Sellers will not give buyers a positive feedback until after they themselves have received one, seems in cases where the purchaser uses paypal to complete the transaction that ebay should automatically positive feedback/reputation points as they have successfully confirmed that the buyers has fulfilled their part of the transaction.
this is a terrible idea.
if a buyer has received a feedback from a seller, and it can't be changed, a buyer will feel free to leave negative feedback for any reason they feel like. if a buyer knows a seller hasn't left feedback for them, they are more likely to be civil and try to resolve any issue they have.
an arbitration system like you suggest, on the other hand, is a great idea, but the arbitrator's decision should be binding to be of value. right now there is an arbitration system in place, via square trade, it is not effective because it is non-binding.
Don't even get me started on items that are clearly in the wrong category. I don't want to sift through 18 pages of leather cases for PDA's before I find the cheapest listed actual PDA.
sounds like you're not using your search filters, on the left side of the search results page. they are very effective.
for pda, make sure youre browsing the HANDHELD UNITS category, not ACCESSORIES, and not PDAs which includes both of these other 2 categories.
also, put in a minimum price, say $20, that will cut out almost all the crap like leather cases that you're not looking for.
the high shipping costs are 90+% due to ebay policies and fee scales, if ebay fixed their broken policies and/or charged more reasonable fees, this would go away.
"revenge feedback" is specific to neither seller or buyer, both do it.
oh, and i see you've thrown in an anecdotal story about how ONE seller on ebay tried to rip people off by selling a photo of an xbox, and clearly, if one seller did this, that means all sellers are bad and deserving of blame.
sorry to say, you have no clue what you're talking about.
fraud is a problem, for sure, but mainly for clueless newbs. their feedback system has flaws, yes, but it also works. i've bought over $100k of electronics on ebay this year, haven't gotten scammed at all.
the rest of your posting just degenerates from there, seems like a self-important rant from someone who doesn't know what they are talking about.
these fee-circumventing, high-shipping auctions. It's strange.
it's not strange at all, ebay themselves created the situation, by trying to squeeze every penny they can from sellers, and by only charging the sale cost, not the shipping fee.
consider, if ebay final value fee is 5% (for the sake of argument), then would you rather have a seller charge $0.01 and $10 shipping, for a total of $10.01? or charge $10.50 for the item and $0.01 shipping, for a total of $10.51?
the seller makes the same amount of money in both cases, but i would guess (call it a hunch) that buyers would prefer to pay $10.01 rather than $10.51.
the seller who moves as much of the cost over to the shipping side as possible, is able to sell the item for the lowest total price.
sadly, many ebayers are not very bright and dont understand this basic concept.
ebay is offering a service to sellers, and one that they charge substantial fees for.
if ebay is being mismanaged, and is driving away buyers through stupid policy decisions, sellers have every right, perhaps even an obligation, to let ebay know that they are screwing up.
ebay DOES have a reason to change its ("its" not "it's") policies - buyers are fleeing, and ebay has no one to blame but themselves.
eBay is gaining more of a feel of someone standing over us beating us into submission rather than a comfortable play to spend time browsing and breathing easy and having options.
while i agree with you 100% here, the typical moron AOLer using ebay doesn't want or need options, what they need is someone to do their thinking for them, they are sheep and just want to follow the herd, to do what everyone else is doing.
try selling an item on ebay and don't allow paypal as a payment option, and you'll see what i mean.
and let's face it, there's a lot more idiots around than thinking people.
i don't think that the moral of your stolen laptop story is dont buy laptops on ebay. rather, it's be careful of whom you buy from. i've bought hundreds of laptops on ebay (for local resale), mainly from asset management companies, and i've never had that issue. i don't buy from anyone with less than 99% feedback, and the more expensive the item, the better i look for the seller's feedback to be.
i don't recommend liberal use of bold and highlight features on ebay ($1 and $5 listing upgrade cost), especially not for something valued at $100. those fees really add up, especially if you run a lot of auctions, and their effect on attracting buyers to your auction is dubious (side note: ebay dishonestly makes a note to sellers listing an item that, for example, auctions that are listed in BOLD finish at 27% (or whatever percentage it is) higher, on average - of course the cause and effect are backwards, it's really more that when you're listing a more expensive item you're more willing to pay the $1 BOLD listing upgrade fee). the 2 listing upgrades that are a good buy are gallery (for anything over $20), and gallery featured (generally i'd use this on items $1000 and up), in my opinion.
