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PanamaG, personal attacks are not tolerated. If you disagree with a poster, please do so politely. Your commentary went far beyond disagreeing with certain points of the Original Poster and you end up insulting him and another poster.

In the future, please keep personal attacks to yourself.

Thank you.

The Ebay Feedback system is very unfair and biased towards the buyers. As a seller, I am not allowed to leave -ve feedback, regardless of the outcome of the auction. In addition, with the new scoring, it can affect the status and visability of my auctions.

I mark my P&P costs acurately and send them 2nd class to keep the cost down. This is stated on the auction. So I get marked down for long postage times. I mark P&P costs for 1st Class, then get marked down for expensive P&P. How do I win this one?

I sold my old car radio. The winner decided he didn't want it and refused to pay. Ebay gave him a 'strike'. 3 strikes and your out, until you create a new email address and account. Because of this, he then leaves -ve feedback stating that the goods I was selling were probably stolen. Totally untrue, and as the seller, I can only leave +ve feedback. To remove the comment, I have to get a Court Order. Like thats going to happen.

And PayPal is even worse. I send an item out. I know the guy recieved it as it was send recorded delivery. He claims he hasn't recieved it, and after he submitts his PayPal claim, gets his money back, which was taken from my PayPal account. Even though I've a signature of the item being delivered, because it is not the buyers signature, PayPal uphold his claim. Again, I receieve -ve feedback, I can only leave +ve. How is that fair?

I work 6 days a week, and don't get the time some days to get down to the Post Office. People expect the same delivery service as a proffessional company, and I get scored low, which sends my items to the bottom of the search pages.

On a more positive note...

I've just got "best ever seller" as feedback.

This is possibly because the guy bought two items and didn't wait for me to adjust the postage, so I dropped a £1 coin into the package to compensate him.

Aside from that, I always try to post the day after payment, and if I can't I drop them an email. No negative reaction so far, but then I'm only on about 40 stars.

TheSecretSquig wrote:
And PayPal is even worse. I send an item out. I know the guy recieved it as it was send recorded delivery. He claims he hasn't recieved it, and after he submitts his PayPal claim, gets his money back, which was taken from my PayPal account. Even though I've a signature of the item being delivered, because it is not the buyers signature, PayPal uphold his claim. Again, I receieve -ve feedback, I can only leave +ve. How is that fair?

Paypal does worse than that:

http://paypalsucks.com/

To chime in on the topic. I can see both sides. The guy had pretty stellar feedback JHall... so you should have given him the benefit of the doubt. Also, if you have questions about an ebay auction, like "if I win when will it ship?", you should ask them before you bid. That way, no unpleasant surprises.

The terms and conditions of the seller are pretty clearly listed at the bottom of the auction. The seller is really not held to anything but them to provide you with a "positive" transaction.

That all said, the ebay feedback system really sucks. They make it such a big deal what your feedback rating is, and then make it very easy to abuse.

The last I will say on the topic (because it is not worth beating a dead horse - it seems that this topic has caused more disruption than I had intended) is this:

I am not above admitting that I was not fully versed in the repercussions of "Neutral" feedback. I foolishly thought that Neutral meant what the word meant. Middle of the road. If the seller would have sent a message stating politely that he didn't think Neutral was warranted because that impacted his rating and made me aware of my misinterpretation, I would have gladly corrected the feedback. Instead, the seller chose to be a jerk and send me nasty messages (and for the record he sent 3 separate messages, I just used 1 of the 3 in my example). I will not change my feedback due to unnecessary harassment from a petty seller. I was not abusing the feedback system and from all the various dealings I have done on Dakka's Swap Shop and eBay, I am sure many people would see I am very reasonable and go out of my way to make things smooth. If this particular seller would have simply responded to either of my two initial emails (1 sent a week after that auction ended and the other sent a few days before that) none of this would have happened. All he had to do was respond with proper communication.

