Ebay annoyances

[John M Upton]

It doesn't help that Ebay keep changing things but never tells anyone about it.  The first time you realise something has changed is when something doesn't work like it used to and a quick Google search throws up lots of hits from Ebay's community support forum pages with enraged sellers and buyers demanding to know what the heck they have done this time!!!

[hayfield]

1 hour ago, John M Upton said:

Ebay's Department of Stupid Ideas at it again...

 

Now if you want to make an offer on an item to a seller, you have to have a payment method registered which means when you make an offer and it is accepted, the sale goes through automatically without you even realising it!

 

Only found out  this morning I won and paid for something I put a slightly cheeky offer on Friday afternoon!

 

Could have unfortunate consequences for those who put in offers on the carp over in the Ebay Madness thread...

 

John

 

Up to the split away from PayPal I used PayPal more of a savings account where I kept funds from what I sold to pay for items I brought.

 

After the split eBay required my bank details (to send the proceeds of my sales to and my credit card to pay for what I buy. As I clear my credit card each month it actually giver me free credit for up to a month, payments from my sales are paid normally within 24 hours. So a very satisfactory system for me

 

The only issue I have is that I gave my main account rather than my savings account (my fault not theirs), so once a month I have to reconcile ins and outs on my spread sheet and transfer excess amounts one way or another. Sounds much worse than it is. As my eBay purchases are mainly up grading my collection, but also selling off surplus items I have accumulated I tend to spend less than I sell these days. In fact I have even stopped looking for upgrades lately as my current focus is leaning towards 3D printing.

 

But I have found the migration to this new method very easy to both use and monitor. But I have always found eBay to be very fair on the few occasions I have had to ask for assistance. 

[Rich_F]

New one today. Made an offer each (£4.50) on two low value items (<£5 each) that were getting no auction interest with only a few hours left. Seller declined offer stating "would like to maximise auction sale". 

 

So instead of getting an instant £9 (+postage) they would rather refuse, fail to sell & have to relist again (with potential fees) for only a £1 gain?

 

I can understand if my offer was low on a high value item. Is this a common theme for low value items?

Edited October 17, 2023 by Rich_F

[Quarryscapes]

On 16/10/2023 at 07:58, John M Upton said:

Ebay's Department of Stupid Ideas at it again...

 

Now if you want to make an offer on an item to a seller, you have to have a payment method registered which means when you make an offer and it is accepted, the sale goes through automatically without you even realising it!

 

Only found out  this morning I won and paid for something I put a slightly cheeky offer on Friday afternoon!

 

Could have unfortunate consequences for those who put in offers on the carp over in the Ebay Madness thread...

 

This is a setting that can be turned off by the seller in their preferences, it is enabled by default.

[big jim]

16 minutes ago, Quarryscapes said:

 

This is a setting that can be turned off by the seller in their preferences, it is enabled by default.

I’ll have to make sure I switch it off in my sales! 

 

It’s no good for a buyer if you use the likes of topcashback, I’ve put offers in for a couple of locos recently and have had to pay immediately because of it, normally if I’ve had an offer accepted i go back into eBay via the topcashback app and pay manually to get whatever % back as cashback, I can’t do that with the new system, it might not sound much but between 1-3% money back on a £100+ item soon adds up over time

[Bucoops]

1 hour ago, big jim said:

I’ll have to make sure I switch it off in my sales! 

 

It’s no good for a buyer if you use the likes of topcashback, I’ve put offers in for a couple of locos recently and have had to pay immediately because of it, normally if I’ve had an offer accepted i go back into eBay via the topcashback app and pay manually to get whatever % back as cashback, I can’t do that with the new system, it might not sound much but between 1-3% money back on a £100+ item soon adds up over time

 

I have noticed this - missed out on cashback :( 

[Hal Nail]

18 hours ago, Rich_F said:

So instead of getting an instant £9 (+postage) they would rather refuse, fail to sell & have to relist again (with potential fees) for only a £1 gain?

Is that what actually happened or did they get later bids?

