Buyers Need Attention

[gibberishh]

Ebay is usually a good way to buy and sell items. As long as as you are dealing with honest, hard-working people, it's a wonderful place. Once you get into trouble, though, there is really no place for a buyer in this world.

Examples of this are numerous. I myself have several experiences, but I don't want to turn this into a grouse column. But there are a few lessons to be learnt, a few improvements Ebay can make starting today:

1. Change Suspension Mechanism: When Ebay suspends sellers, buyers are left with no way to contact them, no way to track the items they have purchased from them. This is possibly the worst experience for a buyer, especially if the payment amount is over a few hundred rupees.

2. Allow Posting of Disputes: Ebay needs to trust its buyers more. All of us are not nervous wrecks. We need to use the dispute console for a reason. But the number of validations that happen when you try to post a dispute almost never let you post one! I beg you to please remove these validations (item code, number of days passed, etc). While it is nice to enforce a certain discipline, this system simply does not work for disputes with sellers who managed to unregister themselves recently.

3. Verify Seller Information: This is a difficult one, but crucial. Almost half my purchases have been with sellers where their contact information is simply wrong. Thus, when one tries to contact them, you simply cannot get through. This gives them a significantly larger opportunity to 'run away' with our moneys.

While I continue to transact on Ebay with a good-faith attitute (hoping that at least 8 out of 10 people will be honest), I have lost about Rs 6000 in transactions that I have simply written-off, because Ebay does not help its buyers even with genuine complaints.

An advice to all buyers: Even if you follow the proper dispute resolution process, you can almost never hope to get your money back, so either approach the police and report a fraud, or forget that you ever paid anything. It's cheaper to do that than to try and get Ebay to do anything for you. By the way, if you EVER get any response from Ebay other than "Please resolve your dispute with your seller," please please please let me know. We'll all get together and declare that day a national holiday!

[snrama]

Amitava, amphib_in1

I agree with the both of you.

A buyer's duty is to make the payment once he commited the purchase.

and others left if from sellers side. ---------------
With Regards,
Navaneeth (snrama) 😉

[nvid@ebay.com]

Hello All,

Before I respond to various queries. Let me assure all of you eBay has a proven track record of Buyer Protection Payouts

Let me reiterate - eBay is a safe trading marketplace where thousands of Buyers and Sellers have a safe online shopping experience.

eBay community is built on TRUST, and in order to maintain the Trust onsite we have developed & implemented preventive & proactive mechanisms, tools & techniques to ensure that the site is a safe & secure trading environment for its 2 million strong community of Users

eBay recommends its Buyers to be prudent before any transaction and evaluate the item and the seller. As a buyer ensure you have gone through Buying Tipsbefore you make your purchase

In the event of a dispute on a transaction on eBay, eBay has a robust buyer protection mechanism we have a Security & Resolution Centre that helps buyers and sellers to prevent / resolve any disputes thus making it a safe and secure market place

Let me assure you if you have registered your complaint for any transaction on the Dispute Consol. eBay will review the dispute and make an ex-gratia payment to you under Buyer Protection, if eBay considers the User to have been the victim of fraud and meets the necessary requirements of Buyer Protection

Please file a complaint under Item Not Received or Significantly Not as Described Process



I suggest you go through this link on Protection for Buyers

I hope this reassures you on the Buyer Protection Program and various protection mechanisms available to buyers

Regards,
nvid

[amitava123gems]

Hi nvid,It is the seller who can give best buyer protection. This is in his/her own interest. Truly,,Amitava

[emailswarup]

Hi nvid,

Like many other members I think there are unnecessarily too many options to choose from when reporting an item not received or any other dispute. Ideally for the Item not received disputes the system should prompt for just the item no. and if the min. duration for filing a report is over then the member should be able to file a dispute straight away without being irritated by scores of options. At the most the member can be shown the eBay norms (like calling the seller / buyer etc. before filing dispute) on top of the screen while filing a dispute.

I must say that for all my disputes or problems in the recent times, I have got better support from eBay without much irritation of receiving multiple pre-typed texts. The secret may be that for most of my problems I try to use the option something like "My problem is not listed" - the help is faster and more custom typed , at least as per my experience. Often simple things work better ;-) .
Best Regards 😄
Swarup
Kolkata

[snrama]

Hi nvid,

I have got the best support when ever I contacted the customer care.

