eBay Australia announces Safe Payment Initiative

AnnOn 04.11.2008 at 11:17 am Said:

Richard,

As a Power Buyer and Silver Power Seller who has been using eBay for nearly 12 years, since the beginning, and someone who reads the blogs both on and off eBay, professional writers (such as AuctionBytes) and personal ones; I CAN TELL you EXACTLY what eBay members want.

1) They want eBay to return to what they have always claimed to be: a Venue. eBay has gotten so far from that and so involved in every aspect of each transaction that they can no longer claim the legal safety net of being a venue only. Get out of our businesses and provide the service we are paying for - a place to transact OUR business.

2) They want eBay to be a safe place to do business. They want it separated from PayPal. They want choices in what payments to accept, what payment methods to offer, what shippers to use and so on. PayPal is not “the only safe way to pay”. In fact, it is the least secure method of payment for a seller. Thieves, scammers and dishonest buyers abound and use PayPal almost exclusively. I have been screwed more times by PayPal than I can count and have lost thousands of dollars to dishonest buyers who exploit PayPal’s loopholes and “Buyer Protection” bias. SPP is a complete joke. Nearly every serious seller I’ve talked to or listened to say the same. In more than 10 years on eBay, the ONLY payment problems I’ve ever had were with PAYPAL buyers or PayPal itself stealing from me.

3) PayPal’s new User Agreement in the US that goes into effect May 7th is a license to STEAL and is blatently illegal. I’ve already contacted an attorney about it and they state we have grounds for a class action lawsuit if PayPal tries to put Section 13.5 (b) ito effect. It states that if a buyers claims an item is not as described, PayPal will require the item to be returned to PAYPAL, NOT THE SELLER! The money, including the shipping fees which the seller has Already Spent on behalf of and at the request of the buyer will be returned to the Buyer. The seller is out the money AND the item AND additionally they lose the money they spent in good faith for shipping. PayPal states very clearly, they will NOT RETURN the item to the seller. That is outright theft. In some cases, it qualifies as Felony Grand Larceny!

4) They want eBay to get rid of the bad sellers but also the bad buyers!!! Which far outnumber the bad sellers. Sellers value their reputation and therefore are much more concerned about their feedback and try to keep it good. However, buyers couldn’t care less if they get a negative, all they have to do is snipe an auction and the seller would never even get a chance to look at their feedback before they are roped into a transaction with a bad buyer.

5) Sellers want eBay to support them. They are eBay’s customers after all, not the buyers. The buyers are the sole customer of the seller, not eBay. Sellers are continually being screwed by eBay every which way. As sellers exit in mass to other sites such as Amazon, eCrater, iOffer, eBid, OnlineAuction.com, Overstock and more, the buyers are starting to follow them, while eBay constantly has to advertise to get new buyers to replace those leaving. Buyers will come if the sellers are there. Without the sellers, there are no buyers.

6) “Buyer Experience” is the biggest joke ever. As a Power Buyer, my buying experience has actually gotten much worse since 2005 when Donahoe was hired. Neither sellers or buyers are stupid. We recognize that Donahoe has no experience in either buying or selling on eBay and it shows in every decision he’s made. All of them bad for both buyers and sellers. Best Match is the worst thing ever for buyers. Now they can’t even FIND the items they came looking for and so they leave and go to Amazon et al.

7) They want the “flea market” experience. That is what made eBay great. If they want a “retail” experience, they go to a retail site, they don’t even consider eBay. When they want a collectible, a unique item, an antique or hard to find or discontinued item, they come to eBay. When they want a great item at a less than retail price, they come to eBay. If they want new, mass market items, they go to Wal-mart!

They want customer service. They want people to listen to them. They want to be able to talk to a live person (who speaks English and doesn’t live 1/2 a world away) and have them actually care and try to help. They hate automated responses and canned scripts.

