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.

You can also read the AuctionBytes blog, which has a place for reader comments under every posting (http://blog.auctionbytes.com).

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Re: eBay to Pull Plug on Old Search in April

I opted out of the new eBay search because my computer locks up when I used it. What now? I cannot bid and search because it slows the computer so badly!

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Re: eBay Sellers Critique PayPal Notification Emails

Hi Ina.
Already causing a stir...the new Payment Received sent by Paypal does not include a link to the item sold,,, could slow down processing for sellers... another improvement...they did this once before, and finally reinstated the link... what a place.

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Did you look at the "deal of the day" on eBay today... Four hours in and BUY has sold a TON of MS Mice. This is sickening that we all can't participate in this program... Just look at "purchases" and then the time of the purchases...UNBELIEVABLE!!!!!!!!
Keith

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Hello Ina,
WHAT EVER HAPPENED TO THE ANNOUNCEMENT PROCLAIMED TO BE COMING ON THE 25TH BY GRIFF, PERTAINING TO FEES? You know, the one about monetizing the pages with ads, (maybe) lowering the fees to sellers?
keep up the good work~

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Hi Ina.
Here is something to tell you: 10 days ago i rec'd from ebay a "mc010" security message that my account "may" have been breached and ebay took steps to protect the account.

Fine.

I spent a white knuckled hour trying to follow their instructions and finally got a live chat with security and they gave me a new password and of course I changed it and started with a new password.

When I asked the security rep how could this happen - I never do phishing stuff...I am wise to that, 10 year veteran, never happened before etc...

He got very defensive and stated how ebay was only trying to protect me etc, etc.

I told my wife right after I smelt a rat. I felt that this was "manufactured" by ebay for whatever reason. Well guess what - it happened again last night. mc010 email, cancelled password etc.

It only took me 5 minutes to get a security guy again - experience helps - and again when I said how can this happen with a less than 10 day old password and never opening phish emails the guy got all defensive on me again.

Anyhow...maybe this is nothing but as ian fleming once wrote: "once is happenstance, twice is coincidence. the third time is enemy action" - I will report to you if this happens again if it is worthwhile. Have you heard this popping up anywhere else lately? Maybe a poll of the Auctionbytes community.
All the best,
Ben

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Hello, Ina.
Here's the story: link

Amazingly, at the very end of the comments, the victim managed to get a live phone call from eBay to help resolve the mess.
Thanks for all you do.
Cordially,
Dee

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Re: "Individuals Get Free Auction Listings on eBay UK, Higher FVFs" (Link)

There's already a link with plenty of input from sellers.

Observations:
1) It's far from clear what's in the pipeline for business sellers, but fearing the worst.

2) For casual sellers, the comment they prefer the fee structure as it's simpler is frankly laughable. My 11 year old son quickly grasped that FVF @ 10% across the board is not good news compared to 8.75% scaling down as the value goes up.

3) Who benefits from this? Someone who lists an item for 99p which won't sell, or sellers of items starting 99p which sell for less than GBP 9.00. Everyone else it's a significant fee increase, which just gets worse as the value increases.

4) The simplified FVF 10% tariff will further strangle the life out of auction items ? particularly the more valuable / highly collectable items.

What are Ebay up to? Making auctions the format for low priced tat? Simply put, both Private and business sellers want a vibrant and efficient market. This has all the hallmarks of a cheap gimmick being used to impose yet further fee increases for the vast majority of transactions effected on Ebay. Regards
Tim

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Ok without running the numbers looks like this...for ebay..........sales down sellers down buyers down and now after all of the effort to improve the buyer "experience" we see buyer satisfaction down.

Then again jd informed us in the conference call that it is the macro economy...which begs the question how is that different from just saying the economy?

And as you're aware there is a problem with that argument when your main competitor amazon has increases in all those catagories. Now we didn't switch to the river since we have been sellers of used unique items and it just wasn't a match for us. Clearly some of amazon's growth has been at the expense of ebay as they chased some of their sellers there.

And again why am I watching....heck I always stop for a car wreck!!
Have a good day....
Dennis

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Ms. Steiner
Discussing decreased sales and marketing expeditures in a report to shareholders today, Ebay stated that: "Sales and marketing expenses decreased $1.3 million in 2008 compared to 2007... as we shifted our marketing focus from customer acquisition to customer retention."
Sad, sad.

Ebay Annual Shareholder Report

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Re: Impasse over DSRs at eBay Town Hall Meeting

THANK YOU for adding the link to the eBay developers. If I can figure out how to use the XML they provided, I will be able to really tell what is happening with my DSRs.

It won't prevent me from getting a crummy rating, but I will be able to find out exactly WHO to block. Now if we can only get them to stop fiddling with things that work good right now, and let us block PR, Samoa, VI, and AK/HI if we want, that would help.

They are pretending it's too difficult, because right now they use the country registered as a parameter. What they NEED to do is make the country US/PR for Puerto Rico, instead of US. And US/HI for Hawaii, etc.

This is THAT difficult? Ok, so it needs to be more than two or three characters, come ON. Why would I have to tell buyers in WORDS in the listing??

I thought their IT dept. employees had DEGREES from a, like COLLEGE.
Maybe I am wrong....
Nancy

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Dear Ina,
In view of the baseball card from 1886, I think that was the date, fetching $64,000 recently on Ebay you might want to write an article that this was exactly why the former Ebay was great, those wonderful exciting sales of items fetching thousands of dollars.

Remember one of the original Declaration of Independence found behind an old picture as a backing - the buyer only wanted to frame. I think it fetched one and half million. Not on Ebay but never the less what it means are treasure pop up in the darndest places. That's why auctions are the best and Ebay had that fabulous format why can't the heads of Ebay not see this. Are they like those people running banks and wall street, just dunderheads. Regards
Shirley