I use ebay a lot, I mean a lot, but its just sad the direction it has headed over the past 5 or so years.

stopped selling on ebay 2 years ago.
Don't know why people continue to pay the crazy fees plus paypal fee, not worth it.
kind of surprised Ebay hasn't gone under

People sell there because a lot of times it is the only easy way to sell something a very small audience is interested in purchasing.

Completely agree.

Ebay owns paypal so they take a massive cut now. eBay used to be the place were you could find deals....now it's a place with shipping gouging because people want don't want to pay all the fees.

I use to deal a lot on eBay and for the past little years have stopped using it. 180 days to return an item is just ridiculous. Most big chain stores offer refunds only before 45 days.

Only accept cash or wire transfer is my rule of thumb.

Ebay are doing it on purpose to rid itself of the small guy. Personally, I look for ways to not use paypal at all if possible. Perhaps look into taking money via Bitcoin?

The good is that when laying down a lot of money via paypal for a pin that takes years to build, you will have the chance to reclaim it at the moment you wish and not to have to ask for your money back.

Ebay's policies are ridiculously one sided towards buyers. It's especially frustrating because the sellers are the one's paying arm & leg to use the service.

A while back I sold an item, the buyer paid, and I shipped it the next day with tracking. A couple weeks later, the buyer opens a dispute saying they never received the item. That's strange, tracking info says it was delivered. Wouldn't ya know.. the dispute was settled in the buyer's favor because I didn't require a signature. The money was refunded out of my paypal account automatically, I had ZERO recourse or choice in the matter despite my 100% feedback over 10 years. Absolutely ridiculous. And scammers are catching wind of this...it's too easy to buy something and just say you never got it. Instant refund, no proof required.

And on top of all this, YOU CAN'T LEAVE NEGATIVE FEEDBACK FOR BUYERS ANYMORE. That's right, positive feedback or no feedback. Meanwhile buyers are free to leave negative feedback and trash a seller after they've scammed them. Ebay is a joke for sellers anymore.

Actually sellers on ebay can no longer "gouge" on shipping as ebay now charges a fee for the cost of shipping. Several years ago people were selling a $100 item on ebay for .01 cent and then charging $100 to ship it. Ebay caught onto this and started to charge a fee for the shipping charge! So you pay a fee to put an item on ebay to sale, pay a final fee once it sells, pay a fee to use PayPal and then pay a fee on the shipping rate you charged!

On top of being fee'd out of the wha-ka-zoo ebay does very little to protect sellers. When a buyer bails out on paying for an item or makes a bogus claim against a seller ebay's response to the seller is "work it out with the seller as ebaY's policy is not to mediate between a seller and buyer".

ebay is a great place for exposure, other than that I can't say anything else positive about it and I have a 100% positive feedback with them!

I sell on craigslist for anything worth $50 or more. Putting up with the crazies and the scammers on there is still better than dealing with ebay & paypal.

How's this work with items described clearly in "as-is" condition by the seller?

And Paypal is the most god-awful company on the planet. Raise your hand if you've been screwed out of a claim by Paypal or they charged something improperly then tried to place the blame on you or your bank or the merchant, only to send you chasing your tail in a circle of blame/responsibility.

There is a way to F them back over. List an item on there for a few days, then pull it. Free advertising. I've only done it once with the JP I sold a little back. Didn't get any inquiries from it, but didn't hurt either.

180 days aka 6 months is ridiculous. I don't think I've ever seen a retailer use that as a return window. 30 days is pretty much the standard, some offer 45-60 days, and a few offer 90.

The only reason it's still around is because it was established early, and is a household brand. So, that means lots of eyeballs. But that also means ebay thinks it can ask whatever it wants for fees and users will simply put up with it.

There are other auction sites around, but most people have never heard of them.

https://www.google.com/search?q=ebay+alternatives

I think it might be an interesting idea of pinside users can agree upon an alternative to flock to. That might be enough to nudge the pinball/arcade categories off of ebay to somewhere else more reasonable.

After the buyer complains, eBay automatically pulls the cash out of the sellers account and refunds it. Then the buyer get's to keep the item for free

Pretty much.

