In every issue, readers soundoff about issues important to them. From feedback to payment services, from increased fees to posting policies, AuctionBytes Soundoff gives you a chance to air your views.

Re: "eBay Rolls out Major Initiative to Fight Counterfeits" http://auctionbytes.com/cab/abn/y06/m11/i29/s01

IT would be nice if they rolled that "major initiative" over to the motors area - specifically FAKE /STOLEN /SCAM car auctions. Can't see that happening anytime soon - $80 in basic fees (including a sale) for those auctions is something they're not willing to give up....!!
Carol

********

Ina,
Major problems with newly revised turbo lister that's affecting in particular sellers with their own database and also those who host their pictures. It's impossible to bulk edit. Gallery images are no longer showing. All kinds of error messages. It's impossible to list efficiently. I spent 30 hours these last three days and have listed only around 8 items.

Unbelievable that ebay is supporting such an inferior product! There are posts on the TL bulletin board. But the tech people are treating problems as though they are isolated. The help has been very poor.

Editor's Note: This is the eBay Discussion forum devoted to Turbo Lister:
http://forums.ebay.com/db1/forum.jspa?forumID=34

********

Re: "Mpire Discontinues eBay Selling Tools"
http://auctionbytes.com/cab/abn/y06/m11/i22/s02

Dear Ina:
I wanted to thank you for the good overview of mpire and their recent announcement.

I am a current, happy mpire user. Do you know of another auction listing service that has similar features as mpire, especially the auto-relist feature that raises and lowers item prices and the excellent photo hosting?

Have a great thanksgiving and I will save auctionbytes as a favorite.
Regards,
Scott

Editor's Note: See my blog post on eBay Auction-Management Alternatives: http://digbig.com/4qbrq

********

Re: "Click-to-Call Programs for eBay Sellers"
http://auctionbytes.com/cab/abn/y06/m11/i27/s02

Hi Ina:
My reading of Ebay rules indicates that you can put URLs/Links of sites that aren't selling something in your auctions, i.e. say an expensive purse maker had a site with information, but did not sell from the site you could direct buyers to the site for information.

On the other hand Ebay is so capricious & inconsistent I personally would be wary of putting links in my auctions. No one at Ebay knows what their rules are & they tend to go with people who report sellers.
Regards,
Martin

********

Hi again Ina.
Thought I would ask for your help on this very annoying problem. I've talked with eBay reps several times and have gotten no where.

On shipping options, I choose to sell to Europe, UK, Germany Australia. I choose not to sell to Mexico, Canada and Japan. I have my reasons for who I will and will not sell to and that isn't what this email is about.

Apparently because I do not sell to Japan, then I am automatically not selling to New Zealand. That makes no sense to me. In eBay's world, (whose sky is apparently not blue and they have 3 moons), New Zealand is part of Japan. My comment is that if we are going to lump New Zealand into a country, wouldn't Australia make more sense? I can override individual bidders from New Zealand, but what a pain in the behind for them and for me also. I want to sell to them and am excluded from doing so.

Does this make any sense to you? It's not something new, I first talked to eBay about this over 3 years ago. Still no progress.
Katie

********

Re: "eBay Rolls out Seller Incentive Programs in US, UK"
http://www.auctionbytes.com/cab/abn/y06/m11/i16/s01

(letter to eBay)

Again you prove that there is not a level playing field at eBay. The Ebay Powerseller Challenge terms and conditions prove it.

This challenge takes your highest 6 week period of sales plus 10% as the target number. If you have an eBay store, those sales are included in the base target, but Sales in an eBay store are NOT counted towards beating your target. You must have given this a lot of thought to come up with this illogical plan.

BUT to make it better, those sellers who do not have an eBay store and no store sales figured into their sales targets for this promotion have an excellent opportunity to win with only a small increase in sales. Does this sound like a level playing field? I pay you high fees for my store and I am punished for having the store.

