After being a member on eBay for several years now as both a buyer initiallly and also a seller for the past 4 years I cannot help but notice some worrying changes I have seen and heard of within eBay which in my view ( and it is only my view ) is making it a very unstable place for sellers to do business in.

There are lots of powersellers who are making a lot of money from eBay but there are also a lot of powersellers and sellers alike who are not..

The powersellers who are making money have got their systems working and that is great once it is in place and the volume that they now sell makes it all worthwhile,but I wonder if they would have the same successes now using these systems?.

The main problem that seems to go through the eBay machine at the moment is the lack of personal service available to you as a seller until you become a powerseller of course. For the average person who sells they do not have anywhere near the sales to qualify for powerseller status and therefore are trapped in the grey area of eBay.

You will find that you are at the mercy of the buyer and whatever mood they are in at the time and there is nothing you can do about it in the eyes of eBay the buyer is God and the seller is there to provide the goods and service and that is the end of it.

Unfortunately when you are dealing with people there will always be some bad apples in the box and eBay is no different. Equally there are bad sellers as well and usually they are rooted out pretty quickly by the system and either leave eBay or are suspended but generally thankfully most buyers and sellers are honest hardworking people who just want to either make a bit of money extra or are looking for a bargain.

This however doesn't help the small seller who is trying their hardest to please but often circumstances beyond their control often make it very difficult to get it 100% perfect,Postage costs, Packaging costs, Poor delivery service are a few of the pitfalls for small sellers and it is an area that is completely out of the control of the seller and they are reliant on third parties who really don't care one iota whether your item gets to the customer in one piece or not as they are just low paid employees of a big company.( sound familiar?)

This is where eBay does its bit and states to communicate with the customer and sort the problem out. sounds easy doesn't it but imagine if you were the buyer and this item you just bought and paid a fair price for just turned up on your doorstep broken or unuseable, your first instinct is to ask for your money back as you don't know the seller and you have just paid out for an item worth nothing to you.You are of course a bit annoyed or angry and this is a natural reaction to have.

Most times an amicable solution is reached and the customer is happy with the outcome and leaves you good feedback.

However it is the few times that the customer is still not happy whatever you do to try to resolve the problem which is where eBay offer NO help at all for the seller to put their ligitimate case forward and get an arbitrary result which is amicable to both parties. The buyer has you by the short and curlies and there is nothing you can do except wait for the inevitable negative feedback to arrive. That's fair isn't it? well not really is it?

Surely the seller has the right to put forward their case to defend their actions and keep their feedback good but it is extremely hard to find anywhere that the seller can appeal or put their case forward except to the buyer who is not listening and has already left negative feedback anyway. There is a section where you can ask the buyer to change their feedback but if they ignore it or refuse to, the feedback stays and all eBay says is to respect their decision. What about the sellers reputation that has possibly been slated by the buyer with no recourse at all for the seller to state their case on the feedback page

And I don't mean a tit for tat feedback but genuine honest response to the buyers comments so people can all see for themselves and make up their own minds if they beleive it or not instead of the onesided feedback system used now.

This doesn't work very well and I realise there are millions of people selling on eBay and the vast majority of these sellers only sell few items to make a bit of extra money but it still is the sellers who regularly sell on eBay who suffer at the hands of a few buyers who perhaps have had a bad day at work or are tired or whatever reason they have and have got a bee in their bonnet and it is these people who can absolutely ruin a business at the touch of a botton by looking at your feedback and if you have neutral or negative feedback already they can simply and bluntly blackmail you into giving them what they want or you suffer.

I have had it done to me, not recently though but still it has happened to me and you are powerless to do anything about it and a friend of mine recently has had severe restrictions put on their eBay account due to people giving negative feedback for her and not even communicating that there was a problem with one item over a month after it was purchased and guess what? Yes you guessed it eBay just did it anyway and the generic email went out to her and that was it. No personal contact at all.

Surely eBay should practice what they preach and ring you up and listen to your side of the story and arbitrate but no they simply go with the complaint from the buyer and that's the end of it as there are plenty more sellers out there to take over aren't there......

This is an attitude slipping into eBay over the past few years now as it has got bigger and bigger and it is an area that needs some sort of regulation as it is a growing area and let's face it without sellers eBay have no business at all so one would think that they would look after the little guys who will hopefully turn into Powersellers and make lots of money for eBay.

Well you would be wrong to make this assumption.

I also know that a lot of people out there are going to say well what about the buyers rights if the item is not what they ordered and paid for and that is absolutely correct and that is where PayPal can offer the refund if a complaint is made IF the seller does not offer a refund on the item and that is correct to be able to have this backup but at the end of the day on any auction category there are hundreds of items for sale from many many different sellers and it is so easy to just ignore ones you have had bad experiences with and then they will either sink or swim depending upon their all round feedback score.

It is up to other buyers to make a decision based on the feedback and if it is biased to the buyer then I'm afraid the way I see it is that the sellers have little to no chance to make it into the Powerseller status (maybe that's why eBay changed the requirements for Powerseller status as less and less were making it to that point so eBay made it look good for themselves by lowering the standards for eligibility giving a false impression of good sellers).

Well no doubt this article is going to provoke some arguments but this is my opinion and I stick by it as that is what I've seen both as a buyer and a seller and what I have seen done to so many good eBayer sellers, some were good friends of mine over the years and they are sadly no longer trading on eBay due to the actions of a few misguided buyers and the beligerance of ebay NOT to take any notice whatsoever of the sellers right to defend their products.

This is like being part of a large company and selling products to customers and companies do have large volumes of returns even large high street catalogue companies but do they sack all of the managers because they have returns, NO they listen to their front line managers and build from that to move on. eBay is no different,they MUST start listening to their front line managers (The sellers) in order to get their system correct and fair and until they do it is a very unsecure and unstable business for all sellers.

Mistakes do happen, items do have faults, they do get broken in transit but that is life and eBay ought to wake up to it and realise that the sellers are their bread and butter and they DO do their best to rectify problems. It is in their own interest to do so they are in business of course!!!! and eBay need to start to put their own house in order before telling others how they run theirs.

eBay rely on the fact that there are so many people looking to buy and sell every day and more join every day that they do not need to be accountable to anyone but themselves for anything and it is THEY that say how they act and basically if you don't like it leave, there are plenty of others joining to make the numbers up.

I would be interested in hearing from others out there who have been unfairly treated by eBay and if I get enough I will look at putting up a website to try to get more and more support for eBay to stop thinking that they can just do as they please with peoples lives due to a minority of missinformed complainants and that they DO indeed have to be regulated by an external body to ensure that they act in a proper manner.

Just to put the record straight I am still active on eBay both buying and selling but I am also very proactive in selling off eBay as I beleive that is where vast fortunes are made with the help of other large businesses who are listening to sellers and improving their businesses not trying to stifle them with policies and policies and policies that are really worthless to the seller.

At the end ofthe day you won't get wealthy buying of eBay but you could get wealthy selling on eBay but not many do!!!!! WHY?

Many thanks and I am looking forward to hearing your stories.