9) They want open, honest feedback. They hate hidden anonymous DSR scores. They want sellers to be able to give feedback as well so good buyers can be difereniated from bad. If eBay is worried about retaliatory feedback from sellers, they should be worried about false retaliatory feedback and out-of-control extortion from buyers as well. The only sane solution is to allow both to submit honest feedback for the other side but do not allow it to be visible to either side until both have left it.
Sellers will leave good feedback for good buyers if they are not threatened by the risk of no longer being able to warn others about bad buyers. Talk in the eBay community among sellers is that they will either no longer leave feedback at all for buyers or preface bad “forced positive” feedback with the word NEG or NEGATIVE as well, so people can be warned away from the bad seed buyers anyway. Its the only way left to them to protect themselves from eBay’s bad decisions. Right now, the way eBay’s proposed feedback system is being set up, it will lose all value for both sides, esp if eBay persists with the threat that if a seller chooses not to leave VOLUNTARY positive feedback for a buyer, that eBay WILL DO IT FOR THEM!!

10) Above all, all eBayers want FAIRNESS from eBay towards both sides in all aspects of a transaction. eBay’s bias right now is so far in favor of the buyer that the scales are almost at a vertical tilt.

11) They want fair charges for services provided. They don’t want “fee decreases” that actually raise the total cost! They want honesty from eBay, not doubletalk lies. They want to be able to run their businesses without interference. They want eBay to be reliable, easy-to-use, easy to search (get rid of the Best Match fiasco which doesn’t work) and easy to buy and sell on.

There are many more, but you get the gist. In short, they want the eBay pre-2005. They DON’T want what they are getting now: ignorant deaf executives interested only in lining their own pockets and digging their own graves. They want admissions of mistakes by management and rollbacks of bad choices on eBay’s part.

Give us back the eBay we Used to know and love. If it ain’t broke, don’t break it.

MechelleOn 04.11.2008 at 11:59 am Said:

How about starting a thread about eBay putting outside retailer ppc ads that look like eBay featured listings with directly competing products in the same category? With constant presence with priority over eBay store listings. Even an eBay selling member said she did a search received dismal results for auctions (a couple of listings) like 3 eBay store listings and 5 outside ppc ads of which she bought through, because the search results didn’t yield a better deal. Apparently this particular keyword usually tosses up pages of listings.

Someone else had a screen shot where to find the links to the next page of eBay listings she had to scroll through the ppc ad listings to find the spot to move to the next page.

I think this might make a very interesting topic- oh and if you have never seen these ads as I hadn’t it is because eBay apparently hides them from selling members by tracking the IP address

you can find this thread on the ebay store discussion board

So, how about it- lets see how much discretion eBay really allows you in managing this blog

DaveyOn 04.11.2008 at 12:03 pm Said:

Ann, is this a good summary of how you feel?

eBay 2005 == New Coke

Coca Cola’s management was astute enough to see the misstep and admit it, so they got their customers back more loyal than ever, and a whole new appreciation for their business. Their business was not to be a better Pepsi…hint, hint… They misread their own data that caused the debacle.

I agree with Ann totally, by the way.

Patricia 1On 04.11.2008 at 12:34 pm Said:

Clap, clap, clap for Ann. BRAVO!

Okay, now if you took a poll I bet 99 percent of sellers would agree with Ann’s post. So, why still plod along towards being another Amazon? - its already being done and expertly!

I have one more thing to add to Ann’s post. Good buyers do not like the fact that sellers will no longer be able to leave negatives for buyers. They say that then THEIR feedback becomes meaningless. I’m afraid good buyers think as highly of their good feedbacks as sellers do of theirs. I’ve heard this from many buyers on the ebay boards. Ebay should read those boards - they wouldn’t need these blogs. Unfortunately, they refer to the people who post on the boards as “noise” and troublemakers. That’s kind of sad

I think besides the bad policies, the second thing everyone is complaining about the most is Best Match. You see, no matter what ebay thinks, buyers come in and if they want art they will click on art and start to browse. I bet two thirds of them take no notice of the sort at the top and just browse a few pages…maybe want some artwork with cats in it so they’ll put cat in search, etc. This is how buyers search and if ebay asked them…they would find that out so that instead of instituting what THEY think is best, they could possibly institute something that’s actually friendly to the buyers. For instance, I know when someone asks me to paint a black cat…I do it. I’m out to make sales and satisfy a customer so they’ll come back. Its a very simple work ethic that WORKS - Ebay needs to try it instead of constantly playing the bully and throwing their weight around! They need to start really thinking about the buyers and sellers and what they NEED in order to make those transactions - and make them in a user friendly manner on both sides…then the buyers will return.

