Tuesday, January 20, 2015

eBay Truly Did Make S&H Improvements (11/1/15 SADLY NOT ANY MORE!) to the Sports Card Area!

11/3/15- A SAD UPDATE- eBay has reverted back to the way they were from 2011-2013: THEY COULDN'T CARE LESS ABOUT SELLERS BREAKING RULES AGAIN, AND THEY ARE STARTING TO PUNISH BUYERS WHO COMPLAIN ABOUT THESE BAD SELLERS WHO BLATENTLY BREAK EBAY'S LISTED RULES: THAT ARE RIGHT ON EBAY's PAGES


I had one of my connections deal with a SUPER HARD-HEADED sports card seller who they won two regular sized cards from for around $3.00 per card. The seller's listed S&H price was $2.99. Then they get an invoice with a $3.99 S&H fee. So I had the buyer politely explain to this seller (NEWROCKSPORTS) with a foreign name I wouldn't dare guess where they could be from- that they cannot charge this $1.00 HIDDEN EXTRA CARD FEE due to eBay's HIDDEN FEE and eBay's Reasonable Shipping fee rules.


His response: he filed two UNPAID ITEM COMPLAINTS against the buyer!!! Because it took this seller FOUR DAYS to send the buyer a combined S&H invoice to begin with. So knowing how eBay works - they had no choice but to pay and fight this after they receive the items.
This seller didn't even have the slightest bit of common-sense to make it look like he made the extra effort to protect the cards he sent!


So they get the cards shipped in a .20 cents (OR LESS) no-name bubble envelope, he printed the shipping label through eBay, and the cards were in regular USED top-loaders, both with irremovable tape on each top-loader (making them WORTHLESS). So this seller's ONLY ALLOWABLE S&H FEES are postage ($2.04), and the bubble envelope (.20 cents) for a total allowable maximum S&H fee of $2.54 (eBay's MAXIMUM allowed fee for sports cards UNLESS additional postage or supplies are necessary and used: and neither was the case.


So they e-mailed the seller back and fourth SEVENTEEN (17) times- (5) of which eBay TOLD THEM to ask the seller again to refund the $1.00 S&H HIDDEN FEE. First they spoke to Apple (like the fruit as she stated) a Buyer Complaint Specialist (which is a new eBay employee title, Trust & Safety employees used to handle all cases such as this as recently as a three weeks ago), she told them what I already knew: the seller cannot charge HIDDEN fees, plus this certainly can be considered as FEE AVOIDANCE as well (paying your eBay/PayPal fee with S&H profits).
So she said she would e-mail the seller (which SHE NEVER DID!) to tell him he was breaking eBay's S&H rules (which he refused to look up on the eBay links they sent him, or what they told him with my guidance) so I EXPRESSED STRONGLY to Apple that an eBay employee must notify this seller by e-mail of his wrong-doing OR HE'LL KEEP DOING THIS TO EVERY BUYER WHO WINS MORE THAN ONE ITEM, period!
The fact that he had no negatives or neutrals for doing this before has ABSOLUTELY NOTHING to do with the facts here which the seller kept bringing up OVER & OVER! Who knows maybe this seller just went bad starting with my friend?


Apple said if the seller doesn't refund the dollar (which was not the point at all in any of this!) in 48-hours, the seller will be suspended. Plus she added "why don't you leave NEGATIVE FEEDBACK for today to warn other buyers that this seller refuses to follow eBay's S&H rules" to my friend. So they did exactly that- within eBay's rules only stating the FACTS.


So they waited 72-hours & nothing changed, no refund, the seller was just as cocky as ever (so no e-mail from eBay to the seller), and no SELLER SUSPENSION! They wasted over an HOUR OF THEIR TIME SPEAKING TO APPLE AND ABSULTTELY NOTHING SHE SAID SHE WOULD DO WAS DONE!!!


So eBay is back to their 2011-2013 tactics: LIE TO BUYERS JUST TO GET THEM OFF THE PHONE & hope they give up!   


Next they call on 10/29 and get transferred to CLARITA in the Buyer Protection Dept. They had to explain EVERYTHING again. They told her they WANT TO SPEAK TO APPLE, then she said "we can't transfer calls to specific employees" (BULLSHIT!). She told them basically the same thing Apple told them- they were 100% in the right and the seller was 100% in the wrong. Then she read ALL the eBay e-mails between them and she said "you even sent correct links to our S&H fee rules for sellers". So they told her YES, they have these rules MEMORIZED unlike most eBay employees.  
She never did what she said she'd do either! Plus the NEGATIVE FEEDBACK I was TOLD by an eBay Buyer Protection employee to leave WAS REMOVED BY EBAY AGAINST THE SELLER!!! And the seller left a LIE Positive/NEGATIVE against the buyer which is still there!!!  Then the buyer's entire purchase price (around $10 was refunded). Yet they made it CRYSTAL CLEAR TO BOTH APPLE AND CLARITA THAT MONEY DOESN"T MATTER TO THEM, WHAT MATTERS IS ALL THE BUYERS THIS SELLERS WILL RIP-OFF IN THE FUTURE.


