The Ebay/Gamestop/Craiglist/Amazon/Goodwill/etc rant thread

[Tanooki | 5,152]

On 3/27/2024 at 10:35 AM, LeatherRebel5150 said:

Mercari getting rid of selling fees?

 

https://www.reddit.com/r/Ebay/s/GQfbYsyaOV

It's far more insidious.  They're passing the selling fee of 10% onto the buyer.  Furthermore Mercari will no longer cover the credit card charging/bank fees and slap a percentage on top of that as well.  Roughly speaking, anything you buy on Mercari now will cost 15% more than what is posted before state taxes.  Sellers though also had a change, if you sell, you must accept any reason for a return no matter what, no optional returns or arguing around it.  There's a firestorm of anger from both sides online on various social media spaces, private forums like this, discord, review sites, and the reviews you can do on Apple and Google/Amazon stores with the app.  People are pissed and they're getting hammered.

I erased the app and closed my account as a lot of people have.  I've never sold there, but I did buy.  I won't be eating the sellers 10% fees for selling goods and the 2.9%+50 cents to cover their financial processing fees is one added reason.  They've also for sellers now put a $2 processing fee to cash out your balance from selling goods as well.

If you're curious, here's a copy of the text from the email they put out when this started on the 27th.

0% Selling Fees: The selling fee for new listings will be 0%. That’s right – what used to be a 10% selling fee is now 0% – zero selling fees! Listings created before 8:30 AM ET March 27, 2024 will be subject to a selling fee of 10% of the item price when a sale is completed, unless the listing has been updated on or after March 27, 2024.
	Buy with Confidence: Buyers will now be able to return items for any reason.
	Service Fee: When you make a purchase, a service fee will be charged. The amount of the fee will be displayed as part of the final price of your item(s) on the checkout page.
	Payment Processing and Withdrawal Fee: For listings created after 8:30 AM ET on March 27, 2024, Mercari will charge buyers a payment processing fee at the time of purchase. That includes a payment processing fee of $.50, plus 2.9% of the transaction price (includes item price, shipping, service fee, and sales tax). For listings created before March 27, 2024, a payment processing fee of 2.9% plus $.50 per sale is charged to the seller based on the completed sale, plus shipping price of the item – unless the listing is updated after March 27, 2024. Zero payment processing fees for buyers when using your balance.
	Direct Deposit: As always, you can request to cash out your balance to your checking account with direct deposit. Starting on this date, there is a $2 flat fee per cash-out.

Edited March 31 by Tanooki

[LeatherRebel5150 | 1,103]

11 hours ago, Tanooki said:

It's far more insidious.  They're passing the selling fee of 10% onto the buyer.  Furthermore Mercari will no longer cover the credit card charging/bank fees and slap a percentage on top of that as well.  Roughly speaking, anything you buy on Mercari now will cost 15% more than what is posted before state taxes.  Sellers though also had a change, if you sell, you must accept any reason for a return no matter what, no optional returns or arguing around it.  There's a firestorm of anger from both sides online on various social media spaces, private forums like this, discord, review sites, and the reviews you can do on Apple and Google/Amazon stores with the app.  People are pissed and they're getting hammered.

I erased the app and closed my account as a lot of people have.  I've never sold there, but I did buy.  I won't be eating the sellers 10% fees for selling goods and the 2.9%+50 cents to cover their financial processing fees is one added reason.  They've also for sellers now put a $2 processing fee to cash out your balance from selling goods as well.

If you're curious, here's a copy of the text from the email they put out when this started on the 27th.

0% Selling Fees: The selling fee for new listings will be 0%. That’s right – what used to be a 10% selling fee is now 0% – zero selling fees! Listings created before 8:30 AM ET March 27, 2024 will be subject to a selling fee of 10% of the item price when a sale is completed, unless the listing has been updated on or after March 27, 2024.
	Buy with Confidence: Buyers will now be able to return items for any reason.
	Service Fee: When you make a purchase, a service fee will be charged. The amount of the fee will be displayed as part of the final price of your item(s) on the checkout page.
	Payment Processing and Withdrawal Fee: For listings created after 8:30 AM ET on March 27, 2024, Mercari will charge buyers a payment processing fee at the time of purchase. That includes a payment processing fee of $.50, plus 2.9% of the transaction price (includes item price, shipping, service fee, and sales tax). For listings created before March 27, 2024, a payment processing fee of 2.9% plus $.50 per sale is charged to the seller based on the completed sale, plus shipping price of the item – unless the listing is updated after March 27, 2024. Zero payment processing fees for buyers when using your balance.
	Direct Deposit: As always, you can request to cash out your balance to your checking account with direct deposit. Starting on this date, there is a $2 flat fee per cash-out.

