Ebay puts more money into stopping sellers unfairly banned making new accounts than providing basic seller support!

I was a small time seller on Ebay a few years back, selling second hand games. For years my standard was at above average and to this day I have 100 feedback. After a while I noticed that people were selling digital versions of games, and as postage was the thing that most ate away at my profits i thought it would be a good idea to try this. As a rule of thumb i asked ebay support if I was allowed to do this first, they said I could. So I listed 5 PSN codes. They were legitimate codes from cdkeys.com Myself and countless other people use the site for personal use, it's a recognised company. I listed 5 PSN codes. At the same time, 5 ebay accounts bought these codes and then all of them immediately told Paypal that they were hacked and never intended to make that purchase. Without any evidence, Paypal refunded all 5 of them with MY money, which cost me over £150 and limited MY account over someone else apparently hacking them. I informed ebay support of all of this. I was unable to send or transfer money which meant I couldn't issue refunds. At the same time, and again informing ebay support of this, I was moving houses and didn't have constant access to the internet. I wasn't always able to immediately get onto ebay to ship the items and so i got some negative feedback.I asked Ebay to help with this, and they straight up told me that all I had to do was put "I dont have access to my ebay account so cant fulfil your orders" in the item description. I did this. Regardless some people still bought my items and then left negative feedback as they didnt get their items and i couldnt refund them due to my paypal being frozen. Despite doing as ebay told me they wouldnt rectify the feedback. Also, paypal was being incredibly difficult, demanding countless documents and what not, it actually took months to sort out and in the years since then i've NEVER had an issue with paypal, funny how this is another thing ebay ignores. Now, in the full knowledge that 1. I was moving house 2. didnt have constant access to the internet and 3. had my paypal frozen they gave me several WEEKS to improve my seller standard even though according to their policy i should have been given 3 months. Of course this was literally impossible and they knew it. And the reason for this was they wanted to pocket the money i refunded to paypal as at the time they owned paypal so they'd get that money. Since then I have been constantly contacting customer support who conveniently aren't allowed to look at information regarding this event (i wonder why, because it doesn't add up, maybe?) im talking to a manager and he's literally told me that he wont even look at the conversations in which i contacted ebay support whilst i was having these difficulties in which i asked for help and did everything ebay told me.

Top | Newest First | Oldest First

windinhishair · 61-69, M

It sounds like ebay was wrong, particularly in making refunds with your money, but only to a point. Once you knew you were moving house, you should have stopped selling if you weren't going to have access to the internet on a regular basis. That's not the buyer's problem. Still, if you tell people what is going on, most people will wait and won't give you negative feedback. I know you tried to do that with the note on your listing, but obviously that is not enough.

Having said that, if I have problems with receiving something from a seller, I will contact the seller to let them know and see if there is an issue. If they are up front about it and have a resolution, I'll gladly wait a reasonable amount of time. If not, I'll give them neutral feedback or in rare cases, negative feedback. Right now I am still waiting for something I paid for on January 22 from the UK. I have spoken to the seller and he and I waited until March 1, then he shipped a replacement that I am waiting for. Because we have had good communication, I will give him good feedback assuming I have my item by April. I have another item I won and paid for on March 4. The seller has provided no communication and I found out yesterday that it was only sent yesterday, almost two weeks late. I won't see it until at least Tuesday of next week, and probably later. Because there has been no communication and poor service, they'll receive neutral feedback at best.

Ebay does some things that I have problems with, particularly with items not received on a timely basis. They make it difficult to NOT open a case on a seller. I always contact them on the side and work things out individually. I only file a case if the seller and I agree to do so to document a refund. So far, I have never had a problem doing this. I am also seeing more fraud with fake items coming out of China, but using a US, UK, or Canadian shipping address on the listing. However, when the item is received, it is fake and coming out of Shanghai or another Chinese city.

View 1 more replies »

windinhishair · 61-69, M

@pianoplayingsteve I run a business, but I sell intellectual property, so fakery isn't an issue. Outsourcing to India and other locations is starting to become an issue, but I will be retired before it is a huge problem in my business.

When I order something online, the only reason I have to be concerned whether it comes from China is that for what I am buying it is typically the difference between something being real or fake, and I have to have the real item. Otherwise, it doesn't matter where things come from. Many items made in China are fake, even things like food products. My son is married to a Chinese woman, and they have a small business selling American-made goods to Chinese living in China, because they get so much fake stuff that they need some assurance that they are getting the real item. Things like vitamins, beauty products, etc. coming from the US with a US pedigree sell for a profit, even when shipping is included. And once the Chinese customer gets a real and good product at a reasonable price, they continue to buy.

pianoplayingsteve · 31-35, M

@windinhishair To me, I don't care if someone is "real" haha, it is real, it isn't an illusion or some sort of shapeshifter. The only difference is this seller didn't pay a sum of money to get a piece of paper to a carve their symbol into it to deny labour and a more equal distribution of wealth. I buy "fakes" and I'm glad I did, I've been able to afford a lot more things and they all do their job xD Just like all the "official" merchandise bought from the same chinese factory. Buying products from china to to brand and then sell back to china at a higher price seems ridiculous to me. At the end of the day, a belt is a belt, if it keeps my trousers up I don't care what official logo is printed on it.

windinhishair · 61-69, M

@pianoplayingsteve There are differences in quality on some items. Take your belt, for example. I've had cheap belts that kept my pants up, but literally fell apart in a couple of months. And I've had others that in the same service lasted years. I buy better quality belts now that last longer, because I save money in the long run. If those "better quality" belts were being counterfeited, I would be back where I started and out more money than I would have been buying cheaper belts all along.

There are some products where it doesn't matter. I bought a "stainless steel" tea strainer for something like $2 including shipping. It took over a month to get here, and I doubt it is stainless steel, but it will do what it needs to do for a good amount of time before I need a new one. It would have cost me $10 domestically.

ravenwind43 · 51-55, F

A few years ago I was a power seller and once they allowed big companies on Ebay it pretty much destroyed any small business from selling on there. You can't compete with known box stores product wise unless it's a specific item. Along with that they took all power away from the seller to favor the buyer even if the buyer was wrong. I still use it to shop sometimes but rarely if ever use it to sell.

pianoplayingsteve · 31-35, M

@ravenwind43 big businesses shouldnt make it harder, i mean. These big businesses are idiots who continue to sell at their high rrp price whilst smaller companies undercut them xD the problem is when they literally make an accusation against you as seller, tell you you cant look at the evidence for security reasons, and dont let you talk to who made the decision. They must be breaking some sort of law, surely!?

ravenwind43 · 51-55, F

@pianoplayingsteve It does make it harder however. They often sell their discounted products and if a seller comes along they will say, "Oh, I can buy this for the same price from Bed, Bath, Beyond as the person selling whose name is "blank." Most will opt for the name they know.
I do agree with you that they severely go after sellers and buyers are golden, even when they're obviously trying to cheat you. I don't know, it's gotten ridiculous.

Peekaboo20 · 26-30, F

Bummer. Try something altogether new.

pianoplayingsteve · 31-35, M

@Peekaboo20 I'm considering shopify. Ebay were lovely in giving me permission to sell on other websites though

Add a comment...