Ann is right about pre-2005. In fact, since around April 2004 when they got rid of Going, Going, Gone the “fun” quotient of Ebay started to decline. Then they took out the “Browse” button and replaced it with “Buy”. You have no idea how many of my customers asked me if hitting that buy button locks them into a sale. I know it doesn’t make sense to you and me but it was a genuine fear with a lot of the buyers. So, they took out the last minute frenzy of bidding and grabbing the item before someone else took it and then they take out the friendly “Browse” and replace it with the rigid “Buy”. I don’t know who was responsible for some of these things but if they want some “excitement” back in that site these two things could well be reversed back to what they were. The very thing that made ebay catch on like fire was the auction environment. They’ve been killing that for years and now want the excitement back?????

We can all go on and on but for what good? Ebay continues to plod on toward being and online Sears

CrunchyPostingGoodnessOn 04.11.2008 at 10:40 pm Said:

“Davey - in conversations I’ve had today, it’s pretty evident that this is seen as an entirely positive step forward to strengthen consumer safety on eBay.com.au.”

@ Richard, I think the above comment is exactly what many people were afraid of when this blog was created. eBay is telling you one thing, but the reality is completely different. There are several websites on the internet which give very specific instructions on how one can go about scamming a seller on eBay using the loopholes which exist in PayPal.

I hope that you will rely more on the information that is being provided to you by actual users of eBay, rather than just standard corporate PR. It would make absolutely no sense for eBay to tell you, “Yes, we are aware that this will lead to more scams on sellers, but as long as we still collect our fees and drive up the website traffic it is an acceptable risk for us.”

“Amazon requires Amazon payments for purchases on their platform but they’ve done this from the beginning.”

Amazon also has a more trusted payment system with security for both buyers and sellers. With Amazon every ship to address is considered “confirmed” - unlike PayPal. Amazon also has an educated, live help department to handle any disputes - unlike PayPal. PayPal has a long way to go before sellers will trust it like they trust Amazon’s payment service.

@ Richard, BTW - What is preventing eBay from making all buyer addresses confirmed for all sellers? If the ability exists for eBay to make all buyer addresses confirmed for PowerSellers, then they should be able to confirm them for all sellers. Amazon is able to offer this protection to all of their sellers, so why can’t eBay?

If it is eBay’s intention to provide a better buying experience, then confirming all addresses would increase the number of sellers wishing to ship internationally and therefore create a larger selection for international buyers to choose from.

WII SELLEROn 04.12.2008 at 12:38 am Said:

Ebay is trying to be a low cost venue with free shipping and amazon type service.

This cannot be accomplished I am afraid.

The reason ebay is riddled with stolen and counterfeit goods is that small sellers CANNOT COMPETE with big box retailers. Wal-mart is walmart for a reason.

Hence ebay becomes a niche for used, second hand goods and NEW hard to find items (such as Wii, etc).

Small sellers WILL not be able to offer near free extra fast shipping, stellar customer support, items that work 100% of the time, and pay 15-20% of their gross to the greedy ebay corp. Those items cost money.

Ever been to Costco on the weekends? Long lines, no bags… the price you pay for near wholesale cost. Same with ebay. You can’t have bargain basement prices and VIP service on a shoe string budget.

What ebay is asking us for is just not possible I am afraid.

Look at the media categories. I would say 50% are fakes. Same goes for alot of other categories that ebay has eliminated alot of the fraud. Tiffany, Adidas, Reebok sports apparel. Why are these categoris rampant with fraud? Cheap cost.

Sellers can’t compete with all the fees, etc.

Even the giants fall I am afraid. Remember AOL? Yahoo at its prime when compared to google? IBM in the PC market (IBM sold it because its no longer profitable).

PEOPLE LOVE EBAY that they once knew.

Stop killing it with these stupid ridiculous policies before it is too late.

