Fear and Loathing on Ebay

LaurV · 2015-05-23, 07:16

This corner of the world is very upset with ebay today. Now, don't tell me that the world is round, here on my street the world has a corner which is very angry about ebay. Dark angry. From the beginning they always switched us to at least 4 sites (S'pore, Australia, US, Thai) which sites have similar (but NOT identical) layouts and products to sell, and they deal in four different currencies, of course, but the freaking part is that they forced me some time ago to change the password (you know, "it seems like someone hacked into your account") and it seems that they never synchronized the passwords between the sites completely.

I am not an ebuyer, I log in few times per month and my searching key is invariable a relative to "+titan -x -z -black +hydro", etc. Sometimes there is a "-brand" when some "brand" sells a lot of "titan" things which have nothing to do with the gpu cards (like titanium made wheelbarrows"). Sometimes I bet, sometimes I buy. Once per year I sell something.

For some time they blocked my account and I can not make offers. Every time they tell me this AFTER I make the offer (as opposite to "before", and avoid wasting my time!), "your account is blocked, someone tried to hack it, blah blah" and I either need to input some personal details or call an international (yes!) phone number. I never called. Of course, the offer is lost, and IF you succeed to unlock your account without making an international call, then you need to take all the steps in making the offer again. Since a while, they tell me that my mobile number is wrong and they can't call me. Well, guess what, my mobile number is right, I have the same one at paypal (also their enterprise!) and I never had any problems with paypal. BTW re paypal, they (ebay) are also mail-bombing me for some time with messages about the fact that ebay and paypal will split soon, but "we will try to keep you happy after that too", and steps I have to do for that.

In the past I lost money because they required I don't know which paper to prove that the seller sent me the goods (especially from US) and the seller could not get that paper from the forwarder. Or at least, that is what I was told. I bought the product, paid the money, then after few days the seller told me the story and returned me the money. There I lost a lot from the exchange rate, and from paypal taxes. Later I asked some friends and they told me that it is a big business, and ebay/paypal DO HAVE employed people to do exactly this: make money with paypal exchange rate. Whatever you look for, they have it. Then you buy something, pay for it, then they say they can not send it, for whatever reason, especially when they are in the "normal" world, and you are in some obscure corner of Asia, they promptly return you the money, "honest guys", so you can not complain anything. But paypal/ebay keep the taxes and of course they use the bid/ask exchange rate when converting from i.e. baht to bucks and back, so at the end you just gave them few percent of your money FOR FREE.

Today I found again a nice offer, some guy around New York is selling his foundry. Making the offer for few minutes (my struggle is to fill a relevant comment in the only 250 characters provided, to tell to the seller in which case my offer is valid and to ask him to check if he really can sell to Thailand and get all the papers he need from his forwarder, and as you know, English is not my strong point), then the same story. Offer deleted, "someone hacked your account", they asked me to update my mobile number (AGAIN!). As the only one I have is the one on the site, I can't really do that, and the only alternative is to call the international number provided. Of course, they are very polite, providing me a "secret key" which I have to dial after the number, so they knew who is calling and "service me faster". Which, I suppose, means that instead of waiting 37 minutes on the phone, listening to music or some auto voice machine, I will only have to wait for 31 minutes. I won't do that.

In this right moment I am totally decided not to log in again to that site for the next 61 years, and denigrate them to everybody who will bring up the subject at the meetings and parties I will attend in that time. Usually this feelings of mine heal themselves overnight, but that is what I feel now...

VictordeHolland · 2015-05-23, 11:37

These stories are exactly the reason I dont buy hardware from Ebay. Only directly from people I know and thrust and from the marketplace on the Dutch Tweakers.nl site. I've bought several (used) GPUs and CPU/Motherboards this way and never had any problems. The prices on Tweakers are a bit higher than EBay, but it saves me a lot of trouble that I don't have to deal with import and transaction fees.

