Scottish Elises

I use ebay very occasionally - not too often as I find it is often more hassle than it's worth.

Last autumn I bought something and paid for it. The seller then contacted me to apologize and explain that the item had sold out, so refunded me and that was that.

I subsequently put on a few parts to sell, which sold, and I was paid, and that was that.

Then I start getting emails from ebay saying that I owed them money - I called them as I could not see what was due to them. Turned out their system had got screwed up with the repayment from the item that was refunded to me. I was told it would take over a month to straighten it out at their end, and update the system (seems a bit long in this day and age but hey ho). So that was that.

During January I started getting calls from a company called Akinika. They would phone me and say this is Akinika on behalf of ebay, and start asking for my personal details. My reply; "I have no idea what this is about, or who you are, before I give out my personal details, can you tell me who you are, or what this is about?" - their reply - please confirm your details so we can tell you...... the call ended fairly quickly. My work has been very busy in the past month so I did not really have time to look into this (and thought is was some scam anyway).

This morning I had time to call ebay and find out what it's about. They told me that following their mix up with the refund to me, they had suspended my automatic payment method, and that I had incurred some seller fees (totaling £11) from the items I had sold. Those fees were outstanding and they had passed it to their debt collections department - Akinika. I told them I did not dispute that I owed £11 and am happy to settle that, but they had created the mess, and I was very unhappy about being harassed by a random company who would not tell me why they were calling. They were very apologetic and have sorted it out, but my god, what a PITA to sort out for the sake of some cock ups on their part.

Moral of the story - give ebay a wide berth unless you really have to, and stick with SE classifieds - that is much easier!

Never bought or sold on eBay - always been wary tbh.

Gumtree has been hassle free for me selling the odd bits and bobs - no issues whatsoever

Used eBay for 12+ years and never had any hassle. Rarely if ever use it to buy from auctions or sell these days, usually just buy bits n bobs from there as it's so handy. Amazon on the other hand have generally been a PITA & I just don't bother, esp as they don't take paypal. Swings & roundabouts.

n1tut (510)*
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As you can see I use eBay a lot, pretty good at spotting the dodgy side by now, a lot of smaller items come from China/HK, but never really had a problem. The last one was the Alcohoot which would not work, money was back in Paypal that week and I was told to keep it.

tut

ps:- £15 on Amazon, 38p inc delivery from China.

woody wrote:Used eBay for 12+ years and never had any hassle. Rarely if ever use it to buy from auctions or sell these days, usually just buy bits n bobs from there as it's so handy. Amazon on the other hand have generally been a PITA & I just don't bother, esp as they don't take paypal. Swings & roundabouts.

Amazon are pretty good IMHO, not accepting paypal is no big deal as I have other ways of paying

tut wrote:n1tut (510)*
100% positive Feedback

As you can see I use eBay a lot, pretty good at spotting the dodgy side by now, a lot of smaller items come from China/HK, but never really had a problem. The last one was the Alcohoot which would not work, money was back in Paypal that week and I was told to keep it.

tut

On this occasion my gripe was not with the sellers or buyers (in fact the seller that had no stock was very reasonable) - it was ebay themselves who screwed things up. In life I always pay my dues, don't like owing anyone anything so really did not appreciate getting hounded in the way I was.

Seems to be the rise of cheap debt collection agents - I had a call from one on behalf of the factors of a flat we rent out who the "debt" had been passed onto. I'd only received the email on the 8th from the factors and the debt collectors called me on the 21st!

Dominic wrote:

woody wrote:Used eBay for 12+ years and never had any hassle. Rarely if ever use it to buy from auctions or sell these days, usually just buy bits n bobs from there as it's so handy. Amazon on the other hand have generally been a PITA & I just don't bother, esp as they don't take paypal. Swings & roundabouts.

Amazon are pretty good IMHO, not accepting paypal is no big deal as I have other ways of paying

I use to buy most things on eBay but recently I've been using Amazon prime as I got a "student prime account" for £40 for 18 months. Largely competitive prices and everything comes with free next day delivery even to choochtervill so it's win win.