(Small rant) eBay- welcome to the USSR

i would imagine that phone numbers and postcodes are clocked by robot rather human eyes... surely a little "creativity" in how you communicate this info will get it past the i.t stazi??!!

They can protect their business model by charging reasonable fees to sell stuff.

Have a car, not retro but eBay

I agree, ebay is completely curse word these days. The other day I was listing something, and I got this stearn email saying that I wasn't allowed to have my phone number in the listing, or have links to my blog on my listing where more information and pictures could be found. Further more I am not allowed to advertise my items for sale anywhere else (including my blog that nobody reads), and under no circumstances am I to sell my items to anyone outside of ebay. Failiure to comply would result in my account being suspended, or even closed for good. I helped them out, I cancelled all the bids, and then deleted all my items for sale (after sending the highest bidders my phone number and telling them to call me if they wanted my item at the current price) lol! I then went about advertising them on various other forums instead! The thing is if ebay guaranteed a sale at the end of the auction, and the winning bidder wouldn't just pi$$ you around and not collect their item, then fine, I would happily sell on ebay. But they don't, and so with absolutely no comback for the messers of ebay there would appear to be a whole culture of these cretins on ebay who do nothing but bid on peoples curse word with no intention of ever collecting their winnings! And ebay couldn't give a funk about that as long as they get their fees! The thing is these cretins could be removed from ebay easily. All ebay would need to to is when an auction ends, the fee for selling should be taken straight away from the winning bidders PayPal account, leaving them the remaining amount to be paid on collection. This would stop the ebay cretins because if they won, then they would end up paying the sellers fee without any chance of getting away with it. I've even suggested this to ebay when I've been messed around in the past, are they interest, are they FU<K!

Stopped selling cars via eBay along time ago
Too many messers on there
I've sold three cars via this forum in a year
All with no problems

My sister is selling GENUINE ray bans on eBay and someone reported them as fakes so she has been banned because the start price was too low. She has told them they are genuine and gave them the sku codes too. They want receipts but she doesn't have them as There from her partners work. All above board and not stolen etc. There looking into it.

One small get round i have found is to take a picture of my phone number and add it as the last picture on the listing. They will cotton in soon but seems to be working for now.

I must be doing something wrong then! I've put 5 cars on here in the last couple of years and not sold one of them - or even had much interest TBH. All have been fairly or cheaply priced with pictures etc and a reasonable description. I'm no novice to selling generally, where did I fail?

Back on topic, I have been getting a little disillusioned with ebay myself and this is one more nail in the coffin. I mostly only sell cars on ebay (plus occasional parts) and always include a phone number in the ad "to arrange a viewing" since I don't HAVE mobile internet (a dinosaur I know) and don't spend all day at my computer keyboard waiting for messages.

The last car I sold on ebay, too new for this site, I had to sell twice cos of a no-show winning bidder the first time and open proceedings to get my fees back. The second sale netted £80 less than the first would have and I wasted another 3 weeks on proceedings before I could relist.

I can understand ebay wanting to stop listings going on, being seen by thousands, then losing their commission to a private sale, you couldn't do it at a live auction after all. I won't say I haven't been tempted myself on occasion, but mostly I play fair. Obviously many thousands of others don't and this is the result. Sure they charge the final value fee, every auction house in history has, why shouldn't ebay?  And where else can you get such a massive audience for what is often very specialised niche market items? You really can't BLAME ebay for trying to protect their business and stop the cheats, even if it DOES make life harder for us folk on the ground. The fees are probably higher than they really NEED to be, simply to cover the losses from cheats!

Steve

I think it's got too big and gone away from it's original ethos. Fees are too high, sellers not protected enough (there's a balance but it's currently not quite right). But my biggest bugbear is the amount of tat that seems to come up unrelated to your search. Soooooooooo much Chinese poor quality junk, listed as being in London, sooooo frustrating.

There are still bargains to be had for sure, vehicles advertised in Vehicle Parts and Accessories is one (fees are lot less) but as previously said there is a lot of tat on there and fewer and fewer auctions.

I'll still use it for buying but selling is a p.i.t.a tbh

Mate of mine just had a similar thing. Sold an item as cash on collection, he sent the winner his phone number and address and has had his account suspended.

He phoned them to sort it and also asked how he should arrange a viewing of a car before buying it, their response, buy it first. Doesn’t really make sense!