Hello, goodbye eBay!

2009-09-30T00:12:00.000-07:00

Are you a disgruntled eBay seller? Fed up with feedback blackmail, high fees, fake buyers, dishonest sellers selling fakes / repros (with eBay letting them get away with it) which impact the selling price of your items, eBay's restrictions on certain items (such as edged weapons where only US buyers can bid) afflicting your sales price, shill bidding by competitors pushing their prices up unfairly, idiot eBay customer "service" agents deleting your auctions for spurious reasons?

Yes, I really dislike eBay too, but I have found a way to use them without paying them, legally.

Step One
Find yourself another auction site that does serve / look after you better, somewhere like vBid.me - no seller listing fees or commissions, buyer and seller feedback (with a simple, effective mechanism for having false feedback removed), free stores (nice!), multiple item auctions, classified ads, trades, enhanced security (specify the minimum feedback and / or maximum negative feedback a buyer must have before being allowed to bid), instantly published "asked the seller a question" (with simple mechanism for removing malicious messages / suspending malicious users of course), UK / EU / USA / Australia / Canada / New Zealand / EEA (Switzerland, Norway, etc.) users only unless by special invitation (to block troublesome Chinese, Eastern European, etc. buyers and sellers), and more!

Step Two
Go back through all your emails from eBay; many if not most will actually have the email address of the eBay user who contacted you (when they asked you a question, bought something from you, etc.). These are YOUR email addresses to contact, NOT eBays!

With a little bit of savy it is easy find all the eBay emails (try searching for "You've received an answer", "question about item", "message from eBay", "Question about postage", "Please send me total", etc. - there are even email extractors you can use to get all these emails in bulk and in seconds, e.g. the free to use (freeware) Email Extractor 1.2

Now you can email all these eBay contacts with a message that you have items for sale on another auction site (and give them a link to it). It you use auction sites like vBid.me which provides free stores, you can send potential buyers a link to your auctions / items only! Doing this is not Spam (as you are informing existing contacts of a change of service) and nothing to do with eBay!

Step 3
Set up a new eBay account, log in and sell photos of (your) auction items on other sites! This will let eBay buyers know you are selling the item somewhere else. If you only upload one picture and start off with an auction price of $0.99 (plus postage of course - which you do not pay a fee to eBay on), it costs very little and is perfectly within eBay's rules! Please note: eBay does NOT allow you to link to other auction sites (or divulge their URL) BUT you can get around this very easily.

Here is a typical example;

(title for your eBay auction)
Picture British 1796 P Cavalry Sword Waterloo Provenance

(Use a picture of your item with the background message: © vBid me - Militaria Auctions)

Please note: This is for a printed photograph of a genuine / authentic British 1796 P Cavalry Sword with Waterloo Provenance. Because non-US sellers are no longer permitted by eBay to sell swords (http://pages.ebay.com/help/policies/firearms-weapons-knives.html) it is actually being sold on another auction site.

I have the sole rights though to sell a picture of this fine sabre, so eBay buyers can at least put that on their wall to admire. So the auction is for a printed photograph of this sabre with the copyright notice removed so you can enjoy it better. It is a limited edition photo, so one only!

It is a shame eBay prohibit swords for non-US sellers (some still get away with it I know but it is clear this loop-hole will not last for ever) as they are perfectly legal, but oh well, at least you as an eBay buyer can own a photo of this sword.

Step 4
Hope another ebay user (maybe a friend ;-)) asks you a question like "Can I buy the sword itself? Do you have a Buy Now Price?" If you then reply "It is not my sword to sell but it is being sold on another auction site called vBid me. eBay rules prevent me from telling to the URL but you only have to use Google to find what you want on the Internet right ;-)" and make sure you publish your reply on your auction page so others can see it.

According to eBay's current rules they have no grounds to remove your listing. However their "Customer Services" still will remove such auctions of course, but do not worry as you do not pay fees for removed auctions and you can always re-list it addressing any nonsense claims by them. If eBay get nasty, you may want to remove your card details / PayPal info from the "my details" area of "my eBay", so they have to ask you for payment of any fees each time (in case you have a financial claim against them). If they suspend your account, you have legal cause to claim breach of contract and with that the right to open another eBay account, which is very easy when you do this on eBay.com

If you do open another eBay account on ebay.com to sell photos of your auctions elsewhere, you should not put false names, addresses, cities, countries, phone numbers in of course as this is very naughty. Recent reports of people entering police enforcement (police station) numbers in Albania and elsewhere (and the Whitehouse), so eBay get into hot water when they call (especially when they use their automated phone number verification system is not funny or fair on eBay.

eBay Sellers Revolt

Hello, goodbye eBay!