Not to mention that a buyer can claim that the item was counterfeit, which can also lead to the same result.

I get your point, but seriously, how is someone supposed to prove they DIDN'T recieve an item?

"Here, I took a picture of my empty mailbox, it ain't here!"

So, what I'm getting here is that this is happening with high frequency, and ostensibly eBay/PayPal knows that it goes on? Been away from eBay for about 10 years, and have only recently reactivated my account.

Are there articles out there about these scams?

It's because there are still a TON of buyers there due to all the one sided policies. It's so easy to sell things in some categories at a premium price, so sellers will still take the risk of scammers and put up with the ridiculous fees. I got nearly $200 for my old Atari 2600 with a bunch of games...even after the fees I'd never be able to get that out of CL or any retail game buyer.

Yeah, I'm wondering the same thing. Is this something that's widespread that should be a real concern, or are we looking at aberrations that are getting magnified?

https://pinside.com/pinball/forum/topic/how-to-not-get-ripped-off-in-pinball-vids-guide

Yes, I have read it. I'm talking outside of this microcosm that we exist in.

When one account has been on eBay for 10 years with nearly perfect feedback, and the other was created 3 days ago with zero transactions. But eBay will not consider this when settling disputes, the buyer is always right. You'd also think tracking info is enough proof, but no.

For anything $30+ I always ship with insurance+tracking. That way UPS/USPS takes the hit if the buyer cries foul. Anything $100+ gets a signature, that's the only way eBay will settle a dispute in your favor.

http://www.makeuseof.com/tag/5-ebay-scams-to-be-aware-of/
http://www.cnet.com/news/anatomy-of-an-ebay-scam/
http://consumerist.com/2008/02/11/seller-gets-scammed-on-ebay-despite-doing-everything-right/

Op,
While you have listed the paypal status, (and thank you)

for a complete understanding,

you may want to check on fleaBay for the options there.

There are (4) pull downs:

- No returns is an option
- Time limits , 14 days through 60 days
- refund type
- return shipping payed by buyer or seller

I mention these here, so that all buyers are not assuming your 180 days is the default.

If they go through a fleaBay, they may find out what the real limits are.

feel free to bash on fleaBay, and paypud, but you should get the facts out there correctly.

ebayreturnpolicy.png

I'm still waiting for a legitimate answer to your question, not them taking a lead pipe to any new buyer that may legitimately have NOT gotten their item.

Actually, Ebay also charges you 10% of that shipping fee you collect now too.

from what I understand this has been going on for a long time, it recently went public, years ago people could still open a case even after months and months, one person had one opened almost a year later. calling paypal personally you would be shocked what they can do....

Playing devils advocate, seems like the safest thing to do is let the pictures do the talking, and don't discuss condition in the listing.

If scamming sellers in the ways laid out in this thread are as widespread as an issue as I feel a lot are claiming, wouldn't there we little bit of an outcry? Certainly millions of transactions go through each month without a problem.

Those don't apply to SNAD (Significantly Not As Described).

Those are the 'return policy' settings, which a seller can choose to accept, or not accept.

I don't mind them extending 'not received' to 6 months. To me, that's a positive, as there are some countries where customs sit on packages for seemingly EVER (recent experiences with Italy and Brazil) and people file claims at the 45 day mark to protect themselves, even though they know that sometimes it takes longer.

To me, that is a positive, as you can give things a bit longer to turn up.

SNAD returns aren't related to whether you allow returns or don't. People can return SNAD items whether you accept returns or not. eBay has to 'approve' it, but they pretty much approve every reason.

Do you want Joe Blow at eBay customer service deciding if a collectable item you sold is in 'nice' shape or not? What if your 'red' guitar is more 'magenta' to a buyer?

What if you decide you want to buy a $5000 game, and decide to pay for it by unloading 5k worth of 'stuff' you have, only to have a buyer return a $1200 collectible 180 days later, and along with that $1200 refund, you also have to eat return shipping?

I see a lot of potential issues here.

Let's say you decide to sell a rare plastic set, and it sells for $500.

Somebody buys it, 'just in case' they buy that game at a later date..

And 4 months later, CPR or PPS repros it, for $189

That buyer decides to return your set, because there's a scratch on one piece, it's not as described because of that little scratch, and then they buy the repros.