[Rich_F]

22 minutes ago, Hal Nail said:

Is that what actually happened or did they get later bids?

I made an offer with 1 hour remaining. I came back later & the item was relisted 

[Hal Nail]

11 minutes ago, Rich_F said:

I made an offer with 1 hour remaining. I came back later & the item was relisted 

I've turned down offers recently hoping for more but had to rethink later. I sell on things (I probably shouldn't have bought!) to fund new purchases but I'm starting to notice things aren't selling as easily and I think prices of the things I tend to watch are falling. Hard to tell the value until something sells and if you accept an offer you will never know what you might have got of course!

 

I can't be bothered to traipse to the post office for a 5 quid item personally but I suppose if you sell lots of small stuff, the pounds lost here and there add up?

 

Or they could be stupid :)

Edited October 18, 2023 by Hal Nail

[PeterStiles]

3 hours ago, Hal Nail said:

traipse to the post office for a 5 quid item personally

You know that Royal Mail will pick up from your home, for some cost as horrendous as, erm, 60p, last time I used the service.

[RFS]

2 hours ago, PeterStiles said:

You know that Royal Mail will pick up from your home, for some cost as horrendous as, erm, 60p, last time I used the service.

 

Actually it's less than that now - it's free!

[NS Peak]

One of my eBay annoyances and excuse my ignorance but what is a Heljan 200 and why is it 450 quid….  I know it’s a guy that add a bulk of listings in one go but boy is it annoying when you have Heljan as a saved search.    Ok rant over…

[big jim]

2 minutes ago, NS Peak said:

One of my eBay annoyances and excuse my ignorance but what is a Heljan 200 and why is it 450 quid….  I know it’s a guy that add a bulk of listings in one go but boy is it annoying when you have Heljan as a saved search.    Ok rant over…

amen to that!

[Hal Nail]

Caused by the bi-weekly discounted fees offers - someone perhaps doesnt know they are that frequent, or needed to sell quickly but wasnt quite ready. High price to stop some idiot buying it blind. There was a whole page of blank red boxes for the same reason the other day.

 

It is irritating when searching but I must admit I reluctantly listed one item before i was quite ready as I've been waiting a week for its transfers to arrive in 1st class post. I didn't want to wait 2 weeks till the next offer for various reasons so had to set up a place holder.

[Michael Hodgson]

On 01/10/2023 at 05:56, GWR-fan said:

 EBay's privacy policy simply masks fraudulent bidding practices.

I don't think it cynical to observe that fraudulent bidding suits ebay, since higher selling prices mean higher fees.

[Michael Hodgson]

On 17/10/2023 at 12:30, Rich_F said:

New one today. Made an offer each (£4.50) on two low value items (<£5 each) that were getting no auction interest with only a few hours left. Seller declined offer stating "would like to maximise auction sale". 

 

So instead of getting an instant £9 (+postage) they would rather refuse, fail to sell & have to relist again (with potential fees) for only a £1 gain?

 

I can understand if my offer was low on a high value item. Is this a common theme for low value items?

At that price level, I would suggest your offer is arguing over peanuts.

 

Perfectly sensible if seller is not desperate for cash (or needs to get rid of it to make some space) and thinks that he'll make more in due course, always assuming he's not paying initial fees because he's a private seller.  A lot of people do set their starting price at the minimum they will accept, so haggling will be rejected. 

 

Don't forget that one can send an offer for more than the current bid in the hope that you will thus win the item early/lock out others who might have outbid you at the last moment.

[hayfield]

14 hours ago, Michael Hodgson said:

At that price level, I would suggest your offer is arguing over peanuts.

 

Perfectly sensible if seller is not desperate for cash (or needs to get rid of it to make some space) and thinks that he'll make more in due course, always assuming he's not paying initial fees because he's a private seller.  A lot of people do set their starting price at the minimum they will accept, so haggling will be rejected. 

 

Don't forget that one can send an offer for more than the current bid in the hope that you will thus win the item early/lock out others who might have outbid you at the last moment.

