You can read "Is eBay Back on Course?" here. Reply to this message to discuss it.
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First of all, Barron's Michael Santoli is obviously in the pay of eBay. His story came straight from eBay's Department of Spin.
Shill Bidding on eBay: a Case Study
For eBay “watchers”, a detailed case study of the crime of “shill” bidding and the abuse of eBay’s proxy bidding system—all exacerbated by eBay’s introduction of “hidden bidders”—plus a detailed general criticism of eBay’s “clunky” auction platform, and policies, at
http://www.auctionbytes.com/fo...iewtopic.php?t=24033
A synopsis thereof:
very little of the auction system security, that eBay claims to offer buyers, exists in fact;
contrary to their claims, it can be demonstrated that eBay has no “proactive” nor “sophisticated” system in place for the detection of undisclosed vendor (“shill”) bidding, and indeed eBay does nothing about such criminal activity except as a reaction to a user’s report of such, and even then eBay’s ultimate response will be unconvincing;
eBay has no effective matter-of-course verification of users: unscrupulous users can apparently have as many user IDs as they may have email addresses;
many of eBay’s “rules”, concerning the retraction of bids, cancellation of auctions, etc, are nominal only and are no bar to the machinations of the unscrupulous seller;
as a result, eBay’s “proxy” bidding system is so open to abuse by such unscrupulous sellers that to use it, as eBay intends it to be used, can be an invitation to pay the maximum you have indicated you are prepared to pay;
by the lack of any effectual system to proactively detect shill bidding, eBay has ever effectively, and knowingly, “aided and abetted” unscrupulous shill-bidding sellers to defraud naïve buyers; by so doing, eBay benefits from a higher “final valuation fee”;
the masking of bidding IDs with non-unique, absolutely anonymous aliases serves no purpose other than to further obscure all but the most blatant of shill bidding, and defeats any attempt at programmatic analysis of individual bidding patterns to expose such activity;
the quarterly changing of even these non-unique, absolutely anonymous, bidding aliases serves absolutely no other purpose than to stop even experienced eBay users from attempting to manually track suspicious bidding activity over time;
the anonymous, individual bidder Bid History Details pages, supposedly supplied to offset the absolute masking of bidding IDs, although better than nothing, will usually present an ambiguous view and, in such circumstances, are of little value;
anyone naïve enough to make other than a last-moment “snipe” bid on a seller-elected “private” auction (ie, “User ID kept private”), on the balance of probability, is going to be defrauded—and eBay knows it;
when suspected fraud is reported, and is found by eBay to be proved to their satisfaction, eBay will conceal that fact from the victim of the fraud; this then is the concealing of a crime after the fact—surely, a crime in itself;
eBay will never acknowledge to a victim that a fraud has been perpetrated, nor indeed will eBay acknowledge that such fraud is even a problem on eBay auctions; eBay therefore sees no reason to provide any mechanism to aid in the recovery of any monies so defrauded;
if eBay did have any proactive and truly sophisticated system in place for the detection and control of shill bidding, we would not now be having this debate;
for those buyers (and honest sellers) who embrace eBay believing that eBay acts as an “honest broker” between buyer and seller, I can only say that you may as well believe that there are fairies at the bottom of your garden too; and
the most disgraceful aspect of this matter is that we all would, quite rightly, be upset if our local auctioneer, from whom we were buying, was found to be facilitating and concealing such criminal activity—and here is eBay, knowingly, doing just that to the whole world!
