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New rules make it easier for sellers to pursue resolution

One of the greatest fears of eBay sellers is that their customers won't send payment for items they win.  In such cases new sellers fear losing not only the posting fee, but also the Final Value Fee, if the conflict goes unresolved.  Fortunately, over the years, eBay has tweaked its rules governing buying and selling many times to try to fix this problem, among others.  EBay has developed a mediation system that kicks in when buyers and sellers cannot resolve their disputes.  Some of these rules provide provisions for relisting unpaid items.

Now it has revealed a revised process that should make it easier for sellers to pursue action against non-payers.  Under the new rules the waiting period before a dispute can be opened drops from 7 days to 4 days.  The entire mediation process now will be settled in 30 days, as opposed to 60 days previously.

Sellers do have to file disputes quicker, though -- they now have 32 days after the sale of the item, down from the previous 45 days.  Sellers will have less forms to fill out, though, so the process should go quicker.  Sellers can now elect not to communicate with the buyer -- they elect the level of contact to have with the customer. 

EBay controls the emails between buyer and seller to keep their tone neutral.  While the negative impacts on the buyer remain the same, the language has been softened with words like "unpaid item strike" previously used to described unpaid item offenses removed and replaced.

The new rules have already taken effect, according to eBay officials.


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same old same old
By b534202 on 10/26/2009 2:52:21 PM , Rating: 5
quote:
While the negative impacts on the buyer remain the same


So still no negative impact at all.




RE: same old same old
By Breathless on 10/26/2009 3:19:09 PM , Rating: 4
unfortunately so....

There should be a three strikes and your out (like permanently out) policy regarding buyers who don't pay, with no expiration date.


RE: same old same old
By Motoman on 10/26/2009 4:34:16 PM , Rating: 1
Exactly. eBay was once a wonderful service - one of the most important on the web. Now it's just evil. And PayPal along with it.


RE: same old same old
By lexluthermiester on 10/27/2009 4:37:20 AM , Rating: 3
Ebay and Paypal evil? Not hardly. They are a business like any other. While I don't like that fact that certain things are unfair, one can not call minor issues "evil". And BTW, I'm an Ebay seller AND buyer. With only a few exceptions, I've had a great experience on Ebay since 2001 when I opened my account.


RE: same old same old
By acase on 10/27/2009 7:50:14 AM , Rating: 1
Yah...evil. Well Ebay itself isn't so bad but PayPal, and their "customer service" representatives are for sure evil. I honestly would rather take my chance of meeting up with a craigslist killer than deal with PayPal, and I do on a monthly basis.


RE: same old same old
By EasyC on 10/27/2009 12:17:24 PM , Rating: 2
As a prior ebay seller and paypal user, I agree whole heartedly. I once had paypal refund someones money (a considerable 550$) who claimed he never received his product. They did this after I showed them a tracking number with his exact information and signature.

I promptly cancelled my paypal account and moved to a different payment processor. Now I can't even make a personal paypal account because my SSN is still tied to the prior account (of which they never cancelled even though I requested it).

Paypal/Ebay are great for buyers, but sellers get the short end of the stick on MANY MANY levels.


RE: same old same old
By mindless1 on 10/27/2009 11:21:39 PM , Rating: 2
It gets annoying when someone tries to ignore facts and oversimplify things with "they are a business like any other", as if operating a business justifies mistreatment.

Yes they are a business, NO THEY ARE NOT LIKE ANY OTHER.

Please learn the difference, everyone who works is part of some loosely defined business, we are not somehow confused about how businesses operate because it is everything around us.

We can call busineses evil or anything else we like. Free speech?

Good for you in having a great experience, but it would be ridiculous to think that just because you did, anyone who doesn't have such a positive experience should be discounted.


Not true
By PandaBear on 10/26/2009 2:52:31 PM , Rating: 2
Seller can relist the item if it is unpaid without paying for the final fee, list the listing fee.




RE: Not true
By xti on 10/26/2009 3:56:48 PM , Rating: 2
you mean the 2nd chance? it is pretty effortless as i just had one of those "I am in Nigeria and want you to ship to me" buyers win a bid.

My major complaint about ebay is solely their help, the above issue caused the relisting to get deleted after the xfer went thru smoothly with a legit buyer via 2nd chance, and after sending 3-4 emails and only getting automated responses back, i finally got 1 automated response that told me to go to the live help.

which i mean i dont blame them for, they have gotten so big that they try to catch a lot of issues with automated responses. it is what it is, i sold my stuff, means to an end.


RE: Not true
By dsx724 on 10/26/2009 4:20:17 PM , Rating: 3
I do blame them. They have a couple hundred million in profits every quarter from sellers and buyers. They should use some of those millions to plug the gap in their support.


Old ebay vs. new ebay
By Bigjee on 10/27/2009 6:04:52 AM , Rating: 2
After the policy changes that Ebay brought about 2 years ago where Seller couldn't leave buyers a negative feedback, all has been downhill after that.

