eBay is for buyers not sellers.0

As a buyer i’ve never really had a problem using eBay but now that i am a seller it’s a whole different story! eBay is all for the customer and the sellers get whipped left, right and center. The first thing i found out is that a buyer can leave a seller a negative feedback but a seller isn’t allowed to do so for a buyer.  How is that fair?  I am currently dealing with a nightmare customer.  She made an order over a week ago, left off vital bits of information from her order (and mis-spelled a lot of it) and so i’ve sent her 4 messages over the length of a week asking her to confirm. Last night i get an email “where is my order”.

Stupid woman! A quick check of her feedback shows that as a seller she has received negative feedback for communication. Now the worrying thing is, even though the delay of this order is her fault, she can leave me a negative feeback and rate me low scores for delivery. Enough of those and eBay will restrict my selling or even ban me completely. Again – how is that fair!?

The fact is there are a lot of people using eBay who are either computer illiterate or just plain illiterate (or both) – this woman clearly never checks her messages, maybe she doesn’t know how to. She’s not alone either, i get lots of communication from people who write like a three year old.  My source of income depends on these people not being daft. Yes. I’m screwed.

I don’t trust eBay one bit. I tried to contact their customer support the other day about what i believe was an unfair rating.  Someone rated me ’1′ for item as described even though my feedback is 100% positive – that didn’t add up to me so i asked them about it.  I may as well have asked for instructions on how to perform brain surgery.  One good thing though, i was then sent a survey where i had to rate both the service and the individual who ‘helped’ me.  Yes, i went to town.

So i’m creating a backup – i’m setting up my shop on its own website.  I will also set up a presence on eBid (smaller operation but cheaper too). Once that is done i will also set up a shop on Facebook. I do hope that one day Facebook creates its own shop, they have the potential to slap eBay down and maybe make them rethink their unfair policies and outrageous fees.  Now the fees i didn’t mind at first because i thought i was getting a great service.  Ha!  It’s disgusting the way that eBay operate. I expect much better service from them when i’m giving them at least £110 a month in fees.