Shill Bidding on eBay: a Case Study
For eBay “watchers”, a detailed case study of the crime of “shill” bidding and the abuse of eBay’s proxy bidding system—all exacerbated by eBay’s introduction of “hidden bidders”—plus a detailed general criticism of eBay’s “clunky” auction platform, and policies, at
http://www.auctionbytes.com/fo...iewtopic.php?t=24033
A synopsis thereof:
very little of the auction system security, that eBay claims to offer buyers, exists in fact;
contrary to their claims, it can be demonstrated that eBay has no “proactive” nor “sophisticated” system in place for the detection of undisclosed vendor (“shill”) bidding, and indeed eBay does nothing about such criminal activity except as a reaction to a user’s report of such, and even then eBay’s ultimate response will be unconvincing;
eBay has no effective matter-of-course verification of users: unscrupulous users can apparently have as many user IDs as they may have email addresses;
many of eBay’s “rules”, concerning the retraction of bids, cancellation of auctions, etc, are nominal only and are no bar to the machinations of the unscrupulous seller;
as a result, eBay’s “proxy” bidding system is so open to abuse by such unscrupulous sellers that to use it, as eBay intends it to be used, can be an invitation to pay the maximum you have indicated you are prepared to pay;
by the lack of any effectual system to proactively detect shill bidding, eBay has ever effectively, and knowingly, “aided and abetted” unscrupulous shill-bidding sellers to defraud naïve buyers; by so doing, eBay benefits from a higher “final valuation fee”;
the masking of bidding IDs with non-unique, absolutely anonymous aliases serves no purpose other than to further obscure all but the most blatant of shill bidding, and defeats any attempt at programmatic analysis of individual bidding patterns to expose such activity;
the quarterly changing of even these non-unique, absolutely anonymous, bidding aliases serves absolutely no other purpose than to stop even experienced eBay users from attempting to manually track suspicious bidding activity over time;
the anonymous, individual bidder Bid History Details pages, supposedly supplied to offset the absolute masking of bidding IDs, although better than nothing, will usually present an ambiguous view and, in such circumstances, are of little value;
anyone naïve enough to make other than a last-moment “snipe” bid on a seller-elected “private” auction (ie, “User ID kept private”), on the balance of probability, is going to be defrauded—and eBay knows it;
when suspected fraud is reported, and is found by eBay to be proved to their satisfaction, eBay will conceal that fact from the victim of the fraud; this then is the concealing of a crime after the fact—surely, a crime in itself;
eBay will never acknowledge to a victim that a fraud has been perpetrated, nor indeed will eBay acknowledge that such fraud is even a problem on eBay auctions; eBay therefore sees no reason to provide any mechanism to aid in the recovery of any monies so defrauded;
if eBay did have any proactive and truly sophisticated system in place for the detection and control of shill bidding, we would not now be having this debate;
for those buyers (and honest sellers) who embrace eBay believing that eBay acts as an “honest broker” between buyer and seller, I can only say that you may as well believe that there are fairies at the bottom of your garden too; and
the most disgraceful aspect of this matter is that we all would, quite rightly, be upset if our local auctioneer, from whom we were buying, was found to be facilitating and concealing such criminal activity—and here is eBay, knowingly, doing just that to the whole world!
This is the biggest load of rubbish propaganda I've seen in a long time. Whoever wrote it is either ebay management or they don't bother to read the boards. Small & medium sellers are being killed off every day while big box sellers with terrible feedback always come up at the top of the searches. I'm very diosappointed in you auctiva for printing this offensive crap & sending it to my mailbox.
Please let me answer that for you:
NO, EBAY IS NOT BACK ON COURSE! it is on a worse path than ever.
you must be employed by ebay to spew such propaganda and lies! did i see you on spin city?
as for the reduced insertion fees. along with the reduced fees, the final valuation fees have gone up by several times. costing the seller much more than the old fees. thus running the price of items to the buyer up.
ebay says that they are doing these things to help the buyers. NOT TRUE! how can driving the selling price up, be good for the buyer or the seller. the only one profiting from such action, is ebay. lining their pockets and running people away from ebay.
free shipping: anyone that knows business or has any common sense, knows there is no such thing as free. the sellers are jacking up the selling price of the items, to cover the "so called" free shipping. this is what ebay wanted. they get a percentage of the increased selling price, where in the past they could not get a cut off of the s&h fees. this is causing the price of many things to go up on ebay, in many cases higher than they can be bought through brick and mortar. ebays free shipping is costing the buyers more money and costing the sellers, sales. but, ebay is making more per sale. AS YOU YOUR SELF STATED: ON EBAY WE ARE ALL THIRD PARTY SELLERS, EBAY SELLS NOTHING, JUST PUSHES THE SELLERS AROUND. EBAY IS NOT AMAZON AND NEVER WILL BE.
