Help With Selling on Ebay

Here is another ebay trick i know a few ebay seller had to deal with before.
Buyer buys an item, then claims that item is not what he/she have ordered. Ebay sided with buyer no matter what and forced seller to accept a return. Return arrives, and guess what, it is some different worthless crap that weights just as much as original shipping from seller to buyer.
That was some years back, i don't if that got resolved.

If you deal with Ebay once in blue moon, resolve your issues through bank, it don't matter what ebay says, thinks, or does - your word is final. If you were a full time ebay seller, then i don't know what to say, that place is not seller friendly.
 
eastbloc said:
If you deal with Ebay once in blue moon, resolve your issues through bank, it don't matter what ebay says, thinks, or does - your word is final. If you were a full time ebay seller, then i don't know what to say, that place is not seller friendly.
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That's why I say to withdraw your funds (as in completely empty) from whatever account they're deposited in IMMEDIATELY. Then they can't do a charge back and you're in the driver's seat.
 
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eBay is garbage for small time sellers. Bottom line, what happened with your sale is typical. My advice is delete your seller account and never look back.
 
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My first eBay experience was crazy but positive. About 20 years ago, I listed a one year old Volvo XC90 for sale. It was an auction format and the winning bid was $40,000. I live in Virginia and the winning bidder lived in Colorado. He flew to Virginia on Monday of Thanksgiving week. I picked him up at the airport in the Volvo. We were going to go back to my house to take care of the paperwork. I asked him if he wanted to drive it...."nope, I'm good". Paperwork took about 30 minutes and he drove off in his new Volvo. He needed to be back in Colorado for Thanksgiving dinner. To this day, I have no idea why someone would come all that way and pay full price for a not very unique vehicle.
 
I bought stuff on Ebay for years, using my wife's account. Then I opened my own account because I was going to sell off some classic car parts. Within 3 days I got a notice that I'd won the Mercedes that I'd bid on. Well, I'd never bid on any Mercedes, so I reported this to Ebay. Next thing you know, they'd cancelled my account. The one that I had never used yet, at this point.
Ended up selling the parts using the local Pennysaver.
 
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Final update for those that were following along in this thread. I did deny the return request for the panels and the buyer did not dispute so everything is behind me except for the additional $31 fee that I just got weeks later. I tried to delete the checking account from my ebay account and it won't let me unless I add another account. I called customer service and they said there is no way I can delete my checking and proceed with no account on file, so I then deleted my ebay account entirely and erased all info. At this point I have no interest in buying, selling, or doing any business on ebay based on the direction they are headed. The customer service rep spent 5 min trying to convince me that it's better for sellers to get paid directly into a bank account instead of through paypal or other services and I didn't have the time or attention span to sit and have a pointless argument.

To confirm the horror stories I was hearing of sellers getting absolutely bent over, I had a buddy call me last night and tell me about his recent ebay selling experience. He is in the hunting industry and had a spare brand new high end compound bow that he decided to unload on ebay (he has a perfect rating and buys/sells tons on ebay). He sells the bow for around $1500, the buyer receives it, messages him that it all looks perfect. The buyer then takes it to a shop and has it set up and has some shims installed and other things done to modify to fit him, he writes my buddy back and tells him about it and says the bow shoots awesome. Two weeks later my buddy gets a return request for the bow, he denies it since the bow has now been altered from new state that he sold it and he has messages saying everything was good. Ebay ends up pulling the money back out of his checking account and let the buyer keep the bow. I'm not sure how that's even legal, but that's exactly how other transactions I was reading about online were going, which is what had me scared. I'm sure scammers are figuring this out and screwing people over while ebay is letting it happen.
 
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That is why I have a firewalled account, and remove any incoming funds from it IMMEDIATELY. eBay can't chargeback if there's no funds in it. But I hear you - eBay has turned into bullshit for sellers. I didn't like the bank account connection requirement either - so I set it up as above as I absolutely, positively DO. NOT. HAVE. MY. CHECKING. ACCOUNT. ON. THE. INTERNET.
 
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CharlesHS said:
EBay WILL always side with the Buyer over the Seller other than on rare occasions.
I experienced one of those occasion almost 5 years ago....
I wont bore you with all the details other than to say a Radio Operator with a Tech License purchased a hand held 2M/70CM Yaesu radio which I had reset to Factory programming and tested for TX power on both bands.
A couple days later I receive a request from the buyer for a full REFUND since the radio doesn't transmit and a day a later I received the package with the radio inside.
I tested the radio and the Buyer was correct.... there was no TX power, but I also found that the Buyer had attempted a MarsCap mod, screwed up the modification and burned up the TX finals along with programming Out of Band frequencies into the radios memory without the proper license. He had programmed frequencies on the modified bands for which the radio antenna was not tuned for.... "Bad SWR".
Since I had returned the radio memory back to factory programming; I asked the Buyer about the memories with Out of Band frequencies and informed him that transmitting on frequencies with bad SWR caused the burned out TX finals.
The Buyer and I had quite a few emails back and forth of which I included pictures.
The Buyer stated I was a SMART ASS for figuring out what he did....
EBay was able to see why I refused the Refund.
EBay called me and stated that since I had provided so much substantiated info including pictures the were going to let me keep the money and they would pay the Buyer themselves and place some sort of Negative Mark on his account.
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I sold an old Denon Receiver w/o the remote control, and ended with same results.

