6 good reasons to STOP selling on eBay

Just four days short of eight years ago [! Ed.] I wrote "Fed up with eBay? There IS an alternative!" (WWW 12/11/13). It was the third or fourth in a series detailing the frustrations and pitfalls of buying/selling on eBay and dealing with its then partner, PayPal. One might think that the self-proclaimed leader in the online auction/sales market would try to raise its customer satisfaction level, but empirical and anecdotal evidence suggests the opposite.

This is what I've heard from a long-time follower who didn't heed my advice but continued selling on eBay until this spring when he finally weaned himself off that addiction. I should point out that the complainant [This sounds like a legal document! Ed.] is not running a business, trying to make a lot of money. He's jus an old guy who's got a houseful of junk which he's trying to dispose of to eke out his retirement income.

Here, from our disgruntled reader and other sources, are 5 good reasons to close your eBay account and find another place to buy and sell online.

1. eBay's new(ish) "managed payments system"

eBay used to own PayPal, which meant that money paid by purchasers through PayPal went straight into the seller's PayPal account. PayPal deducted a service charge immediately, and eBay billed the seller for their commission as well as insertion and other fees. So sellers lost up to 20% of the money they expected to get.

Now eBay has divested itself of PayPal and is forcing sellers into their managed payments sytem. That means giving eBay access to the seller's bank account, so that payments can be deposited directly, after deduction of eBay's ever-increasing fees. And payments will no longer be transferred immediately, but after a delay of, typically, a week.

2. Buyers now have to deal with eBay (only) to get their money back

Under the old payments system, if you bought something on eBay and didn't get what you paid for, or were dissatisfied, you could get your money back after going through a long and tortuous "customer service" process with eBay. 

If eBay found your complaint was justified, they would direct PayPal (which they owned, remember) to give your money back. 

You could also start the process by filing a dispute through your PayPal account. PayPal would buck it over to eBay, so it still took time.

Now that eBay has cut PayPal out of its "system", you have no choice but to complain to eBay and allow weeks for their system to deal with it. Your refund will come out of money they haven't yet paid to the vendor.

The only good news in that, for buyers, is that eBay almost always takes the buyer's side, even where the seller can make a good argument that they're being scammed by a buyer who says they never got the goods. How can you prove that? That's why a lot of sellers refuse to ship to south Asia or Africa.

3. eBay are now acting as tax collectors

American and Canadian governments -- federal, state and provincial -- have been itching for years to grab a chunk of all that money that's changing hands through online transactions, especially those that cross borders. eBay has caved under political pressure, and now charges sales tax, rated according to the residence of the buyer.

For example, suppose you live in New York state and buy something from a vendor in Ontario, Canada. The applicable tax in Ontario would be 13%, but the tax rate on foreign sales is 0.00% -- no tax. All the same, eBay will add the NY tax to your invoice.

4. And they snitch on you to your government

There are a lot of people and corporations doing business -- big business -- on the Internet. And yes, it's only fair that they should pay taxes on their profits, just like the bricks-and-mortar stores. But, there are also 1000s of people like the old guy described in the second paragraph above, trying to turn their junk into cash. Should they have to give Uncle Sam (or Mr Socks) a cut of the pittance they get for collectibles, craft items and suchlike, on which they make next to nothing after they pay eBay's commission and other fees?

Put it another way... Suppose you cleaned out your attic and held a garage sale or a yard sale. Would you be happy if, at the end of the day, an agent of the IRS or CRA came to your door to collect the sales and income taxes -- part of the money you got for selling your "treasures" -- which they would then give to such needy folks as illegal immigrants?

Under its managed payments system, eBay now has access to not just your sales records, but your banking information. They can and will give that information to the government on request, and if you think the government won't ask, LOL.

5. eBay's customer service sucks

See that meme above? eBay's customer service is actually worse than that! The chances of your having a phone conversation with a real person are slim and none. If you have a question or complaint and click on any of the "help" links, you will be directed to a list of possible problems, then to page after page of "solutions", which you've likely already tried or aren't relevant. 

You can go around in circles like that for hours. If you look hard enough, you might find an e-mail form which you can submit, but good luck with finding a phone number, and if you do somehow find a contact number, be prepared to be "on hold forever".

Before "managed payments", if you were dealing with PayPal, you could (with slightly less difficulty) contact their payment resolution centre or help desk, and you eventually got an answer. PayPal's bias is also towards buyers, but at least sellers get a chance to tell their side of the story.

6. There are alternatives

Our assiduous reader has looked at and tried a number of alternatives and has come up with four that can be recommended. None of them has as big a "reach" as eBay, but all of them are better than dealing with the Big Tech monster.

