I have been buying and selling on Ebay for over 13 years. Until recently, I have had very good experiences. Ebay used to be an excellent way to auction. They charged fees based upon your listing services and a final value fee based upon the total sales price. This fee used to be about 4%. There have been some changes that have begun to give me pause. Ebay requires that most transactions have to be paid for using PayPal. PayPal charges approximately 3% for this “convenience”. It should be noted that Ebay now owns PayPal and that Ebay is PayPal’s largest customer.
Ebay has changed its listing fees somewhat but has raised their final value fee to 9% on items up to $1000.00. Now one must pay 12% to Ebay and PayPal. This is comparable to the consignment fee at some gun stores.
Ebay recently employed a Buyer Protection Program. Basically if a buyer is not happy with the product they purchase they can open a “case“. If the seller doesn’t resolve the case with the buyer, Ebay gets involved and decides the “case”.
This just happened to me. I sold a somewhat high end Randall Knife. It was as new and a limited production knife by the Randall Collector’s Society. The buyer “sniped” it in the last 30 seconds of the auction and outbid a reputable dealer. When the buyer received the knife he claimed that there was a crack in the stag and he wanted to return it. I countered that there wasn’t a crack in the stag that any imperfections were characteristic of stag. This went back and forth for a while. I offered to refund a portion of his money to compensate the buyer for his dissatisfaction. He was not interested. He then opened a “case”. As soon as the case was opened , I received a message from Ebay to reimburse the buyer to avoid a penalty. This was before any evidence had been heard. The buyer sent two extremely high resolution pictures of the “crack”. If you magnify anything enough it will look faulty. I should add that I posted several high resolution pictures in the original listing. However, Ebay reduces the clarity so it is almost impossible to show any detail.
Ebay then decided in the buyer’s favor and sent him a shipping label. I was sent an e-mail from Ebay to examine the knife upon return and then refund the buyer within 3 days. If I did, I would not be charged the 9% final value fee. I received the knife back yesterday. The buyer had apparently thrown away the original Randall wrapping paper and covered the shipping box with tape. Yesterday evening I logged onto Ebay to refund the buyer. I was greeted with a message from Ebay that they had already refunded the buyer and now I needed to refund them. During this entire process, Ebay put a freeze on my PayPal account in the amount of the total sales price plus shipping.
Since I wasn’t given the opportunity to refund directly to the buyer, I will be charged the final value fee.
After talking to several lovely representatives from India, I haven’t been able to find out what happened. I appealed my case in an attempt to recoup my fees for services that I didn’t receive.
I apologize for this long winded, whiny post, but I think some of you may benefit. Selling on Ebay no longer is a pleasure. Give the business to someone else.
Ebay has changed its listing fees somewhat but has raised their final value fee to 9% on items up to $1000.00. Now one must pay 12% to Ebay and PayPal. This is comparable to the consignment fee at some gun stores.
Ebay recently employed a Buyer Protection Program. Basically if a buyer is not happy with the product they purchase they can open a “case“. If the seller doesn’t resolve the case with the buyer, Ebay gets involved and decides the “case”.
This just happened to me. I sold a somewhat high end Randall Knife. It was as new and a limited production knife by the Randall Collector’s Society. The buyer “sniped” it in the last 30 seconds of the auction and outbid a reputable dealer. When the buyer received the knife he claimed that there was a crack in the stag and he wanted to return it. I countered that there wasn’t a crack in the stag that any imperfections were characteristic of stag. This went back and forth for a while. I offered to refund a portion of his money to compensate the buyer for his dissatisfaction. He was not interested. He then opened a “case”. As soon as the case was opened , I received a message from Ebay to reimburse the buyer to avoid a penalty. This was before any evidence had been heard. The buyer sent two extremely high resolution pictures of the “crack”. If you magnify anything enough it will look faulty. I should add that I posted several high resolution pictures in the original listing. However, Ebay reduces the clarity so it is almost impossible to show any detail.
Ebay then decided in the buyer’s favor and sent him a shipping label. I was sent an e-mail from Ebay to examine the knife upon return and then refund the buyer within 3 days. If I did, I would not be charged the 9% final value fee. I received the knife back yesterday. The buyer had apparently thrown away the original Randall wrapping paper and covered the shipping box with tape. Yesterday evening I logged onto Ebay to refund the buyer. I was greeted with a message from Ebay that they had already refunded the buyer and now I needed to refund them. During this entire process, Ebay put a freeze on my PayPal account in the amount of the total sales price plus shipping.
Since I wasn’t given the opportunity to refund directly to the buyer, I will be charged the final value fee.
After talking to several lovely representatives from India, I haven’t been able to find out what happened. I appealed my case in an attempt to recoup my fees for services that I didn’t receive.
I apologize for this long winded, whiny post, but I think some of you may benefit. Selling on Ebay no longer is a pleasure. Give the business to someone else.
.
