TradeMe NZ

I had a solid case against these buyer that put unfair feedback on my page. I even quoted from the Consumer Guarantees Act to prove that I have met up to my obligations. I was bitterly disappointed that the customer support team did not even bother to read the points but asserted that the buyer was right. This despite my clearly pointing out the buyer did not provide evidence, but word-of-mouth claims that the item I sold was faulty. Very sad. My rating is still over 99% though.

The worst customer service i have probably ever experienced in my life! Deleted my account and all 30 of my auctions in which i had spent hours upon hours creating! There was also a bunch of sales id made that the success fee had been processed for that i couldnt follow through with as they had deleted my aco$#*!.

They claim my account was deleted because i was operating 2 aco$#*!s at once which was a violation of their rules. But this old account was one that i had completely forgotten about and no longer used. Instead of emailing me and asking which account i wanted to continue to use in future these absolute numptys delete the once i had put hours of work into! They are so lucky their is no other main websites in NZ for trading on or they would have no business at all! $#*!ing $#*!s!

I am extremely frustrated with Trademe at the moment. I decided to start online selling of some star wars toys. I went at great lengths to import at great expense a huge amount of original Hasbro Star Wars toys from the UK. It was so expensive that I hardly make any profit.

Then out of the blue, Trademe contacted me and claimed I had to proof these were not counterfit items which cannot be listed. I still had the email invoice from the UK company but not the original printout. I could also send them photographs of the boxes and labels the items we sipped in. But Trademe just sent me this silly email that they do not accept that as enough proof.

Now I sit with more than a thousand dollars worth of stock and my entire business plan down the drain. I cannot afford to take a knock like this, but trying to speak to them is like speaking to some childish high school kid.

This after spending months planning it all, sourcing the right vendors, paying a fortune to import stuff to NZ only to get all my plans crushed on the whim of one person there, And there is no appeal process with them.

Really frustrated and Trademe is really not my favourite company at this point. It is people like me that make their business model. But they treat us like dirt.

I have now bought a super feature on trademe more than once and wondered why the property was not showing up on the 7 day rotator after paying $199? I called them and they said it has to wait to get into the rotator as wellington has a high demand and it has to wait for enough room to get onto the rotator. I was then also told my property would not be on for the full 7 days i had already paid for?... rather only the days left once it got onto the rotator?!@#$%^&*! Really trademe that is the biggest rip off... i am shocked and so dissappointed - this is clearly not giving me what i have paid for which is 7 days on a rotator marketing my property - i may be really unlucky and not even get one day and have paid for 7 days of marketing. The sooner someone gets a competitive website i am moving on shame on you trademe shame on fairfax! The fees full stop these days are a rip off shame on u fairfax I dont bother advertising anything anymore for $1 reserve as the fees are just not worth it. So its off to the tip recycling shop. You need to think about the whole picture fairfax and also get some telephone staff who are a little less casual... spend some of your trillions on training

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!

TradeMe is an excellent service that serves a very useful purpose (not for long though with other sites and social media quickly taking over) however their customer service is absolutely terrible.

Every single employee is useless, and they don't seem to give a $#*! about replying to emails and inquiries - makes sense since they outsource all their business; way to support the NZ economy guys well done. Customer service is non existent with this bunch of idiots and I'm glad their business is failing and people are starting to realise there are better options out there that often will get you a better price and an easier sale for your item.

I have been mainly selling on Trademe since October 2008 and have been very pleased with our business relationship. Their security system is very good, their charges are reasonable. Their listing format and options are easy to follow as is the sales page lay out. Of late I have found their freight sections a bit messy, hard to follow and would be confusing for a novice trader. I have sold close to a thousand items and bought about six items through this sight, I only deal with authenticated traders, check their feedback rating when buying, have black listed about five traders for unreasonable attitude and always stand by my product. I have been scammed once and Trademe gave me good support and actually reimbursed my losses from their own funds. All in all a very good and happy nine year relationship.

Has really gone hill down the years. The fees are ridiculous and they do nothing to thwart false buyers and con artists. I bought something on there which I had no idea was not allowed to be sold on there. I resold it and was warned I could lose my account as it was an overseas DVD. Be nice if they stopped all those other sellers selling illegal DVDs which I have reported but they kept reposting them. The site is full of overseas sellers which should not be fair. (Swear it was for NZ only sellers only years ago but must be wrong). Trademe should be unique as trademe, not another sort of eBay.

Then there are the "message boards" which are full of people who love to bully and harass other people. They gang up on others and act childish and play mind games and spam unnessary posts.
There are several bait messages and responses they use to get their sick thrills. The message board should not be around anymore except the help sections. I was also bullied myself and attacked by several people who like to hurt and find faults in other people. Asking for help is bound to get attacks. Most of the people on there are very proud, unfeeling and sadistic characters.

I live in a small rural town, and TradeMe has provided me with a convenient way to buy everything available to a big city resident from buttons to iPhones, wigs to weedkiller, without any problems. I only buy from traders with high ratings from lots of previous trades and always get great service from these traders. TradeMe's system of showing ratings of the trustworthiness of other traders stops any cheating.

A scammer got my Trademe details once and started to use my account to sell fake goods, but TradeMe's fraud team stopped it immediately.

I think the one star comments on here are all by one grouchy person who failed to follow the above precautions, and is posting the same complaint under several aliases. I have never heard anyone making these complaints. I think most people find TM pretty reliable and convenient.