feedback is a tough one, there are a lot more idiots, irresponsible people, crooks, and AOL users on ebay these days. my last 2 negative feedback came from: 1 guy who refused to pay for an item he bought and left negative feedback when he got an unpaid item strike. and then 1 other guy who wanted to return an item 3 weeks after the warranty ended. there's a lot of irresponsible jerks out there. yes you can keep your 100% feedback by always doing what the buyer demands (although even that doesn't guarantee you not to get a negative), but i believe sometimes you just have to stand up for yourself when someone makes an unreasonable demand.
selling commodity items is perfectly fine, just know what stuff sells for before you buy it in bulk, and keep in mind that there's only so many units you can sell a week without flooding the market and driving down the price.
in my lifetime i've paid more in taxes than the services i've received, but that's a minor point, and there are more pressing issues to consider.
when our government is engaged in mass murder, slaughtering tens of thousands of iraqis for no good reason, it is absolutely wrong to give money to the government at such a time, and anyone who continues to fund the government at this time should be regarded as murderers themselves.
further, it is not i that am being unfair to others by not paying taxes. it is those who DO pay taxes to the us government at such a time that are being unfair to me, and unfair to the other people living on this planet.
legally, the government shouldn't hold people prisoner without charging them with a crime.
legally, the president doesn't have the power to initiate a war against another sovereign nation without the approval of congress.
legally, our elected officials should represent the interests of the people who elected them rather than the corporations that are financing their re-election campaign.
i have paid quite a bit more in taxes than i've used in government services in the course of my life so far, thank you very much!
and what is this bullshit about my "share of the burden"? when the government misappropriates public funds to line the pockets of corrupt corporations, it is not anyone's share of any burden, it is theft. i, for one, would prefer not to be stolen from. i give to legitimate non-profits, but not to the feds.
the things i really like about running a cash-only business out of my house is that i can't get laid off, i make my own hours, and i don't pay taxes to a government that goes abroad and murders citizens of other nations to steal their oil under the facade of "fighting terrorism".
if you look at that "deal" you're referring to, the seller of the $105 system has a feedback rating by its customers of 17% positive. what that means is that for every happy customer, they had 5 unhappy customers, not a very good track record. i wouldn't buy from anyone on pricewatch with customer rating under 80% positive, and preferrably not under 90%.
Nissan Motors has been for many years trying to bully and harass a small business owner by the name of Mr. Nissan, who registered nissan.com for his computer company, before Nissan Motors had ever considered having a web presence. Nissan Motors was stupid and slow, but they felt that by paying enough money to lawyers to harass this small business owner, they could intimidate him into handing over what did not belong to them, the nissan.com domain. This is a well-known and unfortunate story, it's been featured on TechTV and other places, more info here: http://www.ncchelp.org/The_Story/the_story. htm
Even though my last car was a Nissan, I decided I won't be buying from them again after learning of their behavior.
I urge you to boycott Nissan, and to write to Nissan motors exlaining to them that you don't support corporate thuggishness.
Didn't you mean to use the word "steal" instead of sample?
is the riaa paying you to spread their propoganda? or are you just lacking in the ability to think for yourself, buying the official party line of those who purchase laws and lawmakers?
If you had RTFA you would have found that the gov't imposes no penalties on the people who are working for free.
who are you kidding? if there are substantial penalties imposed on companies who pay less than x, companies won't do it, and hence it DOES prevent me from selling my labor for less than x.
everyone has their own idea as to what is peanuts, and what is a worthwhile wage. in a free society, we should each have the power to make our own choice, to live our lives by our own values, rather than have someone else choose for us.
You may disagree with exactly how those laws operate, but we need them or something very like them to prevent some truly horrible abuses.
no. what we need are people to stand up for themselves and not allow themselves be abused.
for a govenment to tell me that i am not allowed to sell my labor for less than some $X which they arbitrarily choose, is an abuse of power, and infringes on my freedom.
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i agree, craigslist is great.
but, if there were a free listing ebay-like service, i'm pretty sure it would be overrun very quickly by junk postings and spam.
i don't know how craigslist manages to keep their site relatively uncluttered from spam, it must take a lot of time.
sounds like you dont quite get the concept of a marketplace.
sellers should be able to list items for sale for whatever price they want.
buyers should be able to decide whether they want to pay that price or not.