paypal: ebay forcing paypal down both the buyers and the sellers throats, is just another way to pad their pockets. it is not for the protection of anyone. the only time i have ever lost one cent on an ebay sale was through paypal. never a penny from a money order, etc.
free auction fees: if you will check out the final valuation scale on this, you will find that in many instances, the final valuation fees will more than make up for the free insertion and can even cost the seller more than the fixed priced listings.
i have watched as thousands of buyers and sellers alike have been pushed off ebay. sellers that i use to buy from with over 100,000 feedback are now gone. buyers that were regular and repeat buyers, now gone.
i am an ebay power seller, with one of the highest dsr ratings on ebay. since ebay started their insane changes and new polices, my customer count is down, my sales are down by over 50%, my profits are down by almost 70%, my repeat customers are down. the non-paying buyers are up by over 600% and ebay does nothing to help. high dsr's and a drop in the number of feedbacks by approx. 60%. WOW! EBAY ON COURSE! I THINK NOT!
if as ebay would like us to believe, high dsr's is good for everyone, why are my dsr's going up but, my sales and my profits, etc. are falling through the floor? i would gladly give up customer satisfaction rating, to have my customers, my sales, and my profits back!
also, there has been a marked reduction in the number of buyers that now leave feedback. it is a combination of new buyers that do not know the system, old buyer that did know the system are gone but, the biggest reason of all is that there is no incentive for a buyer to leave feedback at all. they know that the seller can only give a positive or nothing and the buyers do not care any more. buyers have also become more rude and demanding, knowing there is nothing sellers can do about and knowing that ebay will do nothing about it.
there are also more and more buyers and some sellers, doing or wanting to do business outside of ebay. this to off set the excessive ebay and paypal fees.
the current feedback system is the most unfair system i have ever seen. sellers are rated on things the do not even have control over and the buyer get away with non-payment, slow payment, abuse, etc. all of this and more due to ebay new policies.
ebay's upper management are fools and people like you help spread their lies and try to spin them into positives.
the truth is that ebay is losing ground and it is their own fault.
ebay and paypal fees are totally out of control. running hundreds of thousands of sellers out of business.
new insurance polices: this is just another way to force sellers to increase their prices, again padding ebays pockets. without insurance and delivery confirmation, ebay is still going to hold the seller responsible for delivery and or damage to the item. again, cost the buyers more in the long run! what a joke!
the current ebay search engine is another joke. you can no longer find the unique items that once made ebay such a great place to be. what was wrong with the old ending soon system. that in fact was the only truly fair system out there. everyone got the same chance. the closer your item came to ending, the more exposure it got. FAIR IS FAIR AND EBAY IS NO LONGER FAIR!
THERE IS A VERY GOOD CHANCE THAT EBAY IS NOW THE MOST UN-FAIR MARKET PLACE IN THE ENTIRE WORLD!
NO, EBAY IS NOT BACK ON COURSE! it is on a worse path than ever.
you must be employed by ebay to spew such propaganda and lies! did i see you on spin city?
as for the reduced insertion fees. along with the reduced fees, the final valuation fees have gone up by several times. costing the seller much more than the old fees. thus running the price of items to the buyer up.
ebay says that they are doing these things to help the buyers. NOT TRUE! how can driving the selling price up, be good for the buyer or the seller. the only one profiting from such action, is ebay. lining their pockets and running people away from ebay.
free shipping: anyone that knows business or has any common sense, knows there is no such thing as free. the sellers are jacking up the selling price of the items, to cover the "so called" free shipping. this is what ebay wanted. they get a percentage of the increased selling price, where in the past they could not get a cut off of the s&h fees. this is causing the price of many things to go up on ebay, in many cases higher than they can be bought through brick and mortar. ebays free shipping is costing the buyers more money and costing the sellers, sales. but, ebay is making more per sale. AS YOU YOUR SELF STATED: ON EBAY WE ARE ALL THIRD PARTY SELLERS, EBAY SELLS NOTHING, JUST PUSHES THE SELLERS AROUND. EBAY IS NOT AMAZON AND NEVER WILL BE.
