Hi,
I am a frequent buyer from ebay. Recently I have been facing issues with fake sellers on ebay. Out of my years of experience with ebay I am a little disappointed now. On 9th Jan 2016 I bought a home gym from a seller for Rs 7100. The Item was rusty old and looked like it was welded together by and amature. It was not like anything mentioned in the listing. The image of the object uploaded on ebay was from another site and the seller tried to make a replica of it, which he has done a very poor job. The item was used and junk quality. It was 75% unusable. I tried contacting the seller but there was no response. He mentioned in his listing that he would respond withing 24 hours. But I waited for 48 hours in vain. As the item was covered under ebay guarantee, I raised a claim. The ebay representative was trying to help me with the issue but mentioned that she had to contact the seller first. I accepted the terms and conditions and waited for the issue to get resolved. After two weeks or so the representative called me back and let me know that she was not able to contact the seller and was willing to issue a compensation of Rs 3000. I told her that I was willing to send the item back for a full refund. But I will have to bare the courier charges. I even talked to the supervisor. I asked him to remove sellers like this from ebay or at least let the buyers know about these cheating sellers. To my surprise his reply was there is a feedback section where I can check for negative feedbacks before buying. I was not at all satisfied and had to go with his offer of Rs 3000.
Now I don't want to blame anybody specifically, because it is really pointless at this moment. But I would like to make a few suggestions to ebay that could make buying and selling on ebay a lot more safe and secure. Please take a look at my suggestions.
1. The customer care supervisor mentioned checking the feedback score before buying. I would suggest increasing the text size of the comment so that the buyer or seller can specify in detail the pros and cons of a specific transaction. It is quiet difficult to describe a service in one sentence where you have to mention both the product and the seller. If the previous buyer's comments were a bit more elaborate then the next buyer can actually rely on the review. INCREASE THE TEXT SIZE TO AT LEAST 500 CHARACTERS.
2. Allow two different spaces for seller/buyer feedback and item feedback. This will be usefull eg. the seller is very reliable but that specific product is what brought his ratings down. Sellers can also see this and take that specific product down to maintain their rating. Or vice versa.
3. If the sellers cannot be contacted or does not reply to the buyer or ebay, red flag them. If this continues for long then ebay can automatically remove those sellers. Sorting out the bad ones will ensure that the sale of fake items on ebay can be reduced.
4. Ebay guarantee must not be given for items or sellers who have been getting negative feedback. In my case ebay could not guarantee the product or the seller. The loss here is for me as a buyer and ebay. The seller is totally safe even after selling junk. If this continues anybody can sell stuff from the junkyard for the price of a new one and the cost will have to be borne by the buyer and ebay. Revision of ebay guarantee policy required.
I welcome comments in this matter. Please feel free to correct me if I'm wrong in any manner. I have no intentions to hurt anyone. Just want to make shopping on ebay safe and fun.
Thank you.
Regards
Sujit