Yes, I know you are desperately promoting Auctions, but this blatant excuse for a contest is patently unfair. It is obviously favoring one type of seller over another.
Herb

********

Re: "Committee Wants eBay to Report Seller Revenue to IRS"
http://www.auctionbytes.com/cab/abn/y06/m11/i21/s02

Ina,
And what about those who post consignments like trader assistants. It would create some mess.
Jim

********

Ina,
I'm hoping you'll run a story about ebay not issuing credits when they make mistakes. Last month, ebay double listed three or four auctions in my account. As an example, I listed a pair of shoes to start at 7 p.m. The auction started at 7 p.m. but 20 minutes later, it was listed again at 7:20 with a new auction number even though I only listed it once and only had one item. I'm not the only one who experienced this. At first ebay refused a credit but after several back and forth arguments with live help, they finally issued one. The standard answer is "We don't give credits for mistakes." My standard answer was "This isn't my mistake, its a glitch in your system and keeping the listing fee for an auction that I didn't list but had to cancel because of your glitch is stealing."

Today, I listed an item but it was showing up as HTML code. When I fixed the code in revise your auction, ebay changed the listing format from fixed price with a best offer to fixed price buy it now with no offer. I went to live help and the Live Help Rep told me he was baffled and told me to end the listing and start from scratch and turned me over to the billing department for a credit.

The woman from Billing refused to give me a credit because I had several credits already. I explained that every single credit was due to a glitch in ebay's system and none of the credits were my fault. She still refused. She told me I would no longer be eligible for any credits because of my previous history! If this isn't stealing I don't know what is. This is tantamount to them punishing a seller for item was received and not as described. I didn't get what I paid for.

It will cost me $20 to file in small claims court but I' m going to do it out of principle. What other company could get away with keeping your money when they made a mistake and you didn't get what you paid for? I know that I'm not the only one that this has happened to. By the way, I printed out 99% of the conversation. The ebay woman disconnected me after writing that she was through discussing this with me and disconnected me immediately. Had I not printed this as I was going along, I would not have the proof.

********

Dear Ina,
Just so you know I try to keep an eye on the overseas market, I just had a long email from an English dealer who takes trips here to the states to buy jewelry-in her words, "The English Antique market is just about on its knees." I would say its ditto for here, except for some specialized markets, like the big L.A markets where collectors can be sure they can bargain first hand with dealers. I have done well there, always, no don't make as big a profit but sell well, especially at the Long Beach one day market.

She also mentioned as to how the regular auctions are so expensive and out of 200 buyers at this Glasgow auction 143 were Ebay sellers all competing for the same goods and then paying too much. The same has happened here. I have a feeling as far as the antique and collectible auction section of Ebay it's all over bar the shouting. Many many dealers at Long Beach were talking in horrified terms, as to how Ebay auction sales had plummeted since August.

My shop is o.k. and I seem to make weekly sales and now we will concentrate on that. I remember what you said in your column months ago, the Australian gal commented that Ebay was trying to get back to 10 years ago but people are fed up of being outbid by 50c, its no longer fun, people want to buy it now. I had 7 merano glass items on auction many watches not one bid, a week later one nice peice sold from my shop.
Whats your take?
Regards,
Shirley

********

Re: "eBay Rolls out Major Initiative to Fight Counterfeits" http://auctionbytes.com/cab/abn/y06/m11/i29/s01

Hello Ina,
I have a pet peeve - what is "ENGLISH SPEAKING countries" supposed to mean? (I can't help but read slightly racist/xenophobic undertones to the phrase - I've seen it often enough in eBay communications)

I'm francophone, sell out of Quebec, have sold internationally for 7 years, except for those local sales and to France and English, 99% of my sales were conducted in English. Geez ebay.ca, has recently introduced a French site, haven't they?

And it's not like sellers in China and HK don't list, speak and write in English. Of course, we know they do. So I guess ebay.fr is out of the loop, right ?
Richard