What has been your eBay experience? Good? Bad?

I am curious for a reason that is still in flux, so I can't really say anything specific. But I wonder what other people have experienced with eBay and / or PayPal.

Any input appreciated. Thanks! :hi:

For the most part, not bad... the fees are a little steep when you combine eBay and Paypal.

Last auction I did on eBay the winning bidder ended up not paying or communicating for some reason, but fortunately the second-place bidder bought the item for only $5 less.

Depending on the type of stuff you're selling, Amazon is pretty good. No fee to list, no need to do photos or item descriptions, and stuff can stay listed until it sells. You'll get a little shortchanged on the shipping allowance in most cases, but I find it to be a whole lot more convenient than eBay. But really only works for items that Amazon sells (books, movies, CDs, electronics, etc.). Again, they do take a pretty good bite 10-15%, but other than that OK.

Good luck.

it's been very rare that I've had a problem with things purchased on eBay. More often have been problems with bogus buyers. I'm not sure what sort of thrill there is to be had by bidding on something you don't intend to purchase. Some of them will try to circumvent the system, but I generally ignore them as likely scammers. I would avoid selling to anyone with a zero or negative feedback score.

the second day of a couple of 2-Day Disneyland passes recently and got good money for them on a "Buy It Now." I did not appreciate that PayPal held up my payment on one transaction for 3 weeks, though. That sucked. (They indicated they would release the funds if the buyer gave me positive feedback. However, since you can't force someone to get on the computer and compliment someone they don't know, I ended up having to wait out the entire 3 week period.)

I've also bought a couple of items recently and had no trouble. Both were as described and arrived promptly.

There are some good deals out there. You just have to be careful to deal with people who've received good feedback and people whose PayPal addresses and info have been verified.

I sold a lot of stuff and only had one bad buyer - my only negative. He won the auction, ignored my terms, waited too long to pay - a week past my deadline and not until after I had emailed him to tell him his payment would not be accepted. He paid me, then when I refunded his payment, heleft me a negative. eBay pissed me off since they would not do anything about removing the negative, so I quit doing anything on eBay for a long time.

I still have not sold again, but I have bought a couple of things since. The only "bad" purchases I had were pretty much that I did not read teh descriptions closely enough. My last transaction was not satisfactory but that was more a problem with the shipper and my letting things go too long than anything else. I do not blame the seller.

I've never had a problem with Paypal. Even the transaction above was not a problem - PayPal did not charge me for refunding the payment since I sent them copies of the email that had gone to the buyer telling him his payment would not be accepted. But that was before eBay bought PayPal. It may be different now.

However I found selling to be more trouble than it's worth, and generally prefer to unload my unwanted stuff locally via craigslist or specialty venues because it's less of a hassle.

but i haven't tried selling at all.

All experiences have been positive.

Selling on Ebay has been mostly smooth, but you really need to have some basic knowledge about selling before you start. Selling on Ebay takes more time than I originally thought it would.

No troubles with Paypal. If you sell on Ebay, you need to learn about Paypal requirements to protect yourself as a seller.

The majority of buyers and sellers are great, but there are some scammers out there. Ebay has really great message boards that have helped me a lot. Hope this helps!

I have used PayPal for online purchases other than ebay and for online donations. It has always worked well for me.

listed a vehicle once and didn't have any takers but that was a LONG time ago and haven't tried to sell anything else.

My favorite purchase story is the Egyptian saddle I bought. From Egypt. It was amazing - got here in less than a week and was just a fun purchase all the way around.

Of course now I have this thing taking up space in my living room, and I don't go randomly surfing around looking for stuff I don't need and can't really afford, but all my other purchases have been good. Shipping fees seem to be a rip-off and make the total prices not that great but since I live in the middle of nowhere, being able to have something delivered versus driving 60 miles one way to go look is a plus.

One buyer tried to scam me and one seller misrepresented what he sold.

....right here on DU? You might browse those topics.

Personally, I was a very active ebay dealer for about five years with extremely good results. I sold about 75 percent of what I listed (at some extremely good prices). My buyers were all around the world, even remote places in Tasmania, Eastern Europe, everywhere. At that time I only took checks and money orders and in thousands of transactions never had a bad check. Amazing. It was thrilling to wake up in the morning and go to see what I had earned during the night!

E-Bay is very different now. The suits ruined it. A person can still make money, but not as much and not as easily. Too many rules.

I still sell occasionally.

I've just had a very bad experience with a buyer -- and eBay's automatic-siding-with-the-buyer policy has really soured me on the whole system. I sold via eBay many years ago, and it wasn't nearly as difficult or frustrating then as it is now.

I'm done with them. Don't know why people still bother - as you've said, the suits have ruined it. The fun is gone.

much stuff to ponder over...

the shipping and other fees got too high for me to make enough $ selling on ebay but i sure enjoyed it when i did

i still buy occasionally, it isn't really small independent people any more, it's power sellers (businesses) so the sense of community is not there but if the price is right or it's a unique item i will still buy there

these days i use paypal much more often than ebay and absolutely love it, great service, the fees are a bit high (i use it enough that i do pay fees when someone pays me), but i like the debit card/cashback and also i have found it very helpful to use as my ATM card when traveling in many foreign countries

all in all i have a good feeling abt both companies and their problem resolution process but day to day i'm much more likely to be paying/getting paid thru paypal on my own site or the seller's site, and ebay is no longer a daily visit for me, more like a few times a year visit

I've had nothing but good experience. I've had sellers refund me purchase price and tell me don't bother to return items when they were not as described. I've had sellers take things back, no questions asked and refund full amounts.

I've been very pleased with a lot of things that I've bought. You just have to pay attention
to feedback on sellers and whatever the seller return policy might be.

Watch out! It can be addictive.

130 as a buyer, 20 seller. No probs whatsoever. All were paypal transactions. Now craigslist on the other hand is the world of bizarre wierd people, scary kind of stuff there. Be very careful.

However, it's been so long because of the terrible experience. I don't really feel like going through the whole story, but lets just say I ended up losing a significant amount of money because a seller fucked me over, and eBay did nothing at all to help.

I bought a car on there last year. :hi:

I break even, if that, with every item i have ever put on ebay.

Most people are on the up and up. I'm very cautious, however, and I just don't buy from anyone who isn't established and has a very, very high feedback rating. 98%, if they've sold hundreds of items and 100% if they've sold 10 or more. I generally don't buy from anyone who doesn't meet these criteria.

Selling on eBay is really, really time-consuming and I don't recommend it unless you just enjoy that kind of thing. Really had no problems with buyers of the 15-20 items I've sold. But it was such a pain in the butt getting items posted for auction with pictures and descriptions, and getting the packages to the post office. I quit and won't do it again.