Another ebay rant

I think I have reached the end with ebay. Like so many other good things that have gone downhill, it just doesn't seem to be customer friendly anymore. Here is the situation, and I'll try to be as impartial as I can be:

On January 2nd, I purchased an item with a Buy it Now. I did an instant purchase. A couple of days later, I checked the status and it showed as shipped. Great. I should get it in a couple of days.

Well, 20 days later, the item still had not arrived. I went to file a claim. You can't file a claim until three weeks have past. OK, I'll wait a few more days.

In the meantime, I emailed the seller on Jan 23. I asked if he could confirm the shipping on the item. I further asked that if the item had not been shipped that he issue a refund. No Response.

21 Days had passed so I filed a claim. The only response I got was an email confirming I had filed a complaint.

On Jan28, I received the item. It was postmarked Jan 25 (2 days after I contacted the seller asking for a refund if he had not sent it). I again sent an email back to the seller and told him I was going to refuse the package at the post office. He finally sent an email back saying that was fine but that I would have to pay for the shipping/handling and a 25% restocking fee.

I emailed him back and said I wanted a full refund since I did not receive the merchandise per the auction terms and since I sent it back to him.

Ebay finally emailed me and asked to give a brief description of the events. I did and included all emails. This is the resopnse I got:

We are denying your claim for a refund beause the seller has not responded to confirm if the item has been returned to him.

So this clown simply doesn't answer his email and ebay gives him the benifit of the doubt. The message being sent here is that if you have a claim filed against you, just ignore your emails and ebay will side with you other than with the person who got screwed.

AAARRRGGGGHHH!!!!!

Eric

 

Erik...please go and get the item...at least you will have it and not give the satisfaction to a BAD seller.....I would also suggest you go to the LIVE chat and discuss the problem with them...They are pretty good. You can get to the LIVE Caht on the Ebay Main Page, upper right hand corner....will give you a chance to vent your frustration....Just a suggestion

 

Have you noticed that it gets harder by the minute to find a link to contact e-bay, except for a few pre-fabricated question, like how to I sign up and how to bid on an item.

 

My daughter went through this a while back .Paid and never got it .As it was put through pay pal I put in a complaint .They e mailed the seller and my daughter .Gave him 8 days to reply .As he did not her claim was approved and the money refunded .As for dealing with e bay .Ya right .we do it all through pay pal now . Marty .

 

Did you check the seller's rating before you bid? I have bought and sold many times on ebay and have had no problems. If I want to bid on an item, and the seller's rating is lower than 100%, I check to see what the comments were.

There are some sellers that seem to have ongoing problems with describing or delivery of the goods. Unfortunately on the other hand, there are some very honorable sellers whose rating is marred because they end up dealing with one of those "never gonna please them no matter what" types.

Duane Goodman

 

Here was a first for me last week, I "won" about 15 Freight car auctions from one seller. When I asked for a total they said I was only listed as the winner on half of them, and that they had another member listed as the winner on the others. Seller was nice and polite so I have no reason to think she was BS'ing, but odd none the less....

Brad

 

After too many drama's with ebay,I've stayed away from it lately,apart from a couple of trusted sellers that I buy from now & then.
Dont get me wrong,Ive had "alot" of excellent buys & some fantastic finds & really good honest ppl,just the few bad apples that spoil it.
My main reason was after 3 different "complaint consol" let downs that went on for weeks & never did I win,even tho it was the sellers fault all 3 times.....twice is bad luck,3 times call me a fool for trying.

 

hey eric the colonel is right, go get the item and then leave a true feedback response. that is really the best way to handle this situation. as for ebay, they will side with their regular sellers since that is where the regular money comes from.

 

Well, I sent another email off to ebay saying that their decision was unacceptable. We'll see what happens.

As far as leaving negative feedback, I already did that. The problem is this guy has over 80000 feedback so mine will get lost quickly. I can't get the item ack since I refused the shipment at the post office. They already sent it back. Ebay blamed me for that saying I should have waited until their "investigation" was complete.