I consider this discussion done from my point of view and I am not going to engage any further back and forth. My initial post was not intended to start any attacks or flames, and I take exception to the poster (who the Mods have also warned) who felt the need to go much further than the initial discussion warranted.

PanamaG wrote:

JohnHwangDD wrote:
No, it's because he sat on the buyer's money for several days without acknowledgment of receipt or tracking number *BEFORE* getting the item he bought.

So he was sitting on the buyers money for a week until he magically teleported it to the guys door? Or was he sitting on the money for 24 hours before shipping it via snail mail. You have no clue how fast the guy shipped, and the fact that the guy got it within a week makes it pretty reasonable to assume he shipped right away.

I don't care. The fact is, in a week's time, perhaps longer, the Seller sat on the Buyer's money without any response whatsoever, despite Buyer sending valid inquiries as to the status of the money he paid. As a Buyer, he has the RIGHT to know what the hell is going on with his money. And lack of communications on the part of the Seller is simply not acceptable.

The fact that the Seller doesn't care enough to spend 30 seconds to reply "I mailed it yesterday, and it should arrive in 2 days" is the Seller's fault, NOT the Buyer's.

PanamaG wrote:

JohnHwangDD wrote:*snicker* Yeah, what would you do? Waste your time with e-mails after the fact?

No I would grow up and just get over the fact my toy didnt get to me lickety split fast as I demanded it to.

If you're going to "grow up", then I suggest that you do it RIGHT NOW!

PanamaG wrote:

JohnHwangDD wrote:You should reconsider. eBay isn't amateur hour anymore. Slack selling processes deserve to be slammed.

Ughhhh what is wrong with you? You think a weeks shipping time is amateur? Ever ordered from a REAL company outside of Ebay? "Shipping time of 4-8 weeks" is pretty common, and they dont tickle your gonads and say "thanks" after you pay your $2.

WTH is wrong with you?

A week's shipping time *is* amateur.

When I do business on the Internet, and I'm sending, my standard TAT is less than 2 days. And I am consistently faster than that. I typically ship Next Business Day, and have full confirmation to the Buyer.

4 to 8 weeks is crap, totally unacceptable.

Frankly, I'd reverse payment if it went more than 2 or 3 weeks, especially without communications. And quite frankly, if your comms are that bad, and I cancel out before you acknowledge in reasonable time (Next Business Day), I'm going to treat anything you send to me as a "gift" - and it will say this in my cancellation notice.

Seriously, do you have even the slightest clue how *real* business is conducted?

What you're talking about has no connection to any sort of reputable business that I've ever dealt with.
____

update: I'm done here.

The system is awful, its partially why I haven't sold much since the change last year when the removed the ability to give Negs to buyers. Add to the fact Neutral seems a silly idea. It should just have Positive or Negative, your either happy or your not, whats the point of this Neutral thing that still counts as bad for anyway?

I have a rating over one thousand with a lot of repeat buyers from mainly selling gaming stuff I didn't want over the past 7yrs, not too bad for a home seller selling bits and bobs. And from my many transactions I had a total of three Negs, two who expected something to be shipped to them within 2days when it clearly stated on my auction info I was a home seller and I had a 10day delivery period. The other one sniped an auction for empty CCG boxes and boosters (Koku pts from Legend of the 5 Rings) and then screamed how it was a con and the boxes/boosters where empty. Even though the title of the auction was koku pts and the description said there are no cards in this auction, just the empties for collectors of the Koku. Doh

As to paypal, you need it if you want to deal with international bidders, and generally make more sales. Yet you know every so often it leaves you open to scams, sadly I got caught twice in a row by folks claiming items hadn't arrived. So now I have been forced to add signed for to all my international orders with add £3.50 to the P&P cost.

So sales had a bit of a downturn as its obviously putting some folks off. Saldy I've had to effect everyone who wants to buy from me due to the actions of a couple of folks.

