Lies, damn lies and statistics

[rokins_toys]

eBay has no legal right to introduce anything like that when sellers are just trying to protect themselves from problematic/fraudulent buyers (which the sellers have the legal right to do) but eBay will get away with it for obvious reasons and sellers will whine about it as per usual and do nothing about it because they are clueless as to their legal rights. Businesses in particular using auction sites have government given rights that allow them to protect themselves from problematic buyers and this extends to the "official" websites of trading businesses as well, all new laws introduced in the early days of internet trading. This is just another example of eBay thinking it is bigger than the universe and above government law and just another example of eBay thinking it can trample all over sellers' government given rights. I could very easily contact an acquaintance of mine at Trading Standards and send a list of eBay policies to them for investigation and have the illegal 10% fee on shipping costs stopped (and that money refunded to sellers) but why should I? I do not trade on eBay anymore so it is not my problem hehe. The sellers there should band together and do it not me. Off the top of my head I can think of some policies eBay have introduced that have no legal standing at all and Trading Standards would force the removal of those policies in the blink of an eye if the sellers over there ever wake up, smelt the coffee and actually did something productive and complained to the right people about such policies and the total unfairness of things.

What astounds me most about sellers on eBay, especially the supposedly proper business sellers, is how little they actually know about their government given rights, laws and policies, and do nothing about eBay trampling all over those rights. It is probably because most "business" sellers on eBay are not proper businesses anyway (just hobbyists with a lot to sell and forced to register as a business by HMRC rules) so they have zero knowledge about their legal rights and just do not bother with reading up on their rights, the laws and policies in place because it requires actually reading something that will be tens of pages long when most of them cannot be bothered to read a single paragraph, and other actual proper business sellers have zero knowledge too because they could not be bothered to read the information they were sent when registering the business, start-up information which will contain varies websites for them to visit for reading up on law, policy etc, registering for VAT etc. never bothering to read legal documents properly, just glancing over things pretending they understand things when they do not and blindly signing it anyway, and eBay knows this, so they think they can do what they want as they know most sellers do not know their rights and they know most sellers will take no action against them, and you know what? eBay are right because what do the sellers do? Just sit around at their computers whining about this and that in the forums on eBay pretending they know it all when if they did actually know anything then they would not be letting eBay trample all over their government given rights! It just makes me laugh so much.

And I'm not going to go out of my way for these eBay sellers to do for them what they should do for themselves and report all these policies etc. to organisations like Trading Standards, the Minister for Business, Chamber of Commerce and so on - that's what these people are there for to protect and enforce your government given rights, give you guidance etc. and if needs be, take action against eBay to remove certain policies. But if no one complains to these organisations then they do not know a problem exists and eBay will continue to trample all over those government given rights that sellers do not know they have because they could not be bothered to do something as simple as "read" information that is there for their benefit and protection.

Morning boys and girls :-)

An issue came up on TOS and rang resolution centre for advice - joy...
The only way we can think of to deal best with it is to cancel order, refund money and block them from purchasing again (due to potential problems buyer could bring...)

A heads up, if you are over the road, from 20th august one of the new criteria for sellers they will be looking at is how many orders sellers have cancelled without it being initiated by the buyer. If it is over 2% then your account will be 'look at' shake head
I know the amount of times we have had to do this is under the 2% purely to protect ourselves from problems however it is another anti seller antic.

So just a heads up....

[emmily121]

I was reading on TOS boards a few days ago, some business sellers are now contacting Trading Standards over the defects and encouraging other sellers to do the same. The thread has probably been removed now, I'll see if I can find it, get some more info. if it's not been removed.

ETA

Surprisingly the thread is still there, here's a link if anyone wants to read it

http://community.ebay.co.uk/t5/Selle...22011#U3322011

Hope it's ok to post a link to the boards on TOS has some interesting info about Trading standards

[rokins_toys]

The defect situation is unacceptable. Not had time to read up on it as I have been too busy with far more important things over recent weeks and defects was mentioned before in the eBid forums a while ago but never got around to visiting eBay forums, and I have had like 6 hours sleep in about 40 hours, but from what I understand so far, it is about sellers getting what is essentially a bad rating for claims made for non-delivery and so on and eBay essentially giving permanent defects, labelling that seller a problematic seller when they've done nothing wrong, when for perfect example, non-delivery after something has been posted is beyond the control of the seller, the seller is not the postal service or courier, something Trading Standards needs to educate eBay and buyers on! It seems eBay are trying to force buyers into contacting eBay/PayPal if there are problems rather than doing the correct thing of sorting it out directly with the seller, but eBay are trying to thin the herd of sellers on eBay so they'll use any excuse to ban a seller no matter how unnecessary and unfair the ban will be. Just heavy handed tactics to get rid of sellers.

It is completely wrong for eBay to force "defects" on sellers accounts for things that are beyond the sellers control. As for defects for things like item not as described, this comes down to individual points of view and buyers can be seriously picky over the smallest and most ridiculous of irrelevant details and make a fuss over nothing and just being petty at the same time which is completely unfair on the seller.

