The ebay rant.

[starfire700]

Sounds familiar, I had a similar demand when I sold a Lionel 217 caboose a while back. The guy said the light did not work and he could not do the repair himself, but he had a friend () who could make the repair for between $75 and $100, which is what he demanded. He was either a liar, Idiot, or needs to find better friends.
We tell such buyers that the only options are return for refund or keep it and be happy.
The internet is faceless, so has encouraged certain buyers to run their scams and get whatever they can from sellers. After all, it is obvious that the stuff we sell just fell out of a tree, not like we had to pay anything for it, right???

We have had dismal sales for a few weeks, few sales and average sale $20.
Last week I sold a Min-I-Scale Hudson for $460, and BINGO, we suddenly had 12 or 13 other items sell overnight, including some old numbers............
You can't tell me that Ebay does not hide listings, punish sellers etc, then when something does miraculously sell, suddenly they show all your listings and you have sales. But it doesn't last. The next day they close the door on your store again and turn off the lights.  The "Ebay way".

Also, sellers used to be able to contact non-paying bidders, and our experience was that at least 50% would pay after given a reminder. Now Ebay has changed it, so you can not contact them to remind them to pay, you can only cancel the sale......result 0% of non-pays will pay. Is that a good business model??? That's my rant.

[Terry]

I never tried to rehabilitate a deadbeat. I have my buyer preference set to block bids from buyers with unpaid item strikes. I wish I could block bidders with low feedback too.

The "infirm old guy in over his head" opened a return on ebay at 12:35 today by pasting the paragraph he sent me about the stores being closed in his area into the complaint area. I didn't see it because I wasn't online.

Forty minutes later, he closed the return with no reason given. Once a return is closed it cannot be reopened.

The only thing left for him is to leave me a negative. I used to think the negatives I have from schemers would warn away other schemers, but some must think they are especially gifted at BS.

Here's a tip to game the ebay algorithm. When you sell a buy it now listing, relist something else with the same listing with the details changed. Try to keep it close, but it doesn't have to be the same. You can change the photos and description.

Ebay's system is weighted to favor sold items. When you relist something they think it has a high chance of selling so it's moved up in the rankings.  I do quite well with that.

In your next slow period pull up one of your recently sold items and relist something else from the listing. Let us know what happens.

I had a guy do the BS like your caboose buyer at a show last week. He bought two G scale locos "broken - as is - for repair." These were obviously abused locos, but one had been super-detailed and had the bones to be a killer shay loco.  Only Bachmann is left making G scale and a new shay runs $1200+.

One of his bargaining claims when he bought the locos was the gears get stripped and aren't available. After I gave him 50% off for buying two, he bragged that he made the gears with a 3d printer.

He came back last weekend complaining that he had to remove an old digital decoder from one to make it run - that's four wires that need to be connected differently. Lots of work there.  The other loco needs pickup wipers. (brass strips)

He asked what I was going to do about it?

My response was "you beat me up on the price because the locos needed to be fixed, and now you are back complaining because you have to fix them? Enjoy your trains."

 

[starfire700]

Bottom line is there are too many deadbeats and scammers out there.

We might have better luck trying to win the lottery than sell on ebay.

[Terry]

I have a better chance of getting hit by lightning than winning the lottery.

Here's something weird. . .

I was watching a Faller building for my Marklin layout. It was $40. The seller had another building I wanted listed for $60. I sent the seller a message, and the message sent screen showed me the first building for $10. The second seller also had more buildings, and I ended up with the two buildings I wanted for $25 plus shipping. 

Sure I got a deal, and the second seller sold two items, but ebay cost the first seller a $100 sale. And ebay got a lower commision.

[starfire700]

Sometimes we call Ebay "Glitch-bay" among many other names. They are always making changes to things that don't need fixing, because the 18-year olds that work there have to have something to do.
How do you like the new listing program???

[Terry]

I dislike the coders and their constant changes too. I am tired of having to relearn things or seach for the button just because the coder manager wants to justify his budget. Two+ years of changes and I still get a message saying the page is insecure when I do combined invoices.

I use a paid program called Sixbit for $15 a month.  That way I can write listings over the course of a week and put them all up at the same time. It's quite stable and the few times I've asked for help they were quick to respond to my emails.

I'm on a short slow period for ebay listings. I went from early Nov. until the last week of Feb doing 150-200 sales a week. That's 3+ full days of ebay a week. I'm playing with the Marklin and taking the dog to see the ducks.
 

[starfire700]

Deb does our listings, used to like turbolister as it was not internet based. She has gotten used to the new program and we list 5 to 10 listings with it per day, slow and steady. Our utilities are unreliable, even more so since the December tornado, so we got a hot-spot back-up for the internet and a Generac whole-house system for the power. Hopefully now we are relatively Bullitt-proof.
Ebay makes too many changes for no reason, or maybe for those who list on their I phones, seems to be their preference. Some things are broke and they don't care to fix. For months when I go to My Ebay, I have to sign-in and it gives a RED message "oops that is not a match". However one more click and it goes through, so just a glitch.
Also when relisting unsold items, it often shows NOTHING in the list selected, or if it is there, just the title with no details. I used to edit prices from that page. Irritating that we always have to find work-arounds to deal with their "improvements". Glitch-bay

[Terry]

This week I can't open my watched items page because it wants me to sign in and gives the oops messages. I can do anything else without signing in and can see the watched items inside the snipe service as a work around.

