Ebay driving sellers to insane measures

Found this on the PSU and first thought it was funny until I started to read the listing on ebay, that I have pasted bellow, just incase they remove it. You can just feel what the person is going through and maybe it is the fact that we all probably feel the same it just makes it worse.

springlering (3241 ) View Listings | Report		Apr-02-08 17:50 PDT
http://tinyurl.com/2vk6r9 I am waffling about closing my 11 year old eBay account, and am hoping this will prompt eBay to do it for me, and save me the trouble. I am so sick of the whole da*n thing. I don't know what prompted me to start selling again. A moment of weakness, I guess. It's like a bad drug habit.

Ebay Member User ID For Sale 99.7% 3000+ Feedback!!!

Up for Bid:

One Ebay Member ID, opened May, 1997.

ID boasts a healthy 3,250 positive individual feedbacks making for a feedback rating of 99.7%. (eBay does not count feedback from repeat buyers, even though those are the best kind.)

Having left well over 10,000 feedbacks, this ID is very experienced, and prides itself upon those very repeat buyers, which are the lifeblood of any good ID.

It started out life as an enthusiastic, healthy member ID, taking pride in its appearance and reputation, and experiencing joy and serendipity in it's dealings as both a buying and selling ID. None of this schizophrenic "I buy under one ID and sell under another ID and sometimes I diddle with both on the same auction" business.

It is proud of being an honorable ID, one that, as a seller, works to make it's winning bidders happy with their wins, and, as a buyer, to pay promptly when invoiced by fellow sellers.

A globe-trotting ID, with all the necessary shots, it boasts friendly and personal feedbacks from nearly fifty different countries, and considers it has done nearly as much for global relations as any host of ambassadors.

For many years, this ID was happy in its warm, comfortable, nurturing eBay environment, but then it noticed it was becoming tired and out of breath trying to create listings. "It's just old age", the Member ID thought. "I'm not as fast or efficient as I once was." "My arm is sore. I wish this Mexican bidder would stop twisting it and threatening to leave negatives if I don't give her the same postage rate as someone in the USA."

It wearied of trying to outrun accusations of dishonesty by prank bidders. "What men are these," the ID wondered, "who would steal their closest kinfolks passwords and bid nilly willy on laptops they didn't really want? What hath the world come to? Nay, is it the End of Days? Or simply a Fool's Paradise online?"

Then the ID realized, it wasn't all old age. eBay was secretly contributing to the problem, like six pound ankle weights on a treadmill walker (the Member ID was very familiar with this form of torment). It seemed every day there was a Policy Change email lurking in the inbox, waiting to pounce like a crazed nonpaying snipe bidder.

"My head hurts!" moaned the ID. "The rules are changing so fast,I get dizzy".

"Take the Pill!" cried eBay. "Trust our diagnosis! Our corporate doctor, while knowing little about the day to day operations of an actual eBay user, does know what's best for all Member IDs!! He's not an auction participant, but he did play one on TV!"

But the honest little Member ID found the side effects only made things worse. It began to question eBay's motives, worse, to doubt them.

Question upon trouble, trouble upon question began to burden the poor ID's wearisome thoughts, even intruding upon its sleep.

The Member ID even tried taking a six month cold-turkey holiday from eBay, but foolishly found itself lured back, like a hobby moth to the flame of virtual e-commerce.

So, now, sadly, this ID finds itself in poor and declining eBay health lately. The relationship has become abusive, and unhealthily co-dependent.

In short, the Member ID finds that it needs to make a clean break from it's owner, for both their sanity.

This Member ID has been diagnosed with the following malaise:

Advanced Non-Paying Bidder Syndrome: a cancer eating away at eBay

DSR Fluctuations: symptomatic of Advanced NPB Syndrome (see above), in which nonpaying bidders can leave malicious feedback and infect otherwise healthy cells, I mean, stars

Best-Match Palpitations: onset of sudden and unreasonable fear of being lost and never found in a formerly friendly environment

TurboListerrhoids: frequent cramping and bloating occuring during loads

Fee Ennui: Debilitating worry that fees are multiplying and spreading, and finding you no longer care

Bull-imia: The act of accepting absolute and utter bullcarp from eBay as Gospel, and trying to keep your feet out of it, while you wrap you mind around what sense it makes. Warning: This condition may cause confusion, disorientation, and irrational spurts of anger.

Altzliarheimers: Symptomatic of foreign wiseheimers demanding you to lie and put an alternate value on Customs forms.

Scams: Embarrassing condition involving others. Not to be confused with scabs, although equally ugly, bothersome and annoying when visible in public. Deemed necessary to hide, or at the very least, politic to ignore, by eBay.

Blockage: frequent necessity to block unwanted or unwelcome bidders, since Ebay won't operate to remove these dangers themselves. Avoid eBay Brown Bag Lunches at all cost, as these will only exascerbate symptoms.

