• barneypiccolo@lemm.ee
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    2 days ago

    Years ago I tried to make a living on eBay, making up to $5K a month with an eBay store. The only problem was that they would randomly shut me down for a few days, a week, even a month, with little to no information as to why. Whenever there was information, it simply wasn’t true. There was nobody to appeal to, and any contact was met with a canned email.

    Worse, they didn’t just suspend my store, they would delete it entirely, so when the suspension ended, I would have to rebuild my entire store from scratch (over 200 different items). To compound the issue, any transactions that were processing at the time of the suspension kept going without being able to make contact with them, causing lost sales and bad customer service, resulting in poor reviews that dragged my rating down. I was busting my ass to operate professionally, and my only problem was eBay itself.

    Eventually, compounded with issues with PayPal, I concluded that I could never make a living using those sketchy platforms. Occasionally, I’ll buy something on eBay, but I’ve never used it to sell anything since.

    • Puzzlehead@reddthat.com
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      2 days ago

      Wow, I hope you were able to move elsewhere for your online store. It sucks easy did that. There is a human you can get to but that was years ago. Last time was in 2020 when I talked to a human in chat when I was having an issue with my order.

      Not sure if it changed.

      • barneypiccolo@lemm.ee
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        2 days ago

        Back in 2004/5 there was nobody to speak with. It was all by email, and the only response was just a form letter.

        And no, there was no place else to go, I just stopped doing that business, and started an entirely different, off line, business.

        • Puzzlehead@reddthat.com
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          2 days ago

          I didnt realize it was that long ago. Ebay has changed a lot. It used to be, people just sold stuff there to get rid of and then people started to do businesses on it and now it’s catered towards professional sellers than for people who just want to get rid of stuff. There are payouts now. Most items are buy it now than bidding. Not so much of an auction site.