A few weeks ago I was getting three copies of each message. Before I realized it was an ebay glitch I reamed a guy for being impatient.

Even with all the problems ebay is still worth the effort.

Who is buying the common trains? I can see collectors buying a gray 1684, but who is buying the black ones?

[Terry]

The game playing idiot with the slow has now tried a chargeback with his credit card company:

Hi Terry,

Your buyer filed a payment dispute for an order placed on Feb 23, 2022. This means that they disputed a charge directly with their payment institution. They are requesting $130.50 back and the reason for this dispute is that the buyer hasn't received their item yet.

The good news is that you’re protected for this dispute under eBay seller protection policy. We'll close this dispute once we receive the dispute outcome from the buyer’s payment institution. You're not required to take any action right now. If the buyer updates the dispute, we will let you know if any further action is required.

Delivery confirmation and him arguing with me about the train running slow put paid to his claim of not getting it.

[starfire700]

When you get the oops red message, wait a sec or 2 click is again and it should go through. Works for me, but shows ebay does not know what is going on.

[Terry]

Now the sign in for the watch list works.

Since ebay provided tracking information showing delivery to the card company, the buyer of the "slow switcher" has now changed from item not received to item not as described:

Details from buyer

poor packing results damage goods, seller doesn't accept returns, will be filing a claim for entire $$$$ amount $114.48

I uploaded a photo  of the initial exchange with the buyer where he talks about the loco running slowly, but makes no mention of damage from poor packing.

I had a buyer years ago loose a case on ebay and then file a complaint with the credit card company claiming the 50 year old Fleischmann transformer sold as a non-operating paperweight was a counterfeit. So this man hasn't even managed to climb to the top spot yet.

[starfire700]

I have found that the CC company always sides with the card holder. But I think they make good to their customer out of their pocket. Purchase protection or something like that.

[Terry]

About two years ago I had a man file a disputes on 5 transactions. Two purchases a month in Sept. Oct and Nov. Then he claimed five of the six transactions were unauthorized. Paypal closed four of them in my favor and refunded the buyer's money in the fifth. The fifth was a September purchase shipped by Fedex, and the tracking information had aged out. Fedex only keeps tracking info for 90 days after delivery.

I complained that four of the five transactions were found in my favor and I should be given the benefit of the doubt on the fifth, but was ignored.

I wrote an article about how Corey Kresse of Tower City, ND. screwed me on the Iwantcollectibles site.

[Terry]

I got a message from eBay about the guy with the slow running brass switcher:

Hi Terry,

A decision has been made about the dispute that was filed by hwlucky1313. The dispute was found in your favor. You don't have to pay anything back and no further action is needed from you.

Now he might still leave a negative feedback, but if he does, ebay should remove it since I won the case.

[Terry]

Here's a weird ebay deal:

I got a message from a buyer with a "corrected" address at 17:17 today. I shipped the package to NY, but now the buyer claims to be in MI. I didn't see this message until after all the messages below were sent.

A little later at 18:16 I got a "we cancelled a sale for your security message from ebay.

We wanted to let you know that a recent bid or order for the listing below was canceled because of an issue with the buyer’s account:

ebay title and item number here.

We understand that this must be disappointing, but it’s important that we keep our marketplace safe for everyone.

Here’s what happened

All bids or orders from username’s account have been canceled and any associated fees have been credited to your account.

Here’s what you should do:

   

• Don’t complete the sale or ship the item to username if you haven’t done so yet.
•    Don’t communicate any further with username’s, especially if they get in touch with you outside of eBay.
• If username requests a payment or refund, don’t send any money without contacting eBay first. If payment was processed, a refund has not been issued yet just in case you’ve already shipped the item.
•    If you already sent the item, contact the shipper to find out if you can stop the delivery and have the item returned to you.
• If your listing has ended, you can relist your item.
  

And remember, we’re here to help so please get in touch with any questions you might have.

[/quote]

I can't get the item back. I tried that years ago and paid a fee and the box went on anyway.

Then at 18:18, eBay was back to let me know:

Our records show that you recently contacted or received messages from  username through eBay's messaging system. This account was recently found to have been accessed by an unauthorized third party, who may have used the account in an attempt to defraud other members.

We've taken action to restore this account to the original owner, but wanted to let you know to be suspicious of any communication you may have received from them.  Nothing is wrong with your account at this time – this message is just being sent as a precaution. If you have received any messages from username that appears suspicious, please feel free to forward them to us at spoof@ebay.com for review.

That message goes on to say how I can file a postal complaint if I was defrauded of the item, and a bunch of other templated crap.

This train set was shipped on Thursday. There's no credit in my payments page for the refunded ebay fees. Tracking information from shipping labels page shows the item is still in AZ.

I shipped this to the address on ebay so I should be OK.