EBay Motor Sellers Beware!
Last week, my husband listed his motorcycle on ebay. The high bidder emailed to say that he bought another motorcycle and wouldn’t be able to buy my husband’s. My husband reminded the buyer that as a bidder he was under contract to purchase the bike.
After several emails, the buyer finally agreed to come and look at the bike. In a “nice way” he said that he would drive 2 1/2 hours to look at the bike, but if anything was different than described, my husband should be prepared to pay him for his time and that he would receive negative feedback and be reported to ebay for fradulent selling.
Are you kidding me? This guy didn’t want to buy the motorcycle, so he was going to do anything in his power not to purchase it. This is the part that ticks me off - Sellers cannot leave buyers negative feedback!!!!!
Buyers, you can no longer receive negative or neutral Feedback from sellers.
You should leave honest and accurate Feedback without the fear of receiving negative or neutral ratings.
Sellers can no longer leave negative or neutral Feedback for buyers.
Buyers should leave honest Feedback without the fear of receiving negative or neutral ratings.
This is insane!!! How is this feedback system supposed to work, if they won’t allow you to use it?
The buyer is even trying to bargain with my husband. He said if my husband would leave him positive feedback, then he would pay him the ebay listing fees.
My husband has contacted ebay and is trying to get this resolved, but it doesn’t look good. This makes me so mad! Have you had problems like this with ebay?
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POSTED IN: automotive
19 opinions for EBay Motor Sellers Beware!
Amanda
Jun 16, 2008 at 4:21 pm
This is nuts. I went onto myebay today to leave my FIRST negative feedback for a seller who paid 10 days after my latest accepted date/no communication from him.Then I find out I can’t even leave him NEUTRAL feedback? My days of buying and selling on ebay are coming to a halt. I’ll just use Craigslist.
Yvie
Jun 16, 2008 at 4:32 pm
I haven’t tried ebay and am still wary of the system so to speak. Anyway, it’s only applied to our local ebay.
But I think it should also be fair to both; the seller and the buyer should have the power to leave feedbacks to each other. :)
Patricia013
Jun 16, 2008 at 5:22 pm
Well…its taking time but sellers are beginning to see exactly how much in a corner ebay has pushed them. If you think ebay cares….they don’t - their bottom line is revenue and whether or not a buyer extorts your item out of you, ebay still gets those fees. PLUS, they managed to blame everything that’s wrong with their business on the sellers. We tried to explain this in February when we asked for a boycott - mostly, sellers ignored it - we tried again May 1 with much the same outcome. Now…we’re all stuck with it as it is or we’re told to move on.
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Stephanie
Jun 16, 2008 at 6:02 pm
Karen, I’m so sorry to hear about your family’s bad experience. I have not tried ebay, but have heard similar stories. I use craigslist.org instead, where you can list your price, there are no fees, and if the buyer backs out on you, there is no reason why you can’t go to the next person who contacted you or relist your item. I hope you are able to resolve this issue with Ebay. Good for you to communicate your experience too, hopefully there will be enough people who speak out that it forces Ebay to improve their service.
Take care,
Stephanie
Karen
Jun 16, 2008 at 6:04 pm
I haven’t sold anything on ebay in a really long time. My husband wanted his motorcycle to sell quickly though and usually ebay is the best place for that. Unfortunately, I haven’t had ANY luck with Craigslist. Does anyone have any Craigslist tips?
Karen
Jun 16, 2008 at 6:06 pm
More drama to add to that. My husband relisted the motorcycle on ebay again this week. We’re not sure if this buyer is going to pay either. What is up with these people???? We’ve had a few bad experiences, but never anything like this!
Cara
Jun 16, 2008 at 6:14 pm
Sorry to say it but personally I’m happy to see the new system. I have been screwed by several sellers who decided not to sell items after it was already apparently “sold” to me and sellers doing other shady activities. Because of this the feedback change is actually good. Unfortunately, at times a few good sellers will get screwed, but it is also good that sellers cannot hold feedback over a buyers head when they do as they are supposed to.
MInTheGap
Jun 16, 2008 at 7:16 pm
I just sold something for the first time with eBay’s new rules and was shocked. The buyer took 4 days with no communication to pay, and there was no way to comment. I sent an message through eBay to ask if anything was the matter and never heard.
