eBay permits buyers to unethically steal from sellers

Steve, I can top that.........I sold an item to a brand new ebayer, the ebayer after having the brand new item for 5 days came back with not as described. Took photos of something I did not ship them, then ran to a company eBay owns called Paypal and put a hold on the money. PAYPAL has now given the customer the money and the product. When I went to eBay to file a non-paying bidder report since I no longer have the money since the company eBay owns gave it to the winning bidder, they then DENIED that I had a valid point against the winning bidder. THE WINNING BIDDER HAS THE MONEY, THE PRODUCT AND I SINCE EBAY DENIED THE WINNING BIDDER HAS THE MONEY........I AM BEING CHARGED BY EBAY WHAT IS CALLED THE FINAL VALUE FEE.......THIS FINAL VALUE FEE IS EBAYS PROFIT. THIS COMPANY SEEMS TO ONLY WANT MY MONEY, BUT WILL NOT DO ANY WORK FOR IT WHEN A PROBLEM OCCURS. THEY SEEM EXTREMELY BIAS AGAINST THEIR SELLERS, WHICH HAPPENS TO BE EBAYS PAYING CUSTOMERS!!! ON A SCALE OF 1 TO 10, 1 BEING THE LOWEST ON TRUE CUSTOMER SUPPORT I WOULD GIVE EBAY............NEGATIVE 5 THIS COMPANY WANTS ITS WINNING BIDDERS TO GIVE HONEST OPINION OF IT'S SELLERS AND GRADE US........YET EBAY ITSELF DOESN'T SEEM TO CARE ABOUT HOW IT'S GRADED ITSELF BY ITS SELLERS

I'm having a terrible problem with eBay myself. A buyer bought one of my items but is refusing to pay full postage on it. Every day she e-mails me with progressively escalating hostile, insulting, obscene and threatening messages. I spoke to my eBay Seller Outreach rep. who said No problem, since I have an eBay store I can contact the store support phone line. I phoned and phoned it and only got recordings saying to call back. I contacted Live Chat and they told me Oh that phone support line hasn't worked for a long time and is discontinued. I told them about my problem and that I just wanted to fully refund the woman's money because I was becoming afraid she might attack me or something. I'm a senior, ill, disabled and selling everything I own because I'm dying. Live Chat told me I had to contact Trust and Safety.

Well, Trust and Safety can only be contacted via e-mail. In the past month, I've sent them messages asking for help and advice several times each week. Each time, the rep. reads my email ONLY UNTIL he/she gets to a word where they know they have a form letter for that subject and then they email me the FORM LETTER. They have NEVER read my entire (short polite accurate) e-mails. So I have to e-mail them back and say Well, I've done that and it didn't work OR Well, you didn't answer my question.

The lastest was where the Trust and Safety guy said to block the buyer's e-mails and also report her to her e-mail provider. I've done the second but not the first because I'm an honest person and I don't want her money and the product too. If I block her e-mails it is like stealing her money. I want advice on HOW TO CANCEL THE SALE when the buyer doesn't agree to cancel it - this all started when eBay told me, I swear to God and I'll take a poligraph, NOT to use Reserve Prices because it was a waste of my money. eBay said to put my item on a Buy Now price AND put it at auction. The Buy Now price clearly showed as $225 so I believed what the eBay man told me and believed my item wouldn't sell until it reached that price or higher. Instead, it sold for $50.00 eBay DENIES they made a mistake and say I have to take the loss.

I joined eBay back when they started and I'm appalled at their LACK OF SUPPORT for good sellers. Due to injury and illness, I have had periods where I've been off eBay, but I have worked like the devil to get my positive feedbacks, none negative, and this despite the fact that about 2/3 of buyers don't file positive feedback even after e-mailing me how much they liked their item. Anyway, I digress.....

I decided I would honour the sale and I wrapped up the item and got the exact postage. When I told the buyer about the exact postage, she has reacted by sending me daily obscene threatening messages. Ebay telling me to block her e-mails will do absolutely no good and will make the situation worse, since the buyer could say I "stole" her money.

I WANT ADVICE FROM A REAL PERSON AT EBAY as to how to cancel this sale, refund the buyer's money, get this dangerous person out of my life, and not have negative feedback, or more importantly not have a non-shipped paid item strike against me.

I only have a limited time before I die, and since my boss tried to kill me and took away my job, I need to sell everything I own.

I WOULD VERY MUCH LIKE TO HEAR FROM SOMEONE AT EBAY OR OTHER USERS OF THIS PAGE GET SATISFACTION. My brother is American and Canadian hero NASA Astronaut Dr. Dave Williams, who went up on missions STS-90 and STS-118 where he repaired the shuttle so the crew could get safely back to earth. My brother is too busy to be in my life. I don't want to end up dead, or with my eBay business ruined because of this hostile threatening eBay buyer.

With all the money I pay eBay each month in fees and store fees, etc., I'm VERY DISAPPOINTED at how eBay treats its sellers. (They have new procedures where buyers can rate sellers but it is kept secret from sellers, and sellers can't put feedback against bad buyers any more, but I won't go into that here.) Thanks.

I have had many similar experiences such as this. I am currently a powerseller with 495 positive feedbacks, none negative. So I be sure to flaunt that on my auctions as much as possible. Well I get a lady who wants to buy a PS3 Metal Gear bundle I was selling, buy it now 599. Well I have five and she "bought" all five of them. Well since I don't do combined shipping on something that weighs 20 pounds I charged her for all five to ship. Well a week goes by and she files a PayPal dispute saying I sent ONE of them and she wants the other 2400 dollars back. Well I have proof that they were delivered, but she says it is to the wrong address. WTF? So I have e-mailed eBay and PayPal and as expected they give me the run-around. Nice. SO currently they deducted 2461$ from my account for shipping and the systems themselves. Well now this lady will not respond to my e-mails and PayPal won't either. I looked at this lady's eBay today, and guess what? She is selling four PS3's lower then retail. Come on! So I told PayPal that today and also eBay. This lady threatens me with negative feedback I said "do it" eBay is on my nerves!

