6 ms·
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 t
by jeffyee 14y ago
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. Worse still, Paypal charged ME $50 more because of the chargeback! Despite my sending them the code (which they requested, and through ebays messaging system), I had to have delivery confirmation from a shipper to prove I sent it. Even though they have the messages proving the delivery/receipt, too bad for me. I tried calling paypal, and that got nowhere. They said something like "sorry, it will cost $200 to investigate the chargeback further, so it's probably not worth it". I told them I'd write it off to my not understanding their policy on "seller protection", but at least do something about the scammers account. Of course they said they couldn't, nor could the refund any of the fees.
So now I'm out the $30 for my item, $50 more because paypal incurred a chargeback, plus ebay fees, plus the guy got positive feedback and went on to do this to other people! Totally incredulous.
Instead of blogging about it though, I've decided to build a company to compete with ebay. Wish me luck =)
- DanHulton 14y agoIf you ever launch it, let me know and I will do my utmost to promote it. If you'd launched already I would have happily sold my iPhone through you. There's really no way you could have provided a worse experience unless you actively tried.
- shabble 14y ago> There's really no way you could have provided a worse experience unless you actively tried. Oddly enough, that's been tried at least once: https://www.nytimes.com/2010/11/28/business/28borker.html?pagewanted=all https://www.nytimes.com/2010/11/28/business/28borker.html?pa...
- UntitledNo4 14y agoThanks for that. The last paragraph is pure genius.
- hcayce 14y ago>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, but I'm familiar enough to have an opinion. Craigslist has its own dangers, but those can be mitigated through meeting in public or in police station lobbies.
- bduerst 14y agoMan, how eBay has fought Craigslist tooth and nail over the years.
- micro-ram 14y agoeBay now owns a stake in Craigslist http://www.craigslist.org/about/press/ebay.stake http://www.craigslist.org/about/press/ebay.stake
- fafner 14y ago> 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?
- jlgreco 14y ago
- wbharding 14y agoBonanza.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 that we start from a neutral POV, rather than the "buyer is always right" mentality that eBay has increasingly gravitated toward.
- propercoil 14y agoit's clean and looks kinda cool..
- callmeed 14y agoYou 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.
- mcantor 14y agoWow. It never occurred to me that when you provide a service like that, someone could use it to literally ruin Christmas. That is heavy.
- mertd 14y agoDon't make critical purchases from random people on the Internet? We should never blame the victim, nevertheless everyone should be thaught a basic level of "Internet street smarts".
- nym 14y ago