eBayReviews 3,492

I'd had some good experience with Ebay several years ago... but recently I used them to buy a refurbished I-phone (Diamond Wireless-3rd party vendor) after updating my new address info online and by phone support. I ordered phone online and even after confirming my new address w Ebay phone support, it was sent to the old address 100's of miles away. I immediately notified all (Ebay and their 3rd party vendor-Diamond Wireless) that the ship to address was incorrect as soon as soon as I was e-notified it had been mailed (wasn't scheduled to be delivered for 4 days via FedEx). I had asked Ebay and Diamond Wireless to have it returned or re-routed to the correct address and Ebay said "no worries"... file a claim when you get notif it arrived at wrong address. The clueless person at Diamond Wireless said, "Oh just mail it back and we'll refund". Ebay supervisor claimed it was covered by some kind of "built-in" delivery insurance (pure lie). Diamond Wireless is even worse than Ebay... caveat emptor. I did notify Ebay and Diamond Wireless again when FedEx sent me notif of delivery to wrong address and Ebay immediately denied claim. Poor customer support and supervisors who simply lie to cover their rear ends. Ebay and Diamond Wireless are very simply crooks in my opinion. I ended up taking a day off work to drive 400 miles round trip and spending $50 on gas to retrieve the package from the new homeowner and mailed back to Diamond Wireless w return notif. At my expense. DW still tried to hang onto my $$. CAVEAT EMPTOR. If you buy a refurb phone on Ebay beware. I ended up using Back Market, not Ebay, and I got an excellent product with excellent support. I would give Back Market 5 stars. Ebay gets no more business from me.

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.

From the point of view of a buyer it's a great marketplace, with almost unbeatable number of good bargains at your disposal. Sure there are some limitations: You can't see the stuff you're buying (happens to get a sub-tascable book when you expect a large encyclopedia-like monster), but these are common for every on-line selling method.
Of course, as always, avoid beginners and inexperienced users, especially as sellers. They often are bunglers and very often dishonest.
The most annoying thing in eBay is that many power sellers (which seem to be "Powerful" from every point of view) don't accept discussion, are always in truth, and have a lot of means to prevent you from releasing a feedback and even can cancel your possible negative/neutral feedback(s).

This is a scam company. They sell cell phones on ebay and possibly other electronics. Basically that fund their business by selling maybe 10% of their equipment as wrongly described. Then when the customer gets the item they purchased and it doesn't match the description, when the return is processed, the company says the item they shipped was in the condition as described and that since there was no damage by the carrier then the damage must have happened on the customers end. Then they refund you 50%.

This is a classic bait and switch and since they don't do it to all of their sales, then they are able to keep there ebay feedback up enough that their rating is a misrepresentation of the actual companies' legitimacy.

The holocaust happened because people were indifferent to hate and and wrong doing. This company is allowed to exist because of the same principle. The employees working there rationalize to themselves reasons for working for such a company, as well as ebay makes money off the whole thing so they do not shut them down either.

And we wonder why the nightly news is filled with people going crazy every night... its called cruelty breeds insanity... this is simple stuff

I have routinely had my orders cancelled by seller over the last year. Encumbering my money and time. Very F$#%@*(&^%N FRUSTRATING! These were items considered to be good finds. By the way, its extremely difficult to leave a review when on ebay site. The seller very simply manipulates ebay by posting item as sold and when better offers come in they cancel purchased item. Ebay does not give a damn at all, try calling them. Do not use ebay.

I only list and ship within the USA and have all my selling/shipping preferences for USA buyers only but find bid-wins ending at last minute from International blocked bid buyers. Once it comes to sending an invoice, they cannot pay because of the bid blocking including PayPal Express for USA only. This corruption has been going on for 2-4+ years and I highly suggest to other eBay sellers is to sit and watch your auctions before ending so that you can manually block these abusers from ruining your auctions. Most of mine are in China and Asia countries, Russian Federation and Colombia... Enough is enough while eBay CS Reps lie and do nothing. I recently called eBay, spoke to a male with a heavy Filipino accent explaining along with item numbers, ID buyers, etc and he said it must be an isolated "glitch" because all of my preferences are set correctly and he will create a Support Ticket and send a confirmation # to my email. Seconds later, I received the replied with a Ticket # signed by MEG... Huh? Wasn't Meg Whitman the original CEO back in 1995?

After 20 years, way back when Ebay could hardly go a day without shutting down, and most sellers were your pleasant amateur group, we went through many changes and problems, not the least of which is Ebay's greed, for their piece of the pie, and the tricks and crooked scams many sellers and buyers resort to.
I felt I had pretty much seen it all, and did my best to be careful who I bought from and who I sold to.
I still get buyers who insist they want cheap shipping with no tracking, then claim they did not get the goods, and sellers who never mail the merchandise, use a tracking number that goes nowhere, never used, and lie after lie about shipping problems, banking problems etc to the point after 2 months, nothing is resolved no matter all the promises I got from Ebay customer service and Paypal.
The biggest issue is the automated software which has glitches, claims inaccurate results, and you can't argue with a machine. Some sellers know how to trick the system on Ebay. I finally had to chargeback the amount on my credit card. The last resort. My advice: do use your credit cards as a buyer, and do use tracked shipping as a seller, no exceptions, The big corporations can fight it out, the ones that make most of the profits: Ebay, Paypal, Post Office and Bank Credit cards.