Do we have a screw EBay thread yet?

[hbombgraphics]

yeah it stinks that it was a technical issue

[Sparrow]

Was pretty much done with EBay for most of my gear purchases. Went to get a pedal today and won the auction, cause I saw the PayPal logo and assumed it would accept Bill Me Later like every other purchase I made. Go to check out and it doesn't offer it as an option, so I message the seller and say 'weirdly enough it's not letting me use BML, that's how I was going to pay, I've never been in a situation where PayPal was an option and BML was not, I'm sorry' Instead of being understanding or just accepting BML he sends a two paragraph message back about how I wasted everyone's time and he's going to report me. Ignore the fact that this guy has 1/10 of the feedback that I do.

snagged this by Googlin' yer Issues Mr. Skullz.

"WARNING to anyone who uses the "Bill me Later" feature at Pay Pal (or anywhere else it is accepted). Pay close attention when you check out because BML can reject the charge and pass it back to your primary account without warning. So say for example you were to make that purchase of a nice used boat motor on Ebay for $800 (you have a credit line with BML of $2400), they could deny the charge without warning and put it against your checking account (which only has $798 after the bills). Not to worry because if you have been with Ebay for a time and are confirmed, they will send the money without checking your account for sufficient funds. Once again not to worry (according to a young Asian lady at Ebay customer service) because they will then just put it on your back up card. Unfortunately, if you are like most of the real world, this is going to be your debit card from the same account. As you can see, the bounced fees start to add up fast not to mention the destruction of your good credit rating.

The worst part of all this is when you contact BML to inquire as to what happened, they inform you in a most pleasant tone that it is nothing to worry about because of all the above. When you point out the obvious faults in their logic and request to speak to someone in the credit department, they state it will take 4 business days to resolve and the committee that handles claims does not accept any incoming call or return any outgoing calls.

They say "LET THE BUYER BEWARE" and in the case of "Bill me later", it could not be truer. Please pass this along so as few of my friends and fellow human beings as possible will have to face the mess I dealt with all yesterday mornin"

and. i used to eBay video games. buying and selling. got Fucked over many times.. eBays fees are shit.
picard for eBay.

[Dr. Sherman Sticks M.D.]

i'm starting to think that the new way of 'baying is list item at a higher than usual price. get offers thru msgs (b/c u know u will, just hopefully u will get at least 1 respectable offer). sell that way and circumvent 'bay entirely while still getting what 'bay is good for (lots of traffic). if u get them to send it gift, u don't even pay any fees at all!

[backwardsvoyager]

i'm starting to think that the new way of 'baying is list item at a higher than usual price. get offers thru msgs (b/c u know u will, just hopefully u will get at least 1 respectable offer). sell that way and circumvent 'bay entirely while still getting what 'bay is good for (lots of traffic). if u get them to send it gift, u don't even pay any fees at all!

I do this a lot and find the people that ask for deals outside ebay are usually way nicer than the people i deal with formally through ebay, i usually send them a paypal invoice myself rather than ask them for a gift, or sometimes meet them in person, but zero issues so far, everyone has been nice enough, it's nice abusing their enormous traffic without giving them any money.

[Disarm D'arcy]

Over here, eBay sucks and they don't have that much traffic. People have switched to the local equivalent of craigslist. For music gear, there are a coule specific sites that have been in place for years (both started around 2000). I've bought and sold gear on eBay in the past, but the process is painful. Other local sites have just as much if not more traffic. These won't cost a dime. And often I can find local people interested, meet, and get paid in cash. Which is lovely, because cash can't bounce. And a company in Luxembourg can't freeze the transaction.

My most memorable experience was this one. Was contacted by a guy who implied I was a scammer, because the same item was listed on other sites with the same pictures. Gently explained I had listed the items on a certain number of sites in order to sell it faster. Asked me why the BIN was 15€ higher than what I asked on other sites. Gently explained that it was what I estimated eBay + paypal would cost me in fees, plus a couple €s to be sure. He said he would take it through eBay for the price on other sites. Told him that I wasn't willing to pay the commissions out of my own pocket. Dude reported me to eBay.

