RF Generation Message Board

I've been buying stuff on ebay since 2006 but have never sold anything until last month.  I saw that paypal had taken out fee per sold item listed.  Ok i get that.  Then i receive another invoice today saying that i owe them MORE money on some bs trumped up "final value" fee?  With the two fees together that's 15%.  Game Gavel needs more activity, screw ebay.

Yea, eBay has always done that. That's how they make their money. Unfortunately until Game Gavel gets the Internet traffic eBay does, I'll have to continue to sell there. I've been buying and selling since 2005. I'm used to it.

15% is huge, especially when you've made $150 in a month.

Paypay takes another 3% plus 10 cents(maybe it is only a nickle) per transaction if memory serves.

I tried with gamegavel. I REALLY gave it a massive effort.
Even with the fees ebay has and me having 0 fees associated with my GG account i made more on eBay in the first week than i made on GG in 3+ months.

In one instance i made ~18$s on eBay for an game i had sold another copy of on GG after relisting for 2 months for a dollar.

(EDIT Also worth noting i was a featured seller during that time.)

It was $0.30 last time I checked. Even on donations, which is why when we do a donation drive, I don't just ask everyone to donate $1, as much as I'd like to.


The dilemma with Game Gavel is that it needs more traffic, but won't get the traffic without sellers, but won't get sellers without traffic...
Its a nice place to get rid of stuff if you're not in a hurry to get rid of it and don't mind not getting top dollar, but other than that, ebay is unfortunately still better.

Game Gavel is a good place to find some bargains, and they have a few good sellers there. I don't really sell there because I primarily sell through forums. I use ebay for non-gaming sales and have gotten used to the fees. The reality is that they can quickly help me to sell things that I would never get sold locally.

i'm sure the fees add up, but last time i sold i thought they weren't that bad really. it's low enough where you can still make a good profit

The bad part about having so much traffic on ebay?   Ass-holes and liars.  I'm 99% sure i just got back-doored on a Mega Man X 3 today.  The seller apparently had his car broken into at Wal-Mart when he was on his way to the post office. That's convenient.

Only 15%?  I think Amazon charges close to 20% only $60 items.

that sucks but just demand a refund, if he doesn't give it then report him to ebay. usually you'll get your money back one way or another, i think i've heard that ebay might reimburse you on things like that (don't quote me on that though).

From my experience, the buyer is always right. Even if logic says they're not.

Open a case then escalate it to ebay.  Did you use Paypal?  Once that happens it freezes the money.  Usually the person will then attempt to placate you through refunds or whatever, but the burden of proof will be on them.  If they don't make you happy the case will be decided by ebay, you will get your money, and the seller will look like a tool.  Ebay is heavily geared towards the buyer, so in most cases they will win (though mostly people handle it in the Resolution Center before that happens).  Trust me.  The company I work for a has a large presence on ebay and we get screwed by buyers all the time (not saying you are one of them).

Yep, being a seller on eBay can be a real nightmare. I once sold a top notch video card on there for a few hundred. Back then I never bothered with paying the extra for tracking... guess what happened. After a week (may not have even been that long) the buyer complained it hadn't arrived yet. I told them it would take a few weeks to arrive, as I've sent and received stuff internationally before so had a good idea how long it would take. The buyer claimed on PayPal I never sent the item. I had the receipt to prove it, but PayPal said it had to be an international tracking number or nothing. So they froze my PayPal account until I could pay them the $400 leaving me without my expensive video card or the $400...

So yeah, they can really suck and the lesson learned, if it's an expensive item, make sure to send it by registered post, since PayPal have some fine print rule that if it isn't sent that way, the buyer can get the item and their cash back and leave you empty handed.

I sell things occasionally, but mostly buy on eBay.  I've had bad experiences as both a buyer and a seller:

As a seller, I sold a GBA SP to somebody who, the day it arrived, complained to eBay that I had "sandpapered the finish" on it, and demanded a refund plus some free items. (Don't know where he got the idea he could do that, and not just for the fact that he wasn't demanding these items from me, but... okay. ???) Immediately after, he had left negative feedback on me, and never once attempted to contact me until I did a couple of days later when I had the time.  In his one reply, he was extremely rude, cursing every other word, and didn't reply again to the other 3 or so messages I sent after attempting to settle the dispute and make things alright.  He then attempted to escalate the claim with eBay, but by then I had already sent the photos I had posted on the auction of the GBA that clearly showed it had never been "sandpapered," along with his one curse-laden reply, as well as a message from another eBayer that this attempted buyer had attempted to do the exact same scam to, to eBay upon their request, and it was obvious he wasn't getting anything from me or eBay.  Afterwards, he messaged me one more time, threatening to find me and kill me, so he was banned indefinitely when I brought that up to eBay, naturally.

