Ebay problems. Ever had them?

[Maddy McCall]

I've been a member of ebay since 1998. I've only had three problems since joining. All with sellers.

But the problem today took the cake.

I was high bidder on an auction for a collar receiver for a wireless pet fence system. (All of my outside dogs have them--but one lost his, so this was to be a replacement.) Well, I paid immediately, but it took almost a month for the seller to send the item. He wouldn't respond to my email asking about shipment. That was the first red flag.

So I opened the box this morning as soon as it arrives, and what is inside is not the right receiver. It's the receiver for an in-the-ground pet fence. It's not the receiver listed in the auction. It's not even the receiver photographed in the auction.

I got the seller's contact info from ebay, and I gave him a call. First call, he didn't answer, so I left a message saying who I was and why I was calling, and would he call me back. Waited a couple of hours and didn't hear back from him, so I called him again. This time he answered. As soon as I told him who I was, he hung up on me. Silly me...I thought, maybe we were disconnected--so I called back, and he had turned on the answering machine.

Thank god for paypal buyer protection. I just filed a dispute and a claim for refund against this guy. I'd probably have worked with him, until he hung up on me.

Tell me about your worst experience as a buyer or a seller on ebay.

[Patiod]

1. My problem is with ebay itself

I've been a member since 1998 as well, and they closed my account, claiming someone was using it for fraud. Hundreds of feedbacks, and they closed it out of the blue. When I tried to re-open it, forget it - you CANNOT get an American to contact you. You can tell by the tortured syntax that their support is being provided in a country where English is not a first language (I deal with Indians at work, and their English is WAY better then the English in these emails).

We never got an email from the same person twice, and the instructions for re-opening the account were way too difficult, so now I'm without an ebay account.

[DainBramaged]

2. January 1998 here, and I don't give them 2 chances

I file complaints all the time. You say I'm getting shipped in 2-3 days and you ship in 7-10, I want my money back. You sens me the wrong item, I want my money back, send me a call tag for pickup I ain't sending your junk back at my expense. You don't reply in a few days, I want my money back. I don't care if it's a $5 item.

Too many scum and "modern day money washing business" on there. I ordered a mirror for my little suv. $37 including $17.50 mandatory flat-rate shipping. Get an email, says 6-9 days shipping and oh by the way it's NOT OEM. I could have bought the same mirror from the dealer the same day for $42 and replaced it.

No more Mr. Nice Guy.:mad:

[nini]

3. Let's go kick his ass

:P

I've been lucky on ebay, but I'm sure there's all kinds of nightmare stories.

:hug:

[Maddy McCall]

4. He's in Connecticut. What say we meet up in, oh, Kentucky...

and proceed together to CT for that ass whooping.

:D

:hug:

How ya doin?

[nini]

5. I'm good...

I'm still at worked and just peaked here for a minute. I'm damn glad it's friday!!!



:loveya:

[Maddy McCall]

6. Hey, do me a favor.

Give your hubby a noogy from me. :D

[nini]

8. haha.. no problem

:-)



I'll give him a double.. one from each of us.

[NewJeffCT]

7. Nothing too bad

A couple of times as a seller, I had non-paying buyers for which I left negative feedback. The worst was I had to sell a somewhat rare book because I had no money to pay the bills (my ex-wife decided to run up my credit cards before filing for divorce) and got what I wanted the first time, only to have the non-payer. When I re-listed the auction, I only got about half what the first auction closed at...

[grasswire]

9. nope

Member since 1996. Sold many thousands of items all over the world. Never a bounced check. A few non-payers, but I've still got the merchandise if they don't pay, so what the hell. As a buyer, I've been stung a couple of times with inferior merchandise, but that can happen with retail purchases, too. All in all, I love eBay, but I sure wish they would kick off the sellers of bootleg merchandise such as CDs. They clutter up the categories.

[pitohui]

10. it isn't the ebay it was in the late 90s

with fees so high rip-offs and big businesses have become what ebay is about these days

[mokawanis]

11. I was ripped off

I bought a gift for my brother on ebay and didn't receive the item, so I tried several times to contact the seller but never got a response. I finally contacted ebay and they told me they couldn't do anything about the money I lost because the purchase amount was $1 too low for them to give a refund. My only compensation was that ebay banned the seller. The seller ripped off dozens of people. I hope he was prosecuted and convicted of mail fraud.

[MichiganVote]

12. Funny you should mention that

I had a seller send me an item that was sorely in need of cleaning. Not at all what the pic showed. So since the article was salvagable, I took care of it but left a neutral rating. Damn seller left a message claiming I didn't pay for the damn thing. Not true at all. So I wrote ebay a complaint. They said there was nothing they could do.

So I said forget about you and closed my account. How can buyers be safe when a seller posts false information like that and gets away with it?

dezinzer4u, I'm going to rememeber you......

[havocmom]

13. Haven't been able to sign in to ebay if 2 years.

Guess it's for the best. ;)

[LiberalHeart]

14. More successes than problems...

Just this week got some mugs I bought. I wanted only one of them and that one ended up being damaged. I asked the seller if s/he had a good one to swap; s/he didn't, so I let it go. No big deal.

Bought a clothing item that I opened and put directly in the trash -- very poor needlework.

On another mug deal -- yes, I like mugs -- I got what I'm sure was a factory second and tossed it out.

But I've made hundreds of purchases that have been swell. Have also sold many, many items and had only one non-payer who was suspended. I do wish the fees were lower. They raised them to get the trash and low-cost stuff off the site but it didn't work. People still list items that make no sense to me. It would cost more to list them than they price them at "buy it now" and the shipping couldn't make up for it.