On Ebay at present, Sellers are scared of leaving negative feedback for non-paying buyers (or buyers that dont pay on time) because if a buyer leaves a negative feedback it can not be removed. So lets say you refund the money to the buyer(if u don't have the item for sale anymore or the buyer isn't happy with te item) they out of revenge can leave a negative feedback even though you as a seller have done everything to make the buyer happy.

If find that ebay's policies are biased towards the buyer (I am always scared of selling to a buyer since he can open a dispute and make false claims about an item. Allowing him to keep his/her money and the item that they bought by telling Paypal to hold funds and issue a refund whilst sending a bogus package back to the seller.)

The old ebay was good, now its being run like a joke if one takes a close look at their policies.




RE: Old ebay vs. new ebay
By Moohbear on 10/27/2009 8:53:19 AM , Rating: 2
I'm using eBay now and then to buy items I cannot easily find around. It's been a mixed bag. As I said, I'm a buyer and I've got a couple of cheap shots from sellers. Items differing from description, or "lost" during shipping. Each time, all I got was a big middle finger from the seller with a threat of negative feedback, although I did everything I was supposed to (ie, pay on time and give my address). And as there were lots of sellers refusing bids from people with negative feedback, that made the feedback system a joke. I think removing the feedback for buyer is a way to fix that, even if it's not perfect. But let's face it, as long as eBay refuses to seriously police its service, that's always going to be a roulette.


RE: Old ebay vs. new ebay
By Noya on 10/27/2009 7:42:55 PM , Rating: 1
quote:
I'm a buyer and I've got a couple of cheap shots from sellers


I'm with you.

I first used eBay back in 1998 to buy a Canon SLR for my photo class in high school and it went smoothly.

But over the years I've had some real douchebag sellers who claimed to have shipped items I've never received, sending me fake tracking numbers and then stop responding to my messages all together. Contacting eBay and/or even having to call the seller across the US is the only options sometimes to make things right. And BTW, I was always a careful buyer and checked the sellers feedback with scrutiny.


RE: Old ebay vs. new ebay
By plewis00 on 10/27/2009 10:32:35 AM , Rating: 2
On eBay sellers can't leave negative feedback for buyers and haven't been able to for sometime - at least here in the UK. About the best you can do is reply to negative feedback a buyer's left and try to abscond yourself from blame, but simply put, by looking at the numbers you may well no longer have 100% feedback.

On the other hand, buyers have it great - and I like buying for that reason. You have no fees on eBay or Paypal (sellers foots those bills) and you have a nearly bulletproof (but slow) disputes claim system, which means I can buy anything even if it's a dubious-looking auction (i.e. Apple iPod - made in China with no picture) and if I don't get even slightly what's described, I can take it up with them.

A better balance would be good, but it is heavily favourable for the buyer, and far too much so. EBay's obviously noticed that if you take the buyers' side you make more money in the long-run.


Can't stand eBay but what other options are there?
By plewis00 on 10/26/2009 10:40:22 PM , Rating: 2
They do run a horrific service, and like has been said above Paypal makes it even worse. Just about everything they do is pro-buyer and anti-seller. My favourite was removing the ability for sellers to leave negative feedback for buyers - like when they don't pay or are rude or abusive or force you to reduce postage, etc. - and I can't be the only one who thinks this is quite possibly the dumbest idea ever. eBay representatives claims it removes the fear that buyers have of leaving negative feedback when they have a bad experience with a buyer, of course, what eBay didn't consider was that you can now have a buyer with 200+ 100% positive feedback, who has just been a nightmare to deal with, blackmailing and making sellers' lives a misery. Apparently they can live with that.

And then there's Paypal... ah Paypal, where we have to be gracious enough to accept it, but it will cost us 3.4% of the total cost (not the profit, the actual total sale), basically you'll lose somewhere around 15% of a sale's total value due to listing, final value fees and Paypal fees.

But we should all be grateful because when buyers don't pay, we can process a claim in less than a month now!

I could use somewhere else but lack of coverage and advertising means final sale prices are significantly lower and/or sites suffer greater fraud.

Thanks eBay, thanks a bunch, you really know how to treat your customers with respect...




By chrnochime on 10/27/2009 12:02:46 AM , Rating: 2
...Or maybe figure out a way to sell your stuff some other way? I wonder how people made their living before ebay rolled around anyway.


By plewis00 on 10/27/2009 3:51:44 AM , Rating: 2
I actually said I could use somewhere else but lack of coverage and advertising means lower sale prices and higher fraud rates on other sites.

eBay is the biggest by far with a huge monopoly and just because I despise them doesn't mean I don't know what's good for me. What you're saying is akin to not using the internet because of all the scams and frauds out there or using a Mac instead of a PC because of all the spyware and viruses...


Playing The Numbers
By btc909 on 10/27/2009 12:49:01 AM , Rating: 2
Back in the day you have 90 days to file a dispute. Dummy me didn't know this & on day 46 I was SOL. So eBay is playing the numbers. I'm sure eBay tracks when users file a dispute & realized, hey we can reduce the number of disputes by reducing the number of days to file because users tend to wait until X number of days to file a dispute. 32 was probably closer to when the average user files a dispute.

Kudos on only having to wait for days for a deadbeat no payer.




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