Interesting Article about eBay

This one is worth reading:

eBay Exposed

It is long but worth it. The website is in the UK, so the pricing and features mentioned will be reflective of the policies of the eBay.uk site.

Here are a few excerpts:

One of the great ironies of eBay is that generally whomever it tries to help, someone else always loses out. The scammers and fraudsters that look for the loopholes are probably the only winners. Take, for example, the company's reaction to the wave of fraud concerning buyers who send payments, but never receive the goods.

[snip]

EBay says it's committed to fighting fraud, and has put systems in place. The problem is that as fast as the company implements - often unpopular - changes, the scammers find another way to make a quick buck. "People are out there blackmailing us saying they want their money back, but then they don't even return the item," said Hamer. "PayPal will refund the money without even checking if we've got the item back - the buyers end up with the item, the money and all we get left with is negative feedback. The buyers just have complete control. EBay is allowing crooks and conmen to operate as buyers, and us sellers are being robbed blind."

[snip]

"If there's a problem such as goods aren't as described, then we'd look into it and if we decide in favour of the buyer we'd remove the funds from the seller's account," said Skinner.

However, the company doesn't actually look at the item in question. Instead, said Skinner: "We'd look at what the buyer and the seller said and take a view." So, quite possibly, the party who shouts loudest and most convincingly is protected, while a potentially innocent party loses out.

The following comments fit me and my future plans for using eBay:

Indeed, according to ChannelAdvisor, some retailers now use the site merely as a way of liquidating stock they can't shift on their own sites. "It's gone from being the channel of first resort to the channel of last resort, and that's not where eBay wants to be," said Wingo.

I will probably be listing quite a few books on eBay in bulk in a couple of weeks. The books will be ones that are in too poor of condition for Bonanzle or ones for which I have too many duplicates, like the first Nancy Drew book in picture cover. This is why I'm not impressed with eBay's five free listings. I plan to list bulk lots cheap that I know will sell, and I could pay higher fees for any lots that get bidding wars. I had a cheap bulk lot sell for around $60 a few months ago. I would have paid a higher final value fee if that lot had been "free."