Ebay was a great idea as it revolutionized on-line sales. Of that there is no doubt. But competition and mediocre management has brought this company low. And now they have resorted to outright theft.
Case in point:
There are now new rules for getting money from EBay sales. It used to be that after you sold something, the money was transferred directly to you through credit card processing or through Paypal. But even then, Paypal told you that it would take 3-4 days to get paid. That alone is inexcusable.
Now, Ebay has changed the rules for selling. When you sell something, it could take up to 3 WEEKS for the funds to be cleared. You can jump through hoops to get paid 7 days AFTER DELIVERY of the item or jump through even more hoops to get paid 3 days AFTER DELIVERY to get your money.
Do you want your money cleared “normally”, on the same business day? Well, you have to have a history of selling AT LEAST 25 ITEMS. Now I ask you, who other than a merchant has sold 25 items? As an occasional seller of merchandise, you may NEVER sell 25 items. And then, to add insult to injury, Paypal, owned by Ebay, tells you that you won’t get paid for 3-4 days AFTER monies are cleared.
So, let’s say you are a person (not a merchant) who just sold something on Ebay and your buyers is 3-5 days ground transportation away. You get paid immediately upon the sale. You go and ship the merchandise. You upload a tracking number. It is one calendar week, at least, before delivery. Wait three days after delivery for cleared funds. If Paypal, then wait 4 more days. That is a minimum of 2 weeks before you see payment.
In this age of instantaneous credit approvals, instantaneous fund transfers, instantaneous account debits and credits, Ebay/Paypal has kept your money for AT LEAST TWO WEEKS. Are they so hurting for money that they need the float? Is their organization so riddled with fraud that buyers and sellers cannot do normal business? Is manangement trying to kill the company?
Why would anyone do business with an operation that is so disrespectful to its community?
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The worst of many bad decisions by this company in recent years. As a merchant I now list less than 5 percent of my inventory on EBay, from over 50% before this change. I can only assume that this will be the response of the majority of merchants and individuals, and I cannot imagine how this move does not kill revenue and earnings for the company going forward. For many merchants like myself, this was a death blow to our relationship with eBay and Paypal.
Indeed. Ebay is going down, because they’re so poorly managed.
Wow, interesting. Fuck Ebay
this is just like half.com, amazon, others…not a big deal. Stop being cheap and send priority mail. Ull have ur money paid out in 3 days…
tons have people have sold 25 items, and we arent merchants…ive sold 160 since 2002, to be exact.
NOT A BIG DEAL.
No way. I have a merchant and personal eBay account. My personal account has over 250 feedbacks and I still had money held on a sale two days ago. With priority shipping it’s still nearly TWO WEEKS before you’re paid. You obviously haven’t had your money held if you think this is a function of “cheapness” or shipping choice.
I do a fair amount of buying and selling on Ebay…there is NO way I could get some of the unique items that I use for my furniture. I have heard of other merchants complaining of this, but have received immediate payments/refunds as have the people I have purchased from. This doesn’t seem like a new issue: http://www.usbswiper.com/blog/2008/12/17/paypals-ebay-payment-holding-policy-why-i-agree-and-how-to-work-with-it/ ….EBAY is also selling a shitload of cars, that wouldn’t be hindered by this process (I think). Most folks use paypal for the deposit then the remaining transaction is done by wire with EBAY’s buyer protection.
cmonnow, you obviously don’t understand that this is stealing. It doesn’t affect you so your understanding is limited.
If you are a merchant getting funds held or an individual, this holding time is meaningful.
Companies expect to be paid on the due date. Ebay makes every seller with less than 25 sales wait a minimum of 2 weeks. It is inexcusable to those waiting to be paid and will mean a big hurt to earnings as many seek alternative means to sell.
Not to mention the fact that Paypal takes a cut of your money — the same sized cut – no matter what the source of money is. We all know if people pay with e-check or instant transfer, paypal is making 3% of free money (and this includes any and all shipping cost for your item, on which you don’t earn a dime).
It’s all a giant scam, and the eBay+Paypal monopoly on the site is, somehow, not a company using monopolistic pricing to screw everyone.
