Is anyone else frustrated with the eBay buying experience?
I've used eBay for many years. It seems to me their support is just getting worse and worse, and their buying experience is beyond confusing.
Most recently, I've been getting an invoice for items that I never committed to buy, I merely asked the seller if combined shipping was a possibility on these items. eBay support first told me that I made a bid on the items. I responded that is incorrect because the items weren't even up for auction, it was a fixed price. They responded with "oh sorry, I see you did not bid, but you did send an offer and if the seller accepts, you must pay the amount". But I never sent any monetary offer, I didn't even request a shipping price.
This is the most recent of a few experiences that just seem beyond confusing to me. Is anyone else having these kind of experiences?
I both buy and sell on eBay (it is one of my primary income sources now).
Somewhat frustrated. EBay has been going down the enshittification road, but it isn't... too far down it I think, at least not yet. I buy on the platform a lot, and have OK-ish sales.
Some issues are malice, some are neglect, and some are eBay being cheap to try to squeeze more profit.
Malice: search crappiness and manipulation.
M.1: Search results are manipulated and sometimes excluded to engage in visibility-manipulation, allowing you to see 'promoted listings' while at times completely preventing you from finding those that haven't paid extra for 'promotion / advertising campaigns'. I've seen one buyer catch this real-time with screen recording, searching for an item which appeared for a fraction of a second, then disappeared. He was able to get to that listing in other ways and confirm it was what he was trying to search for, but was not being allowed to find.
M.2: Search functions that used to be there have been removed (like being able to see all items in broad categories). This could be a server load-reduction effort (cost reducing) or to serve search manipulation, or both. Uncertain.
Neglect: slipshod policies that are not well managed.
N.1: There are certain things you can't do / say / list on eBay. You can't lead people off the platform (I get why, then you could sell to them and not have eBay take their cut), but most of this is managed by AI and the result is VERY crappy and inconsistent fuckery (I apologize for the language, it genuinely seems like the right term here). Random messages will be blocked, but YOU WILL NEVER KNOW the other person didn't get the message! THEY WON'T TELL YOU. This BADLY screws over sellers and customers alike at random times. As for listing: there are things like medical device restrictions, ITAR restrictions and such, that result in eBay removing listings wholesale sometimes but not other times without actually checking if those listings genuinely violated policy. They go for actions that are minimum effort, maximum CYA.
N.2: Server-side issues. Sometimes technical issues come up that even eBay's higher-up technical staff just scratch their heads over. Listings getting flagged, videos getting rejected for no reason at all, etc. I've spoken with support about such things personally and the impression I got is that there is such a tangled nest of older and newer flag-this / block-that / deny-that-other-thing automated algorithms (which interact with each other) that sometimes weird crap happens that they just can't figure out.
Cost cutting / profit squeezing:
C.1: REACHING SUPPORT. This is rather mixed. For me, as a seller that has sold over X dollars / Y listings, I have an easier time of it. But if you're just A.Rando Customer with an oddball technical problem? Good luck there, 50-50 shot you're stuck with an AI that won't pass you on to a human unless you have certain conditions active on your account or know the arcane demon-speak to convince the AI this week on how to get a human to call you. OH! But sometimes for B.Rando Customer it's super easy to reach a human, which just sows more confusion.
C.2: EBay constantly looking for ways to squeeze more money from you. There's stuff like 'promoted listings' and 'advertising campaigns' which are manipulation heavy. If you use them, you WILL see a strong uptick in sales.... FOR A WHILE. BUT! After a while, things taper down slowly, so as to not let you realize what is happening, and then drift back to near what they were before. It's like a substance-user getting tolerance and chasing a high - you keep needing more - and eBay is the only dealer. You want to cut off the extra (now useless) money you're spending on ads and placement? Goodbye sales, you're tanked. All manipulation fuckery. I've discussed this issue with various eBay seller groups. Opinions are mixed (because it DOES work at first).
I don't use eBay much anymore, but I remember when it was so pro-buyer that selling on eBay was a little scary. You could be crystal clear about the condition of something in your listing, including pictures, and some idiot would claim "it's not working" or "it's all scratched up" and eBay would take their side.
I've heard it's nearly the opposite now. And that also sucks, but just on the other side of the equation.
Same for me. I had (have) some pretty rare and allegedly somewhat valuable video games and I just haven't been able to bring myself to list things on eBay when the 'buyer protection' was causing buyers to outright scam sellers left and right.
So they are, and will likely remain, in a box until they rot.
I'm still upset about how once (recently) a seller offered me a lower offer so I went to check out and then the DISCOUNT DIDNT APPLY because I didn't click 'accept offer'. I contacted support and they were like "haha we can't do anything" so I had to request that the seller give me a refund and there was no way to enforce that they would do so (they did, but like a week later).
The fact that this is possible seems like it should be an illegally deceptive practice. Once there's an offer available, it should automatically apply when you check out or AT MINIMUM there should be a gigantic banner at checkout saying "you have an offer available - click here to accept it"
I noticed this recently too and felt so disturbed that I didn't continue with the purchase (I never clicked the final checkout button). I don't think the page was always like this. Definitely seems like bad UI.
The last time I was even on eBay was about 2 years ago. I bought something but didn't like experience so I didn't go back.
Then two days ago I was told that my account was permanently suspended. I just made a post about this. My contact with support was completely unsatisfying. The only thing I can say is that they responded to emails within an hour. But I got four responses that were almost identical copy/paste corporate nonsense.