paypal: ebay forcing paypal down both the buyers and the sellers throats, is just another way to pad their pockets. it is not for the protection of anyone. the only time i have ever lost one cent on an ebay sale was through paypal. never a penny from a money order, etc.
free auction fees: if you will check out the final valuation scale on this, you will find that in many instances, the final valuation fees will more than make up for the free insertion and can even cost the seller more than the fixed priced listings.
i have watched as thousands of buyers and sellers alike have been pushed off ebay. sellers that i use to buy from with over 100,000 feedback are now gone. buyers that were regular and repeat buyers, now gone.
i am an ebay power seller, with one of the highest dsr ratings on ebay. since ebay started their insane changes and new polices, my customer count is down, my sales are down by over 50%, my profits are down by almost 70%, my repeat customers are down. the non-paying buyers are up by over 600% and ebay does nothing to help. high dsr's and a drop in the number of feedbacks by approx. 60%. WOW! EBAY ON COURSE! I THINK NOT!
if as ebay would like us to believe, high dsr's is good for everyone, why are my dsr's going up but, my sales and my profits, etc. are falling through the floor? i would gladly give up customer satisfaction rating, to have my customers, my sales, and my profits back!
also, there has been a marked reduction in the number of buyers that now leave feedback. it is a combination of new buyers that do not know the system, old buyer that did know the system are gone but, the biggest reason of all is that there is no incentive for a buyer to leave feedback at all. they know that the seller can only give a positive or nothing and the buyers do not care any more. buyers have also become more rude and demanding, knowing there is nothing sellers can do about and knowing that ebay will do nothing about it.
there are also more and more buyers and some sellers, doing or wanting to do business outside of ebay. this to off set the excessive ebay and paypal fees.
the current feedback system is the most unfair system i have ever seen. sellers are rated on things the do not even have control over and the buyer get away with non-payment, slow payment, abuse, etc. all of this and more due to ebay new policies.
ebay's upper management are fools and people like you help spread their lies and try to spin them into positives.
the truth is that ebay is losing ground and it is their own fault.
ebay and paypal fees are totally out of control. running hundreds of thousands of sellers out of business.
new insurance polices: this is just another way to force sellers to increase their prices, again padding ebays pockets. without insurance and delivery confirmation, ebay is still going to hold the seller responsible for delivery and or damage to the item. again, cost the buyers more in the long run! what a joke!
the current ebay search engine is another joke. you can no longer find the unique items that once made ebay such a great place to be. what was wrong with the old ending soon system. that in fact was the only truly fair system out there. everyone got the same chance. the closer your item came to ending, the more exposure it got. FAIR IS FAIR AND EBAY IS NO LONGER FAIR!
THERE IS A VERY GOOD CHANCE THAT EBAY IS NOW THE MOST UN-FAIR MARKET PLACE IN THE ENTIRE WORLD!
Yea, this article was good for a laugh... a short, sickly laugh I mean.
What a bunch of propaganda... the writer is obviously a member of ebay managment.
NOTHING ebay has EVER done is actually for the benefit of the buyers or sellers, PERIOD.
I understand and agree that any given business must do certain things at certain times in order to stay profitable and viable in the market (ie: to keep their doors open) but the utterly dishonest B.S. that ebay has laid on us sellers through the years is enough to make you puke.
They've taken a great idea and place and turned it into an utter nightmare for sellers and buyers alike... I personally closed my ebay store just a couple days ago. I refuse to be treated like dirt by these scumbags any longer.
I agree 100% with everything written below, the 'free shipping' ebay is trying to shove down out throats is a freakin' joke - if only the simpleton buyers would realize it's costing THEM MORE rather than less for us to line ebays pockets with free shipping... but that will never happen - ebay has a staff of some of the greatest spin doctors (READ: LIARS) ever assembled to mislead buyers and sellers alike on each and every issue they have ever devised to screw everybody over...