Buyer got it and requested a refund because of no remote. I refused, they put in a claim. Ebay took the money back, and gave buyer money for shipping... box arrived in a box that the receiver barely fit in, was damaged, and smelled badly of cigarette smoke. I reported all this back to ebay, as well as the fact that item was correctly described, and they gave me back ALL the money, told me to do whatever with the receiver, and went after the buyer themselves.

I think the biggest issue with the claim process they have is that it is all automated, and a real person does not get involved until there is a dispute like these, also it is way too buyer weighted in the decision.
 
I've been on Ebay for close to 25 years and it's gotten worse and they charge more now. They will often screw over either side, just depends on what monkey reads the complaint.

As far as purchasing, ALWAYS use a credit card. That way if Ebay screws you, you can still dispute with the CC company and Ebay can't do anything about that.

All in all, it can be better to sell using other means since Ebay charges so much. I don't use it hardly as much anymore.
 
suicideking said:
I've been on Ebay for close to 25 years and it's gotten worse and they charge more now. They will often screw over either side, just depends on what monkey reads the complaint.

As far as purchasing, ALWAYS use a credit card. That way if Ebay screws you, you can still dispute with the CC company and Ebay can't do anything about that.

All in all, it can be better to sell using other means since Ebay charges so much. I don't use it hardly as much anymore.
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25 years? Yea, that's about the same as me - sometime before the millennium at least. Ditto on the CC.

But nobody else that I know of has the nationwide reach eBay has, 'cept maybe Etsy - which also has turned to crap ever since they started allowing "Hecho en China" garbage and other non-handicrafts there.
 
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Zorba said:
25 years? Yea, that's about the same as me - sometime before the millennium at least. Ditto on the CC.

But nobody else that I know of has the nationwide reach eBay has, 'cept maybe Etsy - which also has turned to crap ever since they started allowing "Hecho en China" garbage and other non-handicrafts there.
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Yes, since 1998. I figured out 'sniping' before you could set it up in a automated way. Back when you could leave negative feedback and not have it deleted by Ebay staff.

I do agree that it has good reach, will likely find a buyer if your prices are good. I still use it when necessary, just try to sell in other places first so they don't take their cut.
 
Zorba said:
That is why I have a firewalled account, and remove any incoming funds from it IMMEDIATELY. eBay can't chargeback if there's no funds in it.
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Guess again.

You have an agreement with eBay linking that account. When you do that, whether it's eBay or an autopay for a CC or whatever, the bank will overdraw your account and pay it anyway. And now you'll owe that to the bank, plus overdraft fees. This isn't the bank screwing you, they actually don't have a choice.

Ask me how I know.
 
WallyWest said:
Guess again.

You have an agreement with eBay linking that account. When you do that, whether it's eBay or an autopay for a CC or whatever, the bank will overdraw your account and pay it anyway. And now you'll owe that to the bank, plus overdraft fees. This isn't the bank screwing you, they actually don't have a choice.

Ask me how I know.
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This happened to me recently. I sold an item for $1400 and then forgot about the outrageous Ebay fees. I think it was close to $250. Well there goes the profit margin on that one...
 
WallyWest said:
Guess again.

You have an agreement with eBay linking that account. When you do that, whether it's eBay or an autopay for a CC or whatever, the bank will overdraw your account and pay it anyway. And now you'll owe that to the bank, plus overdraft fees. This isn't the bank screwing you, they actually don't have a choice.

Ask me how I know.
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Guess again. Not at my credit union the way I set it up.
 
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WallyWest said:
I bank at a credit union too, federal law still applies. Best of luck.
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Since I have to go in there in the next two days, I'll double check. But they told me that NOBODY could withdraw funds from that account externally. If that turns out to not be the case, I'll figure something else out.
 
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Zorba said:
Since I have to go in there in the next two days, I'll double check. But they told me that NOBODY could withdraw funds from that account externally. If that turns out to not be the case, I'll figure something else out.
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Alright, I checked. They had to call the main office to get the definitive answer. The way I have it set up, if eBay or anybody else tries to withdraw funds AND the account in question is empty (which it is, funds withdrawn by me within minutes of being deposited), then they are SOL. The can NOT "take me negative". That leaves me in the driver's seat, not eBay.
 
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Zorba said:
Alright, I checked. They had to call the main office to get the definitive answer. The way I have it set up, if eBay or anybody else tries to withdraw funds AND the account in question is empty (which it is, funds withdrawn by me within minutes of being deposited), then they are SOL. The can NOT "take me negative". That leaves me in the driver's seat, not eBay.
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What type of account is it? I was told the bank has no options for that type of charge, even if it overdraws the account.

In any case denying them payment is a violation of the user agreement. Depends on how much it is whether they'll come after you for it, but they almost certainly would report it to the credit agencies as a no pay.
 
WallyWest said:
What type of account is it? I was told the bank has no options for that type of charge, even if it overdraws the account.

In any case denying them payment is a violation of the user agreement. Depends on how much it is whether they'll come after you for it, but they almost certainly would report it to the credit agencies as a no pay.
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Its just a "sub account" on my main. The point is, eBay can do what they want - but I'm in the driver's seat. If I choose to refund or whatever, that's fine. If they're trying some of their underhanded bullshit that I keep hearing about, they can go pound sand. I've never had a problem - and don't expect to - but I also won't open myself up to being at their mercy.
 
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