Well there’s a lot more to it than I assumed. I never bought or sold on there so it doesn’t matter to me but I thought it would have been something to attract more sellers. Guess that’s not the case

[LeatherRebel5150 | 1,103]

Ebay Vault sold to PSA and some part of the PSA company sold to ebay.

https://www.ebayinc.com/stories/news/ebay-collectors-enter-into-commercial-agreement-sign-deals-for-acquisition-of-goldin-by-ebay-and-acquisition-of-the-ebay-vault-by-psa/

[RH | 5,250]

IF Ken Goldin sold off his auction house to eBay, THEN WHO WILL CRACK OPEN ALL OF THOSE 1ST ED POKEMAN BOXES WITH LOGAN PAUL?!?!?!

But in all seriousness, I skimmed the article and I think this is a bit of a double-edged sword.  On the one hand, this is eBay.  Ew.  I've long wanted a serious competitor to enter the realm against them because, at a minimum, eBay needs competition to lower prices and be encouraged to not just innovate but fix frustration points and bugs that most of us have ran into.

But on the other hand, eliminating a site dedicated to high-end collectibles helps consolidate searching and that is a net-benefit to collectors, and it can help legitimize that eBay is a place for serious collectors to also look for collectibles, which is what sites like Goldin and HA cater too.

In fact, it makes me wonder if eBay, in time, might try to buy up Heritage.  We all have heard about Halperin's antics but eventually everyone gets older and wants to retire.  That could be within 10-15 years for him, and if eBay makes an offer he can't refuse, why wouldn't he take it.  Especially if, say, it's something like $1,000,000,000.  I could see Halperin being the type of guy who'd want to peacock that he's in the "3 comma club".

[avatar! | 1,956]

10 hours ago, RH said:

On the one hand, this is eBay.  Ew.  I've long wanted a serious competitor to enter the realm against them because, at a minimum, eBay needs competition to lower prices and be encouraged to not just innovate but fix frustration points and bugs that most of us have ran into.

Fully agree. I really think ebay is not going to get any better for either sellers or buyers until they have some serious competition. I think amazon could easily do this, but, amazon doesn't seem to care. Wall-Mart, or some either giant that could sink $100 million into producing a top auction site could definitely do it, but no one seems interested

[Johnnyboy113 | 84]

Hey guys, had to post this here just in case any of you deal with this buyer on Ebay baggagetime126912 

I sold this guy my time walk stadium events. I ship this out this past Monday and today after no communication whatsoever from this buyer, I received a call from my local postal shop that a package was returned with my name on it and they recognize that it was from the same person that I shipped this package to at their postal place. of course, thanks to some of you guys on here, I took a video of the gentleman that helped me pack this item originally on Monday opening the return box and this Ebay scammer decided he was going to try and send me back a stud finder tool but pretty much the cheapest one you could possibly find. I reported this to Ebay and have been on the phone with them for the last. God knows how many hours today. Apparently Ebay is telling me that I will not be penalized and that the hold on my account will be lifted, but they will refund the buyer from their end and personally, I don’t think that’s good enough so I told them I would send the video if they needed it. They should not have to refund this guy because he has the item. Of course, like a jackass scammer that this guy is he left me a negative feedback. What’s funny about the feedback which I will have removed is that he states that I sold him a reproduction of stadiums that’s worth $30 and then states that I sent him the wrong item lol. While I was on the phone with Ebay, another seller messaged me and told me hey I saw your feedback. This guy bought an item for me for $2000 and is trying to pull the same return scam as he’s trying with you so please report him if you haven’t yet. Ebay certainly got a kick out of hearing that the buyer has an address in Boca Raton Florida. I won’t post his name publicly even though I, but if there’s another place to do that, I would definitely provide the information that way no one has any dealings with this jackass. 

[Johnnyboy113 | 84]

Just to update my last post, this guy had a different user name that is unregistered and has some shit feedback on there too as a scammer. Here’s a link to a YouTube video I found that was posted in July 2023 about this buyer and pretty much the same exact thing he’s trying with me now .

