24Bit
100+ Head-Fier
- Joined
- Jul 29, 2013
- Posts
- 153
- Likes
- 50
I apologize for whining, I don't do this often but I needed a stress relief on this one. Haha.
I'm beyond upset by eBay's new policies. I've been a registered seller since 2004 but haven't sold anything since mid 2012. Apparently, since then a lot of changes were made. The first and most shocking was that someone can use the Buy It Now feature and not be required to pay for up to a week or something silly like that. There was no information on this during the listing process in the description of what Buy It Now does and how it works. I sold something last week on eBay and the buyer used the Buy It Now function, but did not pay until today. That didn't bother me at first, he seemed trustworthy enough and I was patient, but stressed out about it with Black Friday looming. I had always set my buyers requirements to a certain amount of feedback needed for you to be able to bid on my items. New users were banned. Somehow, this buyer slipped through the system, I thought, as he has +1 on his feedback list. I actually didn't notice until today anyway due to knowing my buyer requirements were set a while back. Turns out eBay did away with that as well in the past year or so.
So, the buyer makes his payment at long last, but whats this?! Payment Status: Pending? What on Earth? I check my paypal account and notice nothing at all in my account, no pending status, totally empty as it was prior to listing the item. The payment he made was being with held until he received the item, and then a 7 day waiting period after that was confirmed. Also, it turns out SOMEHOW, as if by magic, this buyer sent the payment to an old paypal email address that was originally set years ago, but removed neigh two years ago. I deleted that name and added a new email account and even sold a few things with a new primary address. So, now the payment is floating in space somewhere and neither eBay nor Paypal knows where it went or how it happened. They told me to re-activate and add that old address to the paypal account, so I did and voila the money "appeared" in my paypal account...but was pending and being withheld. After speaking to an Indian rep ( I'm so sorry, I'm not bias'ed or anything but I couldn't understand a word she said and had to ask for a new rep with better English skills, once the new rep came on, she was equally as bad so I toughed it out and stuck with her. ) She took ages to explain what happened and put me on hold for almost 20 minutes. She told me that Paypal was in charge of releasing the funds and told me to call Paypal. So I did. Paypal told me eBay is in charge of that, I was a bit annoyed and said oh no, you aren't getting off that easy lets do a triple call with eBay. I know you can do that. So the agent said Sure. After another 15 minutes on hold, the eBay rep politely insulted the Paypal rep for being dimwitted and lying to me about a few other personal account related issues that I'd rather not get into here, but he flat out lied and the eBay rep took my side on it. The paypal rep hung up.
Now talking to the eBay rep, he tells me that he is sorry eBay misled me and that there were so many problems with this transaction but there isn't anything he can do about it. The buyer paid in full for hefty shipping charges on my item AND lives in another country. It would take 2-3 weeks to get to him, easy. Ebay told me that their new policy is to withhold sellers funds until the buyer approves the item and makes sure it is as described...but I have to pay out of pocket for the immense shipping charges for the very large thing I was selling. I have a +150 rating with all positive feedback, yet I guess I'm less trustworthy as a seller, than a BRAND NEW EBAY USER who receives an item and has total control over my funds, as well as to cancel the auction and to approve of the entire transaction itself. I have to put my trust in the brand new user and come up with the funds to pay for the shipping costs, wait for it to arrive in another country on the other side of the world, wait for him to approve it and hope he doesn't want a refund, then wait 7 days after that for the payment to be approved. This is what the eBay rep said the timeline would look like.
Scary things that Paypal and eBay had no comment on during my barrage of questions:
1.) What happens if the buyer demands a refund? Since I do not have the funds in my paypal account, where does the refund come from?
-implied that I would have to shell out the entire refund out of my bank account since my paypal balance was empty and that the payment he made had not cleared and was not approved by him. This made no sense, but this is how the rep described it. Since my funds were being withheld and that i had no money in my paypal account, the refund will come from MY account instead of the original payment he made. This isn't likely, but the rep pretty much summed it up that way that if I didn't have the money to cover the entire transaction in my account and if the buyer wants a refund inbetween this waiting period that the funds are withheld on, the refund comes directly out of my pocket. After the waiting period is up, I would be reimbursed, then that money would instantly go back to paypal. Nothing made any sense around this.
2. ) What happens if he does not agree to cancel the transaction even though he used a Buy It Now function and paid many days later and has no trust value to his feedback?
-stated that I have to pay the 10% fee if I decide not to ship it to him.
3.) Why doesn't eBay protect me from a seller who lies about the condition on arrival?
-they dont care
4.) Why doesn't eBay protect sellers or buyers in the comments feedback from liars and things that aren't true?
-they don't care, its perfectly fine for you to receive a great product as described and then say the seller has AIDS, is racist, was insulting, is a pedophile or anything you want. You can give negative feedback even if the seller or buyer is the nicest person and did everything right and goes above and beyond to help you and make you happy. Ebay does not care what you input into the feedback area and I was told that the feedback function is a separate entity that is not part of EBAY, it is a thing on its own and fully protects eBay by LAW with regard to eBay not being responsible for anything said inside of the feedback areas. Ebay is immune to anything and will be exempt from any lawsuits or any legal action if there is a problem, if someone lies or says something potentially serious that isnt true.
There were a lot of other questions and the eBay rep was calm and nice about it all, but remained firm that eBay is not responsible for any problems eBay causes. You are responsible for all the problems eBay causes. Again sorry for the rant, I just had to get this off my head. So frustrating, will never use eBay again.
