eBay Sucks AND PayPal Sucks

Not in a million years could I have imagined that I would be typing the following words in my blog. But as the book of Ecclesiastes says, there is a time for anything, and a couple of days ago, I took the step of removing every single auction, fixed price, and store item from my four eBay accounts. Of course, I am not hasty enough to go and close all my accounts. At this point in time, I have simply had enough.

I can't believe that I actually entertained the idea of selling on eBay full-time. Well, after many years of successful selling, I would naturally juggle that idea; but several things have happened lately that has absolutely soured my opinion on eBay, and particularly, their heavily preferred payment system, Paypal.

If you search my blog here, you would have read a previous entry where I expressed concern about how eBay is going downhill, in terms of ensuring that their bread and butter (sellers) have a reasonably affordable, safe, and reasonably controlled way of selling stuff. I don't mind controls on what sells on eBay and what doesn't; it is only when it becomes close to a communist state that I no longer will participate. But I'm not here to rehash the previous post, so here is the latest.

A couple of months back, I sold a laptop. I was paid by paypal, and the following day, shipped the laptop to the buyer, who signed for it, confirmed receipt by email, and left positive feedback for me as a result, indicating how he liked the laptop. Just last week, two months after, I get a notice from Paypal saying that the buyer has issued a chargeback on his credit card, which funded his paypal payment, indicating that his card was used fraudulently. Of course, without hearing my side of the story, Paypal decided to freeze my account and withdraw the funds out, without even asking my permission. This would never happen at a bank, but Paypal is not a bank. I opened a case with them, submitting all my "evidence" - the emails from the buyer, the tracking number of the packaged, the signed signature as viewable on the Canada Post website, the fact that he confirmed receipt and even left me positive feedback. If his card was used fraudulently, what was he doing accepting a laptop that he supposedly had no idea he bought. And why would he leave me positive feedback on the same? Fishy? Yes. However, my account is still frozen (I have done literally thousands of transactions without problems). I have sold a number of laptops without issue. If this was an isolated case, I would feel better, but guess what? I checked on the internet and many people have had this happen to them - and you know what? In a number of cases, even in the face of clear evidence, Paypal simply sided with the buyer's credit card company. I am still waiting to hear back, so we'll see how it goes. But PayPal is owned by eBay, and so this obviously reflects on eBay.

eBay has increasingly been putting restrictions on their sellers, yet increasing fees year-over-year. It is no longer a fun place to sell stuff. Sellers of brand name electronics and clothing get bombarded with spam in the eBay messaging system, which just slows down transactions since you need to weed through it all to get to the legitimate questions. eBay is not doing a damn thing about this, but of course, why would they - they send their own spam through the messaging system.

eBay's help and support system is probably worse than any that I've seen. Ask them a really specific question about something and they will send you a canned answer that has nothing remotely related to the question you were asking. After a while, you simply say, "to hell with this" and give up. That's what they want.

The straw that broke the monkey's back was a recent change that they are implementing this month - they are no longer allowing the sale of gun parts and accessories, and that includes air gun parts and accessories. They admit that the federal U.S. and Canadian laws do not have restrictions on these parts, and in fact, you can buy many of them (slides/grips/tips/casings) at your local sporting goods store or elsewhere online. It is legal to sell them. Yet eBay claims that because they believe that the Virginia Tech shooter may have bought some parts on eBay, they must somehow now mass-ban the sale of these, thinking that this would be their good deed and the world would be a better place. I hate this freaking draconian way of thinking where big brother eBay thinks it knows what is socially acceptable, even though they are going against federal laws which allow these sales. Somehow, they think that they are doing their civic duty in helping stamp out violence. Truth be told, I could buy a bat off eBay or a golf club and use that to pummel someone to death.

I do agree with eBay in that they should not be allowing the sale of guns through its site, for obvious reasons. But now banning accessories and parts? Give me a freaking break. Obviously, they have been receiving (and have succumbed to) pressure from left-wing anti-guy lobbyists.

I'd be OK with eBay doing this kind of crap, if they were somewhat consistent
in how they enforce it. If you do a check of eBay, there are things which you can tell are pulled auctions due to what they feel are infriging their policies. Yet, you look some more and there are other people selling the same thing, whose auctions are allowed to proceed. Even if you report it, they won't pull the auction. That's a double standard if there ever was one.

Thank goodness for Craigslist. You can pretty much buy anything on there (except for pornography and hate speech stuff, both of which I fully understand). I sold my Airsoft M3000 shotgun on there, something I was not allowed to do on eBay, even though there was no Canadian law restrictions for me to do so (though there were some in the U.S.). That's OK - eBay lost out on listing and end of auction fees. It's just as well, since I love the quick turnaround on craigslist - local pickup (no shipping), cash payment on pickup, nice and easy - no silly feedback system, no undue restrictions, NO BULL. Someone told me that well, you don't have the audience on craigslist that eBay allows. That is true, but I'll take that over big brother controlling what I can and cannot sell and forcing me to use their flawed PayPal system (eBay does not allow you to use Western Union, claiming it's unsafe, though stating cash on pickup or cash through the mail is fine - what a bunch of hypocrites!) I doubt that I will ever use PayPal again, regardless of how this current case turns out.