As a buyer, I had a simple case of a Canadian seller not sending a copy of Captain Comic, not replying at all to at least 5 attempts of contact, and eBay/PayPal refunding my money after a month and a half after the original transaction.

As for fees, I tend to sell things that aren't really that high-dollar, and are things I'm really just looking to stop letting them take up space in my house, so I'm not all that worried about how much I make on them or how much eBay and PayPal take out of that money.  That's just me, though, and I can understand how you might not like that much coming out.

Damn i shouldn't be complaining, you guys have dealt with nightmares.

At least i got the refund.  I left the guy neutral feedback, giving him the benefit of the doubt that his car could have been broken in to.

Ebay takes 10% and up to $250 for a standard auction or BIN. Fees are how auctions houses make money.

http://pages.ebay.com/help/sell/fees.html

PayPal takes 2.9% plus 30 cents per transaction

https://www.paypal.com/us/webapps/mpp/paypal-fees

I don't understand why people get surprised by fees. Does it suck? Yes. But running any business isn't free. If you sold stuff out of a store you have all sorts of fees for that also. Credit card fee, electric, employees etc..

I think its the fact that both sites are owned by ebay, so it feels like you're being charged twice.
There's also the "everything on the Internet should be free" argument from people who think the Internet is magic.

Agree with both of you. Don't get how people are still surprised and/or upset about this. It's still significantly cheaper than consigning items at a local shop and you get the benefit of having the world as your marketplace. For what you're getting as a seller, it's a bargain.

I've only had problems on the buying end. I recently got two complete super famicom games from Japan. The total worth was roughly 200 USD. The seller decided to send them both in an envelope. One of them arrived crushed and the cartridge didn't work. They didn't even bother to bubble wrap it. Second one arrived in acceptable condition because they applied three layers of bubble wrap around that one. It was very obvious they were trying to be cheap.

I've had so many issues with this that I insist on contacting the seller before paying to be as clear as I can about how I'd like the items to be shipped. With the advent of flat-rate shipping I don't understand how this is ever a problem. You can take care of everything right from home: the boxes are free and USPS will ship them to you for free, the postage can be paid for and printed off from home, and the carrier will pick up the package from your door when he drops off the rest of your mail. It seriously couldn't be easier.

I know, right? Priority even comes with 50USD insurance standard. I personally have a huge stack of shipping materials in my living room I've had shipped to me via USPS for all this.

Another is I recently did a trade on a site where the other party shipped two N64 carts worth roughly 100 USD. They were put in an envelope with no extra bubble wrap. One of the items was damaged on arrival. He didn't get insurance and the trade was contingent on them being in good condition with only normal wear. They then complained that the trade was in my favor, and seemed to refuse to exchange the item for anything of equal value to the damaged item - because they claim the trade happened to be in my favor. I eventually just picked something else of lesser value just because he seemed like he was going to just stiff me if I didn't. Then on top of that they tried to get me to pay all of the shipping for the exchange (both to send to him the damaged item AND the replacement item back to me).

Its like dude, you tried to be cheap and screwed up. Its not my problem if the trade was in my favor or not. Its getting to the point where I just won't do trades anymore because I'm tired of people trying to be cheap and be unwilling to fix their mistakes. =/

Wait are you telling the internet isn't magic?

[img width=450 height=568]http://amirazara.files.wordpress.com/2011/11/2011-04-13-internet-fairy.png[/img]

Yep.  I remember this part from on of my Cisco classes.  The whole encapsulation process.

And here I've been thinking this entire time that it was a series of tubes...

this is where handling fees come in. for the most part you can get free priority mail boxes from the postal service. handling fees pay for things like packing materials such as packing peanuts and bubble wrap insurance, signature confirmation or if it requires professional packing, for instance a large or high dollar item those fees pay for or help offset those associated costs. if you are upfront about it and honest on the cost most buyers are willing to pay that extra fee.

I have been selling and buying on ebay since the late 90s, and I can tell you that it was as bad then as it is now. eBay has a ton of fees, fines, and so forth into place, but again you make more money on that site than usual, especially if you know how to price and what to say. it just sucks that legitimate sites like GameGavel just don't have the foot traffic to compete with things on ebay. I try to support the reto stores in the area and GG, but you gotta admit the availability of eBay is pretty hard to resist, including the markups

I sell on Amazon because I usually get a higher price than I would on eBay and also they take out the fee right then and there. No delayed invoice garbage.