Comment by luke_s | Hacker News Reader

Comment by luke_s | Hacker News Reader

I wanted to provide somewhat of a counterpoint – I have been using e-bay (Australia) for about 7 years. I sell all kinds of stuff ranging from a broken bookcase for $1, which I didn’t want to haul to the tip, all the way up to a boat for $950. I also run a small business selling items via a website and my e-bay account [1][2].

Overall I’ve found my e-bay experience to be very positive. I’ve only had one person who I suspected of scamming me, when they claimed they didn’t receive the item I posted. The vast majority of users are just normal people looking to pick up a bargain. It helps that some of my items are pick up only and that I am not selling electronics.

Every few years an article like this pops up and I get concerned and start looking at other places to sell my products. What I inevitably find is that no other auction site has the users base that e-bay does, so my items inevitably don’t sell, or the price is significantly lower than what I would get on e-bay. It’s possible to build a better experience than e-bay, but up until now nobody has managed to do it.

Finally, I think what the writer of the article was looking for was an ‘unpaid item dispute’. He needed to open once against the original bidder, and if they didn’t don’t pay within a certain time limit, and then I believe e-bay will refund the fees. E-bay also records unpaid item disputes against buyers and will limit what they can do. [3]

[1] - http://myworld.ebay.com.au/sleemancorp

[2] - http://www.grafting-tool.com/magento/index.php/

[3] - http://pages.ebay.com/help/sell/unpaid-items.html

OP here. Glad eBay is working out for you! Honestly, there are a lot of tools and useful techniques for sellers to get a positive experience, but they're just hidden or you only seem to learn them after you've gotten burned already. As a seller who hasn't been on eBay for many years though, it's just a very harsh experience filled with hidden pitfalls.

And I was able to submit unpaid item disputes successfully for the majority of the oustanding fees or I'd have been on the hook for closer to $70. However, there was a final $2 that they refused to refund because certain selling fees are un-refundable for some reason, and that's what I got stuck with in the end.

So wait, you basically got around $68 back and you posted this blog post ABOUT losing less than 5% (around 3%) from a failed transaction? Whereas there are other people who have legitimate complaints having lost >50% of their item value along with fees. Wow..... I really do want to understand the rationale behind this. Explain.

I think he did it for all the time wasted and dealing with such a horrid experience on top of the $2. It's also opened up a discussion here where people have had even worse experiences. I think it's a great discussion to have.

Realistically, how much time did he waste over the benefits of the actually selling the item to someone who pays for the item. You take a risk when you enter into a contract without knowing what you are doing. How bad was the experience really? He said he got back MOST of what he wanted, but it appears that he needed to get $2 more in order to close this case, but they would not refund an unrefundable $2, that I would bet is told to you when you hit the confirmation page.

The OP goes to the extreme length saying to never sell on eBay, which is a crap response considering what he got back. eBay is a reasonable place to sell products to legitimate customers. Bad experiences exist everywhere, but it is not the overwhelming culture the OP makes it out to be. The generalization of his "bad" experience is not reasonable, so I'd like to know his rationale for doing that.

So let's say you sign up with a hosting provider and they are just terrible. Your site's down all the time and FTP is slow as molasses, etc. You go ask for a refund because not only did they not provide the level of service they advertised, they actively wasted your time. You'd be just fine if they said "Sure, but only most of it because of reasons"?

There's a lot of people echoing my experience here. So if there's a lot of people selling on eBay and getting nothing out of it but losing small amounts of money each time, I'm cool if that's something I prevent.

Should I follow your flawed logic? How does a crap host relate to eBay? Are you saying that eBay is a shit marketplace? Please provide proof to back up this defamatory claim. You took a risk using eBay's resource, you lost money due to a fee for using their resource, that is reasonable.

I gave you a chance to explain your rationale and you failed as all I'm getting is the feeling of someone who has a silver spoon in their mouth. It is a marketplace, you used their resource, someone didn't pay, you said you used one of their protections, it worked, but you needed to get an unrefundable $2 back, so you went to CS who did not want to refund it. There are more people who had a worse experience than this such as losing their item, fees, and not getting any support. If anything you got the closer to ideal case of this and you are complaining about it. That's crap.