So they tried calling eBay today and suddenly all the CALL EBAY links in eBay HELP that were on eBay until 10/29 DISAPPEARED??? It took them over 5-minutes to find a CALL EBAY link and that link didn't work! eBay made their position clear: THEY NO LONGER CARE ABOUT BUYERS & NO LONGER CARE THAT SELLERS ARE BREAKING EBAY'S LISTED S&H FEE RULES!


The oddest thing is that when I get one of my connections to talk to a seller as a fellow seller they almost all say- "eBay ONLY PROTECT BUYERS, THEY NEVER PROTECT SELLERS AT ALL" (which is what all eBay Sports Card sellers have been especially saying since this hobby collapsed by 2010 due much to their OWN GREED)!!!  


So don't be surprised if you win (5) items from a seller who says NOTHING about extra items won fees and only AFTER the auctions end you get hit with a $5.00 S&H fee when their only listed fee is $3.00!


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With all the fighting I've done against eBay and their policy of protecting sellers at all costs (and suspending any buyers who went after their BAD sellers) since 2010-11, I honestly thought I'd never make any changes. But once again I was pleasantly surprised and all my hard work paid off. You need to understand that I spent well over 60-hours on the phone with eBay Specialists since 2011. This was hundreds of phone calls to change their thinking and their rules to benefit honest collectors of any lightweight collectibles and to STOP sellers from charging such high shipping fees for combined items (which has been AUTOMATIC on eBay in this hobby since I've been online in 1997). So don't let ignorant greedy sellers tell you "well then I could charge $3.00 PER ITEM instead of discounting my S&H fees." BECAUSE THEY CANNOT DO THAT EITHER UNDER EBAY'S REASONABLE SHPPING FEE RULES- REGARDLESS OF OUR INDIVIDUAL HOBBYWIDE RULES!!!!

A little over a year ago eBay reinserted Reasonable Shipping & Handling Fee Rules in their HELP section (which used to be HELP- then was stupidly changed to Customer Service- and now is HELP again). Then they reworked the pages these rules were on to the point they are at now which truly helps all collectors of lightweight easily packaged collectibles in bubble envelopes that weigh 6-ounces or less mainly.

Every eBay buyer & seller needs to read both these pages and follow the rules on them please:

1) http://pages.ebay.com/help/policies/selling-practices.html#postage

2) http://pages.ebay.com/help/sell/reasonable-shipping.html

From 2010- late 2013 eBay allowed all eBay sellers to break any rules they had or used to have and removed. THOSE DAYS ARE OVER FOR GOOD BUT IT IS UP TO BUYERS TO ENFORCE THESE RULES OR THEY MAY EVENTUALLY TAKE THEM AWAY AGAIN! So if buyers decide to be lazy and allow sellers to overcharge them for combined shipping & handling them you have no one to blame but yourselves. Then I will never try to change eBay rules for the benefit of all collectors again because it will show that you don't really care- no how much you complain to the WRONG people.

I helped eBay understand the sports card hobby and how 99%+ of all combined shipping purchases in Sports Cards never weigh more than 3-ounces (or have 3-ounces paid postage on the envelopes), and how supplies like top-loaders MUST be brand new and free of any irremovable tape for the seller to be able to include the .05 cent cost of each loader into the price of S&H. I also got eBay to understand that QUALITY bubble envelopes of almost any size- #000, #00, and #0 can be bought RIGHT ON EBAY for .25 cents each (in lots of 25 or more) with FREE SHIPPING & HANDLING! The ignorant sellers who pay $1.79 for a padded envelope at the Post Office is beyond my understanding...
Now anyone with half a brain that had been selling on eBay for over a year knows that eBay's PRINT SHIPPING LABEL (free of fees) service that they worked out with the USPS is by far the cheapest way to get postage ANYWHERE! Anyone who is still going to the nearly bankrupt Post Office to get postage by standing on lines (with employees they DO NOT WANT TO PAY) and paying up to $3.37 postage for a 2-ounce bubble envelope are OUT OF THEIR MINDS! Why in the world would anyone do that when they can print their own labels EASILY from home on plain paper, on the cheapest printers they make ($40 or so) using black ink only (SET TO DRAFT which prints 3X-5X as many pages per cartridge) and almost NEVER paying more than $2.25 for postage & that's for a 6-OUNCE BUBBLE ENVELOPE or package (small box for instance)! A bubble envelope that weighs up to 3-ounces costs only $1.93 using eBay's Print Shipping Label service!