But the sugession is to make Item not received disputes more system friendly. ---------------
With Regards,
Navaneeth (snrama) 😉

[pankaj_vohra2003]

how abt sellers who receive a negative even if they dont get paid for it??

DAMN EBAY....LETSS BOYCOTT IT

[gibberishh]

First of all, thanks to everyone. Allow me to reiterate that most of my dealings with Baazee and eBay have been very satisfactory. I also have instances where sellers have taken back products with our without having to file a dispute and promptly replaced them with better ones. I have also had a couple of instances of satisfactory dispute resolutions.

I would like to respond to nvid here, though: I know eBay is largely a safe trading place and I myself buy from here purely based on trust. All of us seasoned buyers know that it is possible to file a complaint under 'Item Not Received or Significantly Not as Described Process'.

Have you ever tried filing a complaint against a suspended seller? Do try it some time and send me a measure of your level of frustration (is it just the TV in your house that you break, or your car, too?). Do you know, you cannot even view the item you have paid for if the seller is suspended!

To all the others, thanks again for your comments. The odd-6000 I would have lost until now has been over multiple transactions and not a single fraud and it's not worth worrying about any more. However, it is worth getting together and doing something about, so that others are not affected as badly.

[rishabh_iitk2001]

Dear gibberishh,
I would like to suggest you few points. If you follow them then you will hopefully not loose money in future.
1) Always contact the seller before bidding or buying an item.
2) Ask the seller whether or not the photo shown is of the item.
3) Always read the feedback received of the seller.
4) If a seller has sold and completed deals of high value items in last 20 - 60 days then 99.9% chances are he is good.
5) Alwasy try to pay via paisapay. I would like to warn you abt it that it is not real time as most of us think, for high value transactions you need to provide the credit card details to paisapay team. It is generally done in 4-5 working days (might take more also and sometime it takes only 2 working days). But paisapy is the safest way of payment because ebay has the paisapay details in its record.
6) Whenever you buy a high value item, try to contact the seller on his telephone number(get it from ebay). It is always advisable to clear the doubts about the shipping and other details.
7) If a deal is too good then you should realise that chances of fraud will increase as nobody will sell you anything on loss.
8) Try to use the ebay live chat for any problem. The customer care people will guide you to the correct process.
9) Always preserve the paisapay and item won emails. This will provide you all the details you require to file a dispute.

I consider the ebay mail system very efficient as the mails are directed to the person who has the complete knowledge in that area.
Even if you buy from local market there are instances when you will have bad expierences. One should protect himself from the fraud people on his own and do not depend on somebody else completely.
I hope the information helps.
Happy Buying and Bidding.
Cheers, 🙂

Rishabh

[gibberishh]

Hi Rishabh,

All your points are well taken. Thanks. I have been following these practices for a few years now, so largely I have been buying 'safely'.

However, the point of my posts is not how much money I have lost. Like I said, I don't care about that. I would categorically like to point out the flaws in the Ebay systems that need immediate fixing and I would not like to deviate from that point.

The fact of the matter is that Ebay doesn't really do much for its buyers and its systems are all geared towards protecting, helping and promoting sellers. In the past, I have sent numerable messages to Ebay reporting piracy, fraud, etc and absolutely no action (other than automated responses) has been taken till date. Each and every promise then made to buyers throughout the site seems like a big sham.

Several people have made useful suggestions in reply to this post and it would be wonderful if somebody at Ebay sat up, took notice and looked at him- or herself in the mirror.

[amitava123gems]

Hi Gibberishh,
I am not talking of you.Some buyers buy easy to buy item,use them and give deliberate negative.Why they dont try to understand understandable english.You dont like it,just return for refund.Dont post a comment like a school teacher that be careful next time or so.Such buyers are hyper and arrogant and do uncalled for harm to e-commerce.You use my item means you accept that.Then where is the scope for negative?You spend money does not mean that you treat me like your house maid.English people ruled over the world by manners,courtesy and chivalry.They lost the empire because of arrogance.All sellers are not thief.Almost all of them are decent and honest.Thats why you have a pleasant experience in bazee or eBay india.Buyers also have to develop better habits.Nonpaying buyers are worst of all.Many buyers buy but dont give positive feed back.No feed back at all.This I am telling not to you but to the majority of our buying community.Nobody sheds tears for good sellers when they are victimised.I am an old man.But most of the sellers are young.I request our host to nurture promising sellers for future.They must feel secure so that they can give their best.Thanx if you have read this.,,Truly,,Amitava