Closed the account a couple months afterwards. Only used it to buy stuff in BIN from pro sellers, so I thought I might as well order straight from them and spare the evil a commission.

[lordgalvar]

Ebay has been a strange place for a while. This guy sent my Mackie mixer and it was damaged before shipping because the box was perfect and packed well. Tries to give me a partial refund, then retracts and says its between me at ups but "he will file on my behalf". 10 dollars wasn't worth the hasstle, but this could've been avoided by being up front.

Ebay also keeps claiming they are preventing bad seller feedback for me but I haven't sold in 8 months. Who's reporting me? Are they lying? A bunch of other stupid happenings on there and I've left (probably as a buyer too).

104z sounds neat though, I completely missed that pedal (and the descri[tions sound awesome)

[HeavyXIII]

Is paypal's BML thing and pay after delivery thing the same thing?

[Jwar]

I've never had an issue with Bill Me Later. It's probably eBay since they are moving away from Paypal as their main source and making their own bullshit. At least that's what it seemed like from the email I got today.

I rarely buy or sell on ebay. I buy way more often than sell though. Have bought this year, no issues at all.

I'm not sure why this would have happened? Bill Me Later is set up as an option upon payment, but vendors have the right to refuse it as payment I believe. Again I've used it a hundred times and never had an issue even once.

Kind of makes me scared I may though in the future.

It's really a bad thing anyway you look at it. Damn devil credit card is what it is.

[Dr. Sherman Sticks M.D.]

i'm starting to think that the new way of 'baying is list item at a higher than usual price. get offers thru msgs (b/c u know u will, just hopefully u will get at least 1 respectable offer). sell that way and circumvent 'bay entirely while still getting what 'bay is good for (lots of traffic). if u get them to send it gift, u don't even pay any fees at all!

I do this a lot and find the people that ask for deals outside ebay are usually way nicer than the people i deal with formally through ebay, i usually send them a paypal invoice myself rather than ask them for a gift, or sometimes meet them in person, but zero issues so far, everyone has been nice enough, it's nice abusing their enormous traffic without giving them any money.

yea i don't push for gift, but just throw it out there as it would be appreciated. either way i'm still making out better (eff the fees).

this whole BML thing has me confused. why would sellers care what payment method u use? they still get their money like any other transaction right? paypal gives seller the money, then the debt is between you and paypal. pretty much like a credit card. don't get where the gripe is..?

the internet is weird. i'm starting to notice a similar trend of weird buyers on etsy now too.

[skullservant]

I've never had an issue with Bill Me Later. It's probably eBay since they are moving away from Paypal as their main source and making their own bullshit. At least that's what it seemed like from the email I got today.

I rarely buy or sell on ebay. I buy way more often than sell though. Have bought this year, no issues at all.

I'm not sure why this would have happened? Bill Me Later is set up as an option upon payment, but vendors have the right to refuse it as payment I believe. Again I've used it a hundred times and never had an issue even once.

Kind of makes me scared I may though in the future.

It's really a bad thing anyway you look at it. Damn devil credit card is what it is.

It turns out it was because I was trying to pay on my phone. For whatever reason it didn't offer it on my phone, but did on my laptop. Weird.

[krlpuretone]

Used to sell $5K or so a month on Ebay; was on their "seller advisory team" where they would call once a month and ask questions, see how things were going, etc. As you could imagine, that was a sizable part of my store's income.

Then they started escalating fees, and changed the feedback policy so sellers could not leave negatives; that turned into a free-for-all where I'd say 10-15% of ALL transactions were problematic. To me that equaled $500+/month, plus the time and energy to rectify situations. I punted them and have only occasionally ventured in as a buyer since...

The explanation to me, at the time, was they wanted to go away from problematic individual sales to an Overstock-like model where they would be a clearinghouse for big companies dumping inventory. When that didn't exactly work out, the chicken was already out of the henhouse...

[Strange Tales]

eBay is a complete cesspool now, and it looks like recently Reverb is starting to follow suit as all those shitty eBay buyers make their way to Reverb.

I don't bother selling on eBay now, whatever money I make isn't worth the time and effort anymore.