I'm beyond upset by eBay's new policies. I've been a registered seller since 2004 but haven't sold anything since mid 2012. Apparently, since then a lot of changes were made. The first and most shocking was that someone can use the Buy It Now feature and not be required to pay for up to a week or something silly like that. There was no information on this during the listing process in the description of what Buy It Now does and how it works. I sold something last week on eBay and the buyer used the Buy It Now function, but did not pay until today. That didn't bother me at first, he seemed trustworthy enough and I was patient, but stressed out about it with Black Friday looming. I had always set my buyers requirements to a certain amount of feedback needed for you to be able to bid on my items. New users were banned. Somehow, this buyer slipped through the system, I thought, as he has +1 on his feedback list. I actually didn't notice until today anyway due to knowing my buyer requirements were set a while back. Turns out eBay did away with that as well in the past year or so.
So, the buyer makes his payment at long last, but whats this?! Payment Status: Pending? What on Earth? I check my paypal account and notice nothing at all in my account, no pending status, totally empty as it was prior to listing the item. The payment he made was being with held until he received the item, and then a 7 day waiting period after that was confirmed. Also, it turns out SOMEHOW, as if by magic, this buyer sent the payment to an old paypal email address that was originally set years ago, but removed neigh two years ago. I deleted that name and added a new email account and even sold a few things with a new primary address. So, now the payment is floating in space somewhere and neither eBay nor Paypal knows where it went or how it happened. They told me to re-activate and add that old address to the paypal account, so I did and voila the money "appeared" in my paypal account...but was pending and being withheld. After speaking to an Indian rep ( I'm so sorry, I'm not bias'ed or anything but I couldn't understand a word she said and had to ask for a new rep with better English skills, once the new rep came on, she was equally as bad so I toughed it out and stuck with her. ) She took ages to explain what happened and put me on hold for almost 20 minutes. She told me that Paypal was in charge of releasing the funds and told me to call Paypal. So I did. Paypal told me eBay is in charge of that, I was a bit annoyed and said oh no, you aren't getting off that easy lets do a triple call with eBay. I know you can do that. So the agent said Sure. After another 15 minutes on hold, the eBay rep politely insulted the Paypal rep for being dimwitted and lying to me about a few other personal account related issues that I'd rather not get into here, but he flat out lied and the eBay rep took my side on it. The paypal rep hung up.
Now talking to the eBay rep, he tells me that he is sorry eBay misled me and that there were so many problems with this transaction but there isn't anything he can do about it. The buyer paid in full for hefty shipping charges on my item AND lives in another country. It would take 2-3 weeks to get to him, easy. Ebay told me that their new policy is to withhold sellers funds until the buyer approves the item and makes sure it is as described...but I have to pay out of pocket for the immense shipping charges for the very large thing I was selling. I have a +150 rating with all positive feedback, yet I guess I'm less trustworthy as a seller, than a BRAND NEW EBAY USER who receives an item and has total control over my funds, as well as to cancel the auction and to approve of the entire transaction itself. I have to put my trust in the brand new user and come up with the funds to pay for the shipping costs, wait for it to arrive in another country on the other side of the world, wait for him to approve it and hope he doesn't want a refund, then wait 7 days after that for the payment to be approved. This is what the eBay rep said the timeline would look like.
Scary things that Paypal and eBay had no comment on during my barrage of questions:
1.) What happens if the buyer demands a refund? Since I do not have the funds in my paypal account, where does the refund come from?
-implied that I would have to shell out the entire refund out of my bank account since my paypal balance was empty and that the payment he made had not cleared and was not approved by him. This made no sense, but this is how the rep described it. Since my funds were being withheld and that i had no money in my paypal account, the refund will come from MY account instead of the original payment he made. This isn't likely, but the rep pretty much summed it up that way that if I didn't have the money to cover the entire transaction in my account and if the buyer wants a refund inbetween this waiting period that the funds are withheld on, the refund comes directly out of my pocket. After the waiting period is up, I would be reimbursed, then that money would instantly go back to paypal. Nothing made any sense around this.
2. ) What happens if he does not agree to cancel the transaction even though he used a Buy It Now function and paid many days later and has no trust value to his feedback?
-stated that I have to pay the 10% fee if I decide not to ship it to him.
3.) Why doesn't eBay protect me from a seller who lies about the condition on arrival?
-they dont care
4.) Why doesn't eBay protect sellers or buyers in the comments feedback from liars and things that aren't true?
-they don't care, its perfectly fine for you to receive a great product as described and then say the seller has AIDS, is racist, was insulting, is a pedophile or anything you want. You can give negative feedback even if the seller or buyer is the nicest person and did everything right and goes above and beyond to help you and make you happy. Ebay does not care what you input into the feedback area and I was told that the feedback function is a separate entity that is not part of EBAY, it is a thing on its own and fully protects eBay by LAW with regard to eBay not being responsible for anything said inside of the feedback areas. Ebay is immune to anything and will be exempt from any lawsuits or any legal action if there is a problem, if someone lies or says something potentially serious that isnt true.
There were a lot of other questions and the eBay rep was calm and nice about it all, but remained firm that eBay is not responsible for any problems eBay causes. You are responsible for all the problems eBay causes. Again sorry for the rant, I just had to get this off my head. So frustrating, will never use eBay again.