2015-05-23, 07:16	#1
LaurV Romulan Interpreter Jun 2011 Thailand 7·1,373 Posts	Fear and Loathing on Ebay This corner of the world is very upset with ebay today. Now, don't tell me that the world is round, here on my street the world has a corner which is very angry about ebay. Dark angry. From the beginning they always switched us to at least 4 sites (S'pore, Australia, US, Thai) which sites have similar (but NOT identical) layouts and products to sell, and they deal in four different currencies, of course, but the freaking part is that they forced me some time ago to change the password (you know, "it seems like someone hacked into your account") and it seems that they never synchronized the passwords between the sites completely. I am not an ebuyer, I log in few times per month and my searching key is invariable a relative to "+titan -x -z -black +hydro", etc. Sometimes there is a "-brand" when some "brand" sells a lot of "titan" things which have nothing to do with the gpu cards (like titanium made wheelbarrows"). Sometimes I bet, sometimes I buy. Once per year I sell something. For some time they blocked my account and I can not make offers. Every time they tell me this AFTER I make the offer (as opposite to "before", and avoid wasting my time!), "your account is blocked, someone tried to hack it, blah blah" and I either need to input some personal details or call an international (yes!) phone number. I never called. Of course, the offer is lost, and IF you succeed to unlock your account without making an international call, then you need to take all the steps in making the offer again. Since a while, they tell me that my mobile number is wrong and they can't call me. Well, guess what, my mobile number is right, I have the same one at paypal (also their enterprise!) and I never had any problems with paypal. BTW re paypal, they (ebay) are also mail-bombing me for some time with messages about the fact that ebay and paypal will split soon, but "we will try to keep you happy after that too", and steps I have to do for that. In the past I lost money because they required I don't know which paper to prove that the seller sent me the goods (especially from US) and the seller could not get that paper from the forwarder. Or at least, that is what I was told. I bought the product, paid the money, then after few days the seller told me the story and returned me the money. There I lost a lot from the exchange rate, and from paypal taxes. Later I asked some friends and they told me that it is a big business, and ebay/paypal DO HAVE employed people to do exactly this: make money with paypal exchange rate. Whatever you look for, they have it. Then you buy something, pay for it, then they say they can not send it, for whatever reason, especially when they are in the "normal" world, and you are in some obscure corner of Asia, they promptly return you the money, "honest guys", so you can not complain anything. But paypal/ebay keep the taxes and of course they use the bid/ask exchange rate when converting from i.e. baht to bucks and back, so at the end you just gave them few percent of your money FOR FREE. Today I found again a nice offer, some guy around New York is selling his foundry. Making the offer for few minutes (my struggle is to fill a relevant comment in the only 250 characters provided, to tell to the seller in which case my offer is valid and to ask him to check if he really can sell to Thailand and get all the papers he need from his forwarder, and as you know, English is not my strong point), then the same story. Offer deleted, "someone hacked your account", they asked me to update my mobile number (AGAIN!). As the only one I have is the one on the site, I can't really do that, and the only alternative is to call the international number provided. Of course, they are very polite, providing me a "secret key" which I have to dial after the number, so they knew who is calling and "service me faster". Which, I suppose, means that instead of waiting 37 minutes on the phone, listening to music or some auto voice machine, I will only have to wait for 31 minutes. I won't do that. In this right moment I am totally decided not to log in again to that site for the next 61 years, and denigrate them to everybody who will bring up the subject at the meetings and parties I will attend in that time. Usually this feelings of mine heal themselves overnight, but that is what I feel now... Last fiddled with by LaurV on 2015-05-23 at 07:21

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2015-05-23, 11:37	#2
VictordeHolland "Victor de Hollander" Aug 2011 the Netherlands 1176₁₀ Posts	These stories are exactly the reason I dont buy hardware from Ebay. Only directly from people I know and thrust and from the marketplace on the Dutch Tweakers.nl site. I've bought several (used) GPUs and CPU/Motherboards this way and never had any problems. The prices on Tweakers are a bit higher than EBay, but it saves me a lot of trouble that I don't have to deal with import and transaction fees.