Just plain pitiful what ebay has become... I'll miss it. (the old ebay that is!) Personally I hope the idiots at ebay who have devised all these various scams against buyers and sellers alike burn in the hottest darkest corner of hell for awhile for taking a great company and turning it into the worlds largest con job!!! L.O.L.!
What a bunch of propaganda... the writer is obviously a member of ebay managment.
NOTHING ebay has EVER done is actually for the benefit of the buyers or sellers, PERIOD.
I understand and agree that any given business must do certain things at certain times in order to stay profitable and viable in the market (ie: to keep their doors open) but the utterly dishonest B.S. that ebay has laid on us sellers through the years is enough to make you puke.
They've taken a great idea and place and turned it into an utter nightmare for sellers and buyers alike... I personally closed my ebay store just a couple days ago. I refuse to be treated like dirt by these scumbags any longer.
I agree 100% with everything written below, the 'free shipping' ebay is trying to shove down out throats is a freakin' joke - if only the simpleton buyers would realize it's costing THEM MORE rather than less for us to line ebays pockets with free shipping... but that will never happen - ebay has a staff of some of the greatest spin doctors (READ: LIARS) ever assembled to mislead buyers and sellers alike on each and every issue they have ever devised to screw everybody over...
Just plain pitiful what ebay has become... I'll miss it. (the old ebay that is!) Personally I hope the idiots at ebay who have devised all these various scams against buyers and sellers alike burn in the hottest darkest corner of hell for awhile for taking a great company and turning it into the worlds largest con job!!! L.O.L.!
What does everyone expect from Auctiva? They are just like ebay now. Their site use to be free but now they charge to use their services. This entire article is BS the author knows it & we all know it. Ebay has became their on worst enemy. I stopped selling on ebay when the BS DSR system went into effect. I tried it for 1 month & said no more. I gave buyers free shipping & always shipped the item the day after payment was received thru paypal & still only getting 4.6 stars on shipping fees? The hell with ebay & auctiva for ruining such a great site or the worldwide flea market.
quote:Originally posted by thar:
Please let me answer that for you:
NO, EBAY IS NOT BACK ON COURSE! it is on a worse path than ever.
you must be employed by ebay to spew such propaganda and lies! did i see you on spin city?
as for the reduced insertion fees. along with the reduced fees, the final valuation fees have gone up by several times. costing the seller much more than the old fees. thus running the price of items to the buyer up.
ebay says that they are doing these things to help the buyers. NOT TRUE! how can driving the selling price up, be good for the buyer or the seller. the only one profiting from such action, is ebay. lining their pockets and running people away from ebay.
free shipping: anyone that knows business or has any common sense, knows there is no such thing as free. the sellers are jacking up the selling price of the items, to cover the "so called" free shipping. this is what ebay wanted. they get a percentage of the increased selling price, where in the past they could not get a cut off of the s&h fees. this is causing the price of many things to go up on ebay, in many cases higher than they can be bought through brick and mortar. ebays free shipping is costing the buyers more money and costing the sellers, sales. but, ebay is making more per sale. AS YOU YOUR SELF STATED: ON EBAY WE ARE ALL THIRD PARTY SELLERS, EBAY SELLS NOTHING, JUST PUSHES THE SELLERS AROUND. EBAY IS NOT AMAZON AND NEVER WILL BE.
paypal: ebay forcing paypal down both the buyers and the sellers throats, is just another way to pad their pockets. it is not for the protection of anyone. the only time i have ever lost one cent on an ebay sale was through paypal. never a penny from a money order, etc.
free auction fees: if you will check out the final valuation scale on this, you will find that in many instances, the final valuation fees will more than make up for the free insertion and can even cost the seller more than the fixed priced listings.
i have watched as thousands of buyers and sellers alike have been pushed off ebay. sellers that i use to buy from with over 100,000 feedback are now gone. buyers that were regular and repeat buyers, now gone.