Eric

 

I stopped using E-Bay well over a year ago. I always got my shipments, but what was advertised as New or as Runs well, weren't.
I use a reliable on line retailer and am happy not to have the BS in my leisure time any more.

 

Well this is a typical ebay issue. Even though this is not "train" related here is a story that will make everything come into focus and hopefully keep any one from using Ebay or Paypal.
Last August I decided I wanted a new laptop. I had seen and touched the new Macbooks and since they are based on BSD UNIX I decided it was time for a change. So I purchased a 13.5" White laptop. ($1000.00) After using this for about 2 weeks I really liked it but wanted a larger screen. So I decided to sell the small one and purchase the 15" version. I placed the item up for sale. I started getting emails from a person in NJ his ebay seller rating was over 300 no negatives. We corresponded and he asked if I could send it to his father for a gift. Now unknown to me Paypal had changed it policy about shipping to "must ship to same confirmed address" well this person had good ratings so I agreed to the sale and we did the deal. I received the monies via instant Paypal purchase and I shipped the item. End of story right? Way wrong. After almost 60 days I login to my Paypal account and it’s in the negative by $1500.00!!!!! What is going on? So I call them and this is what I find out. The person who I thought purchased the item filed fraud against his account and now I have to give the money back! The buyer stated that his account was hacked and now get this 4 different email accounts were also hacked along with all of his Credit cards. So I have to give back the money but Papal no worries right nope. Since I shipped to an alternate address they say to friggen bad you’re out the money.
Then to make it worse the buyer sends me an email thanking me for the repayment and my help. I email him back and let him know that I think he needs to learn to check his finances and accounts more often and this would have never happened.
Well about 7 day later I get an email from Paypal saying the issue is in flux and the buyer has files to return my money. Strange? I'm told to wait for 75 days and the money will be returned.
Well I wait nothing so I finally call again and this time Paypal says we determined your in the wrong so no refund will be issued.
What really made me mad about this whole thing is just a little checking found this buyer had a history of fraud and different accounts on ebay but that made no difference to them. They want fradulent buyers its good for their business.
So here is the final deal. The money was refunded but Paypal decided to keep it since I shipped to an alternate address and basicly told me to get stuffed.

Moral: I have closed all of my accounts I advise everyone I know or meet to never use ebay or paypal as they will not cover you for anythig that they done want to cover you for and will keep any refunds to boot. Its a nice way to boost your bottom line rip off your customers.

Sorry for the rant but dont ever use ebay or paypal they are a major rip off and the protection they tout is just really fluff and your on your own.

Steve

 

I just closed my paypal and ebay account. In response to my second complaint, ebay explained that I violated their policies by contacting the seller once a complaint had been filed. Here's the kicker, I only responded to the seller after he emailed me after I filed the complaint. But, even though he violated the policy first there was no mention of that in ebay's response.

For those of you that will continue to use ebay - good luck and may nothing like this ever happen to you.

Eric

 

Well, I've been an eBay "defender" for years. MOST of the stories I'd heard were basically "shame on you for being foolish" kinda deals.

Well, I'm starting to hear more and more of these kinds of stories in this post, and I think eBay has made some fundamental mistakes lately that will open the door for a competitor, which up to now hasn't been a possibility.

I'm still using eBay and PayPal, and I'm typically the type to never stray outside of standard practices (I would never ship to an address not explicitly shown in eBay/Paypal) but I am even more cautious now and I would welcome an eBay replacement.

eBay has "jumped the shark".

 

Interesting, and disturbing, stories. I'm presuming EricB bought train-related items, so I'll leave it here in the Inspection Pit for now. If not train-related items, then it really belongs in the Cattle Car.

I've stopped using eBay for most purchases. But there are times when it's invaluable. For example, the motherboard in my wife's G4 was zapped by a nearby lightning strike this summer. A new board was $700; a reconditioned one was $400. I did some research on which board it was, and found one on eBay for $40, plus $10 shipping. These are the kind of items eBay is useful for.

I'd rather buy bigger ticket items at places other than eBay, unless I know the seller well.

