ebay fees

[Yer_Maw]

i sold something on ebay, starting bid 99p. it sold for 4.03 and 3 pound p&p for a total of £7.03.

however ebay is charging me £1.39 for that transaction. So thats 35% of the price and 20% of the total including p&p!

that cant be right can it???

[joe pinapples]

Will someone please stop the madness?

[bob]

I think it is right, I've never seen the point in selling stuff on ebay especially if its cheap

[e_wann]

when you lookup a dictionary ; e-bay: easy-money-bay (esp. for their selves)

[ckpqerjwrpwp]

I've been selling stuff through amazon quite a bit recently.. good for books and CD's as you don't have to write descriptions, take photos etc.. their rates seem slightly higher than ebay but it's a lot easier and the money goes straight into your bank account.. and they stay up for like 6 months.

I've found most things which I sell for £4 on ebay I'd only get £1 at most for in a secondhand shop or something.. so I don't really understand why people moan about ebay fees... other than jealousy of the bastard that started it :)

[Yer_Maw]

its a graphic novel and it is worth £4. Im just wondering since when did ebay start charging 35% fees, when they state that its 5.25% + a value based on the original selling price.

[joe pinapples]

its a graphic novel and it is worth £4.

http://www.silverbulletcomicbooks.com /rage/images/060401/thescarebears.jpg

[bob]

you also get charged a listing fee and if you get paid with paypal they also take a percentage fee. add on any extra's and your hitting bump central

[julian]

http://www.qicture.com/calculator.html

...youll need java.

Some quick stuff -

Listing fee @20p
Final value @about 10% (so about 40p)
Paypal fee @3.8-4.8% on the whole transfer (so another 20-30p)
Paypal fee @20p

Whats that, £1.20, and thats just my head doing the numbers.

I spoke with paypal on the phone last night, on behalf of a friend...

He sold a laptop on ebay, and the person who bought used a bad paypal account to send the cash (about £600 quid).

Paypal charged him the transfer fee into his account (about £30), then took the whole ammount back (ie hes down £30 now) and have now barred his account, so he cant even withdraw the ballance from a previous transaction (about £200)

To unbar the account he has to supply them with stuff like the tracking number for when he sent the buyer the laptop. Obviously he didnt sent it, cause the money was taken back, etc.etc. so no tracking number. And so forth and so on...

On the phone (yep, i know im ranting now) they say their resolutions department is the only people who can deal with this. That i have to call back another day. Then that they will call. This i dont trust at all, so i ask for the persons name im speaking to (some accountability).

Get this - they claim "for security reasons" that they can only give me their first name!

I now made the mistake of asking to speak to the supervisor without remembering to tell them not to put the phone on hold, and get dropped into the piped music void, from which i never escape....

£1.39?

Count yourself lucky....

[julian]

i just ran that q-picture thing..

it got less than id calculated, and less than youve been charged.

on your invoice somewhere (when you pay the ebay fee) theres a breakdown....

[JonnySpeed]

I always work out my expected selling price - work out the fees and add them to the P&P. buyer should pay all fees I reckon unless its a really cheap product then just split them.

[Yer_Maw]

EDIT: MYSTERY SOLVED

Nightmare about that stuff julian, did they do a chargeback on the paypal?

[bob]

just ask spewis about that kinda badness

[julian]

...buyer should pay all fees I reckon...

I have no issue paying ebay fees, its just paypal that riles me -

I meen i dont care how anyone pays, but i think its the buyers responsibility to get the cash to me. I offer paypal at *their* convinience, not mine! I meen if they want to send round a courier with the cash in an envleope, thats fine with me, but expecting me to pay the couriers fee...?

The ebay rule as to who pays the paypal fees is (obviously) about marketing...

You know google has launched a product - google checkout - where sellers dont pay any fees at all on transactions this year, and even after, its going to be more like 1.8% (so a good 2% cheaper than paypal). But, of course, ebay have deemed google checkout unsafe or somthing and banned it.

Incidently the uk has a law whereby the seller can legitimatly pass on the credit card fee to the buyer. Loads of people make use of this, from your local pub (50p per card purchase) to the DVLA when you buy your car tax (IIRC). But, guess what - paypal claims the transaction isnt a credit card transaction at all, so is exempt from this *law*. Apparently the buyer purchases 'electronic money' or some other such nonsense from paypal (with their credit card), and pays you with this, whereby you have to then convert it back into 'real' money.

Its a sham. Im seriously considering not using paypal any more after my conversation with them last night. I figure if anyone is worried about me running off with their cash, they can just google me, and if they still dont play ball, fuck 'em.

[julian]

EDIT: MYSTERY SOLVED

What was it then? Come on, we're all on the edge of out seats here...



Nightmare about that stuff julian, did they do a chargeback on the paypal?

I dont know the full details, but, as i understood it, the sending paypal account had been compromised or somthing.

Like, if someone breaks a paypal password, is that-

a) the fault of the person whose account it is for having such a poor password, or
b) paypal for having a crackable system, or
c) my friend for legitimatly accepting a transfer

I dont know, but id say least likely, c) my friend for legitimatly accepting a transfer.

So, who has to pay for this then?

c) my friend....

Have you ever tried emailing paypal either?

I swear they have some script that parses your mail and just generates a mail back in response to trigger terms. I meen noone, even people whose first language isnt english, could generate such gramatically correct, and yet completely irrelevent reponses!

Sheesh...

I had to call Orange (the telephone company) this morning, and i still havent calmed down from that either...

[Yer_Maw]

i havent emailed them but ive phoned them. I think a company that deals with credit cards and bank balances should be doing more to invest in customer service. Their turnover should be at levels where they should be starting to act like a proper business, not some internet startup.

anyway, the fees are all my fees for the last year. for some reason they have just invoiced me now after my last transaction. oops.