Shillarrhea: When one's blood pressure rises upon suspicion of shilling. Often accompanied by Blurry Vision: seeing stars when one should see bidder IDs when viewing a bid history

Fleas: Irritating condition in which ID's items are considered unworthy. All small IDs have them. eBay said so.

Quarantine: a mandatory 21 day isolation period for Paypal payments, at eBay's discretion

IDgestion: the gut wrenching, sickening feeling occuring upon logging in to eBay these days


This ID has been told it has four weeks to live, and should make arrangements for last rights on or near May 1st, at which time, life support, in the form of Feedback reciprocation, will be removed, and negative bloodletting will begin.

There is no transfusion for this condition.

There is neither health insurance, nor customer service available, either, unless you count the standard eBay canned response: "Take two aspirin, clear your cookies, and don't call us in the morning."

This ID has been fully tested, and found to be devoid of any relatives, small children, or pets. It is therefore guaranteed completely free from the infectuous, highly contagious problem that many other IDs suffer from: "my brother/toddler/dog placed the bid and didn't mean to".

It comes from a smoke-free household. It does, however, cause steam to escape involuntarily from the ears on occasion.

Winning bidder will win all rights to this ID. Seller will provide winner with password, after payment of winning bid, and after removing seller's personal information, and replacing it with winner's own information. We can complete this transaction via phone, or in person. Seller retains all rights to, and will erase the current About Me page, but will happily work with winning bidder to create a replacement page.

Seller cannot, obviously, guarantee continued success, or profit of any kind, to buyer. Take at own risk. May cause irratibility and/or cramping. And gas. Do not use while operating machinery or size 4 font.

The photo below is a non-bidding, non-binding dog, and is not included with the auction. I show him only as an example of what this Member ID plans to do upon shedding itself of itself.

Anyone wants to show the way this is hurting people to the press, then show them this listing that you can find at: Link to listing

What the hell are ebay playing at?

I seem to be hearing this over and over, as people look on bemused and dismayed at change after change from ebay. (All in the name of safety.) But I think the main reason they can’t see what is happening is because they are not looking at the whole picture, and instead are just looking at these changes alone.

I have made it no secret that I was already leaving ebay before all this and this was kicking off as I was finalizing my online store. So maybe I have some idea what is going wrong with ebay, or at least I will tell you the way I see it.

When ebay first started making their changes, I like most people thought it was just greed, and I suppose to them it was working as the changes to them were making the bottom line shoot up. But they failed to look at the people it was hurting, which was us, both buyers and sellers. Before it tended to be the stupid that got ripped off, as they failed to read and assess what was clear to most, but now no matter how clever you are, you can be ripped off, shut down for fun, spite or even competitive malice.
Paypal will protect you. No they will not, buyers are being ripped off by rouge traders and sellers are being ripped off by rouge buyers. It is all such a mess and just keeps getting worse.

It was the introduction of the DSR’s that swung it for me and made me realize what it is that is wrong with ebay, and that is they have not got a single ebayer among them. They really do not have a clue what is happening inside their own community. This is because ebay is being run by statisticians and accountants, who see ebay as a brand like any other.
You can’t look at any business like that, we are all business people even the granny clearing her wardrobe, once she steps onto the auction stage, she is in business to make a profit. So we all have some idea how you have to keep your finger on the pulse and assess the situations as they arise but take away any info but your accounts and you will see what ebay is using to make decision after decision. But it is worse for them as due to the fact that none of them know the business outside of those books. They have no way of stepping back bad changes to the point that they had a working model, as they have no idea how it worked.

Ok ebay of old was never perfect and they were not making the billions they are making now but it all made sense. Anyone could sell anything, and you had to take precautions but they were never outside of what was possible, as they are now.

I have watched ebay change things for the worse over and over again and each time they try to change something else, to try and counteract the damage of the last change, it just keeps on getting worse.

The answer to this for me was to get out, hopefully leaving some of the scum behind that along with ebay had made ebay an unhappy place to be. But before coming to this decision I asked everyone I could, ebay, their forum and anyone else that I could think of: How do I run a business like this?
None of them had an answer

So what do we do now?

Get on with it is the best answer, start looking to see if you have the capital or the option to build a website of your own. Look at the alternative auctions, pick a few and try them out. See if you can get your customers to move with you and the best way to inform them.

This will all take time and will not be easy, as we are all finding out, but if we make use of the people around us and some of the great resources that are available such as the PSU, then we will all come out of this better for it and hopefully better off.

But now it is time to only mention ebay to inform and always end any mention of ebay with an alternative auction. No one cares which you chose or if you are still selling on ebay and have to wean yourself off but I would suggest you select a date and try to make it out by then.

I have selected the may 1st date, as have a lot of other people due to the fact it is when the other changes come in. Who wants to be around ebay then?

Whatever you choose good luck and I may see you either on the site or on ebid, tazbar, epier, blujay or plunderhere. Like I said end it with an alternative.