[lordgalvar]

Yea, the "secret" seller rating is really, really awful, confusing, and secretive. Even if I offer the best service, have had 100% positive for 13 years, I can never be a power seller if I don't offer "fast'n'free" shipping. Bullshit. I sold three pedals for around 300 and all the sudden I had had like almost $50 gone. One guy tried to initiate a return for I think my old Silver Crank because "he didn't like the sound". Never talked to me but initiated it through ebay. Never once heard about it until I got some bad mark on my secret seller rating (the feedback rating is only for buyers to see who they want to buy from, this other, newer one is where eBay picks who they are going to discipline as far as I could tell before I ran). Then they took the bad mark off because the guy didn't have a claim and said they prevented bad things happening to me. Around the same time, I bought a neat tape echo off this dude (it had been sitting for a long time and the name was listed wrong so it got kinda lost in the ebay shuffle). It had been sitting for 2 months. After I bought it, it didn't ship so I spent some time messaging the dude every monday for a few weeks. After 3 weeks I file a claim with eBay, then wait another week, then another week (the process requires time, which is cool) and get a refund. Still no word from the guy. A month later, he messages me and said that he was very sorry//he had a stroke//spent a few months in the hospital; really a nice guy and like me had 100% feedback for 10+ years (I had actually asked him if he was ok and stuff). Pretty sure eBay banned him (I never gave him negative feedback either). Shit happens and he had a pretty damn good excuse, but they ban the little guy and keep on the a-holes that ship counterfeits and have terrible service (because of volume of course). Too many bad dealings on there. They keep pushing those damn chinese pedal clones of zvex stuff like they are free peppermints at a restaurant.

Bill Me Later (and I think Paypal credit, I may be confusing them in my head a bit) also doesn't report successful credit transactions to the credit bureaus. They only check your credit, which can only look bad upon a buyer.

Speaking of which, has anyone used Affirm on reverb? It's ran by one of the guys that started PayPal and they are using more than just FICO to approve small loans and actually possibly improve credit?

The Overstock model thing is interesting. I see why they wanted that (and they started letting people buy without an account) but it also leads to sellers not giving a shit. I have to literally get more garbage in a week from eBay sellers packing their boxes with trash, not-shredded paper, trash, than my family actually made in a week. My mom used to shop on overstock sometimes for Christmas and everything (not kidding) came broken.

[Jwar]

eBay is a complete cesspool now, and it looks like recently Reverb is starting to follow suit as all those shitty eBay buyers make their way to Reverb.

I don't bother selling on eBay now, whatever money I make isn't worth the time and effort anymore.

Reverb IMO for a buyer is worse. The price on Reverb are fucking awful. Like people charge whatever the fuck they want and it's always higher than eBay.

As a seller it sucks too. I'm selling shit on Reverb and those fuckers have told me 3 different times on the phone and everything that they'd share my listing. Then they don't. I'm making them money but fuck if they care. It's not a shit vintage overpriced amp I'm selling. Plus people hit you up with dumb ass offers constantly. No I don't want your shitty fucking tube screamer that's worth 200 dollars less than the pedal I'm trying to sell. Get fucked asshole. It's insulting. Like they half expect me to be a fucking idiot or something.

That and the fees, while smaller, are still bullshit. I HATE that they hit you up at the end of the month. It's the most inconvenient thing ever.

I cannot wait until my own site is up. I'm going to sell stuff strictly through there. Fuck all the others.

[Strange Tales]

I've never really had a problem with prices on Reverb. It's definitely not going to be the land of golden deals like eBay can be, but honestly most people will at least reasonably listen to offers I send. Those dumb ass offers are starting to get to me though. First one I sent back said "lol." and then I got another incredibly stupid offer with which I replied "I need money, not a fucking brain."

Honestly the eBay + Paypal fee-fucking train was so bad I'll take anything else. It is bullshit they just automatically charge your card though that's fucked up.

I think a problem is the buyers have just gotten too ridiculous. Like people are going to demand a refund on a $5 Shania Twain CD because the plastic wrap was scratched and you're just sitting there wondering why you had a Shania Twain CD and if this is all life has to offer.