[thembuzz]

Get this - they claim "for security reasons" that they can only give me their first name!


what, you mean - even with their MASSIVE call-centre salaries - they're not willing to risk being hassled constantly at work, tracked down and possibly even stalked by nutters or customers with grudges? fucking CUNTS

[julian]

what, you mean - even with their MASSIVE call-centre salaries - they're not willing to risk being hassled constantly at work, tracked down and possibly even stalked by nutters or customers with grudges? fucking CUNTS


So, are you saying that you should just take all the shit call center people give to you just cause they dont earn much money?

I know, i know, some of them are just there, passing the time, earning shit money, and thats all fair enough, but when they treat you like some kind of fucking idiot, than whatever response they get they somewhat deserve, do they not?

Example -

Orange send me a letter this morning.

I call them up.

Theyre like "What can i do for you" and i suggest they look at my account notes.

They say "What can i do for you?"

I point out that i wrote to their correspondance dept, and theyre still sending me letters regardless.

They ask me what about.

I tell them its all in the letter. Do they have the letter? It was sent, recorded delivery, about 6 weeks ago.

They say yes, but it would be helpfull if i just went over what the issue was.

Im confused. It goes on. I summerise, i know what answer the call center script gives in situations like this - ive had this very conversation before

Thats why i put evreything in writing, blah, blah, blah.

This has wasted fucking whatever ammount of time allready.

Im like, has anyone even read the letter?

Theres some fault in the system, so they cant get it on screen instantly, but, what actually transpires is that, even though ive wasted fuck knows how much time on this issue before, even going to the bother of writing a letter to them, coppied, recorded delivery etc. this fucker (and i dont care how much their earning) is trying to dupe me into believeing they have the matter in hand, when, they have to admit in the end, that no-one there has even bothered to read the damn letter i sent them 6 weeks ago!


I have very little respect for anyone who earns their money by lying and wasting peoples time.

Does the fact that they have the excuse of not actually earning that much money make it a more, or a less worthy way to spend their time?

[thepigjockey]

I'm guessing here, but thembuzz probably meant that it's a bit risky to give your real name out, and a first name would be enough to make the worker accountable and traceable, can't see a problem with that...

[thembuzz]

So, are you saying that you should just take all the shit call center people give to you just cause they dont earn much money?

I know, i know, some of them are just there, passing the time, earning shit money, and thats all fair enough, but when they treat you like some kind of fucking idiot, than whatever response they get they somewhat deserve, do they not?...

...I have very little respect for anyone who earns their money by lying and wasting peoples time.

Does the fact that they have the excuse of not actually earning that much money make it a more, or a less worthy way to spend their time?

thepigjockey got the thrust of my post spot on there. i wasn't excusing the shitness, just pointing out that expecting a full name from a call centre drone is perhaps a bit unreasonable. the calls are recorded and (supposed to be) logged, so if you want to hold any individual accountable, you want to write down the date and time of your call; that's all the information they need to trace the member of staff you were talking to, whether that person physically logged the call or not

still, it's pointless railing against the people you're talking to. sure, some of them really are just being total cunts, trying to get you off the phone as quickly as possible rather than actually help you. but for the most part you can't blame the poor fuckers at the other end of the line so much as their training. you have to understand that the front line of any organisation's customer service is exactly that - a first line of defence, designed to weed out the stupid people and frustrate the people who might have genuine issues but will give up easily. they have no technical training, they know very little about the product; they're just there to follow the script like robots. even the ones with the knowledge have procedures to follow and company lines to toe

and to be totally fair, you don't know what the systems that they have to work with are like. as someone who's done time in customer services (and as one of the technical ones), i know only too well how different departments and different systems for different levels of the organisation are kept well and truly apart, and very deliberately so

so it isn't the staff per se, it's the companies who are trying to thwart your every effort to get something out of them. that costs them money, see

christ, that was a long one. soz

[ckpqerjwrpwp]

People in calls centres are just following the rules laid out for them, which they have to follow in order to keep their job surely...

It's the cunts who make up the rules and use them as a smokescreen of fucking futility that deserve your ire.

[thembuzz]

People in calls centres are just following the rules laid out for them, which they have to follow in order to keep their job surely...

It's the cunts who make up the rules and use them as a smokescreen of fucking futility that deserve your ire.

which is putting it far more succinctly than i did

[thepigjockey]

thepigjockey got the thrust of my post spot on there.

For a small fee, I could be your interpreter, or spokesman, how about it?

thepigjockey, the acceptable face of thembuzz TM.

[thembuzz]

cock-on! that would not be a fucking pile of shit

[Yer_Maw]

the people that open the letters probably arnt even in the same town as the people on the phone. Can you not try and call the admin department? By the way, if its orange can you not just go into an orange shop? my girlfriend works in o2 and the shop has to deal with all the problems, they cant just fob you off to the call centre.

[julian]

the people that open the letters probably arnt even in the same town as the people on the phone. Can you not try and call the admin department? By the way, if its orange can you not just go into an orange shop? my girlfriend works in o2 and the shop has to deal with all the problems, they cant just fob you off to the call centre.


Nahh, its all round in circles -

You speak to someone on the phone, and they tell you to write to the "correspondance dept". You do that, they wait 6 weeks, send you a letter, saying "we're very busy etc.etc. if the issue is still oustanding [waste more of your time and money] calling this number..." You call the number and...

If you go into a shop for anything much, they just call the same people anyway. Tried that.

Its not a big deal. But its just gotten to that point where im either going to win, or im going to loose, but im not just going to get bored and fuck off, like they want me to.

Anyway, ive done my ranting for today. Ive had enough now.