Barely sold anything last year, and although I plan on putting on stuff for this week, Its something which these days seems more hassle to organize than the funds it creates for you.

Darkness wrote:I had an issue recently that led to a negative feedback.

Sold some Grey Knights right before X-Mas. Guy paid on the 22nd and I shipped on the 23rd. I also put delivery conformation on all auctions.

Well, January rolls around and he hasnt recieved the product. So I give him the tracking number and we both check the package. Turns out its still at my local post office. I go there, and they reship, priority, and he recieves it immediately. He then leaves me a negative for it, despite having great communication and providing all the needed info that proves it was the post office.

And now you can no longer dispue like you used to. SO I have a glaring negative on my feedback that I cant do anything about.

I had a similar situation darkness. I clearly state in my auctions I don't ship to Canada, I had a Canadian win one of my auctions. When I told him I wouldn't ship to him he threatened negative feedback. For an issue I clearly stated. We didn't have any nasty emails like the one in this thread, but I had to risk shipping it to him to avoid the feedback...

Seller's can't leave negatives? There is no more mutual removal of feedback? No more disputes? Really? The eBay feedback system is COMPLETELY broken.

For the genral readers, sellers now take all the risk and pay the Lion's share of the eBay fees. It is probably why the user in the posts seller was so agitated in his mailing. I see both sides, but clearly this seller didn't do as good a job as he should have.

TheSecretSquig wrote:The Ebay Feedback system is very unfair and biased towards the buyers. As a seller, I am not allowed to leave -ve feedback, regardless of the outcome of the auction. In addition, with the new scoring, it can affect the status and visability of my auctions.

I mark my P&P costs acurately and send them 2nd class to keep the cost down. This is stated on the auction. So I get marked down for long postage times. I mark P&P costs for 1st Class, then get marked down for expensive P&P. How do I win this one?...

I know what you mean, you can't win it.

I have people break my auction terms and then threaten me with negatives...

I'm one of those guys that works my 9 hours, goes home and makes dinner for his family, spends time with the kid, and then spends the rest of my night listing auctions and cutting bits. It helps me pay the mortgage, and I don't have to find a babysitter for a part time job. I spend more time with my family while (hopefully) making a couple bucks.

I am a Powerseller. I don't send payment received or sent messages. What I do is ship immediately, and let the package show up fast. I also respond to questions pretty much within the hour. I also offer free shipping domestically and start all my auctions at .99 cents, which means I have to cut corners. You will get your items wrapped in tissue paper, in an envelope. I had a customer unhappy with the packaging recently. The auction was for .99 cents, and it costs 1.19 to ship it. Sometimes it is a bit tough to swallow, but swallow it I did.

Personally, I think the seller was wrong in this case. He should have responded to the messages. Though he could have been on vacation, but if so should have stated that in his auctions (which is what I have done).

I think you did Ok, JHall.

The fact that a seller can't give negative to a buyer is pathetic, what if the buyer never sends payment?

EBay is a sad place most the time, its why I try to stay away. How ever getting all pissy because he just sent it right away instead of E-Mailing you is just sad.

PanamaG wrote:

JHall wrote:he flipped out on me.

Can you seriously blame him? He is being punished because of your entitlement and ignorance.

As a Powerseller, I think a certain degree of professionalism can reasonably be expected. Being polite, even when you don't want to be, is a very big part of being professional in a customer service role.

TheSecretSquig wrote:Because of this, he then leaves -ve feedback stating that the goods I was selling were probably stolen. Totally untrue, and as the seller, I can only leave +ve feedback. To remove the comment, I have to get a Court Order. Like thats going to happen.

I haven't checked the regs in a while, but I'm fairly sure that 'defamatory' is one of the criteria for potential feedback removal.

Morathi's Darkest Sin wrote: Yet you know every so often it leaves you open to scams, sadly I got caught twice in a row by folks claiming items hadn't arrived.

