TradeMe NZ

High fees and hard to deal with, not recommended. Wouldn't use trade me if there was another option available

By far the worst online shopping experience ever

My case:
I am the seller and I've put an item to auction.
During "adding item procedure" one of the options to choose from is the method of payment. There are several options available which include cash, bank transfer but also something called Ping. Ping is advertised as instant payment option. Obviously such service comes at a cost and they charge you for it.
After auction has finished, I have received an email message from trademe in which they advise me to get in touch with buyer to organize a payment?
Why I was charged extra then? Furthermore that didn't stop them to immediately charge my account with their full fee. That email also advised me that banktransfer option is mandatory. If it is mandatory why that checkbox wasn't checked in payment options? I'll tell you why, because then I would never chose Ping and gave them extra money. I tried removing Ping from my other still active auctions and I wasn't able to, because, imagine, Ping checkbox is greyed out.
Then I tried to get in touch with them. They are in million dollar business and they don't have a phone number to call. After going through tons of meaningless blogs I finally found chat which luckily wasn't chat bot. I had two conversations there, wasting my time by typing. Their first response was to copy/paste me same blog nonsense insulting my IQ several times during the process. I remained persistent and demanded answers which ended up by them hanging up on me twice!

Tbh I feel like a robbed off idiot.
Sad panda.

STAY AWAY!

I've sent half a dozen emails over the past week about a fraudulent auction I paid for through Ping and getting my money back. So far trademe staff have just entirely ignored this claim. I'm still out the money that I paid for a bunch of headphones that weren't what they claimed to be, it appears the Ping buyer protection is total bull$#*!.

It appears that sellers can effectively just lie and say a product is something that it is not to drum up the price (which is essentially fraud) and trademe has no problem with this happening on their site.

Not once in the reply emails they've sent me over the past 5 days has one person even addressed my refund claim. I'm utterly disgusted at the service they offer. When I posted bad feedback on the scammer they just posted bad feedback back on me, and I had to chase and chase trademe (including a $30 phonecall!) just to get that removed. And I'm still out the money that the seller scammed me out of. I shall be telling every person I possibly can that trademes buyer protection is a crock of $#*! and they just ignore you when you try to invoke it.

Expenses everywhere.
Options to select items are too basic and limited.
After a couple of emails between myself and the admin, it is clear that people operating the site don't care about the consumers and are just out to make a dollar.

It's nice to see a few other sites slowly gaining momentum in nz

After being a trader on there for over 10 years and trading with around 1000 people I have now seen the lowest of low of Trade Me who are now increasing fees that force many traders to pay them a slice of the shipping fees as well as the regular auction success fees. They have no right to do this and are forcing traders to provide free shipping or to increase their overall sale price to become free shipping, either way they make more money for doing nothing. We already foot the bill as sellers for people who chose "Paynow" when that cost should be on the credit card holder. Add to that they warn you that your address verification is about to run out in 2 weeks so to watch out for the letter they are going to send with a new activation code. No letter received and after emailing them twice, no answer to my queries after a week for a trader who has been on there for 10 years, and when they finally do they blame it on the letter getting lost in the post... disgusting and my address verification has now been revoked until I can get a code sent to me by applying all over again. I am now looking at selling on other sites, even Ebay will be better than Tardme... Trade Me you suck big time!. Tardme are a truely greedy money grabbing pack of baffoons who also favour feral traders that lie to claim back fees from trades they either have changed their mind about or because they are just slack. How about doing something for the people who actually make you money Tardme, we have certainly made you bit of it?!... many top sellers on there are now discussing taking their businesses elsewhere... that will be interesting.

I am going to point out some things here about Trade Me as follows:
1. They charge 8% success fees and they are very slow in getting back to you about any issues such as non-paying buyer and getting reimbursed or credited for fees. Takes forever and a day to even hear back from them about when you might get your fees back.
2. Navigating the site is old-fashioned and non-upgraded. It is like the guy who made millions made the site as fast as he could to sell it off and it has not changed much ever since.
3. The tools and menu selections are hard to use and not informative or user-friendly. Anyone using Trade Me will have to accept that the standards are low in NZ and so is Trade Me's standards. When you go through listing title options they are leaving out so many that it is hard to know if you even got the right title listing...
4. Another issue is that Trade Me allows traders with negative feedback to continually exists. You have no control who bids on your auctions and if you state those with no-negative feedback are only allowed to bid on your listings and place a clause in your seller's policies- good luck having Trade Me Enforce it- they do not. When it comes to taking your money, they are there but when it comes to getting back you money then they are not there and can take forever and a day to get back to you- the longer they hold your money, the more interest they make off of it.
5. the last issue I wish to mention is that their website on the computer and on the cell phone or not consistent. I cannot change a title of a listing by cell phone as the spaces allowed are not the same on cell phone as computer. This is just one of their many non-upgraded glitches. They also charge you to phone them per minute no matter if it is their mistake or not. Talk about poor customer service policies. They barricade you from contacting them easily and make you pay so you might do it by email.
Personally, I do not like Trade Me and find them non-modern and old-fashioned with low standards or poor customer service overall. I cannot wait till eBay comes into NZ as I would happily switch and their fees are lesser than Trade Me.
New Zealand only has consumer protection acts or acts for consumer or trading rights on paper and absolutely nothing to back up these claims. Basically, you have no rights in NZ. You can only sort out things by negotiation and good luck negotiating with Trade Me when not giving you back fees or removing traders with a hoard of negative feedback who continually remain on their site trading. These business practices are common in NZ and these came from England. Good luck!

Very bad experience, bad customer service experience. Trademe put restrictions radomly on one of my listings, I have provided photo and serial number for verification, received email saying the Quarantine Lifted, however I still can't make change to my listings or answer questions. Wrote so many emails, no one replied me. Went to online chat, asked me to wait for a response. Been 4 days already. I asked them to remove my listings and close my account, so I can advertise somewhere else. They still asked me to wait for the response. Very unhelpful and Useless.
Fianlly received email from trademe, advised they need to see the orginal receipt of the item. I advised got no receipt for this one as this is a second hand old mobile phone. They came back said they think my phone may be on contact and may be blacklist in the future. I provided a video to show that my phone is not under contact and it is unlocked to all network. They can check my serial number with any network provider. However, Trademe still belive this is not sufficent. I asked them what evidence Trademe has to prove my phone is under a contract and will be blocked to all network, which part of the legislation says I need to provide receipt to be able to sell an item on trademe and an explaination on how can a phone is currently unlocked to all network still under a contract. Non of above been answered. They said becuase the phone looks new, therefore, they are randomly picking people and accuse people do not have right to sell their own stuff.

Instead of resolving my issue, they closed my account. This is the way they resolved issues.
I am very surprised with the way trademe treating its customers like a rubbish.
Not sure how long this company can survive.