How am I supposed to know what to expect as a seller?
Shelly G.
Jun 16, 2008 at 8:11 pm
Wow… that hardly seems right… I haven’t bought anything on ebay in a long time… but I always thought the sellers feedback helped keep the buyers from neglecting to send their money.
I have had a lot of success on buying things on Craigslist…. but I have never sold anything…
I hope ebay changes their policy back to the way it was when they see that sellers need it to be able to leave feedback.
Kara
Jun 17, 2008 at 6:35 am
We just sold a motorcycle - and got our asking price - through craigslist. It went to the first person who came to look at it!
(the market for bikes has to be huge now - we had 15 people email in 2 days about it).
kellys
Jun 17, 2008 at 9:41 am
Karen, maybe you should craigs list it instead and just pull it off ebay. At least you know they can’t say anything negative about you pulling the listing
lindsey
Jun 17, 2008 at 9:45 am
I’ve had so many problems with ebay that I’ve found other places to list and sell. I really like Amazon and craigslist. It’s cheaper too!
Ebay used to be a great resource, but now that so many people use it I can’t get the deals that I once got and the fraud rate is through the roof.
Stephanie
Jun 17, 2008 at 11:38 am
When using craigslist, I usually review the responses I recieve and sort them in order of receipt while deleting people who seem strange, flakey or unlikely to show up based on their email. I haven’t sold any big ticket items, and generally figure the first few people are going to no show on me, and they usually do.
Have you considered using an e-bay store where they sell the item for you? I haven’t looked into this, so I’m not sure how much they would take as a fee, but it seems like maybe it would be worth it with all the frustration you are experiencing. Good luck!!
Take care,
Stephanie
Nicole
Jun 17, 2008 at 12:26 pm
Ugh, I hate eBay motors too! I listed my car with a Buy It Now, some jerk “bought it”, but never contacted me or paid me. So, I relisted it, and the same thing happened with a different jerk!! eBay only refunded half of my listing/final value fees ($100 each) despite the fact that I never saw a dime from either seller, and both of them had very little feedback anyway, so a negative wouldn’t even help that much, since bad bidders are free to just make a new account.
Karen
Jun 17, 2008 at 5:46 pm
My hubby listed the motorcycle on Craigslist today. So far, so good. He has had several people contact him already.
Karen
Jun 18, 2008 at 8:17 am
Today my husband was finally able to get back his seller’s fee from ebay. They didn’t refund the listing fee though. The second buyer bailed out too.
He’s made several contacts through Craigslist since yesterday. Hopefully, this will work out. We have a lot of stuff to sell before we move.
jenny
Jun 19, 2008 at 2:56 pm
For sure… we bought a cooktop last december, when we got it, it was shattered. This is glass, and it dosen’t take a rocket scientist to know that you have to protect fragile items. It was in a box, that is it! We called him and Ebay, because we had insurance, ebay said he would have to pay the deductible. He never did, and we had to pay just as much to get it repaired as we did for the entire item. So not worth it in the end, we will just buy things in person, to know what we are truely getting ourselves into. Great question by the way! Good luck!
Clifford
Jul 19, 2008 at 1:14 am
Craigslist is the way to go. We have sold numerous items on craigslist and gotten what we asked for them. We have also purchased many things on craigslist and have been very happy with those purchases. The nice thing about it is that you actually see the physical product before you buy. You can work with each other on the price.
Craigslist fraud is near nothing, as long as you deal locally and look before you buy.
I’ve looked at Ebay as a fraudulent scheme ever since 2005 when I was defrauded out of some money and my PayPal account was compromised. You should really read the PayPal agreement and compare it to a credit card agreement. You will be shocked at how much power over your finances that you give to PayPal.
Karen
Jul 19, 2008 at 8:32 am
Clifford: I had a friend that had money taken from their Paypal account. They sold something on ebay and then the buyer lied about the condition of the item, reported them to ebay, and they had several hundred dollars taken out of their account. You can really get taken using ebay. The good thing about it is that you have such a large audience of buyers looking at your stuff. But when you get burned, it is usually really bad and leaves you walking away.
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