I truly believe most people are good, genuine people who won't play the system - but there are some folks out there who make playing the system their hobby - and that's bad for all of us.

I would bet this is happening since Ebay changed it's policy's to over protect the buyer and screw the sellers, what happens plenty of times, is that if you remove the money out of your Paypal account, and this happens, they cannot pull the funds out of your account.. UNLESS, you make a paypal account payment if you use their credit, or attempt to make a purchase..

I had someone claim they never got a PS4 I sold last Nov, when I entered the tracking info, I put one digit in wrong, the buyer (who got the item) never once contacted me, and just filed a claim saying it was never shipping and an invalid tracking number was listed.. I quickly checked the tracking, corrected the mistake, contacted the buyer stating I had put 1 digit wrong in the tracking number, showed her who signed for it, when it was delivered.. I had emailed her at least 8 times with my cell number, email address, everything... she let it go all the way to the dispute to let Ebay settle it.. Ebay and Paypal then attempted to pull almost 500 bucks out of my Paypal account, I had already pulled the money out... HOWEVER I had 100 bucks used on Paypal credit, so when I paid it off, they not only deducted the 100 but the additional 500!! Needless to say I was shocked.. I contacted Ebay support every day, finally called them, got a rep, explained exactly what this buyer was trying to do, and won the case.. but it tied up my money for almost 2 weeks..

This is bad news all around, yes you appeal to all different buyers, more so than anywhere else, but 180 days?? That gives a person 6 months to enjoy whatever they got from you, then return it, get all their money back, and send you back a used item.. Once this gets out, it is over for me with Ebay.. going to have to try using the Amazon service to sell on.. no idea if they get the same results as Ebay, but seriously what choice do you have? Plus Amazon does NOT take Paypal!

Another challenge I have - eBay auctions drop out of the system at some point. Can you see a listing that is 6 months old? I don't think so.

USPS recycles tracking #s - can you track an item that you shipped 6 months ago? I don't think so.

So, how do we 'prove' that a listing showed that 1/4 inch scratch on an item? Or that an item was delivered?

just so you know, the return policy is a joke and your better off just accepting all returns, they manually override them anyways all day long.

and I agree most people are good but not all which is sad.

I've only been screwed twice in 13 years on Ebay. If I notice a big change when these new rules kick in, I might try something different. What other options are out there?

Ya this is why we don't take Paypal.

that is going to cause all kinds of problems

Anyone try ubid.com? Been around since 2000 that I know of.
I'm on hold with ebay now trying to resolve my first ever negative feedback, and all I can hear in the background are the ebay staff offering solutions to provide refunds to other callers...!!!

Yep, it's hard to switch when paypal is the big kahuna of the payment processing industry for small business.

I've seen https://www.2checkout.com/ used with a few (non-pinball) vendors I've done business with.

Not I, until now. Thanks for the parts kits for my Centaur!

Not too long ago, I sold a classic / vintage education textbook for $99 (the book usually sells in that range). The buyer (who had a low feedback rating) said the binding was little loose and demanded a $50 credit. I said no, send it back. She wanted the refund first. I said no, and ebay said don't refund until you get it back. I fully expected a box of moth balls back, but she actually sent the book, and the binding was fine. I don't know whether she photocopied the whole book for reference, or just had buyer's remorse.

A good place to keep track of ebay adventures is: www.ecommercebytes.com

ebay is going to be even worse when they start the 180 day refund stuff, students will buy textbooks at full price, then return them at the end of the semester.

And 'managed returns' will also be required next year, where the buyer only has to print a label to ship the item back and the seller will have to pay shipping, whether the shipping is for a textbook or pinball machine. And to make things worse, for "Top Rated Sellers" any return is counted as a 'defect'.

As sellers already know, you can put SOLD AS IS in large font in the listing, but with ebay's policy the buyer can still get the refund by sending the item back SNAD (significantly not as described) no matter how well you described the item.

I stopped selling there completely due to paypal policy. If i do sell something large on there in the future, it will be pickup only and cash only. If the buyer wants to give me negative for that, that's better than having them steal my stuff.