Potential trap for eBay sellers

Let me run this one past you in case it helps anyone else falling into the same trap.

I had just withdrawn virtually all of my PayPal balance and then someone decided they didn't like an item. Unfortunately, instead of just letting me know they decided to open a PayPal dispute. This means that PayPal hold aside the amount in "dispute" and this left a negative balance.

Now if you haven't set up bank funding, just try to make up that deficit with a credit card - there's no option given. Then I wanted to pay for an item and it redirects you to pay the defecit first. Try that and it won't let you! Round and round in circles....

In the end I got my son to send me a "gift" to restore a positive balance and now everything works again. In future I will leave a balance in PayPal just in case.

I hope my buyer, who has no feedback at all, doesn't decide to leave negative feedback, which would be the icing on the cake for a nightmare deal!

Anyway, hope the tale helps someone to avoid the same probalem.

Came across that problem a while ago, total nightmare.
I always keep the balance of my last sale in my Paypal account for 2 weeks after the sale now, just in case.

I very rarely sell on Ebay now because of the feedback situation, its a total joke the seller not being able to leave bad feedback .. talk about a license to blackmail.

The other iniquity is eBay setting maximum shipping charges for UK delivery. A fiction book now has a maximum shipping charge of £2.75, for example. A huge hardback book might cost £6.50 to post....

Apparently this is to keep shipping in line with what buyers expect to pay.

Yep, Paypal is a PITA, and they just refuse to believe what a pain they are. I'm currently re-investigating taking credit cards via Nochex.

All the problem buyers I've ever had are 0 feeback newbies that believe they have a god-given right to f**k you about. If only there was a way to bar them from placing bids.

The trouble is we all had zero feedback once and I believe in giving people a chance.

I had that one too - a buyer in Belgium bought an item from me, I sent it and 4 days later he left positive feedback. Four WEEKS later he opened a dispute (saying item not received) which left me with a negative balance and unable to use my PP account. I challenged his version of events, he didn't reply and I had to wait 14 days for the dispute to peter out. Right pain in the arse tbh...

Didn't know that, it's a new one on me.
Shows how much I sell on Ebay nowdays.

Saying that, here in Spain Ebay is very small in comparison to the UK.

New bidder won one of my items, failed to pay or respond so I opened a dispute.

The guy never responded to anything, no problem there then.

Except paypal still took their fees for a transaction that never happened! :

You mean Ebay took their fees?

After 10 days if the buyer does not respond you can claim the seller fees back (not the listing fee).

I just wish Google would get their act together and open an auction site. That would have ebay grovelling

I had one sale like that recently.I withdraw the balance and the dispute case open. I wanted to refund the money to the buyer immediately to close the case but paypal took 9 days to credit my account from my verified bank account.
On other side when I bid for any item and win a bid paypal can transfer the money from my account to seller at lightening speed which I do not understand

Yes and a transaction fee, it was 2 years ago and things may have changed now, but I'm always suspicious until everything's finalised.

Im always suspicious for 6 weeks after the sale, that's how long the buyer has (or used to have) to file a chargeback with Paypal.

Google=the new Microsoft as far as domination goes.

They have enough fingers in the pie without an e-bay type site as well. I really don't like Google that much - they are very secretive about what they do with your data, they are very Big Brother like. I don't need them knowing what I am buying or selling on line as well.

Do you not have a Craiglist type of site in the UK? We have Marktplaats, amongst others here in in NL, which works just fine, even though e-bay took it over. They knew better than to mess it up fortunately.

When I joined eBay in 2002 it was fantastic, genuine people offering genuine items for sale. Never had any problems, its gone downhill now days with all the traders and scams, although there are still some genuine sellers.

I recently brought 2 sticks of ram, 1 was faulty. I contacted the seller direct and we resolved it between us with out the need for eBay and Paypal. It was all resolved with 3 emails and in a few hours. Its a shame some buyers and seller do not communicate prior to opening a dispute, really speeds up the process.

I think some sellers have not helped the postage thing though, when you can buy now for £4.99 but the postage is £15.00 and it turns up and it only cost £1.70 to spend. Shame that a few are spoiling it for the rest.

Amazon are just as bad on their postage fees. I got an allowance of £5.65 to send a camera that cost £20 to send fully insured. Its not until you agree to sell that you become aware of this. But I will know for next time and my asking price will reflect this.