Ebay - WTF??

John -

I hear ya! I once got an ad removed because my flat rate shipping ($5.00) was deemed too high !! eBay sucks, and sucks really hard. The sun is setting on their little fiefdom.

 

Used to be a fan of ebay but, besides their silly rules, they are WAY too greedy!!!!

Now I tend to use craigslist since it costs nothing and you typically don't have to screw with shipping.

 

John if they removed the ad then you will not be charged the listing fee. Why won't they let you relist with a different wording of your ad? I would try it and see what happens.... I have had listing removed for putting my website info within the ad. On the flip side I have another ad that I have been relisting for over a year with the website name and they have yet to catch that one.

 

I like that they pulled the ad. The auction is supposed to be a legally binding sale. If I win you expect me to pay, right? If I said, "Oh, I reserved not pay if I found another car locally," that wouldn't quite fly, would it? But if I win you can just say "Oh, I sold it locally, sorry," for whatever reason and I get nothing. It's gotta go both ways. Either it is for sale at auction or it is not. EBay is trying to keep their site as an auction and not as an advertising site, and (for once) I agree with them.

 

I concur with that, ebay are getting a royal pain in the arse. Also while on the subject so is Paypal who have the monopoly on how payment is made. So Paypal get charges that they never used to upto last year when Ebay started to force buyers and sellers to use paypal, if they liked it or not.

 

I agree with what you said, i'm just not sure that was the message the OP was trying to convey. From what I can tell, he meant that if he sold it locally before the auction had ended, he would terminate the auction, not screw somebody out of seats after the auction had ended if he happened to find a local buyer.

 

Agreed with that. Perhaps the OP merely lists the item for sale, as is, where is. IF IT SELLS earlier, cancel accordingly. Essentially, this is what ebay is condoning, even though they don't/can't say that. In other words, another 'don't ask don't tell' scenario.

 

You can only end an auction early for a set period of time... IIRC it cannot be ended in the last 24 hours.

But I agree with the poster you were replying to, I think the "I reserve the right to sell locally" it something that should not fly on eBay. It gives the seller an easy out to cancel the sale if they are unhappy with the price. As a buyer, I want to know that I will win the item if I win the auction.

It's no different than a seller having a caveat that "if I find it for a lower price I won't be following through with my sale".

eBay got it right this time.

 

Hi Jon - I see tons of auctions on Ebay with the same comment you used. I also see lots of auctions on Ebay that are just ended early with the excuse "Item is no longer for sale". I'm sure these are mostly ended early because the seller is getting cold feet that his no-reserve auction will not bring enough to suit him. Perhaps you can just eliminate the "for sale locally" comment, include a reserve, and if the seats are sold locally, just end the auction early using the "no longer for sale" Ebay option. Ebay buyers can't be pissed if the auction ends early and has not met reserve. That's just tough nuts.

 

Care to guess who bought paypal a couple years ago????
Total monopoly from the top, down. Surprised ebay doesn't also require you to use their own shipping company!

 

Yeah, I've seen plenty in the past and my previous auctions have had this.

You sure this is the reason why they deleted your auction? Just doesn't make sense and is inconsistent at best.

 

I don't think you are, but plenty of people on eBay sure are.

Not so fast. You left yourself an out. You could have sold it locally hours before the end of the auction and you were slow to update. As eBay gets larger they have to make more rules to keep the scammers at bay. YOU wouldn't do it, but now eBay has to target the lowest common denominator. And that's pretty low.

Nope, you tell them to click the Buy It Now button and end the auction. This actually happened on the 308 board. Someone went to do his own PPI and test drive of a GT4 that was on eBay. The car looked good the buyer asked if he could borrow the guy's web for a minute. He went to the auction and clicked the Buy It Now and it was his. Another Fchatter was going to bid on it at the end of the auction to win, but the car was already gone!

Rules and laws aren't for the ethical, they're for the scammers. It is unfortunate that they apply to all of us.

EBay stock would have been OK, but I really wish I bought Google!

 

Ebay will be around for a long long time. Get used to it. People buying things out of ads in newspapers is nearly dead.

 

Craigslist will kill newspaper classifieds, not eBay.
And just when the classifieds are gone, what will the listing fee for Craigslist become? Think it will stay free forever? I sure don't.

 

Jon,

Try craigslist. It works

 

This reminds me of the movie "The 40 year old Virgin" when the fat kid (Jonah Hill) went into Steve Carrells girlfriends store.......

The store was called something like: "Sell it on Ebay Store", and he wanted to buy these funky boots but he couldn't, because the listing was only available on Ebay, even though he had cash to pay for them. Funny.


I agree with your predicament..........why would I hold onto my item for someone who may not even pay me? When there is a perfectly good customer around the corner. Craiglist is good for finding local buyers.

 

I have a problem with Ebay sellers with drawing an item early. I was bidding on a Cagiva 125 MX bike and this guy has withdrawn the item 3 times. I hate Ebay and have realy stopped using it and use Craigs List instead for buying major items. I still use ebay for buying old car mags and small parts for my motorcycle collection.

 

If Ebay could find a way to do that also...they would, trust me!

 

Are you using a reserve with your auction? If not, I could understand them pulling it. But if there's a reserve, the item isn't sold until it is hit so you should be able to kill the auction.

 

+ 1 googol

 

The reason for the seller stopping an auction I have encountered is, "There was an error in the listing." That's about as nebulous as it can get. If ebay will accept this as being a valid reason you needn't bother with the "for sale locally" one.