Etsy Inc. - American e-commerce company focused on handmade or vintage items and craft supplies. These items fall under a wide range of categories, including jewelry, bags, clothing, home décor and furniture, toys, art, as well as craft supplies and tools. Not so strong on collectibles (stamps. coins, comics etc). Has its own managed payments system, with the same drawbacks as eBay's.

Webstore - US-based FREE online marketplace. Free, how? Webstore is currently supported by donations and ad revenues. They say they are "operated as a free public service so that our members may benefit from a professional, feature filled, FREE community in which to buy and sell goods and services without all the common fees of most auction sites and online marketplaces." Website cluttered and clunky, but user support is very good (according to our reader), with text exchanges with a real named person.

Delcampe - European website launched in 2000, "to provide a suitable environment for collectors to buy and sell their collectibles." More than 180 nationalities are present on the site, 1000s of new collectibles are being listed every day. Claims over a million active users, but little-known in USA. Easy-to-use site. Has its own managed payment method, but doesn't insist you use it.

eBid - British company created in 1998. It markets itself as an eBay competitor with the main difference being the vast difference in fees charged to sellers. If you sign up for a lifetime membership fees are minimal or even free if you settle for limited options. Very user-friendly site. They leave it up to you if you want to charge sales tax, and let you receive payment through PayPal (or whatever). They claim a monthly average of 8 million page impressions, and a daily traffic volume of around 60,000 visitors, but that's still just a fraction of the business eBay does in a single day.

So there you have it, folks. If you buy and sell online, don't put up with the hassles of eBay one second longer. Consider the alternatives and if you're scared to leave eBay, remember that there's no law that says you can only use one e-commerce platform! 

Walt also recommends SaleHoo, "a powerful research tool, supplier directory, and online community for dropshippers, wholesalers, and e-commerce stores." If you've never sold online and don't know where or how to start, this is the place to learn.

Fed up with eBay? There IS an alternative!

First the background. Anyone who's tried selling on eBay for any length of time knows that if a scammer hits you -- e.g. by claiming they never received the goods and demanding a refund -- you're going to get the short end of the stick every time. eBay will send them a refund and debit your PayPal account (if that's how you're getting paid), which they can do because eBay owns PayPal. And there's not a damn thing you can do about it because the deck is stacked in favour of buyers.

Further reading from the WWW archives: "eBay seller screwed by scammer thanks to 'buyer protection'" and "eBay and PayPal -- complaints mount".

Now we have another entry in the looooong thread called "How to cheat eBay sellers and scam PayPal" on BenchmarkReviews.com. [I've edited it a bit for brevity. Ed.]

"Hi everyone. I just got scammed $2k. Buyer bought $2k worth of gift cards from me via Ebay and paypal checkout, now I knew he was fishy to begin with and there would be no seller protection for gift cards, but I'm a reasonably seasoned seller so I knew if I could prove the buyer had received them as mentioned by Ebay messages and post tracking, I would be bullet proof against any claim...WRONG!

"I received my cash in my account no problem, 6 hrs later I woke up to see the $2 payment had been reversed and a new case opened as 'unauthorised purchase' and closed due to no 'seller response' within minutes of each other according to the action logs. How can a case and decision be made within minutes, that leads to $2k worth of cash refunded?

"So ok, no problems, I thought I'd submit a evidence on appeal clearly showing the buyer had signed for the packages 'under their name' and mentioned in the Ebay messages they received the items and all was dandy/authentic. And the decision: well you guessed it, against me, apparently because I don't qualify for seller protection, so everything I submitted means absolutely nothing, even if the evidence is concrete by the book.

"Now I am going to once again reappeal, with all guns blazing, even collected evidence by chatting to another seller who was also 'scammed' by the same buyer. If I get the same response from Paypal....that's just bluntly ridiculous, I'd just admit defeat stop hoping for at least my money back and going straight to cyber-crime police at least assist in getting him arrested."

As Agent 78 would say, rotsa ruck! But there is good news today. Walt has discovered another online store, called (appropriately) Webstore. It works the same way as eBay. You can put your junque -- fancy junk -- up for auction, or sell it on a "buy-it-now" basis. You can have your own virtual store. The platform is easier to use with the "Easy Post" option. And best of all it's free!

You can use PayPal to accept payment but with better protection against scammers because Webstore is independent of PayPal. The only negative I can see (so far) is that eBay dominates the market, so Webstore and the other eBay wannabes are struggling to build traffic. You can help, though, by putting links to your items on Facebook and other social media sites. If you're sick, sore and tired of eBay, give Webstore a try!

eBay and PayPal -- complaints mount

Here's a follow-up on "eBay seller screwed by scammer thanks to 'buyer protection'". The reader who took one in the shorts as a result of eBay's (and Paypal's) one-sided "buyer protection policy" sent his complaint to Benchmark Reviews, where it appeared in a long thread entitled "How to Cheat eBay Sellers and Scam PayPal".

