EBay arghh!! ##$&&

The current covid-19 "we deliver without a signature" policy is not helping things either.
I bought a Legendary USA jacket on eBay a in July. I have had it at least a month, but all trackings still say "in transit to destination", last update was "ARRIVED AT DELIVERY TERMINAL" 3rd of august.
When the jacket arrived i didn't have to sign for it even thought it was a "signed for" service, social distancing policy...
If i was a crook i could start a dispute and get a free jacket! Without a signature how can they prove something was delivered?

^from what I’m seeing the delivery drivers take a picture of the parcel when they drop it at the front door. That should do as proof of delivery.

Ebay is a lottery for sellers... especially for private ones.

I rarely buy/sell anything on eBay. Mostly because it's crazy expensive and somehow there are always hidden bs costs.

Example. Last December I bought a jacket from a guy in the UK (I live in the Netherlands). The agreed upon price was £540. For some reason I could only opt for 'eBay global shipping programme' as a shipping method which was £31.28. Which are ridiculous shipping costs imo. I pay £8 when I ship a jacket to the UK, using DHL standard shipping. Anyway, total cost as stated by eBay: £571.38


The exchange rate back then was 1:16 so I was expecting to pay something like €665, jacket+shipping included.
A day later I checked my PayPal account:
Not only did I pay €676.06 for the jacket and shipping costst, on top of that some company called Pitney Bowes limited took €23.75 out of my PayPal account.

When I googled the company, I found out that Pitney Bowes limited is a company that provides customs clearance services for purchases made on eBay. Fun fact: there are no customs procedures for anything shipped within the European union. That leaves the question: what am I paying Pitney Bowes limited for?

Anyway, in total the transaction cost me €699.81
The buyer received €576 (purchase price minus 8% ebay fee).
So all together ebay, paypal and this mistery company received €123.81 (minus actual shipping costs) for their services. Shipping took 3 weeks! Normally when I ship something to the UK, or takes 3 days.

Long story short, eBay fees are ridiculous. That's why here in the Netherlands people use alternatives.

Monitor said:

eBay is a bona fide criminal organization!

I sold an item to a buyer from Italy in late June. It was a $90 or so. About a month and a half later, eBay sends me a notification that the buyer sent a reminder for me to ship the item.

So immediately I check the tracking number to see if the item truly did get stuck somewhere which was entirely possible, Covid and all, but the tracking info clearly stated that the item arrived within a week days after being shipped & that it was delivered, signed for & collected at the exact same address I sent it to.

I send the message to the buyer that they ought to check things out with their local post office (which also listed the item as delivered) in case something really went wrong.

The funds from the sale have been cleared LONG before the buyer started a case and I already transferred it. Later on that evening, I went to check out my Paypal account just in case and noticed that the scamming eBay immediately STOLE the money from my PP account and FROM ANOTHER SALE ALTOGETHER! Which is to say, they just took whatever money I had on my PP from an amount that was COMPLETELY unrelated to the sale in question!

At first I thought my PP has been hacked but a PP employ told me the amount has been put on "hold". There is by the way NO activity info of ANY kind when that happens. The money is just gone without ANY trace! Nothing in the "activity" section, no notification, nothing! You don't know what happened, when or how!!!

So I contact eBay and they tell me things will get resolved once it has been proven that the buyer received the item. They didn't want to clarify further on how else is this to be proven upon my insisting that there's nothing to prove, since the tracking info cannot lie. I asked them politely if they needed scans of the shipping documents or any further proof that the item has been shipped and indeed delivered, to which they reply with no.

After waiting for five days, I contact them again and they brush me off with the usual "a representative will contact you within 72 hours". Two days later I get a mail that this isn't in their jurisdiction as the case has been started with the Italian eBay and it is apparently an entirely different eBay altogether and that I'll be notified of the outcome in two days. Since eBay exists in a different time-space dimension where two days means a week, today, a week later you're guessing, they inform me that they have closed the case in buyers favor since "We didn't receive valid proof of delivery from you." which is a rotten, stinking LIE as both Croatian (where I have shipped the item from), international AND Italian tracking services ALL STATE THAT THE ITEM HAS BEEN DELIVERED!!!