You got 'caught' if those two people were actually just claiming that it didn't arrive. Parcels do sometimes get lost. They get addressed incorrectly, or the mailman delivers to the wrong address. Or they just get lost at some point in the mail processing system. Or they get stolen by someone who works for the Italian postal service.

If the items actually didn't arrive, then the system did exactly what it is supposed to do.

It's not perfect by any means, and definitely weighted very heavily in the buyer's favour... but many people simply won't buy if they can't be sure that they'll be covered if they don't get what they paid for from this stranger on the internet to whom they have blindly sent their money.

JokerGod wrote:The fact that a seller can't give negative to a buyer is pathetic, what if the buyer never sends payment?

Then the seller should lodge an Unpaid Item dispute, after which the buyer is given a strike. 3 Strikes and their account is deregistered. The seller can also block that buyer from bidding on their auctions in the future.

Realistically, feedback for buyers is useless. Sellers, particularly large volume sellers, don't have the time to sit and check the feedback of everyone bidding on their auctions. Feedback is only really useful for judging whether or not a seller is reliable... A large percentgae of negs serves as a sign that something is awry.

I suspect that eBay are slowly moving to remove it anyway. They introduced the DSR's (Detailed Seller Ratings) a while back, through which buyers rate the seller out of 5 stars for various aspects of the transaction. This would seem to be the eventual replacement for the Feedback system as it currently stands... There's really no compelling reason to have both.

You got 'caught' if those two people were actually just claiming that it didn't arrive. Parcels do sometimes get lost. They get addressed incorrectly, or the mailman delivers to the wrong address. Or they just get lost at some point in the mail processing system. Or they get stolen by someone who works for the Italian postal service.

I've noticed that too, why is it whenever a buyer claims to have lost something the sellers always assume it's a scam? Do you seriously think items NEVER get lost in the mail?

I bought about $200 worth of miniatures from a guy on another forum, with my brother's money. He was starting up a Chaos army and I saw a deal that he was interested in. I kept communicating with him and making sure the package had been sent, and I paid pretty damn promptly, I don't remember exactly but I had sent him the money through PayPal within a day or two. I waited and waited and never got anything in the mail for several weeks, he keeps saying he shipped the stuff. With PayPal you only have so many days to dispute a sale and after that you're screwed, and that's obviously a lot of money that I couldn't really just shrug my shoulders at. I'd have to be the one repaying my brother and I couldn't really afford to. So shortly before my time was up and I still hadn't gotten anything, I went ahead and disputed and finally got that money back. To this day I still have no idea what actually happened, but I know for a fact I never got anything. The guy I bought from never hinted at whether or not he thought I was being dishonest, and in fact he even told me that he thinks the guys at the post office are screwing with him because they apparently steal packages from him a lot?

I dunno why he didn't get delivery confirmation or a tracking number or anything.

Another time I bought a package from an online store that I'm pretty sure was stolen. The postman apparently dropped it next to my door when I wasn't home, and I live in an apartment, right on the ground floor in front of a door. It was recorded as being delivered and I obviously never got it, and the company I bought from (and the post office both) refused to do anything about it (and I never bought anything from them again).

Sometimes gak happens, I know it's easy to assume foul play but I seriously hope no one actually thinks this is the case every single time. I don't rip people off. In my first example I didn't really have a damn thing to gain, the money I got back went to buy (a lot less) Chaos miniatures from the local store, so it was going to be spent on that regardless, I just wanted to take advantage of a guy getting out of the army and it didn't quite work out for either of us. The second example is glaring proof of how god-damned stupid the mailmen can be sometimes. "Oh gee, let's knock on the door one time and drop this package right here in the floor and never think twice about it, because no one would ever actually want to steal such a thing!" And that happens all the time! I'm surprised I haven't had more gak stolen, I've been woken up before by a single knock on the door and when I open up, bam, there's my stuff. And the stupidest thing is if you go through the door on the other side of the hall, we have big locked boxes just for packages, he leaves the key in my mailbox and I go get my package from the box. Or hell, why don't they just keep the damn thing if you aren't home to receive it, ANYTHING but dropping it right there like a god-damned idiot. Is he really in that big of a hurry, is it one of those "Oh well, not my problem" deals? It just pisses me off.

