eBay kills live auctions

Ebay is getting worse!

They also withold your payment from auctions for up to 21 Days (or until you receive +ve feedback).

this has happened to me due to one stupid buyer not reading my auction and then leaving -ve feedback.

Now any payment for any auctions for PC/elextrical stuff are witheld for up to 21 days.

I have a feedback of over 500, so I am not some cowboy, but I am for forced to accept paypal even if I dont want to.

The no -ve feedback policy for buyers is idiotic.

They are going to alienate more and more people.

Lets all move to Ebid.Net

QXL

Come on people lets start using QXL and restore some competition to this market.

@no negative feedback

So what the hell CAN you do if a buyer doesn't pay?

Of course, what happened to a friend of mine (I wouldn't touch ebay with a 13 linguine barge pole) He left negative feedback for a seller that hadn't delivered and then the seller left negative feedback for him as "revenge".

Not to mention the ever increasing scam count since credit cards are getting tougher to crack.

Not to mention, that if ebay have PROFITS of 2bn, holding the INCOME for an extra 21 days probably earns them a tidy bit of interest too.

If you can't leave -ve feedback

How are you supposed to tell if someone is trustworthy or not?

"Look! I have 100% positive feedback!" (Never mind that it's the only auction I actually sent payment for/cheque didn't bounce/didn't give the seller a run-around)

Bad bad idea. Glad I never gave in to the ebay addiction... (mostly cause I can't stand PayPal)

sadly...

I use ebay/PayPal because it's safer for me, as a buyer.

I've bought stuff that's not turned up and the buyer disappeared, and I got my money back fairly quickly (within a month) of raising a dispute.

I've also used ebid where I was scammed for £60 and was told by ebid to "contact the credit card company for a refund" and "contact the police" and that was all they were prepared to do.

Credit card company paid up, grudgingly, three months later. The police said it was a "civil matter" and told me to go forth.

ebay/Paypal is as successful as it is because of the backup they have when things go wrong. It there's another service out there with the same safety net, they need to do some advertising.

Tux - cos I think he's cool and no other reason.

Too big for boots

Ebay have too many staff and the devil makes work for idle hands, they built it up and can't leave it alone and to keep themselves in a job they just keeping messing with the formula. I was probably at it's peak a couple of years ago.

Experience

I guess all the complainers above are doing something wrong... I'm not sure what it could be since eBay and PayPal have made it as easy as possible, but hey who am I to call you a bunch of tools?

I sold a tad over $78k worth of merchandise on eBay last year. I had no NPB's (non-paying bidders) and only one fraudulent payment and PayPal caught it before I did. Seeing as how I was selling 2nd hand computer parts it sort of puts a lot of the statements above in doubt.

As for the fees, yes they suck, but in reality they are cheaper than a real auction house, and similar (after figuring everything in structure, taxes, utilities, etc...) to the cost of selling things retail when the customer uses any kind of card (debit/credit) and the kicker is that PayPal gets the money into the bank faster than Merchant Services. I think it's sort of funny that so many people on the Register website seem to have such a hard time with eBay PayPal...

competition law policy in Australia

Just allowing paypal on eBay does this not fall within the competition law and policy in Australia http://www.oecd.org/dataoecd/22/10/34830529.pdf that prohibits anti-competitive behavior (monopoly) and unfair business practices?

Before long it will happen in the UK and effect businesses like nochex.com – netbanx.com

@ Gail - yep and the ACCC is already on the case

http://www.smartcompany.com.au/Free-Articles/The-Briefing/20080417-RBA-to-weigh-in-on-eBay-case-at-ACCC.html

Ebay great for buyer sucks for seller

I have until recently been a happy seller with ebay and paypal however I recently sold a laptop that was returned to me as having a faulty DVD drive however the item had been either damaged in transit on return or damaged by the buyer. The buyer did not return it insured or registered and upon fixing the damaged screen at my cost I find the DVD drive was fine anyway.

However Paypal had gladly refunded the buyer at my loss and ebay still haven't refunded the FVF on it. Ebay to this day request that I send them proof of the refund via fax which I've done 10 times from 3 different location. I've also emailed them what I faxed and each time I get the same automated email telling me they haven't received it and how to fax it.

Now I am a very unhappy ebay seller and I hope the choke on the 2bill profit!