emails with *CENSORED*.

 

[LarryT]

I've been buying and selling on eBay for about 10 years now, with only occasional problems. I do have a 100% positive sellers rating with about 500 feedbacks.

I will say that model railroaders are THE BEST people to work with on eBay. I've only had good experiences buying or selling trains.

When buying I always look for a seller with at least 99% positive feedback, at least 100 feedbacks (and usually far more), and who has been active for at least 5 years. I'm sure there are great sellers who don't meet these qualifications, but that's what I look for. I also tend to look around in their feedback just to get a sense of what their transactions are like. You want to see all feedback look something like "item exactly as described, great packing, fast shipping, thanks!".

 

[tankist]

I cannot use Ebay anymore, cause i no longer have a PayScam(paypal) account.

i feel for your troubles but don't you think it was extremely poor planning on your part? when you open seller account the situation with fees is explained explicitly and not as part of the fine print. while i agree their fees are ripoff, you knew they going to take the money.
besides the fact you could leave money on PP account to cover the fee, running your checking account so low that you can't even pay twenty bucks or so (my last month charge was 6$ or so) is really poor planning. especially as you know you have authorised automatic withdrawal

i'm truly sorry to hear you were hit like this but you had it coming and you knew it was coming so you can only blame and get pissed at yourself.

 

[ST214]

I had paid ALL fees.....including the PayScam fee...but their system kept trying to withdraw it over and over again. As stated, i was running low because i had no transactions due and i was broke...It was not poor planning on my part, it was a glitch in PayScam's syatem that cost me almost $100.

i feel for your troubles but don't you think it was extremely poor planning on your part? when you open seller account the situation with fees is explained explicitly and not as part of the fine print. while i agree their fees are ripoff, you knew they going to take the money.
besides the fact you could leave money on PP account to cover the fee, running your checking account so low that you can't even pay twenty bucks or so (my last month charge was 6$ or so) is really poor planning. especially as you know you have authorised automatic withdrawal

i'm truly sorry to hear you were hit like this but you had it coming and you knew it was coming so you can only blame and get pissed at yourself.

 

[tankist]

there is a posting fee, paypal transaction fee (where they don't give you all the money buyer gave you), and monthly service charge at the begining of the month. i'm pissed about all these as well (at a time to the point i wish someone will catch the CEO lady somwhere in dark corner and give her couple hard slaps ) but thats the rules of the game

i highly doubt they suddenly charged you out of nowhere . by the sound of it the kept trying to collect that monthly fee, the fact you did not have enough funds on your checking is your fault

 

[fiend540]

I have read plenty of horror stories with paypal from the sellers side of the story. The whole setup is geared to protect the buyer over the seller, which is one of the reasons I like to use since I very rarely sell stuff but I purchase stuff quite frequently off of forums and ebay. The problem arises that all the buyer has to do is register a complaint about not receiving an item and the buyer gets slammed and it's up to them to prove their case meanwhile paypal has no problem with freezing a bank account and wrecking all sorts of havoc. Paypal is extremely difficult to work with in these situations as it's damn near impossible to get anyone on the phone who doesn't have their head up their ass. I guess as a seller it boils down to airing on the cautious side of everything, you need to get tracking numbers and you most certainly don't want the paypal account tied to your main checking account.

 

[stang_crazy]

there is a posting fee, paypal transaction fee (where they don't give you all the money buyer gave you), and monthly service charge at the begining of the month. i'm pissed about all these as well (at a time to the point i wish someone will catch the CEO lady somwhere in dark corner and give her couple hard slaps ) but thats the rules of the game

i highly doubt they suddenly charged you out of nowhere . by the sound of it the kept trying to collect that monthly fee, the fact you did not have enough funds on your checking is your fault

Monthly service fee???

Id like to know what your talking about here? Ive been ebay & pay pal for the last 11 years and have never heard of a monthly service fee.

 

[stang_crazy]

I have read plenty of horror stories with paypal from the sellers side of the story. The whole setup is geared to protect the buyer over the seller, which is one of the reasons I like to use since I very rarely sell stuff but I purchase stuff quite frequently off of forums and ebay. The problem arises that all the buyer has to do is register a complaint about not receiving an item and the buyer gets slammed and it's up to them to prove their case meanwhile paypal has no problem with freezing a bank account and wrecking all sorts of havoc. Paypal is extremely difficult to work with in these situations as it's damn near impossible to get anyone on the phone who doesn't have their head up their ass. I guess as a seller it boils down to airing on the cautious side of everything, you need to get tracking numbers and you most certainly don't want the paypal account tied to your main checking account.