If you're selling on eBay or doing business of any kind through PayPal, you should read the experiences that others have had. Walt's followers will notice that has taken down the "please donate" widget. We want nothing more to do with PayPal.

In closing our account, we found out something interesting. If you close a PayPal account that has a credit balance -- money PayPal owes you -- they won't send it to you if it's a relatively small amount. Instead (they say) they'll donate your money to an "internationally recognized charity".

Are Nigerian scammers really that stupid?

Today Walt got an urgent e-mail from one "Kingsley Moghalu", whose e-mail address seems to belong to an Ellen Raez, but never mind. According to the "re" line, Kingsley wants me to "RESPOND VERY URGENTLY TO DEPUTY GOVERNOR CBN / OPEN THE ATTACHED AND READ‏". Walt didn't open the attachment, and neither should you, gentle reader. You know that, right?

Sometimes, though, you don't have to open an attachment. Right there in your in-box is a letter from a distraught widow, or a suffering orphan, or a conniving employee of a reputable international bank. (CBN = Central Bank of Nigeria, by the way. Yesterday I got one from the "Shanghai Bank Corporation", which must be the same as the Hong Kong & Shanghai Banking Corp., of which I've heard.)

The letter -- one of many variations of "the Spanish prisoner letter", which is even older than Walt -- tells you the suffering orphan (or whoever) needs your help to access a fabulous sum of money which was (for instance) left to her by her late father (a trusted confidant of Moammar Gadhafi, or whoever) but which for some reason she needs to park in your bank account for awhile. For helping her, you will get a percentage of the fabulous sum.

Sounds too good to be true, right? And so it is. But you would be tipped off, wouldn't you, by the poor English, the dubious phone numbers (e.g. a cell phone for the office of the Bank of Scotland), and the obviously African names. How could anyone fall for this old con game? And why would the scammers be so stupid as to send out such obviously bogus e-mails? (They still come by snail-mail too, by the way.)

These questions have been puzzling Cormac Herley, one of Bill Gates's minions. In his paper "Why do Nigerian scammers say they are from Nigeria?", he argues that the scammers make their appeals so blatantly ludicrous to weed out smart people -- like Walt's readers -- who will not be so easily taken in. Anyone foolish enough to take these ludicrous letters at face value is thus the most promising mark for their scam. If they're stupid enough to believe this letter, they'll believe anything!

Another motive could be Nigeria's dreadful reputation for corruption. When a high official of the Central Bank of Nigeria tells you he's sitting on $30 million which was paid as a bribe to facilitate an illegal transaction, it seems quite plausible and you -- if you're greedy as well as stupid -- want to get the cut that is offered to you.

So... you and I know about the "419" and related scams, and won't be taken in. But 1000s of others aren't as smart as we are. Millions, perhaps billions of dollars are lost every year to these Nigerian (and non-Nigerian) fraudsters. Other than send the junk to your spam-box, is there something you can do? Eve Edelson says YES.

In Scamorama, a book based on her website of the same name, Ms Edelson suggests a little bit of public-spirited scam-baiting. That means playing the fraudsters' game, wasting their time and resources by pretending to be a potential victim. On the website and in the book, you'll find instructions on how to play along, and examples of hilarious correspondence between the would-be scammers and members of Eve's internet posse. It's a great site, worth having a look at even if you don't want to play.

"The Little Black Book of Scams" (downloadable)

Even though it first ran almost two years ago, "Help Kids Canada - a scam or only half a scam?" continues to draw comments from kids who have got sucked into working for the scammers as well as from the scammees. People keep saying, "If we'd only known..."

And of course there are lots of other scams out there which have been going on for years, lots of lowlifes making a good living out of knowing what to say and do to separate you from your money.

Apart from the old "buy a chocolate bar for charity" scam, fraudsters use internet scams, money transfer requests, pyramid schemes, fake lotteries, non-existent sweepstakes and dishonest contests. Some of these scams disappear for a few years, but then resurface with a slightly different twist, the classic example being the "Spanish prisoner" letter.

Who falls for this stuff? If you've been bitten, don't be ashamed. Most of us have been taken in at one time or another. Not becoming a victim is easier said than done. The best way to arm yourself is with information. The Competition Bureau of Canada has just published its version of a booklet which originated with its Australian counterpart, which explains how to protect yourself against fraud. It’s called The Little Black Book of Scams.

