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Thinking of Selling on eBay using Paypal? Think Again

codenerdz.com

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Re: Thinking of Selling on eBay using Paypal? Think Again

#281

Post by paulhauggis »

Add Amazon to your list. It's much worse.

-You can't block scammers -Buyers can return an item for any reason (even a year after they purchased it from you). 99% of the time, Amazon will let them keep the item and refund them. This happened to me many times. -If you get banned, they will keep your money for 90 days. Banning is based on automated robots that look for patterns. You have no recourse. All Amazon associates will tell you to use their email support system. The email support system is manned by either scripts or reps that will only respond with canned answers.

Ebay isn't nearly as bad. I've had claims filed against me a few times by various people and as long as I had the tracking number, I won the claim.

As someone who made amazon thousands of dollars, I got tried of being treated this way. The only reason they can still continue this behavior is because they are the biggest marketplace.

It's hard for competitors because you need the traffic.

Re: Thinking of Selling on eBay using Paypal? Think Again

#282

Post by ars »

kerryfalk wrote: post #279
plaguuuuuu wrote: post #277

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Being terse in this post bc I'm working atm and don't have much time. a) Link either doesn't exist on main page or isn't immediately apparent enough. b) Consider this page - http://www.boostclassifieds.com.au . Today is the first time I've seen it - visually it looks horrible and potentially untrustworthy. If I may say so, your site looks freakin' incredible. But on their site, the first thing my eyes land on is a gi…

Thanks for that feedback. Not terse at all. I'm having trouble with the balancing act. I definitely need to improve the searchability of the site. At the same time if I put everything front and center it'll become pretty apparent that we don't have many listings yet. Will that just turn people away? I'm not sure yet, I don't have the data to say. I'll think more on this.

Yes, not having a lot of listing will definitely turn people away.

But so will a site with no listings at all, as yours appears.

The first thing you should do is split the site: A big "For sellers" / "For buyers" right at the start, then each group can navigate their own section. Perhaps a third button to talk about what you do, what's special about your site.

Re: Thinking of Selling on eBay using Paypal? Think Again

#283

Post by ars »

edj wrote: post #271

I've been scammed selling on eBay and will probably never sell there again, but if I did I'd want a cheat sheet of scam countermeasures. Here's a start based on the OP's safety checklist (points 3 through 5), comments in this thread, and my own experience. 1) Try not to sell on eBay. Perhaps Craigslist or another marketplace will work instead. Unfortunately, people in low population density areas are kind of screwed…

If you do 6 you'll sell exactly 0 items.

Rule number 1 for buyers: Don't pay with a money order, always use a credit card.

You're only thinking about protecting yourself - but you also have to actually attract buyers.

Re: Thinking of Selling on eBay using Paypal? Think Again

#284

Post by STRML »

gacba wrote: post #259
sp332 wrote: post #255

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A bad seller (or buyer) could avoid negative feedback just by never leaving feedback, meaning the buyer (or seller) would never be able to publish theirs.

oDesk gets around this by having a time limit on when feedback can be left. If one party fails to enter feedback, then it posts the other's feedback anyway. Parties can lobby to have the other person change the feedback, but only if they lobbied party wants to. Seems like a workable system to me and allows each to be honest without consequences like eBay's original system.

That's genius. eBay could really learn from that. Removing buyer feedback entirely is a really big hammer.

Re: Thinking of Selling on eBay using Paypal? Think Again

#285

Post by thaumasiotes »

joonix wrote: post #130
angryasian wrote: post #89

Earlier quoted context omitted.

just wondering how would you expect or how do other companies currently avoid fraud. The costs associated or added with constantly investigating fraud would almost seem like a deterrent in making a system useful.

Chargebacks are a part of doing business any time you accept credit cards, whether paypal is your merchant provider or not. The problem here is Visa/MC/Amex etc. Since you almost have to accept credit card payments these days, you're stuck with their terms. Since the banks all provide credit through these card providers, there's very little competition. There are numerous ways to virtually eliminate CC fraud but the…

> Eliminate VISA and MC, who are basically skimming 2.5% off our retail economy.

This claim doesn't make much sense. For example, an economy with RGDP 150,000 units, of which 2.5% go to Visa/MC, is not worse off than one of RGDP 130,000 units, of which 0% go to Visa/MC.

Re: Thinking of Selling on eBay using Paypal? Think Again

#286

Post by mcherm »

anigbrowl wrote: post #249
WiseWeasel wrote: post #237

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The problem with accepting PayPal or CC payments is that you can withdraw the money from your PayPal account immediately, but they can still issue a charge-back up to 180 days later and your PayPal account will be deducted that amount. For remote transactions, money order by mail or Bitcoin are your only safe, non-reversible options as a seller.

Hence the insurance.

I fail to see how is the insurance would have helped in this case. No one disputes that the package was delivered successfully.

Re: Thinking of Selling on eBay using Paypal? Think Again

#287

Post by mcherm »

URSpider94 wrote: post #162
jliptzin wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

LOL! What attorney would give a crap about a $500 phone? The sad truth is that in this system of ours, you can screw someone for up to $50-100k and get away with it because that's the minimum potential damages amount that would pique a decent attorney's interest.

Jaded much? I think that depends a lot on what you mean "a decent attorney". Sure, a partner at Proskauer isn't going to take your call, but in my experience, the nice woman with the office down the street might be glad to help you put together a plan, critique your demand letter, etc. This kind of "decent attorney" is willing to work with you on the small stuff, in the hopes that you'll come back to her in the futur…

I think your experience may be atypical. But it's great to hear such a positive story.

Re: Thinking of Selling on eBay using Paypal? Think Again

#288

Post by codenerdz »

ephibiz wrote: post #236
steve8918 wrote: post #52

The only logical conclusion that can be made from eBay's and Paypal's policies is that they no longer want small sellers to use them. They want professional sellers to sell from their site, people who are used to dealing with chargebacks, etc, and can foot the bill when it comes to chargebacks/fraud. They want to facilitate BUYING from regular people, but make SELLING by regular people very difficult. There is no oth…

To play devil's advocate, how could similar businesses make better decisions? For example, buyer/scammer "A" sends money via credit card payment to seller "B"s paypal/dwolla/freelancer/etc--"C"s account, who then withdraws the money to his bank. Buyer "A" then files and successfully gets a chargeback from the credit card company, who debits company "C". Now C is wrongfully in the red, and they need to make it back so…

I sort of agree, but again, Paypal is also enabling this to continue by refusing me the chance to bring my case to the credit card company.

Short of legal action, they would not let me get the contact info for the buyers credit card company in order for me to deal with them directly.

Re: Thinking of Selling on eBay using Paypal? Think Again

#289

Post by codenerdz »

repiret wrote: post #232
steve8918 wrote: post #52

The only logical conclusion that can be made from eBay's and Paypal's policies is that they no longer want small sellers to use them. They want professional sellers to sell from their site, people who are used to dealing with chargebacks, etc, and can foot the bill when it comes to chargebacks/fraud. They want to facilitate BUYING from regular people, but make SELLING by regular people very difficult. There is no oth…

Having recently sold an iPhone on eBay and been concerned about problems like this, I wish eBay would allow non-professional sellers restrict bids to professional buyers.

Thousand times this. Their buyer filtering options are laughable.

If they were to let me limit sales to people with certain types of addresses, purchases of certain value, a reasonable number of feedback, etc, that would be very helpful in reducing a chance of being defrauded

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