So let this be a warning to anyone still doing business with eBay. This is what can happen to you.

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Found out the hard way-eBay and Paypal can be troublesome. Had tracking proof for an ebay item I sold and delivered to Spain. Still stole my money. Useless. I only sell to U.K., USA and Canada generally speaking. I have a number of frustrating stories from eBay.

And eBay global shipping is a money grab. As usual, when an organization tries to make things better they usually make things worse.

Marc mndt said:

I rarely buy/sell anything on eBay. Mostly because it's crazy expensive and somehow there are always hidden bs costs.

Example. Last December I bought a jacket from a guy in the UK (I live in the Netherlands). The agreed upon price was £540. For some reason I could only opt for 'eBay global shipping programme' as a shipping method which was £31.28. Which are ridiculous shipping costs imo. I pay £8 when I ship a jacket to the UK, using DHL standard shipping. Anyway, total cost as stated by eBay: £571.38
View attachment 257383

The exchange rate back then was 1:16 so I was expecting to pay something like €665, jacket+shipping included.
A day later I checked my PayPal account: View attachment 257382
Not only did I pay €676.06 for the jacket and shipping costst, on top of that some company called Pitney Bowes limited took €23.75 out of my PayPal account.

When I googled the company, I found out that Pitney Bowes limited is a company that provides customs clearance services for purchases made on eBay. Fun fact: there are no customs procedures for anything shipped within the European union. That leaves the question: what am I paying Pitney Bowes limited for?

Anyway, in total the transaction cost me €699.81
The buyer received €576 (purchase price minus 8% ebay fee).
So all together ebay, paypal and this mistery company received €123.81 (minus actual shipping costs) for their services. Shipping took 3 weeks! Normally when I ship something to the UK, or takes 3 days.

Long story short, eBay fees are ridiculous. That's why here in the Netherlands people use alternatives.

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See, this really makes me sick to the core. Insane fees are one thing but when they do this sort of crap, when some "companies" like this get included into the deal, that's... I don't see how's this not a pure criminal activity. Yeah, there's no customs or taxes within the EU. That's the whole point of the Union!

Did you call Pitney Bowes and find out what exactly did they charge you for?

I'm no longer buying anything if it says it has to go thru eBay GSP. Last time I had to wait for three weeks to get an item from Sweden (usually arrives within a week tops) and the shipping expenses like extreme. Not the kind what you had to pay but it was something insane, too.

eBay became horrible. Genuinely horrible.

Monitor said:

Did you call Pitney Bowes and find out what exactly did they charge you for?

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At first I wanted to but after I googled their name I quickly found out that lots of people have been complaining about this scam for years. Looks like this is their business model: charging people for non-existent services, which you as a buyer agree to by accepting ebay's terms and conditions.

People who tried contacting ebay, paypal or Pitney Bowes didn't get a reply from any of them.
Imo Pitney Bowes are committing massive fraud, aided and abetted by eBay.

So if you don't use ebay for buying /selling, which alternatives do you use?
Edit : apart from TFL

Marc mndt said:

At first I wanted to but after I googled their name I quickly found out that lots of people have been complaining about this scam for years. Looks like this is their business model: charging people for non-existent services, which you as a buyer agree to by accepting ebay's terms and conditions.

People who tried contacting ebay, paypal or Pitney Bowes didn't get a reply from any of them.
Imo Pitney Bowes are committing massive fraud, aided and abetted by eBay.

So if you don't use ebay for buying /selling, which alternatives do you use?
Edit : apart from TFL

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Some day and pretty soon the whole terms and conditions thing is going to have to change. Small print and hidden crap you supposedly agree to is nothing short of a complete and utter scam. They ought to literally physically call a person before involving a 3rd party. That would be a normal thing to do in a... Normal world. Not a perfect world but a normal one.

Unfortunately, there's not much else other than eBay but that's changing too. Private sellers move their business' elsewhere, websites like Etsy, Facebook Marketplace, etc. are growing in popularity and it's about time. At least until Zucc realizes how powerful Marketplace can become. Grailed is very nice to do business with. They immediately charge you all the fees, the moment you make a sale and you're done with it. No hidden fees at the end of the month and crap like that. I like Grailed.