I challenge each ebay employee to sell on ebay for 30 days. Find an item you can make money on and use it to support yourself. I bet if you guys did that you’d see the plight of the abused sellers.

Come on Richard, I challenge you specifically.

Take the 30 day challenge. Make it 90 days so you can see how your DSR average fairs month to month.

Set up an ID and start selling!

Only then will you have true perspective.

JanOn 04.12.2008 at 4:56 am Said:

You said: I’ve been told that there are no plans to go to a PayPal-only model for eBay in other markets – US included.

You obviously haven’t been around long and don’t know that eBay speak with forked tongue.

As a buyer only now (I haven’t sold on eBay in a couple of years) I do like to use PayPal and offer on my website PayPal only.

But there are still people that don’t have credit cards and need to send me a check or money order and I do make exceptions.

eBay needs to take that into consideration — that there are people that don’t have credit cards.

eBay has said a lot of things over the years and gone back on it and I don’t believe for a minute that they won’t make PayPal mandatory somewhere down the line.

Patricia 1On 04.12.2008 at 10:02 am Said:

Cheap or free shipping too. I recently put up a painting for 9.99 (with a reserve of 95.00)… its 16 X 20″ so with packaging I figure it for 12.00 to ship priority and I include insurance so I have shipping set at a flat $15.00 USA only. I guess because of the starting price I immediately get a red warning about my shipping cost and their shipping policy. How do they know what it is I’m shipping or what size the package will be?….they don’t, yet they stand ready to threaten me with their “shipping policies”? Why??? There should never be real gouging on shipping and THAT is squarely the responsibility of the buyer. I post time and time again that buyers who bid without looking at the shipping and agreeing to pay it or without questioning the seller about shipping won’t get any pity from me. Ebay wants to be a nanny to buyers - at the expense of their sellers - it won’t work. Their idea is they can do this because they bring in the buyers….they need to drop that attitude or nobody will win in this madness. Instead of educating buyers on what to look for and what to avoid, they keep silent and try to make ALL sellers fit into their one automatic shipping policy. It won’t work! There’s no way I can ship my item for less than cost. I’m there to profit just as much as ebay is there to profit! Incidentally, in the case of the painting, total listing fees came to almost $20.00 for an item I hope to sell for at least 95.00 - who is profiting from who???? I’m their customer, not the buyer and they’re giving me shoddy service!

LindaOn 04.12.2008 at 3:21 pm Said:

Safe my you know what

PayPal Loophole Leaves Man Holding Empty Bag

HOPKINTON, R.I. — A Rhode Island man claims a woman in Florida stole his money by taking advantage of a loophole in PayPal, a payment service used by buyers and sellers on eBay.

Bill Felkner, of Ashaway, R.I., ordered some autographed football cards from a seller on eBay. The selling price was $472. For protection, he paid by using PayPal, eBay’s payment service.

PayPal allows buyers and sellers to send and receive money and it offers buyers $500 of coverage if the item isn’t received.

“This is the envelope I got in the mail,” Felkner said, displaying an empty package.

Felkner said when he received the empty envelope, he figured PayPal would cover him. But he said PayPal was no pal when he filed the complaint.

“When I contacted them, they have a form you fill out and the second line on the form says, ‘Did you receive anything? Click ‘yes’ even if it was empty,’” he said. “But this automatically disqualifies you from the protection program as it is now a dispute-of-goods issue and not a non-receipt issue.”

PayPal sent him an e-mail explaining, “PayPal’s Buyer Complaint Policy only applies to shipment of goods, not to disputes about the attributes or quality of goods received.”

“It’s an automatic disqualification from protection if you receive anything,” Felkner said. “Even if it’s an empty envelope, they don’t want to talk about it. So, really you’re left to deal with the seller.”

After trying unsuccessfully to work it out with the seller, Felkner called Officer Thomas Quaratella of the Hopkinton Police Department, who contacted investigators in Pompano Beach, Fla., where the seller was located.

Florida police went to the user’s last known address, but they found the person had moved away.

Quaratella was able to reach the seller on her cell phone.

