[hposter]

Hi Tom!

Actually, to most sellers, ebay has given the buyer everything!

We sellers can no longer leave neutral or neg feedback for bad bidders--and if you mark it positive, but say something fresh, they just remove it from the buyers feedback page. A buyer can leave bad feedback for no good reason--the last time ebay's associated company charged me $24.95 to 'research' the incorrect Negative feedback, then rescind it! Actually it's still on my feedback page, but it wasn't counted toward my percentage.

As for other charges, we sellers can not--we'll get suspended---ask for PayPal or ebay listing fees! We can add something to the Handling part of shipping charges, but if we ask too much (usually a few dollars over actual cost), they will end the auction, and threaten the seller.

As for protection--if a buyer says an item never arrived, PayPal charges the seller's account, and sometimes they put a hold on the Whole account! I've read were a $20 chargeback claim will freeze a $1,000 PayPal balance until it can be sorted out.

If the buyer doesn't pay for an item they 'won', I can put a claim in for my listing charges back (it takes about 2 weeks), but my item doesn't sell. Often some bored kid will run up dozens of items, then never pay for any of them. Even if kicked off, and the buyer is blocked, there's not much to stop the bidder from just re-registering with a new accont and bidder ID, and then starting all over again.

If I, as the seller, don't offer FREE insurance (no, the seller can't charge the buyer for that, either--charging the buyer for insurance will get you kicked off ebay), then you have no real proof of actual delivery....and if the item goes for $1,000, the ebay charges plus the PayPal charges (another ebay company) plus the insurance, can add up to nearly a hundred dollars--not reimburse-able--so the seller has to eat those charges!

If you sell and ship a lightweight $40 item overseas, you must tell the buyer shipping is around $40--so it can go via insurable Priority International, which doesn't fly with overseas bidders. So everytime I, like most sellers, ship out of the USA, we just ship via $10 uninsured First Class, and hope the item doesn't get lost, or the buyer doesn't lie about getting it! That's why so many sellers say, No overseas sales.

There are tricks a few sellers pull, such as listing $150 cell phones at 99 cents, and cancelling the auction in the last hour if it doesn't bring enough, but mostly, ebay is now slanted toward the buyer. And, the sellers are getting fed up with it! This is why ebay is going to offer free listing soon to sellers, for all items listed, and jack up the fees we pay as final value costs! This sounds good upfront, but they get extra in the long run.

Already, the first 5 items listed each month, have no listing fees--but then ebay doubles the sellers final value fees..automatically. So if you accidentally list items that go for $150, as your first 5 items, you're out nearly 20% in fees, for those items, and that can be appreciable.

It goes on, as does most of the seller's frustrations.

Harry Poster