I'm kind of weird about things like this and it's hard for me to let it go. They are banning me because someone probably hacked my account. But they don't have any interest in taking responsibility for having bad security and authorization, and how they allowed all passwords to be stolen a while ago which led to a bunch of hacking, so they blame me and move on. Frankly I feel a little violated even though I hardly used eBay in my life and won't miss it.
Yea that bothers me too that they hold personal details about me but refuse to add proper 2FA support.
A couple weeks ago I bought a hard drive lot that was listed as "3x" from the seller "shipcycle" but it took them like two weeks to only ship one (in a box only large enough to ship one). Their listing was still up with multiple quantity available. I gave them a few days to respond. But they didn't. So I returned it and added them to a bad sellers list in my Disk Prices on eBay site to be auto-filtered out.
Other than that I've had pretty good experiences with eBay. I've only had one hard drive (8TB) that arrived bad and the seller sent the money back ($60) without me even needing to return it.
But other than stuff like hdds, vintage camera lenses or specific clothes (I went through a phase where I would only wear wool like Pendleton shirts, etc) I don't use eBay that much. There often isn't that much of a premium on buying used things aka it's expensive to be poor.
I'd like to see more people use those "Buy Nothing" groups where people give away what they don't want and take what they need.
Buy-nothing groups are great. We use ours heavily (both giving and receiving). My only regret is how tied they are to Facebook. There's ostensibly a standalone forum version, but as far as I know, basically everyone uses the FB version.
Mildly curious about your entrance and exit from the "only wool" phase.
Just had to have some new trousers made, and it's so difficult to find natural fabric at tailors around town.
It's hard to even find blue jeans made with just cotton these days. They're all mixed with elastic fibers now.
I got into performance fabrics through the onebag and Ultralight subreddits around 2017. Before that I would often wear woot.com graphic tees which are still pretty funny but don't quite hit the way they did with my adolescent brain.
The qualities of cotton can vary wildly. I was looking for more consistency. The odour resistance of wool is a nice bonus.
I've since realized that durability can still vary quite a bit between manufacturers and between batches regardless of the specific material. The quality of the raw material matters a lot.
Nowadays, I'm less skeptical of cotton. I focus more on comfort than durability. Wool feels a bit scratchy at times but I still prefer it for socks and underwear.
Wool underwear? This is a real thing? I adore my merino socks but I just can't fathom it for underwear. Where do you even buy them? Certainly not from eBay I hope!
nah mostly from Amazon or direct from manufacturer
look at SmartWool, Point6, Woolly Clothing Co., Minus33, Meriwool, and WoolX
I love eBay and use it all the time as a buyer and a seller. I'm not a huge fan of the huge percentage they take from a sale, but otherwise it's been great for me to make some money off stuff I don't want anymore.
The last thing I bought off of it was an RC car, the last thing I sold was a bunch of models for Star Wars: Legion. Otherwise, I've sold old electronics, old eGPU, books, etc bought a new video card, eGPU enclosure, laptops and electronics. I'm currently mulling over selling one of my handhelds and buying a different one.
Only bad experience I've had as a buyer was a laptop that was locked down to a corporate account, which I could do nothing about. I sent it back and got a refund, then bought the same model. As a seller, I've had one person send back one item because they weren't happy with my description after I had sold it, it sucked, but it was a fair complaint.
I used to buy stuff there all the time, but it's definitely been less and less over the years. For all of my electronics purchases, i.e., the majority of my eBay transactions, I've just been using Swappa.
eBay is no different from any other major company. Once you reach a certain scale it just isn't possible to have good, individualized customer service. It's just a mechanical response that sometimes doesn't even have anything to do with what you asked. Most customer support reps don't even fully read the email you sent, they just skim it for key words and then response according to what the script says. It's not their fault, they are just expected to get through so many cases that they don't have a choice. That sounds like what happened to you.
Swappa is for used electronics or new as well?
I still look at eBay, particularly when looking for older computer components. I literally just purchased an old RAID card for my home server today. I haven't noticed a vast difference, but I will admit I don't use the site that often. Only when I need something.
The last time I had an issue, which was a couple a years ago, it was a seller who sent me the wrong thing. I was supposed to receive an HDD; they sent me some Cisco switch/router module thing. But the seller responded promptly, quickly refunded my money (I had the option of having them send me the correct thing but I passed), and didn't even make me send the wrong item back.
Other than, no real issues. I sold my old CPU a couple years ago on eBay and that went smoothly.
I do remember when I was selling a little bit more, back in college (needed money bad...for beer and weed, and occasionally bills), and it was a little scary selling because it seemed like eBay always sided with buyers. Like someone else said, any little buyer complaint could see that money disappear from your account, and there'd be no guarantee you'd get the item back either. But it never happened to me. At least that I can remember.
I barely use the site as is, I use the app more.
I think the worst offenders are sellers from distant countries who sell you defective merchandise under the guise of it being "tested". But if you stick to trusted sellers in your own country it seems to work fine.
I sell on multiple platforms, including eBay. My account is over 25 years old with great ratings as both buyer and seller, so I tend to be able to get ahold of customer service and have productive interactions there. I haven’t experienced what you’ve described, but I know of a lot of accounts getting hacked there.
As an aside, I don’t think I’d want to deal with eBay with a newer account; as a previous commenter said, it can be unnecessarily difficult to find what you need there, both as a seller and a buyer. When buying, I tend to check other sites before eBay, although they all have their issues with UI, search, and customer service.