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Fine, eBay. Here’s your $2. I hope you choke on it.

blog.danhulton.com

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Re: Fine, eBay. Here’s your $2. I hope you choke on it.

#41

Post by propercoil »

wbharding wrote: post #37
jeffyee wrote: post #24

A big problem with casual selling on ebay is you don't know what you don't know until you've already been screwed. I sold some iTunes gift cards and provided the redemption code from the card after I received payment. We both left positive feedback for each other (he already had 18 feedback). A month or so later, the buyer put a chargeback on their credit card, got their money back from paypal, and I had no recourse.…

Bonanza.com (the site I've been building for about four years now) has become one of the largest non-eBay marketplaces by scooping up sellers like you & the OP. We're now up to 25,000 active sellers and 4 million listings by virtue of having seller-friendly policies. Admittedly, there is enough gray area in marketplace transactions where determining "right and wrong" can sometimes prove difficult. But I like to think…

it's clean and looks kinda cool..

Re: Fine, eBay. Here’s your $2. I hope you choke on it.

#42

Post by callmeed »

wbharding wrote: post #37
jeffyee wrote: post #24

A big problem with casual selling on ebay is you don't know what you don't know until you've already been screwed. I sold some iTunes gift cards and provided the redemption code from the card after I received payment. We both left positive feedback for each other (he already had 18 feedback). A month or so later, the buyer put a chargeback on their credit card, got their money back from paypal, and I had no recourse.…

Bonanza.com (the site I've been building for about four years now) has become one of the largest non-eBay marketplaces by scooping up sellers like you & the OP. We're now up to 25,000 active sellers and 4 million listings by virtue of having seller-friendly policies. Admittedly, there is enough gray area in marketplace transactions where determining "right and wrong" can sometimes prove difficult. But I like to think…

You run Bonanza? Cool, I have a bill for you.

2 years ago I caught a lady selling handbags (that she didn't really have) from your site. I caught her because she was having people pay through an account with our service (nextproof.com).

Guess who had to eat the chargeback fees? I did

Guess who had to call other people, inform them the handbag they ordered as a Christmas gift was bogus, then listen to them cry? I did

All that to say, if you (or anyone else) has a successful marketplace, shady folks will swarm to you and you will have no choice but to figure out buyer and seller protection policies.

Re: Fine, eBay. Here’s your $2. I hope you choke on it.

#43

Post by mindslight »

DanHulton wrote: post #38
mindslight wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So at that point you repudiate the debt again, this time to the collections agency. If they insist on unilaterally publicly claiming you owe money without any sort of actual proof, take them to court for slander. Clearly the buck stops somewhere , as I can't just call up a collection agency and tell them that bduerst owes me $1 for responding to his HN comment.

The fact that they only offer phone support is not a company doing its fair share to try to connect with me over problems. It's them putting up roadblocks to try to avoid having to deal with me. Given that, I don't feel I have the obligation to attempt to sit through their various roadblocks. It was honestly far easier and satisfying to just give them the two bucks and then report the facts of my experience onto the…

The choice you made was between the two options they gave you. Either outcome is part of their system, and perfectly fine by them. There was also third option wherein you notify them that the debt is invalid because no services were rendered, and that it is not your responsibility to convince their systems and processes of that fact.

Re: Fine, eBay. Here’s your $2. I hope you choke on it.

#45

Post by jlgreco »

fafner wrote: post #35
hcayce wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>A big problem with casual selling on ebay is you don't know what you don't know until you've already been screwed. Most of the big online sites (Paypal is the worst offender, but the others aren't much better) favor buyers over sellers. Amazon certainly works that way, and, as a result, I'm mostly use Craigslist to sell computers and cameras/lenses. I don't sell all that much stuff, though I do it for family members…

> or in police station lobbies I've never used Craigslist. But is it really common or advised to meat with the buyer/seller in a police station lobby?

I think the standard method is coffee shops in the good part of town.

Re: Fine, eBay. Here’s your $2. I hope you choke on it.

#46

Post by excerionsforte »

DanHulton wrote: post #40
luke_s wrote: post #39

I wanted to provide somewhat of a counterpoint – I have been using e-bay (Australia) for about 7 years. I sell all kinds of stuff ranging from a broken bookcase for $1, which I didn’t want to haul to the tip, all the way up to a boat for $950. I also run a small business selling items via a website and my e-bay account [1][2]. Overall I’ve found my e-bay experience to be very positive. I’ve only had one person who I…

OP here. Glad eBay is working out for you! Honestly, there are a lot of tools and useful techniques for sellers to get a positive experience, but they're just hidden or you only seem to learn them after you've gotten burned already. As a seller who hasn't been on eBay for many years though, it's just a very harsh experience filled with hidden pitfalls. And I was able to submit unpaid item disputes successfully for th…

So wait, you basically got around $68 back and you posted this blog post ABOUT losing less than 5% (around 3%) from a failed transaction? Whereas there are other people who have legitimate complaints having lost >50% of their item value along with fees. Wow..... I really do want to understand the rationale behind this. Explain.

Re: Fine, eBay. Here’s your $2. I hope you choke on it.

#47

Post by damncabbage »

danek wrote: post #23

eBay is a great place for scammers to get free stuff! every few years, my girlfriend gives eBay another chance and tries selling something. Every single time, she gets scammed. Each time, the buyer claims he didn't receive the goods or received the wrong thing. eBay automatically sides with the buyer and immediately refunds their money. In cases where the buyer claims they received the wrong thing, they either fail t…

I've used eBay to buy and sell furniture locally with some success. This is, however, a very small niche that is starting to be better served by http://gumtree.com.au here.

Re: Fine, eBay. Here’s your $2. I hope you choke on it.

#48

Post by hkmurakami »

admiralpumpkin wrote: post #31

Solution Only use Buy It Now ever. Require Immediate Payment. Not only are the fees lower for Buy It Now than for auctions, but there's no way for buyers to game you. The listing will sit until someone actually pays you.

Speaking of buy it now, I find it moronic that the buy it now button disappears when even one bid has been entered for the item.

This weekend I bid for an item, then 1 hour later decided that I wanted to pay the 10% extra for buy it now, discovered to my dismay that the buy it now option was gone, thought that the seller had manually removed it, got annoyed and retracted my bid, then saw the buy it now button come back (!) and then managed to buy it now.

I have no idea why they'd make the behavior like this...

Re: Fine, eBay. Here’s your $2. I hope you choke on it.

#49

Post by damncabbage »

luke_s wrote: post #39

I wanted to provide somewhat of a counterpoint – I have been using e-bay (Australia) for about 7 years. I sell all kinds of stuff ranging from a broken bookcase for $1, which I didn’t want to haul to the tip, all the way up to a boat for $950. I also run a small business selling items via a website and my e-bay account [1][2]. Overall I’ve found my e-bay experience to be very positive. I’ve only had one person who I…

http://gumtree.com.au is on the rise for things like your bookcase, but I agree, the market on eBay is much larger.

Re: Fine, eBay. Here’s your $2. I hope you choke on it.

#50

Post by micro-ram »

bduerst wrote: post #30
hcayce wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>A big problem with casual selling on ebay is you don't know what you don't know until you've already been screwed. Most of the big online sites (Paypal is the worst offender, but the others aren't much better) favor buyers over sellers. Amazon certainly works that way, and, as a result, I'm mostly use Craigslist to sell computers and cameras/lenses. I don't sell all that much stuff, though I do it for family members…

Man, how eBay has fought Craigslist tooth and nail over the years.

eBay now owns a stake in Craigslist

http://www.craigslist.org/about/press/ebay.stake

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