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story
Ebay’s watchdog Rosalinda Baldwin, who runs The Auction Guild newsletter, said she was particularly disturbed that the end-of-refund change didn’t end up on eBay’s fee increase press
As for why, she has her suspicions.
“(I) wonder if this fee increase ... was even too sleazy for eBay to mention in public, or if eBay felt they could slip it in without anyone noticing,” she said.
I would think that most of the sellers here would not be wondering at all
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if eBay felt they could slip it in without anyone noticing,”
Ebay is gullible enough to believe this part, but they have yet to get one past the super intelligent group called ....
THEIR paying customers
someone always catches it.
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eBay spokeswoman Catherine England said the change is consistent with its user agreement terms. It was posted on its revised listing page more than 14 days before the change was enacted on Feb. 22nd. She also said the change was not designed to raise revenue, but rather to make eBay’s auctions more fair.
"The spirit behind this is it's about ensuring that the marketplace is a level playing field. We don't want people to manipulate their starting prices" England said Sellers are encouraged not to change their initial price by the change, she said. "It's about the health of the marketplace."
They did this to make auctions more fair? What a crock.
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Somehow I missed this. Anyone know where I can read the wording of the change or if not too much trouble would you post it?
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Why in the world they didn't make an official announcement is beyond me. It affects such a small percentage of sellers that the outcry would have been minimal.
By doing it this way, they now get to hear a couple days worth of ultimately inconsequential protests from us about 2 different issues.
They're just a venue - they should let the playing field level itself.
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Please explain this...or give a link. I have no idea what you guys are talking about.
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Dude!
The link's in the first post.
Peace out!
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part of the article... in case the link goes away one of these days...
http://redtape.msnbc.com/2006/03/eba..._fe.html#posts
...A surprise $1.20 increase
Now, for that new, not-so-improved refund policy. For years, eBay would issue refunds to sellers who dropped the price of an item after it was listed. Not any more. And to make matters worse, this “no-more-refunds” fee increase was not part of the fee increase announcement eBay made in January. In some cases, the increase is a stiff 50 percent.
Here's an example: A seller lists a pair of boots with an initial starting price of $55, and pays $2.40 as an insertion fee. But let's say soon after the boots are listed, another seller puts up several similar pairs with a starting price of $40. Naturally, the initial seller gets few bids and then lowers the initial price to $45.
The listing fee for a $45 item is $1.20 -- half the $2.40 fee for a $55 item. Until now, the seller who changed the price would get a refund of $1.20. Not now.
Again, this end of the refund policy is nowhere to be found in eBay's fee increase announcement. Only an eagle-eyed reader of eBay's help pages would spot a clue suggesting the change. On a page titled "Revising Your Listing," eBay has added several parenthetical expressions hinting at it. In a section explaining how to revise the price of an item, there's this new phrase: "(You will not receive credit for the difference in your insertion fees.)"
Seller: Price revisions are necessary
Eli, an Israeli who sells jewelry on eBay, said he changes his prices constantly because the marketplace is so "dynamic." Last week, he was shocked to notice dozens of fee refunds missing from his account. He asked for anonymity because he makes his living by selling on eBay, and he fears reprisals from the company if he speaks publicly against it.
"This is one of those things they just kind of slip in," he said. "This change is fishy. It looks like they are trying to hide it. We found it out for ourselves without any announcement about it."
Eli says he is one of many merchants who often revise prices on whole inventories of items -– and those $1.20 fees can add up quickly. In fact, on March 1, eBay released a new software tool that makes batch price revisions easy -- up to 200 items at a time. Eli thinks that's no coincidence. eBay does take additional fees for items that are revised upward. And remember, now, the site loses nothing if prices are revised downward....
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I had forgotten they did that as I've only done it a few times long ago. The thing that would concern me most is getting the decimal in the wrong place and listing it incorrectly, catching it in a few hours and then going in to revise and not getting any credit. They should have a 12-hr. window at least.
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I hate to do this to this thread, but am I the only one who wonders how this will affect Ethical's "Price Dropper" tool customers?