Ebay SC

[Jack7957]

I've had two bad instances on EBay in all my years of buying/selling.

1) Selling a car, cheap, only $500, was won by a kid, that if I had looked to see what he was bidding on, I would have removed his bid before the auction was over. He was bidding on anything and everything. When I emailed him after he "won" my auction, he asked something like "what did I bid on?" Last I saw of his feedback, he was at -2 and falling.

2) Recently sold something, buyer refused to pay because he "won another auction for the same item at a cheaper price". Gave him a neg for that comment, he goes and negs me, calling me a scammer. That's the only neg I've recieved in almost 8 years.

[Ree]

You can't possibly click the wrong one, now, unless you are completely illiterate.

Well, my daughter isn't illiterate...just inexperienced, but thanks for the tips.

[It's me]

In regards to the credit-card / bank account thing with PayPal:

Once you have your account setup and verified, you can remove the bank info and just leave the credit-card.

[Nekojin]

That's also against policy. When you create a listing on ebay, you are charged an insertion fee based on the starting bid price. If your item sells, you are charged a final value fee based on the final winning bid price. By listing that $3 item with $25 shipping you are cheating ebay out of fees they are entitled to receive--ebay only gets an insertion and FV fee off of $3 instead of the $28 you actually made.

This is true, strictly speaking - but eBay also doesn't want to get involved in it any more than they have to, so they are quite deliberately vague on what fee evasion is. Reps have gone on record saying that $25 to ship a CD is too much, and shipping fees that are 10 times the actual shipping cost is too much - but less than that, and don't expect eBay to jump on it.

Not only that but if there's a dispute and the seller needs to refund, they're only obligated to refund your bid price. Which means if you buy something for say $25 with $100 for shipping and the item arrives broken or doesn't work, the seller can just refund you $25, keep the $100 for shipping, and tell you to go perform an unnatural sexual maneuver.

That's correct, except for the suggestion of the unnatural act - that can get people dinged for harrassment. =^_^=

Anytime you encounter a listing violating these policies or any other ones, it's best to report them to ebay without bidding.

Reporting "mild" fee evasion won't accomplish anything. If you think they're unreasonably overcharging on shipping, then don't bid.

Also, keep in mind that exact postage cost and shipping fees are not the same thing. It's reasonable for a company to charge something for the time and effort of packing the item, as well as the packing materials that go into the box with the item. All mail order companies do this, unless they offer, "free shipping" (which really means that they overcharge on the items to cover shipping). It's unreasonable to expect that eBay sellers shouldn't also do this.

I've seen too many stupid negs (none on me, thankfully) for "excessive shipping charge," when the charge was actually a reasonable amount given the weight and size of the package. There have been quite a few back in the Feedie Forest (what the regulars call the Feedback Forum) where the actual postage was $4.25 and shipping charge was $5, and the person negged over the 75 cents.