Best place to buy (and sell) jackets is this place, of course, Iron Heart forum, Styleforum and VLJ. Forums, in short.

I don't want to be rude but Britney Bones are useless ... breakers. The shipping with them takes forever, the package is routed through countless hubs/postal services. I guess to minimize costs. Regular post is cheaper/faster/more reliable in my experience. If I shop smth cheaper from EU I can accept being shipped with them. Otherwise no way, I'll even try to ask the merchant from alternatives.
The fact that they perform the customs formalities seems a joke to me(listing quote does not match what I'm supposed to pay here). I am 99% sure that I'll get taxed again by my local carrier upon receipt. Mentioning I already paid customs to those would only cause laughter here.

Monitor said:

So what, I've been doing it wrong all this time? I mean, there's literally nothing preventing me from buying the most expensive jacket on eBay, I dunno, some Buco or Freewheelers or that $3K vintage Californian or whatever, breaking a zipper pull, starting a case and getting all the money I paid for it back, while keeping the jacket? Am I an idiot for not doing it? I don't get it? Are eBay people laughing at all the morons not taking advantage of their wonderful Buyers Protection system? 'cause I certainly feel like an idiot now, knowing that I actually had to pay for every jacket I bought off eBay so far...

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I mean, I could potentially do it (as in, possessing the ability to do so) but I'd feel so scummy doing it, I could never sleep soundly at night.

navetsea said:

I dislike the modern mentality in online business where lie and scheming is part of the game and if someone fell for it then he is the dumb one as if honesty and believing that everyone is honest until be proofing wrong has no part in modern life. look at the daily instagram fake ads people are openly tricked to buy from fake online shop. or the classic photo/ prototype don't match the actual item.

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Nobody seems to want to make an honest buck anymore. At least back when brick and mortar was the only option, you could see the item in hand and actually decide whether or not you felt you were getting cheated. Now it's all too easy to pull a bunch of stock pictures off the internet, and bait and switch a buyer. Scamming on the internet has become as natural as breathing.

willyto said:

If sellers don't want to sell on Ebay then Ebay don't get any money, by siding all the time with buyers they're pushing sellers away and they're basically losing money but I guess it doesn't matter anymore to them since Ebay is turning into a shitshow of crap merchandise being sold. It's no longer about used and second hand goods.

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ton312 said:

Yep. Soon it will be nothing but made in Pakistan knock off garbage lambskins ($99.00-$104.99). They have already infiltrated every single one of my saved searches.

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Mich486 said:

I feel like eBay is more interested in an Amazon style operating model. Private sellers of second hand stuff aren’t their priority. Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

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navetsea said:

To me ebay is just far more expensive aliexpress

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Thuggee said:

My brother-in-law who sells regularly on eBay would agree with your there, their business model has changed they don’t want private sellers anymore it’s all about large volume sellers selling rubbish out of China now
Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk

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As a long time buyer, but brand new seller, this has become my biggest gripe with eBay. They used to be a great place to pick up second hand items and vintage resales, but now they've just become another "Made In China" warehouse sale. Just listing after listing of the same cheaply made crap. Half the time I swear these sellers are all the same "person" with a dozen different accounts (for some reason, maybe just my preference for old fashioned internetiquette, I've always assumed that sock accounts were against eBay's TOS).

Peacoat said:

Because of this, I will never sell on ebay again. It has lost my business.

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I've only recently begun selling on eBay, and I already hate it. Got rid of a few odds and ends of moderate worth just to clear out the collection. I was enticed into "Feebay" when they gave me a "List 200 of Your Items for FREE" deal for the month of August. I guess I should have taken their word more literally, as the LISTING part was free, but the selling not so much. Ended up with a total of over $90 in fees all together, nearly a sixth of the money I made from my sales. The nickel and diming left me fuming, and that lingering poor taste in my mouth has left me disinclined to continue perveying them even as a buyer. I know if they're doing it to me, they're doing it to everybody else, too.

ton312 said:

I’ve bought off Etsy but never sold...selling there seems to be a mysterious process.

