Tom v.

I've been an Ebay member for twenty years and have always been satisfied. Then the following two situations happened simultaneously, which have permanently turned me off from ever listing anything for sale again.

I listed two valuable antique saxophones at the same time in July, 2019 and both received winning bids. On Saxophone 1, the buyer never paid. Nothing happened. No apparent effort was made by Ebay to induce the winning bidder to pay. Two months later, an e mail from Ebay that the case I had filed was closed. No resolution, no explanation, no elucidation as to what if anything Ebay had done to right the situation. Then, out of the blue, an e mail informing me that I was being charged a $190 commission on the sale of the instrument!

Saxophone 2. The buyer paid and I shipped the 80 year old sax which was delivered several days later. The buyer then wrote objecting to the condition of the instrument. I had posted clear photos with the listing showing the instrument from all sides, and some of the buyer's objections were downright ludicrous, i. E. a statement that the saxophone was "rusting". (Saxophones are made of brass, a non-ferrous metal and therefore do not rust.) The buyer filed a case to return the sax at my expense and the Ebay examiner sided with the buyer and ordered me to provide a prepaid USPS or UPS shipping label, warning me that if I failed to do so within five days, the purchase price of the instrument would be refunded to the buyer and the buyer would get to keep the instrument! A nice threat, huh? If I complied and provided the shipping label, I would be charged the refund of the purchase price after delivery of the instrument to me. I purchased a shipping label the same day and e mailed its image to the buyer via PDF. Ok, I didn't like the way Ebay handled the case, but my reaction stopped short of outright hatred of this company. Then today, shortly after the return of the sax in acceptable condition, came the final straw, an e mail from Ebay informing me that I owed $2540 for the refund of the instrument, $254 more than the sales price which I was expecting to refund to the buyer. Once again, I was being charged a commission for a sale that ultimately wasn't consummated.

Ebay has shown itself to me to be abusive of its sellers. Never ever will I list anything on it again. As a forum for buyers it's fine and one can't argue with the enormous selection of items. But that may change when sufficient numbers of other sellers have had enough of being chiseled and take their business elsewhere.