Sellers will not give buyers a positive feedback until after they themselves have received one, seems in cases where the purchaser uses paypal to complete the transaction that ebay should automatically positive feedback/reputation points as they have successfully confirmed that the buyers has fulfilled their part of the transaction.
this is a terrible idea.
if a buyer has received a feedback from a seller, and it can't be changed, a buyer will feel free to leave negative feedback for any reason they feel like.
if a buyer knows a seller hasn't left feedback for them, they are more likely to be civil and try to resolve any issue they have.
an arbitration system like you suggest, on the other hand, is a great idea, but the arbitrator's decision should be binding to be of value.
right now there is an arbitration system in place, via square trade, it is not effective because it is non-binding.
Don't even get me started on items that are clearly in the wrong category. I don't want to sift through 18 pages of leather cases for PDA's before I find the cheapest listed actual PDA.
sounds like you're not using your search filters, on the left side of the search results page.
they are very effective.
for pda, make sure youre browsing the HANDHELD UNITS category, not ACCESSORIES, and not PDAs which includes both of these other 2 categories.
also, put in a minimum price, say $20, that will cut out almost all the crap like leather cases that you're not looking for.
the high shipping costs are 90+% due to ebay policies and fee scales, if ebay fixed their broken policies and/or charged more reasonable fees, this would go away.
"revenge feedback" is specific to neither seller or buyer, both do it.
oh, and i see you've thrown in an anecdotal story about how ONE seller on ebay tried to rip people off by selling a photo of an xbox, and clearly, if one seller did this, that means all sellers are bad and deserving of blame.
nice logic.
sorry to say, you have no clue what you're talking about.
fraud is a problem, for sure, but mainly for clueless newbs.
their feedback system has flaws, yes, but it also works.
i've bought over $100k of electronics on ebay this year, haven't gotten scammed at all.
the rest of your posting just degenerates from there, seems like a self-important rant from someone who doesn't know what they are talking about.
these fee-circumventing, high-shipping auctions. It's strange.
it's not strange at all, ebay themselves created the situation, by trying to squeeze every penny they can from sellers, and by only charging the sale cost, not the shipping fee.
consider, if ebay final value fee is 5% (for the sake of argument), then would you rather have a seller charge $0.01 and $10 shipping, for a total of $10.01? or charge $10.50 for the item and $0.01 shipping, for a total of $10.51?
the seller makes the same amount of money in both cases, but i would guess (call it a hunch) that buyers would prefer to pay $10.01 rather than $10.51.
the seller who moves as much of the cost over to the shipping side as possible, is able to sell the item for the lowest total price.
sadly, many ebayers are not very bright and dont understand this basic concept.
try thinking before you write.
ebay is offering a service to sellers, and one that they charge substantial fees for.
if ebay is being mismanaged, and is driving away buyers through stupid policy decisions, sellers have every right, perhaps even an obligation, to let ebay know that they are screwing up.
ebay DOES have a reason to change its ("its" not "it's") policies - buyers are fleeing, and ebay has no one to blame but themselves.
eBay is gaining more of a feel of someone standing over us beating us into submission rather than a comfortable play to spend time browsing and breathing easy and having options.
while i agree with you 100% here, the typical moron AOLer using ebay doesn't want or need options, what they need is someone to do their thinking for them, they are sheep and just want to follow the herd, to do what everyone else is doing.
try selling an item on ebay and don't allow paypal as a payment option, and you'll see what i mean.
and let's face it, there's a lot more idiots around than thinking people.
i don't think that the moral of your stolen laptop story is dont buy laptops on ebay.
rather, it's be careful of whom you buy from.
i've bought hundreds of laptops on ebay (for local resale), mainly from asset management companies, and i've never had that issue.
i don't buy from anyone with less than 99% feedback, and the more expensive the item, the better i look for the seller's feedback to be.
i don't recommend liberal use of bold and highlight features on ebay ($1 and $5 listing upgrade cost), especially not for something valued at $100. those fees really add up, especially if you run a lot of auctions, and their effect on attracting buyers to your auction is dubious (side note: ebay dishonestly makes a note to sellers listing an item that, for example, auctions that are listed in BOLD finish at 27% (or whatever percentage it is) higher, on average - of course the cause and effect are backwards, it's really more that when you're listing a more expensive item you're more willing to pay the $1 BOLD listing upgrade fee).
the 2 listing upgrades that are a good buy are gallery (for anything over $20), and gallery featured (generally i'd use this on items $1000 and up), in my opinion.
feedback is a tough one, there are a lot more idiots, irresponsible people, crooks, and AOL users on ebay these days.