I no longer have anything to contribute to this as I am wasting my time here.

No you don't and I believe we both are. Hope the rest of your evening goes better.

A petty injustice is still an injustice.

Good heavens on some scale every injustice is petty. You imply that the OP's problem is petty compared to more serious eBay dispute - but what stops someone from descrying the pettiness of those thousand-dollar disputes, because someone got screwed on a mortgage, worth tens or hundreds of thousands? What's to stop someone attacking you for bring up an injustice that just involves money when women are being systematically raped and murdered in sub Saharan Africa?

You need to get off your high horse and stop attacking someone for expressing disgust over a small amount of money.

I would add an important fact, one which I've never heard expressed but which I have not seen an exception to: the net sum of petty injustice in this world is far, far greater than the great injustices done in this world. The reason? Because people like you shut down those who would spend the time to fight it. Meanwhile, eBay takes $2 here, $2 there and laughs all the way to the bank with millions.

So wait, you basically got a full story about my frustrations and issues with a major company and you posted a comment about the least important part of the story (the $ value)? Whereas there are other people who have legitimate complaints about being lied to about >50% of campaign promises along with facts. Wow... I really do want to understand the rationale behind this. Explain.

How does this contribute to the discussion at all? Answer the damned question. The immaturity that emanates from this is amazing. :) Go troll somewhere else. EDIT: Sure this could have been phrased better had the parent poster show some respect. I said I wanted to know the rationale behind the post, he chose to add an empty post, so yes this is warranted. I did not say anything vitriolic enough that warranted the parent post. If you didn't like the "explain" portion, that's fine, point it out and respond appropriately.

Please don't act surprised after what you wrote. There are polite ways to make a point, and good reason to do so.

Honestly, it's usually trolls using the word troll. That combined with the lack of empathy and entitlement displayed in your original comment compelled me to check your comment history. You're a nice person in there though. What gives? I'm genuinely curious if I struck a nerve or something.

But let's give you the benefit of the doubt and let me ignore how entitled and demanding your "Explain" was, and actually explain.

It's not that the transaction was a failure that upsets me, nor is it the actual end cost to me. It was the abysmal entire experience, from start to finish. There are plenty of reputable companies that - when faced with a customer who has had a bad experience are happy to refund them their money and apologize for the inconvenience. eBay doesn't do that, and makes it as difficult as possible to actually contact them to resolve it.

Now, this is entirely speculation based on what I've learned from the comments here and on my blog and via Google, but odds are very very good I would never have gotten that money back anyway. And odds are very very good I would have been on the phone for upwards of 30 minutes in queue.

But ultimately in the end, the fact that I had to pay any money to them after having such a terrible experience, just to get them to stop bombarding my inbox with "SWEAR TO GOD, WE WILL SEND YOU TO COLLECTIONS (also don't reply to this email we won't read it)" is a complete failure of customer service. That's what's unacceptable, not the % of the fees I got back.

IMHO your original 'request' was phrased as an indignant demand. Of course, the OP should have just downvoted and moved on. But now there seems to be some confusion, so I hope this clarification from the peanut gallery is useful.

You made it about the $2 in your headline. And frankly, I have to agree with the grandparent.

http://gumtree.com.au is on the rise for things like your bookcase, but I agree, the market on eBay is much larger.

That's eBay's property too.

Really? Ouch. :(

Yeah, funnily enough I listed the boat on gumtree as well, but got nothing but scammers! There was about 5 people that contacted me trying to run this scam: http://www.mactalk.com.au/8/80486-paypal-scam-carsguide.html

With the listing on e-bay I got two enquiries, both of which were legit. One of the interested parties ended up buying.

For used cars, gumtree is the business. I just sold a used car on there and had several times the response I did from the same ad on carsales.com.au, which cost $60, was much harder to use and so was basically poor value for money.

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