 

[Johnnyboy113 | 84]

Another update! This keeps getting better guys lol. Look at the feedback I got from this jackass. The best is the follow up from him. Please everyone google what he said and you’ll see for each article that pops up on google it shows missing johnnyboy113 lol . He even sent me a screenshot of the google search which you can see here as well. I hope eBay gets rid of this guy permanently. How can someone who commits internet fraud multiple times still be allowed on eBay ? He should be in jail. 
 

[avatar! | 1,956]

2 hours ago, Johnnyboy113 said:

How can someone who commits internet fraud multiple times still be allowed on eBay ? He should be in jail.

Because ebay doesn't care. Do they make money? Then okay. If they start to lose money, at that point they'll take action, but not until they start to lose money.

[Johnnyboy113 | 84]

22 minutes ago, avatar! said:

Because ebay doesn't care. Do they make money? Then okay. If they start to lose money, at that point they'll take action, but not until they start to lose money.

Yep all about money. eBay said I have nothing to worry about but they have the case open still just to see if they will refund him or not , refund coming from them as they said. I told them that they shouldn’t refund him and should investigate this further because it’s happening to other sellers. I’d love to know what you guys think on this… If they clear my account and refund him from their end should I just leave it alone or do you think I should take this further with law enforcement? If eBay goes against me somehow, after telling me 5 times they guarantee my account is fine and no payment will be owed by me, I definitely will pursue this with law enforcement 100%

[avatar! | 1,956]

16 hours ago, Johnnyboy113 said:

Yep all about money. eBay said I have nothing to worry about but they have the case open still just to see if they will refund him or not , refund coming from them as they said. I told them that they shouldn’t refund him and should investigate this further because it’s happening to other sellers. I’d love to know what you guys think on this… If they clear my account and refund him from their end should I just leave it alone or do you think I should take this further with law enforcement? If eBay goes against me somehow, after telling me 5 times they guarantee my account is fine and no payment will be owed by me, I definitely will pursue this with law enforcement 100%

I don't think law enforcement will be able to help. What I do think you could do is take them to small claims court. That's about the only refuge for people who are not rich. You could always hire a lawyer, but most lawyers will not be interested in something so small -- which is to say, if it's "only" a few thousand dollars (a lot of money for most of us), it's probably not worth a lawyer's time. Not to mention ebay has a slew of layers. But again, small claims court is the average Joe/Jane's best friend.

[Johnnyboy113 | 84]

4 hours ago, avatar! said:

I don't think law enforcement will be able to help. What I do think you could do is take them to small claims court. That's about the only refuge for people who are not rich. You could always hire a lawyer, but most lawyers will not be interested in something so small -- which is to say, if it's "only" a few thousand dollars (a lot of money for most of us), it's probably not worth a lawyer's time. Not to mention ebay has a slew of layers. But again, small claims court is the average Joe/Jane's best friend.

Figured I’d quote you since I have another update anyway for this. With the research I did on this person finding the old account finding YouTube videos and combined with another seller who was being scammed at the same time both of our negative feedbacks were removed and this guy was removed from Ebay. Of course, since he came back once already as far as I know, God only knows how many times he’s had different accounts to do this to people, i’m sure he’ll be at it again at some point. If this person tries to file chargebacks with his credit card company, that’s when I’ll have several Law enforcement agencies right on him. 
 

[avatar! | 1,956]

Just now, Johnnyboy113 said:

Figured I’d quote you since I have another update anyway for this. With the research I did on this person finding the old account finding YouTube videos and combined with another seller who was being scammed at the same time both of our negative feedbacks were removed and this guy was removed from Ebay. Of course, since he came back once already as far as I know, God only knows how many times he’s had different accounts to do this to people, i’m sure he’ll be at it again at some point. If this person tries to file chargebacks with his credit card company, that’s when I’ll have several Law enforcement agencies right on him. 
 

Keep us updated. I had someone steal my identity once -- basically stole my credit card and started writing checks in my name.  When I spoke to law enforcement (this is in MA) they were nice, but basically said "so, did your credit card reverse the charges?" to which I said yes. They said "well, believe it or not, they're probably not going to care and will not be helpful in our investigation because to them, those thousands of dollars are small potatoes." They basically said, if they can catch the guy red-handed, they could charge him with writing a false check but that's about it.