My latest hero is an ebay coin seller who sued the buyer for giving him a neutral feedback rather than the positive he deserved! All I have to say is hurray! The best part is that the buyer complained because he had to pay $500 to hire a lawyer to defend himself. LMAO!

Seriously, if I had the kind of money tied up into ebay transactioins as some sellers have indicated above, I would be all over a deadbeat scammer faster than he could say "lawsuit!!".
Let's face it: The facts are:
No 1 Buyers are having a field day now that Ebay has castrated the sellers. No 2 It's not going to get any better unless the sellers take back some authority. Handle it the way you would before Ebay came along. You get taken, you sue. You can't wait for others to fix this for you.

No 3. Ebay isn't going to change back voluntarily. In their community, entrepreneurship is evil. Sellers are the bad guys. Profit making is disdained (except for themselves of course) Consider it s microcosm of how they would like the world to become. Need further proof, look at their geographic base of operations, consider it's political leanings and then look at your situation on Ebay. See the parallels? Bingo!

I agree with what Justguessingbut.. says. As an update to my story (Kathy B.W.) I never did get any help from eBay. All they sent me were form replies that were not on topic since they had not read the full e-mail I had sent to them. I reported the threatening e-mailer (eBay buyer) to her e-mail provider and they shut her down. I also reported the matter to the police in her city, and perhaps they had a word with her.

All I know is I fully refunded her money, and I haven't heard anything from her since. She does not seem to have gone through with her threat to ruin my eBay business by filing negative feedback and by reporting me to eBay as a seller who supposedly wouldn't ship merchandise that was paid for.

So luckily my problem seems to have been resolved (I hope) pretty much by myself. I have had two other buyers since who refused to pay the exact postage from Canada to their address, and I don't know if they are relatives of the threatening buyer on eBay. I clearly describe my shipping policy and postage fees and how I go about getting the postage fee to each different buyer address for each different package from Canada.

Because I clearly inform buyers before they buy, I should not have had to cancel those sales and refund the money, but I figured it was too much bother to waste time on it, since I knew I wouldn't get any help from eBay, so I cancelled the sale and refunded the money.

I don't know what eBay is thinking - they are pro-buyer, but if there are no sellers with items buyers want to buy, then no one will buy. Justguessingbut is right - eBay has castrated the sellers and are not treating us well.

If sellers leave eBay and go to another site, eBay might get a sudden shock.

Kathy B.W.

Message to Justguessing but... You mentioned to me (Kathy B.W.) to put the buyer's name on a black list at Geewhiz.com. I went to the site but don't see anywhere that says Black List. Where do I find it?

I agree that if a new viable selling venue popped up on the net, a lot of sellers would go there and it would be an instant success (depending on how well the site would be run of course).

Me to,

I have been selling and buying items on eBay since Nov-24-99 and currently have a feedback rating of 100%. Unfortunately I am currently having a problem with eBay and PayPal.
I recently sold a used cell phone via eBay and accepted payment via PayPal. 27 days after the buyer received the item I got an email from PayPal informing me that the buyer was claiming that the item wasn’t as described. The buyer is claiming that the phone does not work properly. Of course the email I got from PayPal was the first I’d heard of this. The buyer made no attempt to contact me and resolve the issue before filling a claim with PayPal. Within 48 hours of the claim being filed PayPal decided in favor of the buyer and informed me that upon return of the item I would refund the full amount of the auction $115.00. I immediately called PayPal to voice my concern with their findings. I told them that the phone worked when shipped and that I believe that within the 27 days the buyer had the phone he most likely damaged it. I have also emailed eBay several times with no success. They haven’t even responded. I feel as if I’ve been railroaded by PayPal and eBay. They offer no protection for sellers. I have sold several items on eBay and no buyer has ever complained that their item was not as described. Currently the phone is being shipped back to me. In the end I’ll probably end up with a broken phone and a loss of $115.
Has anyone else dealt successfully with this sort of issue? I would appreciate any advice you’ve got.

I've had the same problem with PayPal. There is no protection for sellers. I sold an item to a woman and she claimed she never got it. She never contacted me. She made a claim to PayPal and PayPal notified me of the claim asking me to reply. I provided, by fax at my cost for fax and copies, complete record of the transaction and copies proving I had mailed the item. These receipts are good enough for all other uses, i.e. tax man, etc., but my receipts weren't good enough for PayPal. They said I had to get all buyers to sign they had received their packages. From Canada, when I mail by a method that needs a signature, it costs so much the buyers don't want to pay for it. So I'm between a rock and a hard place. PayPal decided not to accept my proof of shipment and gave the buyer her money back. Since she claimed she never received the item, she didn't have to send anything back to me. So if she was lying about not getting the item, which I suspect, then she got her money and the item too. It is very rare that my packages don't reach the buyer, maybe .5% of all the packages I send out. I made an appeal to PayPal and they rejected it completely. So I'm out my item and my money.

Another thing is, has anyone noticed that when you look up your Fee Record for an item, it only goes back about 3 months, so you think you've only paid let's say $4.25 in Fees, but in truth your item was listed for much longer than that and you actually paid much more in fees. I suddenly realized this was happening. I looked up Fees for a sold item, and it said $5.65 but only showed three months. I was lying in bed one night and suddenly thought That item had been listed for almost a year. So the eBay Fee page was hiding the other 9 months of fees.

Has anyone had this problem?

Kathy B.W.