eBay Too Big For Its Own (and Our) Good (1 Viewer)

I currently have an auction in progress. Before it was even listed, I decided to move it ahead by one day to make it more convenient for me to get items shipped out in a timely fashion. There is and has always been an option to allow a seller to do this for multiple items simultaneously. I have 20 items for sale. I checked "select all" and tried to move the action ahead by one day. The site would not allow me to do this. I called eBay and spent a half-hour on the phone with an employee in the Philippines who did what he could to help me out. The best he could do was suggest I re-schedule each individual auction. I did not feel like spending that kind of time and so decided to let it go on the original date.

But it gets worse.

Every single item was scheduled by me for a 6 PM starting date Pacific Standard Time, so that here in the East it would end at 9:00 p.m. I do this will all of my auctions. I am always very careful to use the little scroll boxes to make sure the auction will end at 6:00 p.m. PST (as I have done for many years on eBay).

I assumed, of course, that all was well. Until, just 3 days before the end of the auction, I realized that eBay had my auctions (all of which had been bid upon) ending at 6:00 A.M., not P.M. I went ballistic. Who the hell is going to get up at 5:30 a.m. on the West Coast to continue their bids on my items?

So, I called eBay again. I explained that I was a long-time member with a perfect feedback record, and that I was requesting the auction be changed by twelve hours, as I had been very meticulous about the starting (and therefore ending) dates and times, so that it would need at a reasonable time on both coast.

The person I spoke to (again, from the Philippines) told me that the only thing I could do, because the auctions were in progress, would be to end all 20 auction listings and start again. I told them I appreciated that he was not responsible for what eBay was doing to me, but expressed that I thought I was being screwed. I am not going to piss off 20 lead bidders because eBay screwed up. I'll have to absorb the losses, which might be hundreds of dollars because eBay could not admit their web site was faulty the day I listed my items.

Am I the only person who has found eBay way-y-y too big for their britches lately?

And what recourse have we?

Time to move to Amazon, ya think?

As a buyer , I had a recent problem with EBAY, wasn't able to resolve it .EBAY customer service was of no help at all. So to answer your question, IMO, EBAY has become too big and uncaring . Let the seller and buyer beware.

I stopped selling on Feebay ages ago.I use Craigslist and Etsy.

I haven't really visited Ebay in years. I used to regularly sell and buy. Now I wouldn't miss it at all if it disappeared.

Have not used eBay in over 3 years, sorry to hear your bad experiences Dick!

Dick said:

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Am I the only person who has found eBay way-y-y too big for their britches lately?

And what recourse have we?

Time to move to Amazon, ya think?

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I was just reading the "Should I give Amazon a break" thread and was thinking the exact same thing about Amazon. Sounds like a recurring theme.

After reading this and the other thread on Ebay, I'm glad to not try to sell some of my old stuff, as it seems like a much bigger headache than before.

I have not used for a long time, and hated how they keep charging fees to list, and if the item sold, they charged for that as well.

Besides, I doubt anyone would buy cassettes, old CDs, or even baseball cards these days.

Yeah, I'm staying away from Ebay. I finally got my second problem resolved after demanding for twenty-minutes that I speak to a manager. I don't know if it was my threats of getting a lawyer or the manager saw that I was write but they finally refunded my money. I did list another auction after this episode but having Paypal hold my money for up to 21 days was just the last straw. There are so many "groups" on Facebook to where I can sell whatever without the added fees and so on.

I can't even remember the last time I used Ebay. Maybe 6-7 years ago? Obviously not contributing much here, but I just stay away. The company sucks.Get together with a few neighbors and have a yard sale. You'll make a lot more than you ever would on Ebay, plus no fees, just invest a little time.

I decided not to start a new thread as this one [though old] perfectly summarizes my experiences with eBay and their evil child, Paypal.

Paypal:

I used this service to loan money to a friend a few years ago. The friend also used it to repay me within a week or two. Paypal insisted that they had no record of the repayment transaction. I sent them screen shots from their own site which clearly indicated the transaction was legitimate. After that, many phone calls and weeks of back and forth, they finally acknowledged it but said my friend posted the transaction as a Business and so it would therefore incur fees. That wasn't true either. It took another couple of weeks to sort this out but I finally got the total repayment I was entitled to.

eBay:

This one is still in progress.

I recently bought a Linksys router on eBay. I won the auction with a $117.00 bid on November 16th. I paid the next day, November 17th. The seller listed the item as being physically located in Columbus Ohio. When it shipped I noticed it was routing through Frankfurt, Germany. I contacted the seller and he/she claimed it was because they had recently immigrated to the US and had "forgotten" this particular item was still in Germany. I didn't buy that but I let it go for the moment. Fast forward to December 7th and I still hadn't received the router. I contacted eBay. They didn't even want to talk about it. They said "The seller confirms he/she has shipped it and to your address. "Case closed." I contacted the Post Office. They traced the item and confirmed it was delivered, just not to my address. I contacted eBay again with this new information. To my astonishment, they still refused to help. They asked me to file a police report. I replied "why?" No crime has been committed, at least not at my house. The item was delivered to the address listed on the shipping label.

eBay says I have 10 [calendar] days to either file a police report or send them proof that I tried and was unable to do so. They say that if I am unable to file a report they will call the police station to confirm that I tried and then refund my money, otherwise they will dismiss my claim with no refund. What they will inexplicably not do is call the Post Office. If they did this they would receive instant proof. My local Post Office told me as much. Why are they willing to call a police station but not a Post Office? Only the latter can provide any real proof of what actually happened.