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Etsy is an interesting animal. I've always used them looking for niche handcrafted items, and have yet to be led astray. My mother, I think, may have gotten a bad word about them, though, and continuously reminds me to be wary of Etsy crafters selling cheap manufactured goods as hand crafted items. Perhaps my interests are just niche enough that I glaze over those unscrupulous purveyors. The only bad buy I've ever had was on an order of dwarf lemon tree seeds that I gifted to my father that turned out to be duds.

Edward said:

PLus etsy's search tool is not good.

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I've always gotten around bad search tools by Googling "[item]" and then adding "Etsy" at the end of the search.

Monitor said:

eBay should REALLY stop ruining peoples hopes and dreams with the "Reserve" price thing! It's beyond stupid. It just doesn't do anything for the potential buyer thus harming the seller even as once everyone gets tired of stabbing in the dark, people will just slowly give up and back away. I've been the highest bidder on this auction a few times already but never actually won anything because of the reserve price. What this means is that I literally CANNOT buy the thing! My bid was $200 higher than what the item ended on but that doesn't mean a thing because the other bidders didn't push the price nearly high enough for my bid to have any effect.

I understand that the seller is reluctant to let go of an item for a ridiculously low amount but the reserve is the worst possible way to go about it. Just set up either a starting bid at whatever you're comfortable letting your item go or make a bin. I don't understand why is eBay encouraging this option as it's the worst possible way to go about doing business.

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Reserve sales have always frustrated me, and it's why I'd never do one. If the seller wanted the item for a particular price, they should have put that as the buy-it-now and then put a lower price at auction. I honestly do not understand the reasoning of teasing buyers with an unknown reserve price you have to throw ridiculous amounts of money at to possibly not even meet. These days, if I see "reserve not met" on a listing, I don't even bother with it. It's not worth my time or stress.

I use eBay almost exclusively for free advertising these days. It’s become tricky as their bots are good at sniffing out email addresses or web links. But you can get around it with a bit of creativity. I enjoyed many, many years of flawless eBay sales and purchases and still use the site to purchase/sell. The selling part I try to reserve for less valuable items.
The buyer protection program is flawed b/c it assumes the seller is guilty until proven innocent. It’s not impossible to do so, but it puts all the burden on the seller, and there are a shit stack ton of garbage grifter buyers out there looking to exploit the system. Even as a seller, if I get an offer...I ask the buyer questions.

The global shipping program is an absolute travesty. Would never consider buying or selling with that option. I would absolutely avoid it at all costs as a buyer and would never use it as a seller. Frankly I don’t know why anyone would.

Marc mndt said:

Fun fact: there are no customs procedures for anything shipped within the European union. That leaves the question: what am I paying Pitney Bowes limited for?

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Worth challenging: seems they may have jumped the gun. The UK officially left the EU on 31st January 2020, but we are still in a transition phase which means all EU laws still apply to the UK until 31st December 2020. Thereafter it currently seems inevitable that 'rest of the world' tax arangements will apply to anything you buy from the UK, but for now you shouldn't have to pay any such import taxes.

Bushman said:

I
Etsy is an interesting animal. I've always used them looking for niche handcrafted items, and have yet to be led astray. My mother, I think, may have gotten a bad word about them, though, and continuously reminds me to be wary of Etsy crafters selling cheap manufactured goods as hand crafted items. Perhaps my interests are just niche enough that I glaze over those unscrupulous purveyors. The only bad buy I've ever had was on an order of dwarf lemon tree seeds that I gifted to my father that turned out to be duds.

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Which can happen anyone with seeds, really. My experience of Etsy has been much more uniformly positive too. I think it has attracted a certain kind of seller - it certainly benefits from eBay's shift in focus this last decade.

I've always gotten around bad search tools by Googling "[item]" and then adding "Etsy" at the end of the search.

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OH, good idea...

Reserve sales have always frustrated me, and it's why I'd never do one. If the seller wanted the item for a particular price, they should have put that as the buy-it-now and then put a lower price at auction. I honestly do not understand the reasoning of teasing buyers with an unknown reserve price you have to throw ridiculous amounts of money at to possibly not even meet. These days, if I see "reserve not met" on a listing, I don't even bother with it. It's not worth my time or stress.

