ebay is disgusting, just disgusting

[sportscardtheory]

After nearly 10 years as a seller, nearly 5,000 positive feedbacks, nearly $100,000 in sales, $100,000+ in purchases and never any issues, ebay decided to restrict my selling account "forever" due to some arbitrary "minimal" guidelines for selling that were RECENTLY put into place. I can "never" sell on ebay again, and neither can anyone who lives in the same household as me. They never gave me an honest chance to fix the so-called 'problem', just deleted the years of work, time and effort it took to create the 600+ listings I had on there and said 'too bad, you should have done better'. I still have so much money put into what I was selling, and now no means to sell it. I'm completely screwed. All this less than a month before Christmas. I use ebay sales to pay bills, buy presents, etc... Now they tell me to screw off over basically NOTHING with ZERO recourse. Ruining my Christmas, not allowing me to pay my bills, bending me over and telling me 'too bad'. This company is about as UN-AMERICAN as it gets and I hope for nothing but the worst for anyone making these decisions that so negatively affect good people who haven't done ANYTHING wrong who are just trying to get by. I pray for the day that a PROPER auction site is created to compete with and show ebay how to treat people who are their bread and butter. Shame on you, ebay.

[glchen]

Have you tried creating a new paypal account, link it to a new bank account, and then create a new ebay account, and use the newly created your paypal? You may be able to extract the listings from your old account using TurboLister, and then upload those into your new ebay account. (If you used TurboLister before, you may be able to just copy your old unsold listings into your Upload, and then put these into your new ebay account.

(or if your wife has a different ebay account (like mine does), just use hers and see if it works.)

[Luke]

What were the "minimal guidelines" they referred to?

[ibuysportsephemera]

Wow John, that is rough...sorry that your in such a predicament. Can you give us more specific reasons why they did this to you?

Jeff

[glchen]

Originally Posted by LukeLyon

What were the "minimal guidelines" they referred to?

Not sure which one hamstrung John, but ebay has made a number of new seller requirements that makes it more difficult such as: (some of these are only to retain Top Rated status, but others may go further.)

(1) 90% of sales need to have tracking uploaded within one day after payment, and tracking needs to show that package was delivered.

(2) You cannot have too many cases opened against you.

(3) You cannot cancel too many transactions even if it's buyer's remorse where the buyer just wants to return an item within the ebay recommended 14 day return policy.

(4) Previously, only 1's and 2's were strikes against a seller for DSR's. Now 3's are also strikes that count against you.


For example, due to #3, I've noticed that many seller's aren't even opening Cancel Transaction cases after an item is returned to that they can receive their final value fees back. They just refund the buyer and eat the FVF themselves to that they don't get dinged on that criteria.

[sportscardtheory]

My account was "below standard" because of a few opened cases, which were immediately resolved. The thing is, up until recently, ebay prompted buyers to open cases INSTEAD of simply sending a quick message. Also, I ship cheap cards without tracking and sometimes people take shots by opening cases and I just eat the loss and refund immediately. But, apparently that makes me the devil and ebay decided that they no longer want my business. I had nearly $75,000 worth of cards listed. Now $0 and nowhere to sell them. All less than a month before Christmas. I feel like it's a prank, but it's not, and it's not funny.

[Luke]

Wow, that's so brutal

[D. Bergin]

Originally Posted by glchen

Not sure which one hamstrung John, but ebay has made a number of new seller requirements that makes it more difficult such as: (some of these are only to retain Top Rated status, but others may go further.)

(1) 90% of sales need to have tracking uploaded within one day after payment, and tracking needs to show that package was delivered.

(2) You cannot have too many cases opened against you.

(3) You cannot cancel too many transactions even if it's buyer's remorse where the buyer just wants to return an item within the ebay recommended 14 day return policy.

(4) Previously, only 1's and 2's were strikes against a seller for DSR's. Now 3's are also strikes that count against you.


For example, due to #3, I've noticed that many seller's aren't even opening Cancel Transaction cases after an item is returned to that they can receive their final value fees back. They just refund the buyer and eat the FVF themselves to that they don't get dinged on that criteria.

Yeah, it's silly sometimes.

