Amber / August 25th, 2008 at 3:11 pm

Lurch, if the posts haven’t been poofed, they were on the announcement discussion board. I’ll look for the links for you :)

Mechelle / August 25th, 2008 at 4:02 pm

@Usher Lieberman

Not on mine,

example 10 dollar sold price before the fee “decrease” in January FVF 1.00 + .06 = 1.06 After the decrease
1.20 + .03 = 1.23 eBay has had a take rate of an additional 17 cents. That isn’t a modestly less take rate than before the price “decrease” that is about 16% increase.

The only decrease in fees I have had can be attributed to the decrease in gross sales – for example in July 07 compared to July 08 I had a 45% decrease is eBay/PayPal fees. This is a result of eBay stacking the deck against us- and I have never not had “raised” status- my 30 days right now are 4.96, 5, 4.92, 4.96 – I would like to point out that I do not play the free shipping game either I ship priority mail only- when I say stacking the deck I mean deliberately diverting traffic to ppc ads- thanks for the “decrease” and the treachery I appreciate.

Richard must you refer to yourself as part of the eBay “we” when your discussing disciplining your blog participants?

Mechelle / August 25th, 2008 at 4:54 pm

Yes Patricia you should dump the paypal and use Google Check out or anything else. It is because of eBay sellers who have used PayPal on their webstores that PayPal has been consuming e-commerce outside of eBay they flaunted it in an article – they have been able to grow because ex-sellers of eBay have taken them along in their other ventures. So if you can stop supporting them and doing their consumer fishing for them it would be for the best- for all of society

Dakota / August 25th, 2008 at 6:49 pm

Usher,

You are splitting hairs here.

Take rate or revenue = in eBay’s pocket.

Most of us sellers are smart enough to know that the big winner here is eBay and that more of our profits are being eaten by eBay.

Most sellers know that they can only raise their prices so high before they price themselves out of the market and have to move to other venues.

eBay, on the other hand, doesn’t give a hoot. They take and take and think it is ok because they make money on all of those intruding ads.

What eBay hasn’t figured out is, once all of the sellers leave, the only place they will have to put those annoying ads is on their own webpages and Buy’s. They also forget that Buy alone can not sustain eBay.

Mechelle / August 25th, 2008 at 8:06 pm

Dashboard appears to be broke again- it hasn’t updated today

I hope everyone learned to take daily screen shots after the last little manipulator error caused the whole system to go out of whack.

If you haven’t been taking screen shots I suggest you start- the dashboard and the regular feedback dsr view so you have number counts to refer to.

Lu McInturff / August 26th, 2008 at 5:46 am

PayPal’s “hold the money” has begun and even is holding for those customers who have a long standing record and have been verified. So far, I have eleven “holds” in my awaiting payment section, along with the four people who are sending Postal Money orders.

Our store holds fabrics owned by 17 various Native American women living on different reservations. They are working to establish their own businesses. When they have a little extra fabric, those are sold on e-bay.

East to west and north to south, there are many Native people in this country who are on the PowWow highway to earn a living. They do not really have a bank account, but need items just the same. Being limited as to payment types, these people will not have an access to these same items we sale, at a greatly reduced price, which they need in order to earn a better living.

Many times when you see a store that is no longer accepting checks, reverting to a cash only are going bankrupt. What bother’s me is that they are only accepting cash – direct into PayPal who is then holding that cash for an unprecidented length of time. Our store is verging on 4.9 and soon will be 5.0 on DSR’s. Silver PowerSeller, with well over 1100 on feedback. Much of our customer base are returning clients that tell us they will not buy any place else. Of the 11 being held just now, only 1 is not verified via PayPal. The rest have been doing business with us for more than a year and ergo, held a verified PayPal account during that time. When you go into the individual detail’s section of PayPal, you can see if a person is verified. What is being held is 700.00 which PayPal is earning an income from and not paying our people that income while holding it and in addition, disabling us from purchasing new stock to place onto our shelves.

Dakota / August 26th, 2008 at 1:44 pm

I think this may be helpful it we apply it:

Congress passed the first antitrust law, the Sherman Act, in 1890 as a “comprehensive charter of economic liberty aimed at preserving free and unfettered competition as the rule of trade.” In 1914, Congress passed two additional antitrust laws: the Federal Trade Commission Act, which created the FTC, and the Clayton Act. With some revisions, these are the three core federal antitrust laws still in effect today.

The antitrust laws proscribe unlawful mergers and business practices in general terms, leaving courts to decide which ones are illegal based on the facts of each case. Courts have applied the antitrust laws to changing markets, from a time of horse and buggies to the present digital age. Yet for over 100 years, the antitrust laws have had the same basic objective: to protect the process of competition for the benefit of consumers, making sure there are strong incentives for businesses to operate efficiently, keep prices down, and keep quality up.

Here is an overview of the three core federal antitrust laws.