If ya look at the ratio of people who have had problems with pay pal vs who hasnt there is a big difference.

Ive had no problems ever with them. Theres been a few instances where some things were put on my pay pal account & a CS rep called me just to make sure it was legit.

I dunno, i guess ya love it or hate it. But if they make me angry all i gotta do is drive an hour or so and drive through there building LOL since pay pal is hear in nebraska.

 

[tankist]

Stang, are you saying i'm being shafted?

***This is an automatically generated email. Please do not reply.***

Invoice Number: 88888-88888888888

Hello Anton Grasyuk (agrasyuk),

Your monthly eBay invoice for the period from September 1, 2009 through September 30, 2009 is now available to view online.


Amount Due: $7.49

You have set up PayPal as your automatic payment method. Your invoice amount will be automatically deducted from your PayPal account no sooner than 10 days after the invoice date. The amount deducted may vary based on recent payments or credits.

oh yeah, i guess my monthly was 7.5 not 6. oh well

 

[stang_crazy]

Stang, are you saying i'm being shafted?



oh yeah, i guess my monthly was 7.5 not 6. oh well

that monthly fee is only because you sold items. The way ya made it sound i thought ya were getting charged every month for something other then the normal fees.

 

[stang_crazy]

I cannot use Ebay anymore, cause i no longer have a PayScam(paypal) account.

Long story short...i decided to sell something on Ebay...i'd had no problems ever as a buyer, and had a great rating....Still do. What happened is after i sold the item, i paid all the fees, got my money, and was done with it. The next week, PayScam tries to pull out the fees again, but i didn't have enough in my bank account, so i got hit with a overdraft fee....my bank account was so empty cause i had no automatic transactions due, and i needed $$$$. I contact PayScam to get a "we never tried to withdraw from your account" response....2 days later, they tried again....another overdraft fee(still not payday yet).....On the day i got paid, PayScam tried AGAIN to withdraw it, unfortunatly, they tried a hour before my paycheck went in, Another fee from the bank. I went down to my bank(Bank of America) to get this crap stopped. At first tehy tell me the only thing they can do is block PayScam, and do nothing about the fees since BoA had at the time been having LOTS of problems with the same kind of activity from Ebay and PayScam that i had gotten....i pressure them and finally, they tell me i will get info in the mail about how to get my money back. After this, i headed to the club i belong to in Worcester,MA to run some trains...need to release stress after all. A few days later, i get a big envelope from BoA...it's the instructions on how to go after PayScam to get my overdraft fees back. I read into it to find out that BoA will hire me a lawyer(free of charge) to get the fees back if i go to court...in VIRGINIA. Great, i'm in Massachusetts. So if i want my money back i have to take time off from work and go to Virginia to go to court, with no guarantee of anything. I ripped up the papers and threw them away, chalked it up to one hell of a bad experience, and left it at that....


Basically, thanks to PayScam, i now have 3 overdrafts on my bank record(before, i had ZERO), and am out around $100.

I refuse to ever use PayScam...EVER....

There is also a block on my account for them....if they ever manage to get in there again, i will have a major federal case against them.

After all that, i was still getting emails from them trying to get me to sign up for another account. They stopped, as i replied to every single one of the emails with *CENSORED*.

Sounds like to me you had it set up for automatic payments every month if ya owed anything.

If you go in and pay it manual before the automatic charge is done it still gonna try and take the money. Thats why if ya have it set for auto let it do so. If you pay manually then no worries.

 

[blownoutcylinder]

If a person sells something every month then the charge be there every month I suspect.

My PayPal is set up so that there is always at least 35% more in it to cover fees or what have you. I get no surprises that way.

 

[tankist]

that monthly fee is only because you sold items. The way ya made it sound i thought ya were getting charged every month for something.

you taking my comment out of context. ST complained about trouble that started when he tried to sell stuff. he stated he was under impression he payed all the fees, its that monthly that got him. but it doesn't matter really.


ST, buddy. don't get me wrong. last thing i wanted to do is offend you. it always upsets me to hear of people who got cought up in the corporate and government cog teeth of bureaucracy. they are faceless, always turning, always ready to suck in those unexpecting. but then it is our responsibility to steer away from theese. no one is going to help you other then yourself. think 2 steps ahead, take care of yourself.

 

[stang_crazy]

the way i see it is a mojority of the people who have issues with ebay and pay pal, make the issues happen them selves they just dont realize it then they wanna put the blame else where.