I have a defect because a customer asked me where his package was? USPS was tardy on delivery and he actually received it two days later, but I got penalized simply because somebody asked a simple question that was easily resolved by the P.O. getting their heads out of their ass.

I didn't fault the guy for asking the question, he didn't know it was going to be a detriment to me. He didn't even know he was opening a case. Ebay automatically did it for him because he clicked the option that said "Where is my package?"

Did the defect disappear when the packaged showed "Delivered"? No it did not. It didn't matter to Ebay. If you ever called them up and asked them about it, they would calmly tell you it was your own fault for choosing the USPS as your shipping service. They would also say the same if it was UPS, FedEX, Pony Express, or Hand Delivered by Howard Hughes himself.

[calvindog]

I don't sell much on ebay but had a case opened against me for a package not received by an auction winner. I assumed the card was lost and then lo and behold it came back to me -- the buyer had given me a bad address. I questioned him on it and he sheepishly told me that he had made a mistake and given me an old address. After he repaid me, I sent the card again -- postage on me. I still have that one strike against me.

[Rich Klein]

Originally Posted by sportscardtheory

After nearly 10 years as a seller, nearly 5,000 positive feedbacks, nearly $100,000 in sales, $100,000+ in purchases and never any issues, ebay decided to restrict my selling account "forever" due to some arbitrary "minimal" guidelines for selling that were RECENTLY put into place. I can "never" sell on ebay again, and neither can anyone who lives in the same household as me. They never gave me an honest chance to fix the so-called 'problem', just deleted the years of work, time and effort it took to create the 600+ listings I had on there and said 'too bad, you should have done better'. I still have so much money put into what I was selling, and now no means to sell it. I'm completely screwed. All this less than a month before Christmas. I use ebay sales to pay bills, buy presents, etc... Now they tell me to screw off over basically NOTHING with ZERO recourse. Ruining my Christmas, not allowing me to pay my bills, bending me over and telling me 'too bad'. This company is about as UN-AMERICAN as it gets and I hope for nothing but the worst for anyone making these decisions that so negatively affect good people who haven't done ANYTHING wrong who are just trying to get by. I pray for the day that a PROPER auction site is created to compete with and show ebay how to treat people who are their bread and butter. Shame on you, ebay.

May I recommend COMC.Com --

Failing that May I also recommend the BST

Rich

[Orioles1954]

Originally Posted by Rich Klein

May I recommend COMC.Com --

Failing that May I also recommend the BST

Rich

Rich,

Can you educate us on COMC.com?

[swarmee]

Originally Posted by Orioles1954

Rich,

Can you educate us on COMC.com?

comc.com is a website/company that will receive cards for you, scan them in for a fee, and then list them on their website. Since shipping is such a pain on single cards across the country and world, you leave your cards at their warehouse until you want to take delivery of them. Then it costs $3 to have as many shipped to you at one time as you want.
You list a card at a fixed price, and people can either buy it immediately, make an offer, or you can create a sale. Works great for cards worth $2-25, where it could be wasteful to continue making trips back and forth to the post office or where mailing the card would make you sell the card for a nickel. They also allow you to post cards on Amazon, where they get some views.

[swarmee]

Originally Posted by Rich Klein

May I recommend COMC.Com --

Failing that May I also recommend the BST

Rich

The fact that this same post has been sent to PSA's message boards and BlowOut's forums, means this guy probably knows about comc. Seems odd especially when many sellers claimed last month that their negatives and non-five star DSRs were erased by eBay with no request. Just happened overnight...
Feel sorry for the guy, but eBay is no longer the only game in town.

[Rich Klein]

Originally Posted by swarmee

The fact that this same post has been sent to PSA's message boards and BlowOut's forums, means this guy probably knows about comc. Seems odd especially when many sellers claimed last month that their negatives and non-five star DSRs were erased by eBay with no request. Just happened overnight...
Feel sorry for the guy, but eBay is no longer the only game in town.