 

Michael

 

I totally agree with you, why is it that some people expect their offers to be accepted, if its only £1 that the potential buyer thinks is not very much, then rather the buyer reducing his price, surely the bidder should increase his bid, using the same thought process, its only £1 !!!

 

I rarely get these requests, in the past when received such requests (twice) both times I relisted the items increasing the price by £5 and sold both.

 

As you say if you want said items, make it worth the sellers attention.

 

Its an auction so the market will decide its value, but if its not worth what the seller values it at, then he is well within his rights to keep it

 

I do have items I would sell if I had the right offer, sadly there is not a facility to list items on the bay asking for offers without setting a minimum price. Let the seller decide if the offer is acceptable plus show the bids rather than hide them. For me its maximising the benefit to the sellers

Edited October 25, 2023 by hayfield

[MrWolf]

On more than one occasion I have had an item for sale at £4.95, been fully aware that of the six or more others on eBay mine was the cheapest, (others anywhere up to £10) yet still I have received messages asking would I take £3 ?

 

No. Once eBay has their cut of both sale price and postage charges, I've boxed the item up and taken it to the post office, it's not worth the bother.

 

The item sells within a day or two, sometimes hours anyway, sometimes to the person making the cheeky offer.

[Michael Hodgson]

2 hours ago, hayfield said:

 

I rarely get these requests, in the past when received such requests (twice) both times I relisted the items increasing the price by £5 and sold both.

 

Yes, I've had things in the past that have failed to sell repeatedly and I've then doubled the start price and there's been a bidding war! 

It is of course possible that the bidders concerned not not seen the previous listings. 

Some people search with a lower price limit in a range to avoid seeing the dross.  For example if you want particular wagon type you might see a load of listings of loads to suit such wagons. but searching on a price range above that knocks out such irrelevancies.

[John M Upton]

Just had another comedian.  Selling a job lot of (admittedly pretty worthless) Lledo Days Gone buses and been offered three quid AND they want free postage which considering it is going to cost about four quid to post either demonstrates the prospective buyer is an absolute chancer or the old Lledo stuff has actually managed to descend past worthless into negative equity on the scale of value!!!

[hayfield]

50 minutes ago, John M Upton said:

Just had another comedian.  Selling a job lot of (admittedly pretty worthless) Lledo Days Gone buses and been offered three quid AND they want free postage which considering it is going to cost about four quid to post either demonstrates the prospective buyer is an absolute chancer or the old Lledo stuff has actually managed to descend past worthless into negative equity on the scale of value!!!

 

 

John

 

In my experience someone will want them, a candidate for a 99p start price plus postage which covers all costs and fees.

[MrWolf]

2 hours ago, John M Upton said:

Just had another comedian.  Selling a job lot of (admittedly pretty worthless) Lledo Days Gone buses and been offered three quid AND they want free postage which considering it is going to cost about four quid to post either demonstrates the prospective buyer is an absolute chancer or the old Lledo stuff has actually managed to descend past worthless into negative equity on the scale of value!!!

 

A friend of mine acquired a large number of boxed lledos, he could sell them in dribs and drabs in his shop at £2 apiece, but couldn't sell them individually on eBay as the postage took them above £5. 

We sold bundles of four easily at £10 plus 2nd class post though.

[MrWolf]

Speaking of chancers, I was recently selling a NOS Miller headlamp switch suitable for Velocette and Vincent motorcycles and got a couple of chancers offering £20, despite the fact that a reproduction item is £60. 

Judging by their feedback they were both dealers and the listing had a reserve.

 

When the countdown stopped it made £97 plus postage.

 

 

[papagolfjuliet]

I sold a tatty Kitmaster Stirling Single - clearly labelled as such - a while back. Buyer returned it because he thought he was getting a Rapido one... for twenty quid. How these people manage to dress themselves is beyond me.

[Hal Nail]

15 minutes ago, papagolfjuliet said:

Buyer returned it because he thought he was getting a Rapido one... 

Just out of interest do you "allow returns"? For me that should fall under caveat emptor but increasingly the expectation seems to be eBay sellers are John Lewis.