The issue of defects being enforced on a sellers account before the launch of it is wrong also. But this defect thing is all wrong anyway. The detailed seller rating is a joke and people mark sellers down for silly things. I think eBay, as mentioned by someone in that thread, have realised there are far too many sellers there now, so they are trying to thin the herd a bit by introducing crackpot policies that have no real legal standing and using them to ban a seller for the most pathetic and ridiculous of reasons.

If eBay think they can get away with things by trying to claim certain laws do not apply to them because they're not selling anything then they will get a very nasty wake up call because they are providing a service to their customers, the sellers, whom pay fees, the buyers are not eBay's customers, and eBay are foolishly thinking certain laws do not apply to them because they are not "directly selling anything", but as just said, they are providing a service at a financial cost which is essentially selling services to a seller in layman's terms, and they will learn the hard way that those very laws do in fact apply to them. I just think that maybe this is something that might be too big for Trading Standards to handle on their own and will probably be better off bringing in the big guns like office for the Minister for Business. Trading Standards can go about their normal duties, do the investigating, picking apart eBay's policies, recommend the removal of certain policies, recommend changes to other policies, but I think they'll be better off doing it and getting a far better result with the combined resources and skill sets of the office for the Minister for Business.

Trouble with that thread for me is there is a lot of pointless jibber jabber from people whom would have been better off just not leaving a comment in the first place lol. The guy is trying to talk about defects which is confusing enough and everyone else is throwing in this that and the other on top leading to a confusing thread to follow lol. Overall, so glad I saw sense and left eBay when fvf's went up from 5% across the board to 7% and they started introducing policies I knew violated my legally given rights.

[tony41]

Do we really have to devote so much space on eBid forums discussing Ebay.

[emmily121]

Do we really have to devote so much space on eBid forums discussing Ebay.

I have no interest in sports or politics, I simply don't read those threads

I don't think there's any harm in us mentioning how bad TOS is and reminding ourselves why we left, or are leaving, and how much better sellers are treated on eBid.

[titanicmom4]

I have no interest in sports or politics, I simply don't read those threads

I don't think there's any harm in us mentioning how bad TOS is and reminding ourselves why we left, or are leaving, and how much better sellers are treated on eBid.

same here emmily

[rokins_toys]

If you do not want to read a thread about eBay then simply do not read it. Plenty of other threads you can read!

I'm probably not interested in about 99% of threads on here either lol.

No harm in discussing the train wreck that is eBay though hehe

Thanks for the link to the thread emmily. It has actually been about 7 years since I was last in the eBay forums lol. Can't stand eBay forums, full of know it all's whom know nothing and people who just want to criticise for the sake of it when they cannot counter something you have said because they have no valid point and that happens here too lol.

It's interesting to read that some sellers are waking up and contacting Trading Standards though. But in reality, a lot of sellers over on eBay like talk big but then fail to deliver the action to back up their big talk and continue to let eBay walk all over them and trample all over their rights. Trading Standards having a department dedicated to eBay complaints just goes to show how severe the problems are over there but like the one guy said, they need more people to lodge complaints about eBay policies, fees etc. (business practices in general with how they treat sellers) before Trading Standards can really start do anything and the problem is, not enough sellers making those complaints despite talking big in the forums.

It was interesting to read in that thread also that there was talk of a "black out" and not listing anything or ending listings for 24 hours or something like that and my only thought straight away was that, that is something that will not achieve anything because those sellers will still relist those items on eBay, they'll still be paying the shop subscription for the month it takes place and they'll still be paying the fvf's for that month on stuff they have sold anyway so it will have no impact on eBay at all lol.

[squern]

Do we really have to devote so much space on eBid forums discussing Ebay.

I don't think we do.
What happens over there is irrelevant to this site, and of no interest to most eBidders (I suggest).

Unfortunately, posts like these would be deleted over there, as no criticism is tolerated. Like most dictators, they fear people organising and taking on the power to thwart them.

But that is not a good reason with filling these forums with whinges about eBay. We all know what eBay is like, that is why many of us are here. Having declined to be fleeced as we are treated like dirt, we do not want to know what is happening there. If we do, we can log in to their forums.

Or perhaps the people who want to complain about eBay on the eBid forum could form a group, and whinge privately to each other.

[deanosaur1972]

Do we really have to devote so much space on eBid forums discussing Ebay.

I think it depends on context.

I don't see any need for complaining and whinging about the bay on here. But amusement, hilarity and a general celebration on what they do is fine .

They seem hell bent on making changes which results with me having more buyers here on eBid, that is to be encouraged. They have made such a good job of it this year that they are now on my Christmas card list.

[burgyeb]

I do not generally expend energy on whining about the bay. But if others care to, I see no reason why they should not. At the present time this is the only thread in the forums that I have seen doing this now. So that is down immensely from the past. I left there long ago, with no chip on my shoulder or ax to bury. Just a resolve to stop wasting money on high fees, and not put up with a buyer centric environment.

I would be thrilled to put them on my Christmas card list as well.