The Sherman Act outlaws “every contract, combination, or conspiracy in restraint of trade,” and any “monopolization, attempted monopolization, or conspiracy or combination to monopolize.” Long ago, the Supreme Court decided that the Sherman Act does not prohibit every restraint of trade, only those that are unreasonable. For instance, in some sense, an agreement between two individuals to form a partnership restrains trade, but may not do so unreasonably, and thus may be lawful under the antitrust laws. On the other hand, certain acts are considered so harmful to competition that they are almost always illegal. These include plain arrangements among competing individuals or businesses to fix prices, divide markets, or rig bids. These acts are “per se” violations of the Sherman Act; in other words, no defense or justification is allowed.

The penalties for violating the Sherman Act can be severe. Although most enforcement actions are civil, the Sherman Act is also a criminal law, and individuals and businesses that violate it may be prosecuted by the Department of Justice. Criminal prosecutions are typically limited to intentional and clear violations such as when competitors fix prices or rig bids. The Sherman Act imposes criminal penalties of up to $100 million for a corporation and $1 million for an individual, along with up to 10 years in prison. Under federal law, the maximum fine may be increased to twice the amount the conspirators gained from the illegal acts or twice the money lost by the victims of the crime, if either of those amounts is over $100 million.

The Federal Trade Commission Act bans “unfair methods of competition” and “unfair or deceptive acts or practices.” The Supreme Court has said that all violations of the Sherman Act also violate the FTC Act. Thus, although the FTC does not technically enforce the Sherman Act, it can bring cases under the FTC Act against the same kinds of activities that violate the Sherman Act. The FTC Act also reaches other practices that harm competition, but that may not fit neatly into categories of conduct formally prohibited by the Sherman Act. Only the FTC brings cases under the FTC Act.

The Clayton Act addresses specific practices that the Sherman Act does not clearly prohibit, such as mergers and interlocking directorates (that is, the same person making business decisions for competing companies). Section 7 of the Clayton Act prohibits mergers and acquisitions where the effect “may be substantially to lessen competition, or to tend to create a monopoly.” As amended by the Robinson-Patman Act of 1936, the Clayton Act also bans certain discriminatory prices, services, and allowances in dealings between merchants. The Clayton Act was amended again in 1976 by the Hart-Scott-Rodino Antitrust Improvements Act to require companies planning large mergers or acquisitions to notify the government of their plans in advance. The Clayton Act also authorizes private parties to sue for triple damages when they have been harmed by conduct that violates either the Sherman or Clayton Act and to obtain a court order prohibiting the anticompetitive practice in the future.

In addition to these federal statutes, most states have antitrust laws that are enforced by state attorneys general or private plaintiffs. Many of these statutes are based on the federal antitrust laws.

Lurch / August 26th, 2008 at 8:51 pm

Well that’s it then. No answers for me of the things that I actually need to know. I’m gone.

Amber – thanks for the link!

To those who post here on what seems to be a daily basis: I mean this in the best way possible – you might want to find something else to do. Something a bit more productive for you. I do get what you’re trying to do, so don’t misunderstand me (I may not necessarily agree with all of your tactics, but what I think about them doesn’t particularly matter). I’ve seen references to how great it is that most of your critical comments are allowed through — it may not be out of fairness or anything — it may simply be that no one inside eBay cares. At all. Really – if they can’t help a seller be compliant with the new policies by clarifying a handful of things, why in the world do you think they’d care about what you say or that you’d have any kind of impact? I really don’t think they do. And that could just be the inside look at the wide world of eBay.

You might just want to let this blog sit in silence and move on to other pursuits. I think you’ll accomplish little here (well, I truly think you’ll accomplish nothing here, actually).

And to Richard – I do hope you enjoy your trip of eBay Euro. However, keep in mind that while you are touting the greatness of eBay Ink during a time when it may well need the most attention given the release of these drastic shifts in policy, the blog could potentially be doing more good than it has since it launched some months back. Which kind of negates any kind of usefulness, let alone greatness. At least it would seem to me.

And Amber, thank you again. I truly do appreciate the info you provided!!

Dakota / August 27th, 2008 at 4:03 pm

lu mcinturff,

You were not given all the information on checks and money orders.

eBay said they are going to monitor those that seem to be taking them. If eBay decides that you are abusing the policy (they will use %’s to figure this abuse) then the seller will face sanctions.

I would be very leery of checks and money orders.

Patricia1 / August 27th, 2008 at 7:07 pm

“I think a part of this is because of that new law which was recently passed that will be causing PayPal to join the ranks of Google and start turning over information regarding their members such as spending or receiving more than 600.00 per year to the government. Apparently, some Sellers are trying to get all their business down to a cash only, money order, check because they want to remain under the wire. ”

Do people still say “balderdash”? There are two reasons for the paperless checkout. Ebay will eventually collect your money and dish it out to you – at the same time they will guarrantee the buyer will receive their item. Just like Amazon does it. The second reason is they want to make sure they get ALL those paypal fees! Its to their benefit to force the paperless checkout. As usual it isn’t for your benefit or for the buyer’s benefit and they could care less about the government – they can only report to them what their records show. That’s how I’m seeing it.