It's getting to where I don't even care if I have to drive 60 miles to go pick it up, which I had to do a week or two ago because FedEx only delivers during the day and I apparently get off work too late, I'd rather lose the gas money and still get my gak than get nothing at all...which is actually kinda turning me off internet shopping in general, if I have to drive all over the place just to make sure I get what I bought then I'm already spending the money I intended to save in the first place.

Granted I've only ever lost that one package (and that one which probably never got sent out if that guy is right), but the sheer carelessness of the whole thing is just irritating.

Stuff gets lost in the mail, but it's a *very* small percentage. I think it's like 1%.

But then, I use tracking on all of my packages, so items getting lost is very rare in my experience.

Leaving a neutral, regardless of communication when it was 3 day shipping is way over the top. Mark a pos, then mark him down in the specific communication rating.

However, a word of advice. If you intend to judge other sellers this way, expect to have an stressful experience on Ebay. If a seller next day ships, this is not an uncommon scenario.

Whenever I sell on eBay and my online store, I always give out shipping notices and try my best to answer queries/keep my buyers updated if of any delays.

When I'm buying, I usually give local sellers about a week, and international sellers a week and a half before I send a query (and expect a reply). As a rule I always add a request to let me know when the items have shipped on the Paypal payment, but I don't really care if the seller doesn't respond to it as long as something arrives at my doorstep in a timely manner.

Having said that, a neutral for 3 days shipping, even if he didn't respond to your e-mails, is fairly excessive. If you were really ticked off, you should simply withold feedback altogether. Neutrals and Negatives are reserved for those who are actively trying to pull a scam or renege on whatever T&C they have on their auction.

I think that the current E-bay feedback system allows you to rate communication, shipping, and all of that on a 1-5 scale. I would've left him positive feedback, but I definitely would've tanked his communication score.

Just as another question, why bring it up here? JHall's said he's not going to change his expectations or behavior, nor is this really a case of "OMFG stay away from the seller", it's a penny-ante disagreement over the nature of neutral feedback on EBay, on a tranaction that by -ANY- account didn't go -badly- that folks are arguing both ways with equal sucess from what I see...

I think the original intent was to discuss the state of the ebay feedback system in general (per the title of the first post) and secondarily to see what people's personal opinions were of his actions. I think a few of us got carried away on that second part, though

For what it's worth, I've had some sellers really go out of their way to be professional (had one send the wrong miniatures, and he sent me the correct ones and let me keep the ones I got with just paying for postage. I actually felt really bad later on because it was such a good deal and I should've given him more!) but I haven't done much ebaying recently, so that could have changed- but it's probably going to vary depending on who you buy from.

Generally I prefer to buy from someone with 75 - 250 feedback, so that I can see they're small-time enough for my auction (and business) to really matter to them

I completely agree with the OP. In my opinion you did the correct thing, and the seller did not. He should have responded to your negative feedback with a polite email if he was to expect a change for the better. I am just amazing that with the threats you did not change it to a negative feedback. But now the question is do we have another alternative. The Dakka Swap Shop is great when someone happens to be getting rid of stuff you want. But otherwise your SOL. And for the swap shop what is a safe paypal alternative.

I've only had two packages 'get lost' in the mail. They were the two that were not sent registered. Make of that what you will.

Stuff does get lost (or pinched by PO employees) so it's not impossible that these items were genuinely lost. Of course registered post can get lost too.

You can claim up to £35 for a lost item if you got a proof if posting (free when handing in the packet.). If you send it registered and it is lost, there is a higher claim limit. These are UK figures of course.