[Tanooki | 5,152]

I take it this guy is smart enough not to use his actual address to ship stuff from?  Then again determined enough one could just wait at the po box for pickup and tail the person as well.  I mean otherwise yeah small claims would work, and in the off case he really pissed off the wrong person it could end up with some vigilante justice which he more than deserves in either case.

[avatar! | 1,956]

Just now, Tanooki said:

 and in the off case he really pissed off the wrong person it could end up with some vigilante justice which he more than deserves in either case.

Sigh, sometimes I feel like that's the only way normal folks can get justice -- not that I condone violence, but hey, some people can only learn the hard way 

[Johnnyboy113 | 84]

1 hour ago, Tanooki said:

I take it this guy is smart enough not to use his actual address to ship stuff from?  Then again determined enough one could just wait at the po box for pickup and tail the person as well.  I mean otherwise yeah small claims would work, and in the off case he really pissed off the wrong person it could end up with some vigilante justice which he more than deserves in either case.

This guy could barely write a full sentence in proper English. He’s dumb as shit if im going to be perfectly honest. I believe he did use his real name and address. I’ll find out soon one way or another. 

[Johnnyboy113 | 84]

2 hours ago, avatar! said:

Keep us updated. I had someone steal my identity once -- basically stole my credit card and started writing checks in my name.  When I spoke to law enforcement (this is in MA) they were nice, but basically said "so, did your credit card reverse the charges?" to which I said yes. They said "well, believe it or not, they're probably not going to care and will not be helpful in our investigation because to them, those thousands of dollars are small potatoes." They basically said, if they can catch the guy red-handed, they could charge him with writing a false check but that's about it.

I hear ya. If this guy decides to try and file a chargeback with his credit card. he’s gonna find a few people have a lot of evidence against him and winning on chargeback cases shouldn’t be a problem with all the evidence. We will backtrack it to his other account and any other seller that fell victim to this jerk off. I’m sure with the amount of money between everyone he scammed. It’s gonna come out to more than just a few thousand.

[Tabonga | 2,533]

 This is odd - I buy a fair amount of things from shopgoodwill. Mostly books but a few switch games.  They have sales fairly often - during the last one I ordered 11 books and when I order batches i keep track of them as they come in.  That batch all got here.

Today I get an email from one of the stores saying my book had been shipped and listed a title I didn't recognize.  I double checked and it wasn't one of the last batch.  I found a description on Amazon and it is a book I remember reading.

So I went back to shopgoodwill and checked the order number.  It was  from September of 2022 and I obviously got it since I remember reading it.  Be interested if they send me something (and if so what)- the tracking shows a label has been created but not yet in the system - which is typical. 

Probably just a glitch in the system - kinda weird!

 

 

[RH | 5,250]

This is more directed toward a buyer. As part of the massive lot of games I bought, I pulled out all of the John Madden 24s (there was about 30 of them), across all of the systems it came out for.

I then listed them per system.  I didn't include photos but I properly described them--the games are used, were part of a lot from a distribution center of user returns.  All discs are in great shape, however, cases may have stickers and blue ink on them.

Well, one of these games did have more stickers, honestly, but the buyer gave me a very lowball FO price so he got the worst conditioned case.  I wasn't mad at him but when some buyers were paying $18 for a game, I wasn't going to give the guy who paid $12 the best copy.  Anyway, he messages me when he gets the game with just a photo... literally no description.  Just a photo of the cover with the massive sticker on it.

Ok... about 36 hours past and he messages me again.  "Hey man, had I known the game looked like this, I wouldn't have bought it."  Ok, I offered to 100% refund him the game and issue him a return label.  Now, I know I could have just refunded him his money, but considering I did put a description on the lot that some of these games would have label-stickers on them, this felt generous.

He then said nothing.  24 hours later, I message him again and ask "Hey, are you interested in a refund?  Please request one and I'll create a label for you."  He just responds with "Nah, I'm gonna keep it.  I'm just not happy."  Well, ok then.  Ultimately, he never left feedback but I have no clue if he will.  I'm not worried about it.  I just thought the interchange was weird.  If anyone thinks I did anything wrong as a seller here, let me know.  I didn't try to fool anyone, which is why I described the games as I did. Admittedly, I wanted to quick-list these, which is why I didn't take 30 photos of 30 different copies of John Madden Football, and instead opted for a stock photo.  Anyone else see a problem with this?  I didn't say these were sealed in Excellent condition.  In fact, I think I marked them as "Acceptable", or whatever the bottom condition is.