I detest E-Bay and PayPal is eve lower on my list. On the rare occasion I by something off E-Bay, I attempt to contact the seller by any means possible and beg him/her to accept some other form of payment. Most do because they know they are getting the shaft, dry long and deep. I even sent cash through the mail (certified) for a food chopper the wife wanted.
I am not writing the post office off yet. The pendulum may be swinging back…………..
With Paypal, they hold 10% of iBankCoin’s sales in escrow for THREE FUCKING MONTHS. We do a fairly large amount of business, yet deal with their idiotic policies.
3 months? Can you do biz somewhere else? That is ludicrous!
When I renewed my PPT subscription PayPayl hit my cc with a small $1.95 fee to verify the account. Two weeks later and they still haven’t reimbursed it. No, $1.95 is not a big deal but the principle of the matter definitely is.
I really wish we could do our PPT / 12631 subscriptions some other way. I despise PayPal.
you can,i have.and it worked better
Ebay screws the buyers, too. Just a few months ago I bought and item from “thegolfstoreinc” on ebay (avoid them), and the seller shipped me the wrong item.
I returned it and the seller decided to charge me for shipping _again_, even though the seller made the mistake.
I disputed with ebay and they said, “Sorry”, and would not force the seller to credit me, claiming after the sale is made and I received “an item” anything after that is between the buyer and seller.
My only recourse, said ebay, was to leave negative feedback.
I even had an email chain with the vendor confirming my story.
Even more bizarre, the seller was doing this to other people, and yet keep a 99.4% rating. That’s because he was selling hundreds of items month, so he didn’t care if he screwed over a dozen people a month or so, so he could absorb a little negative feedback.
As a result you can’t trust the ebay feedback rating to mean anything. You have to see if the vendor has as close to 99.9% as possible and no negative hits in a long time to reduce your risk of getting screwed.
You should ALWAYS use credit card on Paypal to buy stuff from eBay, and when the seller screws you over like that, request a chargeback from your credit card company. It’s mean and nasty, because all of a sudden Paypal will freak out and freeze the seller’s account, making them settle, basically.
EBay feedback has been useless for a long time. Sellers cannot leave anything other than positive feedback, which makes the feedback pointless. I somehow maintained 100% positive while getting 2000 feedback, but it’s work.
This is not some random complaint about Ebay’s policies. This is a major transition to unfair business practices.
Thanks for posting about this, Scott. I’ve been fuming over this for two days but didn’t know that there was such an interest in this issue for your readership. I do not expect anything to improve, and have already made changes to my own business model going forward. I do, though, greatly appreciate the attention you’ve given this, and the platform for me to rant.
Thanks for the heads up Scott.
Slight digression, but can anyone splain to me (thank you, Lucy) why an ACH from my brokerage account to my bank takes “up up three days?”
Yeah, I haven’t figured that one out either. I maintain two trading account. One of them I do an ACH transfer and the money is available within a few minutes. The other one takes 3 days even though money is coming from the exact same bank.
Sounds like the way to get your money back form ebay is to short the stock
I haven’t “lost money” to them. I’m just pointing out the kind of business change that can have a major effect on earnings and the stock.
Time to think about shorting EBAY 🙂
I used EBay a few months ago and was almost scammed by a scumbag that tried to fuck me out of a delivery charge. The story is too long but Ebay hit me with a $100 charge despite them agreeing that I was scammed. Fuck Ebay!
But, PayPal is generous enough to allow you to withdraw/transfer up to $500/month of your own monety. WTF. Fuck PP and Ebay
As long as they keep most of the customers, couldn’t this mean more profit?
You think that’s bad? Realize that Visa and MasterCard have a monopoly lock on the market and get paid 2.9% of every transaction.
There is actually a china smallcap etf now. It is symbol HAO .
On a ratio chart relative to FXI large caps, it does look like small caps have some room to run
http://tiny.cc/q06m4
Sorry, scott. Meant to post this on Fly’s article about china lotto plays. Clicked the wrong tab.
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