Crooked Ebay Seller

[thecatspajamas]

Originally Posted by Hankphenom

That's my point. eBay should make it a rare exception for a seller to end an auction early, with some process to make them show what the error was that they didn't catch before they finalized the listing. As it is now, this practice is all too routine.

They have to have some way for sellers to cancel a listing if they have made a gross error. And as long as there is a way to cancel a listing, unscrupulous sellers will jump through whatever series of hoops eBay has set up to do so if it means making an extra buck or two. There is no way eBay is going to hire people to sift through a bunch of claims to "show what the error was that they didn't catch." EVERYTHING with eBay is routine, as it has to be with the kind of volume of listings they are dealing with.

Also you should know that there are no eBay detectives on staff, out there hunting through the millions of listings to sniff out crooks and their dirty dealings before they have a chance to strike unfortunate buyers. There are a few instances where a company has someone on staff that will browse eBay listings looking for counterfeits or forgeries of their employers' stuff and then report those to eBay for them to act on (try selling a bootleg Disney Song of the South DVD or unlicensed KISS memorabilia and you'll see what I mean). Otherwise, you have to report bad stuff to eBay yourself for them to do anything about it (like a "citizen's arrest"). It may take several reports on the same seller, or incontrovertible evidence of the seller's guilt, but they will (sometimes) boot them. And it seems like cases like this where the seller is skating their way around eBay fees are the ones most likely to get them booted. The thing to remember is that it is much much much harder (and more expensive) to prevent or catch these things before they happen than it is to react to the situation after the fact. Just being realistic here.

Originally Posted by Hankphenom

You really don't think eBay knows what's going on? Of course they do, but they've clearly decided it's better to let bidders get pissed off by the practice than to piss off sellers by trying to do something about it. Sellers pay the bills, the way they must look at it.

As a regular seller on eBay, I can guarantee you that they do cater more to the buyers than the sellers. Sellers do pay the bills, but if there are no buyers, nobody gets paid. Ebay knows they are the best site in town as far as general exposure, ease of access, and getting more eyes on your stuff, and they also know just how far they can push sellers without driving them away (mostly by repeatedly testing their boundaries). I would say 90-95% of the time if there is a dispute between the buyer and the seller, eBay will side with the buyer unless the seller has rock solid evidence (like a tracking number with signature, and even that isn't guaranteed).