So, I've given this issue far, far more thought than it deserves, and I've flip flopped about a half a dozen times in my stance on it. In the end, I think that while I wouldn't have done what the OP did, I don't think he was in the wrong to do so. In addition, the response by the seller to the OP was beyond unprofessional and strips nearly any sympathy I have the guy away.

Based on the first post, the time line seems to be:
Day 0: OP wins auction.
Day 1: OP pays for auctions
Day ~7: No response "a week had gone by and I hadn't heard anything...", OP sends a message
Day ~8: OP sends another message
Day ~9: items arrive

I set up the timeline to be as generous to the seller as possible, therefore things like "a week going by" are from the end of auction, not payment.

What the time line shows is that the baseline argument used by many sellers, "I let a quickly shipped package do the communicating," can't apply here. At least 8 days pass between payment and arrival, and while it is possible that two of those days were Sundays, that still leaves 6 shipping days, meaning the package sat for a number of days prior to shipping. That's no great sin, most small time sellers only ship once or twice a week (I post my shipping days in all of my auctions). Based on the timeline, it seems possible, or even likely, that the OP messaged the seller after the items shipped. At that point, the seller simply decided to let the arrival of the items do the talking.

At best, this seller is pretty amateurish. I'm an amateur seller, and I've taken the feedback hits for it. If a seller wants to be taken professionally, he needs to act as such. A lot of sellers don't send out confirmation that they've received the money, or that they've shipped. That's not totally out of line. To not respond to questions, particularly when it was good news, is less good.

I think the key factor here is that the OP went over a week without any communication from the seller. If shipped immediately, it would have arrived. If not shipped immediately, when would it be shipped? To then not receive any response to perfectly valid emails compounds that. The OP had, I think, a pretty understandable beef.

That said, the OP received the item in fine condition just over a week after winning the auction. That is, all things considered, the basis for a good eBay transaction. I think that the double whammy of a total lack of communication and a tiny bit slow of shipping left the OP wondering what was going on for a week, and that's simply not good selling.

Finally, does anybody else think it's funny that a guy that doesn't have the time to respond to questions or other emails from sellers has the time to craft angry responses to neutral feedback? He couldn't take a minute to answer the email that would have avoided feedback, but he's going to rail at the OP after the fact? First off, lets ignore the fact that he's not faster than 99% of sellers (well, he might be faster than 99% of sellers, but most sellers are small time, long tail type. Most auctions are through good sellers that ship must faster than this guy.) As another poster pointed out, the use of the word Dude, the pathetic threat to ban the OP, and the sellers total inability to understand the OP's legitimate, if slightly petty, gripe make him a pretty lousy guy.

Well put, Polonius. You managed to say exactly what I was trying to. Simply, if he had responded to the inquiries, all would be good.

Yea, I definitely agree with JohnHwang (thunderclap) and Polonius. The issue is one of customer service, and not responding to an email asking about a transaction is just foolish. The buyer is every bit as concerned about being ripped off as the seller, only they get their end of the bargain much later than the seller does.
Further, a nice, polite "Hey, I am sorry for not getting back to you. I figured the package would get there right about the same time as my email, so I thought it was unneccesary." would probably have made the poster reconsider.

I received a similar response from a seller a few years back after I left POSTIVE feedback, with a description that the product needed some work after I got it, but all was well. The seller had a fit in the same manner, and after giving me negative buyer feedback banned me. I was quite happy to never buy from him again after that, though I probably would have. I think a lot of sellers are oversensitive about the feedback they get, and also show a distinct lack of polite behavior. People in general seem to forget that polite manners are expected on both sides of the transaction.

They also seem to forget that their actions have repercussions, even if the mechanism for recording such repercussions is very poor. (And I agree that eBay needs a scale with more tiers than 3...)

insaniak wrote:
You got 'caught' if those two people were actually just claiming that it didn't arrive. Parcels do sometimes get lost. They get addressed incorrectly, or the mailman delivers to the wrong address. Or they just get lost at some point in the mail processing system. Or they get stolen by someone who works for the Italian postal service.