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It's a standard in the auction world, but eBay has skewed it. What happened was back in the early days of eBay, you had to pay to put up an auction - a few pennies. Then if you wanted more than one photo, you had to pay a few pennies more. Bold tet to make it stand out in a search return? Some more pennies, and so on. So an all-singing, all-dancing listing might cost you a pound to put it on, but that was all you paid (no "final valuation" gouge), and if it was a high value item it would be worth it. Setting a reserve was another few pence, and you'd pay a little for each levle of starting price. Starting at nothing was free; starting at £100, say, cost you 50p or whatever. A lot of folks very quickly worked out that it was much cheaper to set a high reserve at what you wanted and start the auction at next to nothing than it was to put the item on at a minimum price they were prepared to accept, thus an eBay habit was born.

Reserves are a very old approach in the real world auction game, and a lower start price is used to rell peopel in to start bidding. Usually something goes over the reserve - if it does not, the seller can choose whether to accept the offered highest bid or not. The eBay feel structure and seller reaction thereto effectively took this to extremes. I'm noth bothered by that in and of itself - what annoyed me were sellers who did that because they wre cheap and then whined about low bids (happened a lot around 2004 wrt iPods, which back then sold for £400 for the flagship 40GB model (laughably primitive now, but....)). Wrose were those too cheap to put a reserve on either, but who would pull the item within an hour of the end if you were winning it for less than they wanted, claiming the item had been "lost, stolen or damaged and is no longer available for sale". Inevitably, this item would magically reappear half an hour later on a new auction (with either a reserve or higher starting price), despite that being against eBay rules. Ijnfuriates me, I've been caught by it a few times, but.... a thousand times I'd rather see a start price well below the reserve than that sort of abuse. Sadly, for all eBay is perceived to (and often does) blindly side with the buyer whether fair or no, there are still al ot of sharp practicesabout which it doesn't seem to much care as long as the money keeps coming in. (I tried to complain several times about unfairly pulled auctions, but there's not an option for that in their automated complaints system... )

I have chimed in on this thread many many pages ago.

Ebay "global shipping" has been the bane of my ebay purchasing these last 2+ years.

I used to ask the sellers to use USPS airmail , sometimes successfully at fully HALF of the Pitney Bowes malarkey.

Same out of the UK to Australia. I have had successful UK purchases derailed by the "auto" calculated Global shipping.

Somewhat historic I know , but I have posed actual price differences in 2 different jackets ex-US.

Last few jackets I have bought have been thru the forum classifieds right here , no dramas there , USPS airmail/ Royal mail/ Russia postal service etc and all has been rosy.

I read through two thirds of this thread. That Zipper looks like he Just removed the pull deliberately and probably took the photo and put the pull right back on it after if you ask me. he thinks he's being really smart, you know?

I actually moved to ebay from Grailed when Grailed started requiring a business paypal account that makes the taxman pay more attention to you (no thanks). My experience at ebay hasn't been particularly great, it's become flooded with low quality sellers and lowballers. The switch from a focus on auctions to offers has made buyers so cheap, I rarely even bother to put anything on the site anymore. May as well just donate it for the prices people expect.

eBay needs to be put down.

Aero jeans that I bought two months ago, while the trade... thing between the UK and EU has still been in effect with eBay claiming I should have no additional charges other than what I had paid, have just arrived to Russia. Yes, that's right - Russia. Russia isn't in the EU and is susceptible to all the Custom, VAT, whatever etc. charges.

I cannot WAIT to see how this'll turn up. I'm sending them back immediately if I'm going to have to pay one penny over what I had paid already.

Monitor said:

have just arrived to Russia. Yes, that's right - Russia.

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Maybe Lebowski thought out some new scam and the jeans have been delivered to him

Marc mndt said:

Maybe Lebowski thought out some new scam and the jeans have been delivered to him

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Good one but on the other hand. Who knows???