 

Erick, we had a similar happening on a 2-8-8-2 I wanted.
We could get no response from the seller, so Jan got on the eBay Live Chat and asked how to handle it.
We were told to try calling the seller, and gave us his number, to see if we could work something out one to one. If that didn't get results, we were to file a complaint and follow instructions. We did that, and found he had a death out of state, and would send the engine the next day.
I told him I would leave him good feedback if and when the engine arrived here.
The engine arrived, and I contacted eBay and told them about his problem, and that I would leave him good feedback. EBay felt that was the right thing to do.
The guy left me good feedback too.

If you stay within the guide lines and don't get impatient, it seems to work pretty well.

Keep in mind that eBay is a business, so it is more difficult to maintain a good source of income, the seller, than to satisfy one irate customer.

You get more kisses with a hand full of candy, than a hand full of mud.

 

I think ebay is like stocks and shares - don't put in more than you can afford to lose

 

I'm getting rather frustrated with Ebay too. Here's my story.

On 11 January I won a Life Like GP60 by auction. I got an invoice very quickly and I paid by PayPal as soon as I received it. So the seller had my money within a few hours of the auction finishing. So far so good.

About 12 hours later I got an email from the seller demanding substantial additional postage, in fact 4 times the postage in the original invoice (which I had paid). The original shipping cost was fair and comparable with similar items I had bought from other sellers in the past. With the additional postage being demanded, the total (for a single loco) was more than twice than I paid for a package of 5 locos last year. This alone was an Ebay policy violation (excessive shipping cost).

I responded that I was not prepared to pay the additional postage as the amount I had paid in the original invoice was comparable to similar items, and I had other invoices to prove it. The seller refused outright to ship the loco unless I paid the additional postage, and in any case rather rudely told me not to bid on any of his auctions again.

I reported this to Ebay as seller non-performance citing the excessive shipping, refusal to deliver and the offensive emails (sent through Ebay's message system). I got a canned response from Ebay saying that since I paid via PayPal, I should report it through PayPal as an item not received. I had to wait 20 days to do that.

So I waited the specified time and filed an Item Not Received dispute. Nothing happened for nearly a week, by which time nearly a month had passed since the auction. Then suddenly I got positive feedback from the seller thanking me for my fast payment. I naturally assumed the the item would be on its way soon.

Then I saw the seller had relisted the loco. I know it was the same loco because it had been custom renumbered and the same photo was in the relisting. I complained to Ebay that the item I paid for and had not received had been relisted while the Item Not Received dispute was still open, and in any case they still hadn't done anything about the excessive shipping, seller non-performance and abusive email violations.

I got the same canned response as a month earlier saying I should report it through PayPal as an item not received. I said I had already done this and added that Ebay had not done anything about the initial complaints which had nothing to do with PayPal, i.e. the additional postage demands and the outright refusal to ship were made through Ebay's messaging system. I said in the clearest possible terms that the seller had taken my money, refused to ship the item and then relisted it. I actually got a non-canned response from a human saying, and I quote.... "eBay is unfortunately not in a position to question why the seller has relisted that item."

The seller had not responded to the PayPal dispute and I escalated it to a claim on the last day before the dispute would have automatically closed. The seller has still not responded to the claim.

Meanwhile the relisted auction finished and somebody else will get the loco I paid for. If nothing happens in the last 2 days then I automatically get a refund from PayPal, but I would rather have the loco than a refund.

Ebay is going to get a strongly worded complaint in writing about this.

Cheers
David

 

There is no such thing as perfection in business. Anything created by, run by, or used by people will always have problems from time to time.

Other money problems like bad checks and credit card fraud existed way before the internet came into our lives. A lot of the problems I've read about over the years are covered in the given companies fine print. We all know the jokes over the years about reading the fine print, but it means even more nowadays. I know lots of folks will join an ebay or the like, but when it comes time to click on the agreement policy, they click 'Yes I Accept' and move on. I would encourage everyone to read any business policy no matter how lengthy or boring some of it might seem. You might be surprised at some of the content.

Duane Goodman