And get this. It's FREE. No strings attached. You can get it from a reputable source, namely Walt Whiteman. Just click here to open the .pdf file, which you can read or save. The file size is only 1.73 MB so it's well worth keeping and passing along to your friends.

The 12 scams of Christmas

This article by Tori Floyd appeared on The RIGHT Click, a Yahoo! news blog. It's worth passing along. Read and heed.

The holidays are a time when many of us think about connecting with old friends, traveling to be with family and shopping until we're blue in the face.

But all the busyness of the holiday season also makes it the perfect time for cybercriminals to prey on their unsuspecting victims online.

To help combat the perils of Christmas criminals, cyber security experts McAfee Inc. has released its annual list of the '12 Scams of the Holidays,' highlighting some of the ways internet users are open to fraudsters and hackers that can take advantage of you.

1. Hotel "wrong transaction" malware emails

Be wary of emails from hotels telling you they have run a "wrong transaction" on your credit card. These emails often have a "refund form" attached that when clicked, the user downloads malware onto his or her system. Only open attachments from senders you know, and contact the hotel listed in the email to confirm the mix-up before you click anything.

2. Mystery shopper scams

Getting a job as a mystery shopper seems an ideal holiday job for many people: you can make some extra cash and get some of your holiday shopping done at the same time. Unfortunately, the old adage of "if it's too good to be true, it probably is" holds up here, and scammers have been known to send text messages recruiting candidates. Once the receiver calls back the sender, the scammer asks for personal information like credit card and bank account numbers. Real recruiters wouldn't ask for this kind of information.

3. "I'm away from home" scams

If you make a point of mentioning when you'll be traveling out-of-town this holiday, you might want to think twice before you announce it on Facebook. We've all seen how the bad guys in Home Alone scout out a neighbourhood over Christmas to see who won't be home - thanks to people publicly sharing their plans online, burgalars don't even need to leave the house anymore. Make sure you only connect with people you know through social networks, and don't share with the masses when your house will be empty.

4. Phony Facebook promotions and contests

There are plenty of giveaways and promotions on Facebook that ask you to sign up in order to enter. Be wary of ones that need you to sign up with lengthy surveys gathering personal information, particularly from a company or person you don't recognize, as cybercriminals will collect this information and sell it to spam and telemarketing companies.

5. Scareware, or fake antivirus software

One of the most common scams online right now is 'scareware,' which warns users that their computer is or at risk of becoming infected, and they need to download security software right away. According to McAfee, one million users fall for this scam every day. Buy all security software directly from a trusted website or retailer, not through pop-ups that are likely seeking to do more harm than good.

6. Malicious content and websites

When you're searching for the perfect Christmas gift online, you'll likely come across a slew of ads for holiday ecards and ring tones. According to McAfee, a good percentage of these are likely malicious and worth avoiding. The company also says that out of the top 100 search terms each day, nearly 50 per cent lead to malicious websites.

7. Malicious mobile apps

With 60 per cent of the average Internet users now owning at least three digital devices per household, mobile devices are becoming a greater target for cybercriminals. Malicious apps are on the rise, designed to steal personal information or send out expensive text messages. Stick to apps downloaded from official app stores like iTunes, BlackBerry App World and the Android Market.

8. Mac malware

While they were once thought of as untouchable, Macs are taking up a much larger market share with home users, and are therefore becoming more tempting to hackers. McAfee says that malware that can attack Macs is on the rise of 10 per cent a month. Installing security software on all Macs and iOS devices is your best protection.

9. Zombie infections

No, there's no need to run out and stop chopping off the heads of the undead. Zombie infections are viruses that allow hackers to control your computer remotely. Like many of the other scams, avoid clicking on links from unknown senders and make sure your anti-virus software is up-to-date.

10. Holiday phishing scams

The holidays are the perfect time for scammers to try and gather personal information from people. One popular scam poses as a courier, stating that you have a package to pick up, but need to fill in personal information before you can collect it. Call companies to confirm details before you click on a link. The same is true for charity solicitation scams: contact charities you want to donate to directly instead of clicking email requests.

11. Online coupon scams

The popularity of coupons hasn't gotten by scammers. Some fradulent sites offering coupons will also ask for banking information and if they do, you know it isn't legit. Never give out banking information to an unknown source. To add insult to injury, many of these coupons are fake, and customers won't be able to redeem them for the promised discounts.

12. "It" gift scams

Those hot gifts can be a pain to get, but never try and take the easy way out to get them. If you come across a website offering you the hottest holiday product for cheap, you'll often end up paying a lot more for it buy 'purchasing' it. Scammers won't send you the product (or at least not the real deal), and they walk away with your credit card information. Only purchase from reputable retailers.