Ebay Question

[Kevin Connolly]

Ebay is revamping some of its buyers and sellers rules and rates. Does anyone have an opinion on them? I was trying to figure out if the listing discount they are giving is really eaten up by the new, higher final value fees. :confused:

[James Kernen]

Their announcement has a lot of information to digest....

(http://pages.ebay.com/sell/update08/overview/

From what I can tell, this new policy will cost a little more to auction listers who have items that sell (I didn't read the Store Sellers' changes)... They say they balanced the insertion and ending fees, but the scales do tip in their favor a bit... For example, if I list an item with an opening bid of $25, the insertion fee will cost me .55 (cents)....It currently would cost me .60 (cents)..... A whole .05 (cents) in savings.... If the item sells for $25, my new ending fee is $2.19, but currently it is only $1.31... an .88 cents difference..... so ebay is making a net .83 (cents) more off me....

They have discounted the price of some of the selling features, but I don't use most of them since I use a third party hosting provider for my listings...

What really makes me have some pause is the change in the feedback policy.... I am stll trying to get my mind around this one...

James

[Kevin Connolly]

James,

Thanks for the help. I was figuring with the higher % for the Final Value Fee, it would cost more overall.

The feedback changes seem like they could be a headache. I think it's a good thing is that if a person gets kicked off Ebay, their negative feedbacks they left for others go with them. I know most, 90%+, of all sellers do not leave feedbacks until they get a positive one from the buyer. Not they way it was supposed to be. I guess they are trying to address that.

[Rennie]

I finally quit trying to figure EBay out. I am constantly confused with the changes. My pet peeve is when you send them a spoof letter (someone trying to get your private info) They respond saying we are making an investigation as it is spoof e-mail and we will inform you of the results.
I have never heard back from them and I turned in about 10-12 spoof letters.
Feedback is also a little confusing.Maybe the new CEO will make some changes.
Rennie

[Kevin Connolly]

The standard form replies really irk me too. Some say we can't let you know how they proceed because of yadda, yadda, yadda. If you follow an auction yourself you'll find out.

[Kurt Lee Flickner]

Originally posted by Rennie:
I finally quit trying to figure EBay out. I am constantly confused with the changes. My pet peeve is when you send them a spoof letter (someone trying to get your private info) They respond saying we are making an investigation as it is spoof e-mail and we will inform you of the results.
I have never heard back from them and I turned in about 10-12 spoof letters.
Feedback is also a little confusing.Maybe the new CEO will make some changes.
Rennie

I am surprised that you have never heard back from them, I always do (unless you are making assumptions as to what they are going to comment back) I always recieve the immediate warning response:

"Thank you for contacting us about a potential fraudulent (spoof) email or Web site. We will investigate this situation immediately and inform you of the results in a separate email. ......"

and few minutes later I recieve their follow up letter:


"Hello, Thank you for writing to eBay regarding the email you received. The email you reported didn't come from eBay."

[Rennie]

Kurt,
I always receive this (the standard answer)
"Thank you for contacting us about a potential fraudulent (spoof) email or Web site. We will investigate this situation immediately and inform you of the results in a separate email. ......"

But that is the extent of it, even though I had spoof email attempting to gain information.
I even spoke to someone from Ebay ( I live about 5 miles from them) and he said "We are aware of not responding to spoof email, but that was it.
Did you ever get a response telling you that someone had actually been convicted or telling you who it was attempting to gain your personal information ? Not I.
Rennie

[Kurt Lee Flickner]

Originally posted by Rennie:
Did you ever get a response telling you that someone had actually been convicted or telling you who it was attempting to gain your personal information ? Not I.
Rennie

No, but I never felt that is what they promised to let me know. The first email I recieve indicates it is a "possible" fraudulent email, and they are trying to keep me from falling prey, from clicking on the links in the email. They will investigate and let me know. Then few minutes later, thier investigation is done, they inform me in a second email, that indeed it was fraudulent and "phishing" email.

I always felt that ebay did as promised.
First email warned of possible fraud, they will investigate, and let me know the response to thier investigation
Second email let me know the results of thier investigation, that it is indeed "fraudulent"

That is what I meant in my earlier post, that I think you felt they were going to let you know more than they ever promised or intended. I doubt they ever are able to do anymore than occasionly get an abuser email account closed by sending an automated form letter to thier internet provider. I am just one ebay user, and I get these fraud emails about one every other day, multiply that by the tens of millions other ebay users there are, granted most people don't bother forwarding those emails to ebay, but how many employees would ebay have to have, to chase after these people, not to mention, how many of them exist in countries outside of ours, and getting those countries to investigate. It's not going to happen. I don't find fault in Ebay, at least not on this matter, of course I have occasional other issues with Ebay :mad:

[Kevin Connolly]

Overall, bottomline, Ebay is not your friend. They spread the mantra of a safe community, but they don't really act like they do.

I just can't believe in all the years no one has come-up with another site to compete with it. No competion makes it very tough to make a positive change.

[David Alexander]

Over the years I am confident that I've found several sellers using shill bidders. In one case, people with less than five purchases all bidding on the same make and model of camera sold by the same dealer. None of these people ever bid past a certain amount. I watched this for a few weeks and then sent my observations to eBay.

EBay claims they "investigated" and found "no wrong doing." I think their investigations are a joke. I did this three times before I quit watching.

The dealer? Why he was a BIG power dealer who sells hundreds of items a week. EBay isn't going to disturb that source of income.

[Kevin Connolly]

So true David. From my end, I was following Houdini autographs. From what I saw, 95%+ were phonies. Ebay did nothing to stop them there either.

[Spurlock]

Just add 10% to your item and that will cover ebay fees and paypal fees. That is what I do.

[John Smetana]

I found this new E Bay Fee Calculator recently...some of you may find it helps a bit..

E Bay Fee Calculator


all the best,
John