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Ok, this posting will be my gripes with eBay, and there are many. I don't know how you feel about it, but I wish there was another venue that I could successfully sell postcards on the internet. At this point in time, eBay is the only venue that works, so I have to use it despite not being completely satisfied.

eBay treats sellers with less than respect. They charge their outrageous fees to list, more fees upon closing, and even more fees to accept PayPal. Since most people use PayPal it is necessary to use it to be able to sell anything on eBay. What really gets me is how they advertise "new lower fees" when in reality the fees overall actually have increased. Sure they reduced the listing fees, but the final value fees went way up. Any savings they gave us was quickly offset by the higher final value fees. To add insult to injury, they offer like a carrot Power Seller discounts. I earned what they said was to be 5% but that is only off the final value fees, not the entire invoice. So out of an invoice of over $74 I saved a whopping $1.82. Could they spare it? I get more back from using my PayPal debit card as a credit card!

While I am on the subject of PayPal, did anyone notice that they changed the policy to read if you are shipping internationally, you must offer PayPal as an option. This despite the fact that they won't protect sellers shipping internationally. If something goes wrong and the international buyer does not receive their item, there is no recourse for the seller. PayPal will give the buyer their entire payment back. If you ship to the UK or Canada PayPal will protect the seller if they have online tracking of the item. Now, the USPS doesn't offer International tracking and they don't even guarantee the delivery of any international mail. So if you sell and ship internationally, you have to accept PayPal and hope the item actually arrives.

A side note about international selling. If your buyer is a scammer, they could file a claim with PayPal even though they received the item. PayPal doesn't ask the buyer to prove the non-receipt or anything, they just refund the buyer. So beware if you ship internationally. I have been lucky, I have only been scammed a couple of times by international buyers. I shipped the item and they claim it was not received. Italy is especially dangerous as they have lots of customs laws and some items like postcards are not allowed to be imported. Since I sell postcards, I cringe when an Italian is bidding. I have to fill out a customs form if they buy a bunch and I have to put that it is postcards. Needless to say, they get confiscated and I lose the payment and the postcards, plus get negative feedback. Italians should be aware of their customs laws and not buy anything not allowed.

Back to eBay. I recently got suspended for listing "mature audience" items on the main site. They pulled all my listings and refused to give me credit for the fees. I had been listing nude male postcards. They were artistic and not obscene at all, sure they included frontal nudity which I covered up in the listing. The guys at Trust and Safety have informed me that you can not list ANY frontal nudity unless it is "a professional photographer listing", vintage postcards from the early 1900s, nothing modern no matter how tasteful it is. No pubic hair can be shown in the image. They claim they can tell if you are in violation of the rules no matter how you crop the image. (yeah right)

My gripes are a couple about the mature audiences rules. First, when items are listed in the mature items category, they are not visible or available to anyone except USA bidders. So tough luck if you are in the UK or Canada where it is completely legal to buy them. That cuts into my sales as well. The postcards I have for sale were bought off the postcard racks at card shops here in San Francisco. They are not covered up at all, they are right there in plain sight. Yet eBay wants them to be covered up in the mature audiences category. Again, the postcards are in no way obscene, they show no sexual things, only the nude human body. I guess eBay does it because in some places it is not acceptable to show the human body. Why not ban Italians from bidding on postcards because they are illegal to be imported to Italy? I think eBay should check the customs laws for every country and ban their residents from bidding on illegal items. In that way the Europeans and Canadians would be free to buy nude postcards since they are legal in those places. I guess that's asking too much of big brother eBay.

My next gripe about the mature audience category and rules is that there is a seller, gayarts, who is selling the exact same postcards I did. I got suspended and stripped of my Power Seller status for lising the same postcards he is. I have reported his listings to eBay trust and safety everytime he lists. I have even sent an email direct to Trust and Safety telling them about how the seller is violating their policies. I have used Live Help to report him. The reps said they would put in a report for me too. Yet, time and again the seller lists these nude postcards, has his Power Seller status, and is making a killing on the postcards. It gets me mad to know I got suspended and can't list those postcards on the main site, and here he is violating the rules and nothing is done. eBay says they can't tell you what action they took due to privacy concerns. But when a 7 day listing runs the full 7 days and ends with a high bidder you can bet eBay did nothing to stop it, otherwise the auctions would not be in his completed items and would not end with a high bid. Check him out and see how long it is before eBay stops him. Maybe because he's in the Netherlands and can't list in mature audience category, and eBay is makig money from him, that they do nothing about it.

How about Live Help? Have you ever used it? I have several times and am always frustrated that the reps can't answer questions about policy violations, invoice amounts and fees, plus anything to do with your account in specific is off limits too. The information they give out is the same information found on the site already. They can never get specific about your account because it is "handled by another department" and of course they give you a link to email them. In my experience, the responses I get from Live Help are canned and don't address my specific concerns. Maybe I am asking for too much, but shouldn't they be able to answer your account questions when you ask? Why the huge cavern between departments? It seems that eBay will not discuss anything that's not found on the help pages. If your account is in a jam, you are suspended, or whatever, you get the run around. eBay Trust and Safety will not answer direct questions, the suspension is always right, and you as a seller no matter how great your feedback or how much you pay in fees are always wrong. Now when you get to Live Help, expecting help, they can only refer you to the policies on the site or give you an email to Trust and Safety. It's bull. Trust and Safety robots give you the same canned responses and evade any form of direct questioning.

I could go on about other eBay rules or policies that are either unclear or unfair or both. I will stop for now before I get in trouble for gripping. eBay doesn't like to hear complaints nor do they proactively address them. Go ahead try voicing complaints to Live Help and see how quickly the session ends. Seriously, they hang up on you if you have real complaints. I have not heard of anyone being suspended for complaining. I am sure that they will watch you like a hawk if you violate a policy and they keep on you forever it seems. They just pulled another one of my listings and called to tell me they pulled it, when I called them back they gave only a recording saying that any action needed to take is outlined in an email. Why call then? OK I have to run and revise all my auctions before they pull them all. Sheesh there is no rest when it comes to eBay.

Just conducting a small poll for all eBay sellers.

http://www.polldaddy.com/p/687210/

Thanks

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having trouble with ebay listings