eBay: Actively Destroying Small US Businesses. Is Using Them Worth the Risk?

[amy]

An eBay seller who was behind on his fees is suspended and pays his fees within 24 hours of his suspension only to find that eBay has destroyed all of the listings he created leaving his business in tatters.  The seller must now start from scratch to rebuild the days/weeks of work that eBay has destroyed. 

http://forums.ebay.com/db2/thread.jspa?threadID=2000068789&tstart=0

Is it worth risking your business by putting it in the hands of this company which has a long history of destroying small American businesses  based solely on the erroneous decision of a poorly trained customer service representative?

Is it worth risking your business by putting its fate in the hands of a company that routinely includes language in emails it sends to your customers warning them that you and your business are untrustworthy?

Is doing business with a company that routinely disregards the needs of all but its largest sellers the best choice for your business?

Is doing business with a company that will destroy a small seller's business for being 24 hours late with payment while overlooking (and rewarding) fraud by its largest sellers really the best choice to make for your business?

You decide.

[bargainbloodhound]

It is interesting that eBay kept all 114 of Andy's completed listings.  It of course kept those completed listings because they have a monetary value to eBay.  eBay uses sellers' completed listings to feed the database of its paid subscription "completed listing pricing" research service.

A seller's active 850 unsold items however have no value to eBay once it charges its listing fee and it thus has no problem deleting the seller's entire current inventory. 

[bargainbloodhound]

This happens all the time and has for years. During the 2004 billing problems there were many sellers who had their businesses destroyed after eBay double and triple billed them and then suspended them for not paying the overcharge (which in the case of many sellers was thousands of dollars that they had been overcharged).

Sellers with thousands of feedbacks and flawless feedback ratings regularly are suspended and have their businesses ruined as a result of a wrong interpretation of policy by a customer service staffer.

The ability of eBay to destroy a good honest seller's business at the drop of a hat based on a poor call by a customer service rep is the reason I long ago diversified beyond eBay. It is not worth the risk to put all of your eggs in the basket of a company that shows little regard for the businesses of its small sellers.

[xppman]

I too long ago diversified beyond eBay
for reason stated above and more as most of you have
heard me rant on about for a VERY long time.

It sickens me to see what they have done and what they have become
and what they continue to get away with.

I truly hope that the executives of ebay find themselves
in serious trouble in the near future for so many
"Enron and Worldcom" type practices that have
gone unchecked
for so long.

I still believe that day will come but something tells me the these
same top dogs know it too and have been actively sabotaging
it's own business in their own cool and calculated efforts /way
to try and ensure that the "market" dictates the demise of ebay
and not some serious lawsuits brought about and directed to them individually.

This way the snakes that have been robbing the public for
so long can slither away unscathed and with the millions they
bilked from both the
investors and the community at large.

I believe this is the case with all the counter productive moves they make.

There has to be a REAL and hidden reason they are and continue to do this.

[diger7]

They CAN put those listings back in the Unsold section. 

They did it for me when they suspended my account a few months ago (they thought it had been hijacked since we listed items that had nothing to do with Design/Services on MrOs store).  I had to contact live help a few times though to get them to do that.

Long, long time ago, when I was new to eBay and sold used books, my account was hijacked.  I caught it right away, contacted T&S, and they suspended my account.  They reinstated it right away but all of my listings and store were gone.  Back then they had told me that there is no way to bring back my ended listings.  I didn't fight it because I was new and clueless.

[bargainbloodhound]

They CAN put those listings back in the Unsold section.

Yep.  In interviews, waste of airspace er, I mean head of Trust & Safety Rob Chestnut and other eBay officials have said they keep records of everything a user has ever done on their site...including message board posts.  But then again maybe they're just Lying Sacks of Sh*t B*st*rds and they really don't keep records of removed listings or hacker wannabee's IP addresses. 

[iron_chick]

They are LSOSB.
They aren't even subtle or good at it. 

Obviously they have these records.  They have Andy's ads.  They didn't wipe out their database and backups just to NARU one itty bitty seller. 

They've restored listings when they've realized they've OOOPS.    Presumably, they don't know in advance the NARUs they are doing in error.

LSOSB.

[bargainbloodhound]

I just called stores support and she told me she contacted T&S and they told her they could restore my listings. But they're not going to do it, because "they didn't do anything wrong". They only restore listings if they've made an error. Apparently wiping out someones entire inventory and destroying their business does not qualify to them as "making a mistake"...

http://forums.ebay.com/db2/thread.jspa?threadID=2000068789&start=40

[iron_chick]

Not only is that just plain mean . . . it's stupid. 
eBay only makes money if Andy relists his stuff there.  Why would they want to make it hard for him to do that?

[xppman]

Why would they want to make it hard for him to do that?

You guys think about that.
Why is the BIG question for so many moves they make.


Why do they do this or that???