New Ebay User Agreement terms

Flink_Poyd

DefaultM said:

Hmm. I had a few things listed on ebay but none sold. As soon as the buy it now listing ended a guy messaged me saying he wanted to buy my strat.
In my mind ebay haven't found me a buyer and the listing is over. Are they saying that if I now got back in touch with this person they would try to charge me for it because they introduced us?

I'm not sure why the potential buyer has done this to be honest. He hasn't made me an offer for a lower price. I would have just told him to hit buy it now and happily have sold through eBay because I only had a £1 fee on there, but I'm not going to relist now because the fee would be £50.

I think the answer to usually question would be another question. 

Would that buyer have found you if the item wasn't listed on eBay?

They've found you a buyer by the exposure of the listing on the site. 

Personally I would screw ebay out of every penny I can but I only sell stuff I can afford to be shafted for. If it's with over £50 I don't bother nowadays 

Sassafras

I find ebay quite depressing these days. It's gone from being the biggest marketplace for used gear to being an online shop for cheap Chinese knock-offs.
The used gear revenue side of it must pale into insignificance now.

Dopesick

There's still lots of great gear on there in my opinion - I still browse the guitar sections (amps, pedals, guitars etc) every other day or so.

Selling on there however is a definite last resort. I'm not hanging in the towel just yet as I haven't had any problems so far with regards to getting a slap on the wrist (kiss of death) but for items I need to get shot of after months without success on the other marketplaces then eBay would get the nod. I haven't had to sell anything on there for a long time though which is nice.

impmann

They don't need to get all draconian about this.

As I've said... many times, including to them... if they went back to charging a listing fee, (that cannot be refunded) irrespective of whether something sells  through them or not and stop this big brother silliness then I'd use them. This latest step is a step too far - there are occasions where you need to go and view an item before buying (such as a car or high end guitar etc).

Modulus_Amps

@m_c said:

I keep meaning to check what the policy is for business users.

On my business account my contact details are shown on all listings, and although I don't have my own fully functional website, I'm wondering if selling identical items through a website for 10% less would breach any rules eBay have in place.

All my stuff on e-bay is more expensive, ~10% on musical equipment and then 3% to paypal, they have got greedy and it is driving people away. They can't stop you selling elsewhere, the above text only applies if they can prove you got a sale opportunity through them, but if you have an online shop you will need other marketing tools too, so it would be impossible to know unless you used ebays messaging tools.

What I don't understand is ebay should be a cash cow, what sort of overheads do they have that they need to take so much off each sale... I just think we are paying them them to have office parties with strippers and dwarf darts

aord43

DefaultM said:

Hmm. I had a few things listed on ebay but none sold. As soon as the buy it now listing ended a guy messaged me saying he wanted to buy my strat.
In my mind ebay haven't found me a buyer and the listing is over. Are they saying that if I now got back in touch with this person they would try to charge me for it because they introduced us?

I'm not sure why the potential buyer has done this to be honest. He hasn't made me an offer for a lower price. I would have just told him to hit buy it now and happily have sold through eBay because I only had a £1 fee on there, but I'm not going to relist now because the fee would be £50.

That's an interesting situation and it would be nice to hear what Ebay's view is.  You have done nothing wrong and it's the other guy who took the risk of the item selling by waiting until the auction was over, who has potentially caused them to lose out on fees.  As you said, you could take the view that you put it on ebay in good faith and they failed to find you a buyer within the time.  After that it's up to you what happens.  Since you didn't end the auction early I don't think they have a case against you.
If they then allow the other guy to message you, that's between them and him.

Modulus_Amps

DefaultM said:

Hmm. I had a few things listed on ebay but none sold. As soon as the buy it now listing ended a guy messaged me saying he wanted to buy my strat.
In my mind ebay haven't found me a buyer and the listing is over. Are they saying that if I now got back in touch with this person they would try to charge me for it because they introduced us?

I'm not sure why the potential buyer has done this to be honest. He hasn't made me an offer for a lower price. I would have just told him to hit buy it now and happily have sold through eBay because I only had a £1 fee on there, but I'm not going to relist now because the fee would be £50.

I wonder if you could get away with responding that the item did not sell on ebay and as a result you have decided try and sell it on another platform such a craigslist/ gumtree. Then you list it there and he can contact you through those sites.

As a buyer he is being stupid as a backdoor sale does not afford him any protection through e-bays policies

Also, I would not spell craiglist or gumtree properly, the bots are watching!

ESBlonde

I don't use ebay much these days. This latest outburst/change of terms had me thinking they are going to 'fine' people if they think they can get away with it and take the money from the linked accounts.
I know some people like to get around the system and it's not unreasonable for ebay to close loopholes, but who is to say they are right to impose charges on the offchance they might have been involved in a deal that may or may not have taken place.Not cool.

