Quote:
Originally Posted by Matches Malone
Enforcer, is your money being held or did you get scammed the cash by a buyer claiming non receipt? I was under the impression that there is 'seller protections' in place for such instances.
PayPal/eBay is brutal regardless, but like you said they are the only game in town.
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Eventually they allowed me to take the money once they got word that the package was delivered. On average it took 2 weeks. I'm not a knowitall about these things, but by default I assume scams are few and far between, if existent at all, in the collectibles market on eBay. I've never had an issue, but the signs were a different part of the collectibles market. The electronics department is an entirely different story, however. Especially smartphones.
eBay has always had their seller protection policy, and it worked for the longest time. eBay would more or less take the word of a power seller over a buyer any day of the week. I'm not a power seller, but my brother was at his peak in the early 2000s. He would have issues here and there with buyer scams, and eBay sided with him every time. For everyone else it was a simple case of providing evidence and eBay would listen, and at worst they had to make a judgement call on who was the honest one. But that was then, and this is now with many millions more of customers around. If I were to sell anything right now, and someone attempted to steal it away from me, they could because I don't hold any gravitas. I don't have dozens of auctions going, making eBay tons of money in fees. If eBay has the choice, they'll side with the buyer because they want to keep the buyer around. The buyer is also what makes them money. If there's no buyers, no money from sellers.
This is where the problem comes into play, a small time seller plays a dangerous gamble to sell high end items on eBay without an established selling record. I hadn't sold anything in years, and seemingly my past record was of no consequence. When I sold those signs, my account was essentially a fresh start. Rep means nothing to eBay now, it's all about, what are you doing
now for us? If you're making them money, then they are probably going to side with you over a random buyer. They certainly lift their money holding requirements eventually, once you've sold enough items and made them enough money to "buy" your freedom, so to speak. As long as you make them money, they'll care about your protection.
Would the 7300 dollars I made off those signs, with eBay taking a 14% cut or so(counting paypal)enough for them to back me up in the event one of those buyers had tried to scam my signs from me? I don't know, but they were certainly happy to up my overall permitted eBay income per month by thousands of dollars with every sign sold. Jokes on them, I haven't sold anything since!
In my case, with my latest high dollar item I want to sell off for $1200, it's something I certainly don't want to test. I could try my brother's account. It's possible they still consider his account important enough to back up in the event a scammer shows up. He hasn't used it in years, though. I don't know if you lose power seller status after you've stopped selling anything for years.