It seems to me eBay is sending me down the path that best suits them. They would rather just let me absorb the loss. The seller who did this to me is brand new on eBay. First transaction. I wish I had watched out for that.

So I take it you saved a ton of money buying the router on Ebay vs. Amazon or local like Best buy??

Dick said:

Every single item was scheduled by me for a 6 PM starting date Pacific Standard Time, so that here in the East it would end at 9:00 p.m. I do this will all of my auctions. I am always very careful to use the little scroll boxes to make sure the auction will end at 6:00 p.m. PST (as I have done for many years on eBay).

I assumed, of course, that all was well. Until, just 3 days before the end of the auction, I realized that eBay had my auctions (all of which had been bid upon) ending at 6:00 A.M., not P.M. I went ballistic. Who the hell is going to get up at 5:30 a.m. on the West Coast to continue their bids on my items?

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And how on God's green earth could EBay change your ending time to A.M. instead of P.M.?! That's sneaky!

JQuintana said:

So I take it you saved a ton of money buying the router on Ebay vs. Amazon or local like Best buy??

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@JQuintana - If you're talking to me then how is that possible when I haven't even received what I paid for nearly a month ago?

John, I'm genuinely surprised that you've had that experience - it does sound like a major bummer.

I haven't had a bad experience with ebay in a while, but in general, whenever I've had a problem, eBay has always accepted my word and given me whatever solution I was looking for (usually a refund). I have a friend who runs a side business selling stuff on eBay, and from his perspective, he says that the bar is very high for sellers to win a dispute, in his experience, they bend over backwards to accommodate the customer, which matches my experience.

So it sucks that they're putting you through hoops. Did you pay with PayPal or a credit card? If so, maybe you can just dispute the charge through them.

Josh Steinberg said:

John, I'm genuinely surprised that you've had that experience - it does sound like a major bummer.

I haven't had a bad experience with ebay in a while, but in general, whenever I've had a problem, eBay has always accepted my word and given me whatever solution I was looking for (usually a refund). I have a friend who runs a side business selling stuff on eBay, and from his perspective, he says that the bar is very high for sellers to win a dispute, in his experience, they bend over backwards to accommodate the customer, which matches my experience.

So it sucks that they're putting you through hoops. Did you pay with PayPal or a credit card? If so, maybe you can just dispute the charge through them.

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I wish my recent experiences with eBay mirrored yours but, sadly, they have not. You know how you can tell when the person on the other end of the phone is just quoting from a script? That's pretty much always what I get with eBay and Paypal. As others have stated, it's also usually apparent that the person you're talking to is overseas and has a limited grasp of the English language.

I always pay with Paypal so I guess I could ultimately look into that option. What bothers me most is there is no real "dispute" here. The Post Office has already confirmed that the address on the label was not mine. When using online tracking tools, however, the complete address isn't shown, only the city and zip code. Only the seller would see the complete address. eBay is seeing the same thing I am and making an assumption. Instead of making a simple phone call to verify my claim they are sending me down a rabbit hole and giving me a short time frame in which to comply. Anyway, I'm starting to rant. My apologies...

John Dirk said:

@JQuintana - If you're talking to me then how is that possible when I haven't even received what I paid for nearly a month ago?

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What I meant was basically why didn't you just order it new on Amazon or walk into a local store and buy it and you'd be using it today? I'm assuming you chose Ebay because it was saving you a bunch of money vs.. buying new from a trusted source.

JQuintana said:

What I meant was basically why didn't you just order it new on Amazon or walk into a local store and buy it and you'd be using it today? I'm assuming you chose Ebay because it was saving you a bunch of money vs.. buying new from a trusted source.

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Fair point and you can believe I'll be heeding your advice going forward, but that's just it. Up until this transaction I had always considered eBay a trusted source. I should have noticed this was a new seller. That's totally on me but I never thought eBay would react in this manner. I'm still working on getting my money back but, either way, lesson learned.

Hope it all works out. I gave up using Ebay over a decade ago or more. Used to sell a ton of stuff on it when users were 99% friendly and efficient. When it blew up into some giant flea market full of scammers and knock off crap we walked away. Buy only local or via trusted sources now.

Bummer of a story, John. I’ve had mostly good experiences on eBay. But I’ve stopped selling on eBay. The relative effort against the time it takes me isn’t worthwhile anymore.

I’d never viewed eBay as a good “retailer”, so I’d never consider paying full price for new there. But that might be me being outdated, as eBay is clearly trying to re-brand themselves as Amazon-like.

But eBay is a great place to buy things for Star Wars Armada, a game I play. People buy the collectible ships retail, and then break up the kits to re-sell the components and upgrade cards individually. It works great, they’ve got great reputations and it’s low cost, so the risk is minor. I’ve really benefited from this aspect of eBay as a gaming enthusiast.

Sorry to hear about the bad experiences. I usually only use eBay to acquire old books. Most of those guys/gals are legit and have been on eBay for a very long time. Guess that's why I haven't had any bad luck. Once many years ago (when seller's could leave negative feedback), I bought a Hollies album on vinyl which the seller claimed was near mint. When I got it the sleeve was near mint but the actual record was pretty scratched up (although it still played without skipping). I left neutral feedback because I didn't believe the record was described accurately and the seller left me negative feedback and sent me a bunch of nasty private messages. I contacted eBay and they eventually just wiped both of our ratings (my neutral and his negative).