JezWynd

Email arrived last night. My first impulse on reading the new terms was to cancel my account but thought I'd sleep on it. I've never done a deal outside eBay, though they did treat me like the guilty party when someone suggested it to me via messaging.

Cancelling my account would be doing myself an enormous favour but then, what would I do with all these pedals? Ebay works as a selling venue far better than any other I've tried. It's a conundrum (wrapped in thrice used bubblewrap, inexpertly packed with a secondhand jiffy bag and some parcel tape and delivered by a Hermes driver who can never find my house). Modern life is rubbish.

Whitecat

Reverb is working really hard behind the scenes to increase their presence/visibility/userbase in the UK. Give them a bit of time... and use it, too!

midlifecrisis

i stopped selling on ebay about 8 months ago, but i have bought quite a lot since then. if it means its going to put off a lot of sellers theres not going to be much for me to buy there either.

Heartfeltdawn

Chalky said:

The reason that I am happy to screw ebay is they are not only the service provider, they are also 'judge and jury' about their own performance. Most service providers are covered by laws that are firmly on the side of the private individual rather than corporate business. Yet ebay can take judgement on private individuals and cause them to lose money and there is simply no remedial action available to the private individual, no regulator, ombudsman or law. Now they are extending their 'judge and jury' role to include fining people, taking money without consent from the accounts of private individuals. And there is still no-one to complain to, or law to keep there practices in check, and they are effectively a monopoly. That is simply wrong.

Cue silly fuckwits with the 'don't use them if you don't like their contract' arguments and 'they aren't a monopoly' arguments....

With the new rules coming in, I agree with you. I've long felt that the people who whine about Ebay yet use their services to find buyers for off-site deals were talking out of their arse. But the imposition of these regulations in the new user agreement is absolutely ludicrous. Even people I've clashed with on Tamebay who are hardcore Ebay enthusiasts are finding elements that fuck them off (the watermarking of images is proving to be a major fail for EBay). 

Bidley

Agreed with @Heartfeltdawn totally. I usually get pretty sick of the constant stream of whinging about eBay, but this is something actually worth moaning about.

I get why they're doing it, but the measures they're putting in place are distinctly anti-consumer and pretty cynical.

Cirrus

I think they've probably enviously been watching the Amazon model perform much, much better than their one and the changes over the years seem to have been about more closely emulating it - discouraging private sellers, encouraging business shop-style accounts, making it very one-sided in favour of consumer rights over seller's rights...

It's just... that's not what the Ebay brand was about to begin with, going back ten years they were advertising on Telly and it was all about private sellers getting rid of shit they didn't want any more. THAT is the purpose of Ebay that saw them gain brand awareness and a market share. So this re-imagining, especially given that at best they're trailing behind a market leader, is pretty risky in the long run. But then, plenty of very successful internet companies have happily drove themselves right into the dirt.

fandango

Cirrus said:

I think they've probably enviously been watching the Amazon model perform much, much better than their one and the changes over the years seem to have been about more closely emulating it - discouraging private sellers, encouraging business shop-style accounts, making it very one-sided in favour of consumer rights over seller's rights...

It's just... that's not what the Ebay brand was about to begin with, going back ten years they were advertising on Telly and it was all about private sellers getting rid of shit they didn't want any more. THAT is the purpose of Ebay that saw them gain brand awareness and a market share. So this re-imagining, especially given that at best they're trailing behind a market leader, is pretty risky in the long run. But then, plenty of very successful internet companies have happily drove themselves right into the dirt.

Ebay still are advertising themselves as a garagesale type medium. They had a recent string of ads on Talk Sport with David Webb over the summer. Then replaced him with a sound-a-like after the first round of ads.

Bygone_Tones

When Ebay first launched their motto was "we believe people are basically good". I dont know what their motto is now but I'm damn sure it isnt that.

Fwiw, I've sold plenty of stuff on reverb.com and usually fairly quickly. Just be prepared to ship it, dont expect a UK buyer.

chillidoggy

www.shityoudon'twant.com

Now there's a business opportunity for someone.

impmann

Bygone_Tones said:

.

Fwiw, I've sold plenty of stuff on reverb.com and usually fairly quickly. Just be prepared to ship it, dont expect a UK buyer.

You see.... there is the problem.

Shipping guitars is a fucking nightmare. And shipping abroad is even more tricky thanks to CITES. Couriers are (without a single exception) cunts.

Parker

The way to get around this is arrange a local deal and then jack the price of the item to a ridiculous price that no one would ever pay. Wait for the listing to end organically, and they're none the wiser. 

Heartfeltdawn

Parker said:

The way to get around this is arrange a local deal and then jack the price of the item to a ridiculous price that no one would ever pay. Wait for the listing to end organically, and they're none the wiser. 

Arranging a deal, thus utilising the EBay message service, the bots pick up the details, and Ebay judge that you've tried to arrange an off-site deal. Cue charges being slapped onto you.