He sento Beckett as well

[conor912]

It's just as well. Ebay is going out of business anyway. It will be a slow bleed-out, but eventually they'll have to face the fact that auctions aren't their bread and butter anymore and that people prefer Amazon to BIN's. Plus now Paypal, which was subsidizing Ebay, is a separate company. I'm not saying it won't be around in some form, but they will continue to become a hollower and hollower shell of what they used to be.

On the bright side, $75k worth of stuff hitting the BST all at once sounds like a mighty fine Xmas for everyone!

[Sportsguy20]

John, I would call ebay and ask to speak with a supervisor. Explain to them your predicament and see if they have a heart. Be persistent and go to the top if you have to.

[Jantz]

sportscardtheory - John

What do you have for sale as far as T06s?

If you have any, let me know what you have. I've tried really hard to be good this year, so I'm thinking Santa should bring me something.

As far as Ebay shutting you down, to me its a win-win situation. You can sell your stuff elsewhere, like our BST and offer potentially new customers better prices since you don't have to pay all the Ebay & Paypal fees.

I've just about given up buying on Ebay and somewhere around 60% of my T206 set (in progress) has been bought from other members on our BST.


Jantz

[vintagehofrookies]

Originally Posted by sportscardtheory

After nearly 10 years as a seller, nearly 5,000 positive feedbacks, nearly $100,000 in sales, $100,000+ in purchases and never any issues, ebay decided to restrict my selling account "forever" due to some arbitrary "minimal" guidelines for selling that were RECENTLY put into place. I can "never" sell on ebay again, and neither can anyone who lives in the same household as me. They never gave me an honest chance to fix the so-called 'problem', just deleted the years of work, time and effort it took to create the 600+ listings I had on there and said 'too bad, you should have done better'. I still have so much money put into what I was selling, and now no means to sell it. I'm completely screwed. All this less than a month before Christmas. I use ebay sales to pay bills, buy presents, etc... Now they tell me to screw off over basically NOTHING with ZERO recourse. Ruining my Christmas, not allowing me to pay my bills, bending me over and telling me 'too bad'. This company is about as UN-AMERICAN as it gets and I hope for nothing but the worst for anyone making these decisions that so negatively affect good people who haven't done ANYTHING wrong who are just trying to get by. I pray for the day that a PROPER auction site is created to compete with and show ebay how to treat people who are their bread and butter. Shame on you, ebay.

this is why I stopped selling on ebay months ago. Its just easier and less hassle to send your cards to a consignor. And by doing that you can actually save money as I found out when I saw probstein's rates and realized they were better than what me as a seller w/100% + 2000+ FB can get. If you don't get screwed by the buyer then ebay will screw you...either way you get screwed! Best of luck to you!

[ALR-bishop]

I am just a buyer on ebay. I have never sold anything there. I remember the days when sellers did have the upper hand. Customer service has improved greatly under the new rules, from my standpoint. But. crazy and or unethical buyers now can play havoc with good sellers, and as a result many no longer sell on ebay. That is a loss for me as a buyer.

I seldom use ebay except for cards, do the current rules favoring buyers cause the same difficulties in other categories of sales ?

[vthobby]

Originally Posted by vintagehofrookies

this is why I stopped selling on ebay months ago. Its just easier and less hassle to send your cards to a consignor. And by doing that you can actually save money as I found out when I saw probstein's rates and realized they were better than what me as a seller w/100% + 2000+ FB can get. If you don't get screwed by the buyer then ebay will screw you...either way you get screwed! Best of luck to you!

Well said. I too have high (over 4000) feedback on Ebay at 100% and can't STAND them anymore. They really do HATE sellers. That sounds crazy doesn't it? I have had more petty and some bigger problems with buyers and ultimately Ebay recently and have also gone the consignor route to PWCC. PWCC does charge a little more (around 20%) but this is only 5% more than I pay with all the fees and hassle etc.. and PWCC has an incredibly transparent and easy to use consignor system that you can find on their web site. Just type in PWCC on google to find it. There is a consignor portal on their site where I just click to see all of my auctions and what they are going for. Flawless and ZERO effort from me. I'm not dealing with customers or ebay for that matter. PERFECT!

peace, mike

[I Only Smoke 4 the Cards]

I have had positive experiences on the BST. It really helps me build me relationships.