[Hammerfestus | 4,114]

It has been awhile since I did my eBay thing and now I’ve been back out there tossing out bids and hunting BINs for about a month and I need to ask, is it now just standard practice that when sellers don’t like the results of their auctions they just cancel bids?  And there’s no recourse to this?  I can’t even red ding these MFers.

[avatar! | 1,956]

9 minutes ago, Hammerfestus said:

It has been awhile since I did my eBay thing and now I’ve been back out there tossing out bids and hunting BINs for about a month and I need to ask, is it now just standard practice that when sellers don’t like the results of their auctions they just cancel bids?  And there’s no recourse to this?  I can’t even red ding these MFers.

No, I definitely don't think that's standard practice. Honestly, if a seller is doing that, best to move on to a different seller since shady is that shady does.

[Hammerfestus | 4,114]

21 minutes ago, avatar! said:

No, I definitely don't think that's standard practice. Honestly, if a seller is doing that, best to move on to a different seller since shady is that shady does.

It’s happened multiple times from multiple sellers.  In such a short span.  I’ve never had that like that before probably a fluke  OR it is in some way related to a deep psychological penchant of Wii sellers for being shady.  It speaks to the coming of age of people who will only ever remember the Empire past the point of no return. It’s not my normal hunting ground so the 2 things are going to anecdotally line up for me.  I am going to use this as further evidence of the enshittification of America.  

[TDIRunner | 2,939]

2 hours ago, Hammerfestus said:

It has been awhile since I did my eBay thing and now I’ve been back out there tossing out bids and hunting BINs for about a month and I need to ask, is it now just standard practice that when sellers don’t like the results of their auctions they just cancel bids?  And there’s no recourse to this?  I can’t even red ding these MFers.

If you haven't been around in a while, I highly recommend "watching" as many things as you can that you are interested in.  Especially, if those listing have "make offer" as an option.  You will regularly get offers from the sellers.  I occasionally get 25% off offers on items just for having them in my watch list.  Sometimes the offers are crap, but sometimes they are better than what I planned to offer from my end.  This method of course, only works well you aren't in a hurry to buy something.  

[Hammerfestus | 4,114]

1 hour ago, TDIRunner said:

If you haven't been around in a while, I highly recommend "watching" as many things as you can that you are interested in.  Especially, if those listing have "make offer" as an option.  You will regularly get offers from the sellers.  I occasionally get 25% off offers on items just for having them in my watch list.  Sometimes the offers are crap, but sometimes they are better than what I planned to offer from my end.  This method of course, only works well you aren't in a hurry to buy something.  

I usually avoid auctions all together.  It’s usually not worth the hassle though I will throw a low bid at an auction sometimes just so I get the notification when it’s ending to see if it’s worth it.  These were all auctions that got no other bids I think.  I don’t care that much but it’s just sucky that they can do that.  

I watch list all kinds of stuff just to see what kind of offers get shot my way.  Definitely a part of my process.  I live in OBO land lol.  I find that even sometimes if you can sus out the OBOs in your watch list that have been sitting a long time (especially if seller has pretty low feedback) you can snag some pretty decent discounts.  There’s good stuff to be found low balling a sub 100 seller lol.

Edited May 24 by Hammerfestus

[TDIRunner | 2,939]

2 hours ago, Hammerfestus said:

I usually avoid auctions all together.  It’s usually not worth the hassle though I will throw a low bid at an auction sometimes just so I get the notification when it’s ending to see if it’s worth it.  These were all auctions that got no other bids I think.  I don’t care that much but it’s just sucky that they can do that.  

I watch list all kinds of stuff just to see what kind of offers get shot my way.  Definitely a part of my process.  I live in OBO land lol.  I find that even sometimes if you can sus out the OBOs in your watch list that have been sitting a long time (especially if seller has pretty low feedback) you can snag some pretty decent discounts.  There’s good stuff to be found low balling a sub 100 seller lol.

I rarely look at auctions either.  If I'm on eBay, I'm almost exclusively looking at Buy Now, with Best Offer.  Those are the listings that sometimes send offers directly to you.  My recommendation was specifically talking about Buy Now with Best Offer listings.