I had a friend contact an eBay Shipping & Handling Specialist several months ago by phone and they spent almost an hour on the phone making sure that eBay will back buyers who call complaining about sports card sellers who charge more than $3.00 total (no matter how many items are won) as long as the envelope weighs no more than 6-OUNCES. You have to explain to basic eBay employees that you know for a fact that your package will weigh 3-ounces ($1.93 postage), or up to 6-ounces ($2.25 postage), and that bubble envelopes are .25 cents right on eBay (with FREE SHIPPING) and these are basically the only allowable fees that eBay's REASONABLE SHIPPING FEE rules (listed on the links I've posted several times on this page) explain that sellers cannot charge $4.00 (or more) for the items you won.
You can do this BEFORE you pay, or you can wait until after you receive your items and then call eBay. BUT NEVER AGREE TO RETURN THE CARDS SIMPLY BECAUSE THE SELLER MAKES THAT AN OFFER (after you ask why you were overcharged for S&H- WHICH YOU NEED TO DO BEFORE CALLING EBAY) THAT YOU DO NOT WANT TO ACCEPT! Some slick sellers will try to get you to agree to return the cards (especially if you won them for a good price) and then you may get stuck paying RETURN S&H FEES!!! If you do it after you receive your items, tell eBay and/or the seller that you were giving them every opportunity to show that they could justify charging the amount they did within eBay's rules like sending your package Priority Mail, or putting all your cards in brand new, free of irremovable tape Premium Top-loaders when you bought many cards- for example.

NOW KNOWING EVERYTHING THAT I JUST MAY HAVE TAUGHT YOU JUSTIFIES YOU CHARGING $2.50-$3.00 Shipping & Handling on eBay when selling sports cards and NOT EVER CHARGING AN EXTRA FEE FOR ADDITIONAL ITEMS WON! SELLERS: You got that right? If not e-mail me or read these pages!

1) http://pages.ebay.com/help/policies/selling-practices.html#postage

2) http://pages.ebay.com/help/sell/reasonable-shipping.html

BTW if you charge more than $3.00 S&H for a 6-ounce envelope NO MATTER HOW MANY ITEMS THE BUYER WON, YOU ARE BREAKING EBAY's REASONASBLE SHIPPING FEE RULES!!! Just because you state in your listings that you charge this extra fee, THAT DOES NOT MEAN YOU ARE ALLLOWED TO ACCORDING TO EBAY'S FAIRLY NEW RULES- AND YOU ARE NOT! Plus not only are you breaking that rule, you are committing FEE AVOIDANCE which means you are charging that extra .25 cents - $1.00 (or even more) per extra item won solely to pay your eBay & PayPal fees which is one of the worst S&H related rules you could ever break on eBay and is a very suspendable offense. All it takes if for four different buyers to complain about a seller breaking these new rules, and they will get suspended. This is what the eBay Shipping & Handling Specialist told my friend.

THE DAYS OF SPORTS CARD SELLERS CHARGING ANY EXTRA FEES FOR ADDITIONAL ITEMS WON IS OVER, BUT BUYERS MUST REPORT SELLERS TO eBay WHO ARE DOING THIS OR IT WON'T WORK!

So now the ball is in your court buyers! I don't have an eBay account because I continued fighting for ALL OF YOU when eBay decided to stop protecting all sports card buyers from the WORST CARD SELLERS ON EBAY (like tntnorthnj) and everyone else who broke eBay's rules on a regular basis in 2010 and beyond, so I was PERMANENTLY SUSPENDED because I refused to stop reporting BAD sellers. eBay told me the reason I was suspended was- "consider this us parting ways" which is the only reason eBay ever gave for my suspension that was not a lie. As recently as three months ago eBay still couldn't tell me why cardcop05 was suspended. Plus I love how eBay allowed bad sellers to add feedback comments AFTER my account was permanently closed!
I had PERFECT FEEDBACK as a buyer and a seller and have two Awards to prove it from 2011 that I received in the mail postmarked a week AFTER I WAS SUSPENDED??? Explain that one...

I have a few friends who are using their eBay accounts to notify every sports card seller they come across that these rules now exist and that they could be suspended if they continue charging any extra fees for additional cards won. Other buyers start to do the same thing. Just politely explain that there are fairly new REASONABLE SHIPPING & HANDLING FEE RULES that sellers need to follow, or you could be suspended if you don't and your current rules are not following these rules.

Here are the links from eBay:

SCROLL DOWN & CLICK "SHIPPING & HANDLING COSTS" IN THE PAGE MIDDLE HERE:
1) http://pages.ebay.com/help/policies/selling-practices.html#postage

And HERE:
2) http://pages.ebay.com/help/sell/reasonable-shipping.html

Members of blowoutcards.com (that won't let me post on their site), feel free to contact me DIRECTLY by e-mail if you disagree with anything I ever say and we can discuss things like mature adults as always (BUT NO ONE EVER DOES!). Anyone can contact me anytime (I check my e-mail at least weekly even when I'm very sick):

cardcop04@gmail.com

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