This New Ebay Scam works like a charm.

It’s Ebay time. We all know what Ebay is. Depends on which side you stand on, it’s either is a cheap corner store or an expensive corner store.

Why is that? Because if you are a buyer, you sure find just about anything way-way cheaper than the store prices. If you are a seller, your fees are expensive and in the sky.

The newest scam from Ebay is a marvel by itself disguised as legitimate as can be.

Getting rid of Buyers negative feedback!!

Why is this a scam? The reason is simple. Makes tons of money for Ebay.

Eversince Ebay got rid of buyers negative feedback, the service and Ebay started to slide down the tube. There are less and less sellers, because Ebay’s new buyer negative feedback elimination  is costing them a lot of money. Ebay runs free weekend listings just to motivate people to list their stuff and save a few pennies. That’s the reason for the free weekend listings campaigns.

This is how the scam works. This is the third time happening to me and just downed on me. I had listed my car for sale. The listing fee for that is £8 pounds here in the UK. If the car don’t sell you can re-list it and if it sells the second time around you only have to pay that one original listing fee. (plus the final value fee of £20 pounds of course). If it doesn’t sell, you have to pay the £8 pounds listing fee the second time too.

My car was sold 3 times. The first time the buyer didn’t show up, I had it re-listed for another £8 pounds, the second time, the buyer didn’t show up, I had it relisted for another £8 pounds, the third time, the buyer didn’t show up and guess what, I had to pay the listing fee again.

Now, because the car was sold, I was charged the listing fee each and every time equiling a total of £24 pounds. Non refundable! I can’t leave negative feedback for any of the buyers, because Ebay eliminated that option. Now you can only leave positive or nothing at all.

Had there been the old system left in place, I would have been (among with thousands of other sellers) leave a negative buyer feedback, warning the other sellers about this buyer. Since there is no such system, I was not warned about these buyer’s past history.

I could have annulled their bids or blocked them altogether before the auction ended. As the result, it’s costing me all that money, because of irresponsible buyers.

I’ve had this happened to me several times in the past but had never occurred to me before, as part of a money making scheme. Several people I know had told me it had happened to them too and on many ebay listings you can read the seller stating if a bidder has say; less them ten feedbacks email first or their bids will be removed. This is the reason why. This is a widespread problem on Ebay.

If the buyer is co-operative they’ll agree to your request to annul the transaction, so you can get your final value fee back and either re-list your item, or else just forget about it and sell it somewhere else. If the buyer is unresponsive you have to wait 15 days to start the annulment procedure, to get your final value fee back from Ebay. Plus another 7 days waiting for the buyer’s response. If the buyer don’t respond, Ebay will return your final value fee. 22 Days after the bidding has ended.

So as you see, all these listing fees adds up to millions. I am sure Ebay eliminated the buyer’s negative feedback for this reason alone!!

There are other alternatives to Ebay with greater success and with millions of responsible buyers. Amazon! I have started to use Amazon lately with many of my items for sale. The result have been fantastic.

The selling might be a bit slower, but the items sell for more money and the buyers pay! Makes a lot of difference compare to the uncertainty of Ebay. As an Ebay seller, you never know whether the winner will pay or not and you are always in the limbo until the payment arrives. With Amazon, this suspense is not there. The buyer buys because they had made their decision about it and when they click the buy button they had finalized their decision. They click that button with their credit card in hand.

For Ebay to be on the more winning field they should either eliminate the listing fee completely, so these fraudulent buyers don’t cost sellers money, or else they should re-implement the buyer negative feedback system to protect sellers. Their positive customer experience turned into millions of losses for sellers and loss of business for Ebay. if there is no merchandise for sale there are no buyers either. Ebay forgot about this when they were trying to protect the buyers.

Ebay is prone to fraud anyway and in a business like that there always going to be fraudsters and cheaters. People should be aware when they buy online, that some sellers don’t have what they are selling, but they need to pay rent or car payment for an example and they’ve just happened to have a Rolex laying in the drawer. Beware. But my experience with online outfits is positive since most people are honest folks.

I wish Ebay would get rid of this new scam for the benefit of would be sellers.