Recently:

I bought a nice looking Aero Bootlegger from an ebay seller in the UK. Put in an offer an was accepted. Package was shipped by ebay Global Shipping Program, arrived several days ago, jacket was shipped to me in a poly-bag mailer. When I opened it, the entire right shoulder was covered with scratches, which looked like the package had been dragged over concrete, scratching the surface of the leather through the plastic bag. It wasn't deep, but it was literally the entire upper right corner of the back panel, plus the upper right sleeve. I couldn't confidently say that the jacket was damaged in shipping, although that seems likely. But the seller's photos conveniently had a large glare reflection exactly where these scratches were, meaning that it's possible they could have taken deliberately misleading photos designed to hide the flaw.

I contacted the seller to request a return; they do not accept returns for overseas buyers. Seller responded, saying that the scratches are "normal" for the type of leather Aero uses, suggested I could conceal the scratches with mink oil. I responded that yes, some superficial light scratches may be picked up with regular use, but this was extensive and detracted from the jacket's appearance. I preferred to return, but would be willing to attempt mink oil, provided seller agreed to accept a return if a spot test with mink oil didn't make the scratches disappear to my satisfaction; otherwise I would escalate the case to eBay Buyer Protection, and felt confident I would prevail.

Seller responded, apologizing and saying that they initially thought that I was located in the US (which, I am, so it appeared they were confused somehow) and that they would accept a return if I was still not satisfied after trying to conceal the scratches with mink oil. I did a very small test in a hidden spot on the jacket where there was a scratch, and it didn't help, so I replied and asked again for a return.

Seller accepted the return. Ebay automatically messaged me a link to print out a return shipping label. I clicked the link, but it didn't work, displaying a "it's not you, it's us, please try again later" error message. I re-tried several times, to no avail, and the next day I contacted eBay Customer Service. Explaining everything, the eBay Customer Service told me that I did not actually need to return the jacket, and would be refunded, and could keep the jacket. I wasn't clear why that would be, but perhaps due to being an international package, or perhaps due to the overloaded postal system, or perhaps due to the pandemic, they had instituted some policy that said to resolve cases this way. I accepted the resolution and hung up. Within an hour or so I had my refund post to my paypal account.

Seller messaged me shortly after to say that they were shocked that I had escalated the case after they had agreed to accept the return, and ask/demand that I return their property to them, as I now had my money back. I responded to the seller, explaining what had happened with the return shipping label, and that I had not asked ebay to escalate the case, only to assist me with printing the shipping label, but that they had elected to resolve the case in this manner, etc. and said I was willing to work with them to get the jacket returned, provided I didn't have to pay for the return shipping, as was my right per ebay's policy when it comes to items that arrive damaged/not as described.

Seller was relieved by my response, and offered to compensate me for the return shipping cost. I obtained several quotes, forwarded screen shots of the quotes, and explained that the options I was able to find were quite expensive (ranging from $83-300) and suggested it might be best if seller wanted to try to find a cheaper shipping method, pay for the label to be created, send me the label, and I would ship back to them; I provided dimensions and weight of the return package, asked them how they wished to proceed.

Seller responded that they would check into other couriers, and found a less expensive option, and emailed me a shipping label. Package is currently awaiting courier pick-up.

I'm satisfied with the outcome of this. I could have just told the seller that ebay's dispute resolution had close the case and that I owed them nothing more, and then done with the jacket whatever, I guess try to sell it as-is for whatever extra I could get for it, but I saw no reason to do that to the seller. Seller was quite agreeable to deal with apart from the initial statement that they don't accept returns on international purchases. I still don't understand what caused them to believe that I wasn't located in the USA, but after it came to light that I was, they never brought that up again, and were quite pleasant about everything, calming down immediately when I explained to them that I hadn't escalated the case and was still willing to return the item to them. I treated the seller as I would have hoped to be treated if the situation was reversed.

It's pretty bizarre how ebay (mis-)handled the return case, and I don't understand why they were not able to generate the shipping label. As a seller, it makes me feel less secure to trust ebay as a platform to sell anything, particularly on an international basis. As a buyer, I was initially happy with how easy it was to get my money back, but I wish that ebay had done the right thing and handled my question about generating the return shipping label in a more appropriate way.