If the items actually didn't arrive, then the system did exactly what it is supposed to do.

It's not perfect by any means, and definitely weighted very heavily in the buyer's favour... but many people simply won't buy if they can't be sure that they'll be covered if they don't get what they paid for from this stranger on the internet to whom they have blindly sent their money.

Just thought I'd throw in here that the two ebayers who did it to me in question, upon looking at their feedbacks afterward had had other items sent to them also mysteriously vanish. Also the one in Spain made his claim three days after I told him I'd sent it, he claimed it hadn't arrived so he had been forced to buy elsewhere. Sadly I had no confirmed tracking back then and Paypal pretty much immediately went in his favour. Considering airmail to Spain is 3-5days I was rightly upset.

I don't mind losing an item, but I'm not a professional, and I lost two games there. I was happy to go 50-50 on them especially when the sell ammount was £10 ish, but I am not a shop, I'm a fella selling 2nd hand goods online trying to make a bit of cash. When this happens I lose it all and there is no doubt in my mind that with the Spanish ebayer, he was grinning at home with his 'free' game.

Of course that was two out of hundreds of transactions, but sadly I'm hearing more and more of this issue especially since the right to Neg was removed from Sellers.

However since I've gone full tracking I've not lost another internationally, and in the UK where I've always insisted on recorded mail, I've never lost one.

TheSecretSquig wrote:
And PayPal is even worse. I send an item out. I know the guy recieved it as it was send recorded delivery. He claims he hasn't recieved it, and after he submitts his PayPal claim, gets his money back, which was taken from my PayPal account. Even though I've a signature of the item being delivered, because it is not the buyers signature, PayPal uphold his claim. Again, I receieve -ve feedback, I can only leave +ve. How is that fair?

On the other hand, you could send him a dead cat instead of a PS3 and as long as he signs of it, he is screwed. Paypal doesn't care what's in the box as long as you receive it.

I found this out the hard way recently as I got an order from http://www.bitsandkits.co.uk/ with some bitz missing and the guy calmly ignored all my emails and the Paypal claim because he knew (I didn't) that I couldn't touch him. When I escalated, I got this from Paypal:

As stated in our User
Agreement, the claims process only applies to the shipment of goods. It
does not apply to complaints about the attributes or quality of goods
received. Therefore, we are unable to reverse this transaction or issue a
refund.

Morathi's Darkest Sin wrote:Just thought I'd throw in here that the two ebayers who did it to me in question, upon looking at their feedbacks afterward had had other items sent to them also mysteriously vanish.

Which is certainly an indicationt hat they could be dodgy. It could also be something else... like they like in apartments in didgy areas, and someone is stealing their mail on a regular basis.

Not saying that's what happened... just that there is often more than one possible story, beyond just 'the buyer ripped me off'...

Also the one in Spain made his claim three days after I told him I'd sent it, he claimed it hadn't arrived so he had been forced to buy elsewhere.

That's worse... although I've found that some people simply don't understand the time factor for international post. I've had a few customers who have emailed the day after payment asking where there item is.

When this happens I lose it all

Can you not lodge a claim with your postal service for the missing parcel?

OK, I apologize. My commentary about ebay being in a death spiral was indeed opinion, and I didn't make that distinction from fact in the post.

I think that because their profits are way down from what they once were. I don't see how they can come back up. They piss off more and more people these days. They are trying to recoup lost profits from fees rather than changing their service to match what appears to be a very changed market place that, it must be admitted, they pretty well pioneered.

People don't seem to be happy with the service anymore. There are other options available.

The advantage of eBay is that it is the largest marketplace so the best chance of matching buyers and sellers. However a marketplace needs some regulation to cut back the scamsters and this is where eBay is falling down. Their takeover of PayPal was anti-competitive and the bad way the eBay and PayPal complaint and enforcement systems work together makes the overall problem worse.