“Went forward and finally tracked her down, and spoke to her on the phone, which was supposedly a great misunderstanding, which in turn, I came to the conclusion that she was lying,” Quaratella said. “Based on my information, she’s done this to eight to 12 more people based on the accounts I have reviewed.”

Hopkinton police sent the seller an e-mail saying if she doesn’t reimburse Felkner by Jan. 5, they will file two charges against her, including one felony, and issue a warrant for her arrest.

Over the past week, television station WJAR made numerous attempts to contact eBay, PayPal’s parent company, but messages went unreturned.

The station left a message on the seller’s cell phone, but she didn’t return the call either.

DaveyOn 04.12.2008 at 3:53 pm Said:

@Richard,

I have to agree with Crunchy above. Paypal is known to be very unsafe for sellers, especially internationally, and even more if not a Powerseller. I’d share some common scams with you if you’d email me privately, or you can search the web as Crunchy says, but I won’t address the publicized scams here.

eBay either knows this and choses to deny it for obvious reasons, or is so out of touch with their own marketplace that they simply think rosy thoughts and don’t want to know. Obviously, seller losses don’t effect their paychecks much.

eBay management deftly morphs from “We’re a completely controlled buying environment” to “We’re just a venue” mode whenever a specific mode suits them best.

I would say that unless you are stating observations from eBay as fact, that the word “alleges” or similar should be used. We sellers have lived in the trenches generally long enough to know how things really work. I want your blog to earn and retain street cred!

It would be interesting to find how many in the eBay organization at any level of management responsibility, are Powersellers. What are their DSRs?Can you inquire and blog this fact? Pinks don’t count, nor do people without management responsibility… I think the actual number may be a wakeup call.

Kevin_TOn 04.13.2008 at 12:42 am Said:

It didn’t take long….
Wednesday April 9th on this blog:
QUOTE: “I’ve been told that there are no plans to go to a PayPal-only model for eBay in other markets – US included.”

Thusday April 10th, in a related story on Auctionbytes:
QUOTE: eBay spokesperson Nichola Sharpe said the new policy applies only to eBay in Australia. “There are no plans to go to a PayPal-only model for eBay in the US and we haven’t announced any other markets at this time.”

====================
That reads to me as though Australia is a trial, and if it works as Ebay/PayPal want it to it will be announced for another non-USA site (I suspect UK, who have already taken the first step of requiring PayPal on all auctions).

Kevin

SandiOn 04.13.2008 at 4:45 am Said:

One thing I would really like:

When I send an email question to ebay, I would like the form letter reply I get to be semi-related to the question I asked.

I understand there is no human interaction - I get that part of ebay. I just think ebay needs better bots so they do a better job spewing out a response form.

It would make my “user experience” better if I felt like the bot read more than 2 words of my email.

DaveyOn 04.13.2008 at 8:50 pm Said:

@Sandi

This customer service carp is most of our most common complaints. Specifically the bots that send out the off-topic responses, which further aggravate already angry sellers or buyers. We were promised several years ago by Bill Cobb that this would cease, but it continues more than ever–another commitment unfulfilled. Hopefully, our host Richard will get to experience this treatment with the regularity that we do on a regular basis, then start asking some questions within eBay to find out what the commitment to customer service is soooooo tearfully bad. As mentioned on other threads, this adds some burn to eBay pressing sellers to provide A+ customer service when theirs is less than an F.

Don’t forget though, that when farmers let the bull out with the cows, they use the term “service” too. Maybe my expectations should be set more in that direction…

implogOn 04.14.2008 at 7:13 am Said:

@ Sarah Livnat

Sarah -

Here is a link where you can “listen” to more sellers commenting on the safety of PayPal. They too seem to have a different take on PayPal’s “improved seller safety”.

http://blog.auctionbytes.com/cgi-bin/blog/blog.pl?/pl/2008/4/1207774925.html

Cheers!

TWOn 04.14.2008 at 9:24 am Said:

It doesn’t appear that the Aussie seller is taking too well to the new payment policy.

http://www.theinquirer.net/gb/inquirer/news/2008/04/14/aussies-flock-ebay-rivals