my last 2 negative feedback came from: 1 guy who refused to pay for an item he bought and left negative feedback when he got an unpaid item strike. and then 1 other guy who wanted to return an item 3 weeks after the warranty ended.
there's a lot of irresponsible jerks out there.
yes you can keep your 100% feedback by always doing what the buyer demands (although even that doesn't guarantee you not to get a negative), but i believe sometimes you just have to stand up for yourself when someone makes an unreasonable demand.
selling commodity items is perfectly fine, just know what stuff sells for before you buy it in bulk, and keep in mind that there's only so many units you can sell a week without flooding the market and driving down the price.
globally catastrophic event?
like george bush getting elected?
i must disagree with your viewpoint, here.
in my lifetime i've paid more in taxes than the services i've received, but that's a minor point, and there are more pressing issues to consider.
when our government is engaged in mass murder, slaughtering tens of thousands of iraqis for no good reason, it is absolutely wrong to give money to the government at such a time, and anyone who continues to fund the government at this time should be regarded as murderers themselves.
further, it is not i that am being unfair to others by not paying taxes.
it is those who DO pay taxes to the us government at such a time that are being unfair to me, and unfair to the other people living on this planet.
i love newegg, too, but one thing i learned:
NEVER buy cases from them.
they show up with shipping damage way too frequently.
legally, the government shouldn't hold people prisoner without charging them with a crime.
legally, the president doesn't have the power to initiate a war against another sovereign nation without the approval of congress.
legally, our elected officials should represent the interests of the people who elected them rather than the corporations that are financing their re-election campaign.
i have paid quite a bit more in taxes than i've used in government services in the course of my life so far, thank you very much!
and what is this bullshit about my "share of the burden"? when the government misappropriates public funds to line the pockets of corrupt corporations, it is not anyone's share of any burden, it is theft. i, for one, would prefer not to be stolen from. i give to legitimate non-profits, but not to the feds.
i don't file taxes, you insensitive clod!
the things i really like about running a cash-only business out of my house is that i can't get laid off, i make my own hours, and i don't pay taxes to a government that goes abroad and murders citizens of other nations to steal their oil under the facade of "fighting terrorism".
A great P2P program, open source, free, and no crapware!
www.shareaza.com
A great alternative to Kazaa, Limewire, and other questionables in the P2P arena...
if you look at that "deal" you're referring to, the seller of the $105 system has a feedback rating by its customers of 17% positive.
what that means is that for every happy customer, they had 5 unhappy customers, not a very good track record.
i wouldn't buy from anyone on pricewatch with customer rating under 80% positive, and preferrably not under 90%.
Nissan Motors has been for many years trying to bully and harass a small business owner by the name of Mr. Nissan, who registered nissan.com for his computer company, before Nissan Motors had ever considered having a web presence.. htm
Nissan Motors was stupid and slow, but they felt that by paying enough money to lawyers to harass this small business owner, they could intimidate him into handing over what did not belong to them, the nissan.com domain.
This is a well-known and unfortunate story, it's been featured on TechTV and other places, more info here:
http://www.ncchelp.org/The_Story/the_story
Even though my last car was a Nissan, I decided I won't be buying from them again after learning of their behavior.
I urge you to boycott Nissan, and to write to Nissan motors exlaining to them that you don't support corporate thuggishness.
Didn't you mean to use the word "steal" instead of sample?
is the riaa paying you to spread their propoganda?
or are you just lacking in the ability to think for yourself, buying the official party line of those who purchase laws and lawmakers?
We're one of the oldest countries in the world,
what world would that be? america is quite young.
so far we haven't murdered anybody on the scale that various other countries have.
you're right. for the most part, we've murdered people on a smaller scale.
yes, of course. it's always those other guys that are evil. we, here in america, are all saints, and are incapable of such mass murder.
If you had RTFA you would have found that the gov't imposes no penalties on the people who are working for free.
who are you kidding? if there are substantial penalties imposed on companies who pay less than x, companies won't do it, and hence it DOES prevent me from selling my labor for less than x.
everyone has their own idea as to what is peanuts, and what is a worthwhile wage. in a free society, we should each have the power to make our own choice, to live our lives by our own values, rather than have someone else choose for us.
You may disagree with exactly how those laws operate, but we need them or something very like them to prevent some truly horrible abuses.
no. what we need are people to stand up for themselves and not allow themselves be abused.
for a govenment to tell me that i am not allowed to sell my labor for less than some $X which they arbitrarily choose, is an abuse of power, and infringes on my freedom.