i am an ebay power seller, with one of the highest dsr ratings on ebay. since ebay started their insane changes and new polices, my customer count is down, my sales are down by over 50%, my profits are down by almost 70%, my repeat customers are down. the non-paying buyers are up by over 600% and ebay does nothing to help. high dsr's and a drop in the number of feedbacks by approx. 60%. WOW! EBAY ON COURSE! I THINK NOT!
if as ebay would like us to believe, high dsr's is good for everyone, why are my dsr's going up but, my sales and my profits, etc. are falling through the floor? i would gladly give up customer satisfaction rating, to have my customers, my sales, and my profits back!
also, there has been a marked reduction in the number of buyers that now leave feedback. it is a combination of new buyers that do not know the system, old buyer that did know the system are gone but, the biggest reason of all is that there is no incentive for a buyer to leave feedback at all. they know that the seller can only give a positive or nothing and the buyers do not care any more. buyers have also become more rude and demanding, knowing there is nothing sellers can do about and knowing that ebay will do nothing about it.
there are also more and more buyers and some sellers, doing or wanting to do business outside of ebay. this to off set the excessive ebay and paypal fees.
the current feedback system is the most unfair system i have ever seen. sellers are rated on things they do not even have control over and the buyer get away with non-payment, slow payment, abuse, etc. all of this and more due to ebay new policies.
ebay's upper management are fools and people like you help spread their lies and try to spin them into positives.
the truth is that ebay is losing ground and it is their own fault.
ebay and paypal fees are totally out of control. running hundreds of thousands of sellers out of business.
new insurance polices: this is just another way to force sellers to increase their prices, again padding ebays pockets. without insurance and delivery confirmation, ebay is still going to hold the seller responsible for delivery and or damage to the item. again, cost the buyers more in the long run! what a joke!
the current ebay search engine is another joke. you can no longer find the unique items that once made ebay such a great place to be. what was wrong with the old ending soon system. that in fact was the only truly fair system out there. everyone got the same chance. the closer your item came to ending, the more exposure it got. FAIR IS FAIR AND EBAY IS NO LONGER FAIR!
THERE IS A VERY GOOD CHANCE THAT EBAY IS NOW THE MOST UN-FAIR MARKET PLACE IN THE ENTIRE WORLD!
THAR,
I have to agree with you on everything!!! I'm also a power seller with 100% positive feedback and 4.9+ DSR's. Sales are down, Profits do not exist anymore, and I'm so sick and tired of buyer abuse for uninsured items that get returned as "defective" and you can clearly see that the "defect" is user abuse and/or shipping damage and eBay will do nothing about the buyers abusive language in emails and on recorded telephone calls. With my losing the payment when things go through the dispute console because buyers claim that the item was defective and not damaged as is evident in the photos that are taken of all returned items. What I'm really sick and tired of is eBay constantly changing the requirements. Now they are changing it so that lower volume sellers and super high volume sellers do not have to meet the same standards that the rest of us do. If you are a low volume seller you can have 2% low DSR's and if you are a high volume seller (134 sales/mth or 400 sales/3 mths) your low DSR's only count for the last 3 mths. Everyone in between can only have 0.5% (1/2 of a percent) low DSR's for an entire year to qualify for the "Top Rated Seller" program. And only the "Top Rated Sellers" will qualify for the "Best Match" search returns and any type of descent FVF discounts. Or maybe it is just that feeBay thought that fewer sellers would qualify for the FVF credits under the DSR program so now they are changing things again to knock more sellers down to the lower FVF discounts. As a power seller now you have to meet the requirements for the power seller program and the Top Rated Seller program.
Although I think that eBay has already started implementing the search results change for the "Top Rated Seller" program as my listings dropped from the top of the best match returns to the very bottom behind sellers that have lower DSR's and current negative feedback, with the only real difference being that they only had about 100 sales over the last year and 1 power seller that had just over 600 sales but they still had lower DSR's and current negative feedback. So how can sellers with negative feedback be providing better customer service and a consistently good buyer experience over sellers that do not have any negative feedback and the only low DSR's that I have ever received was from 3 buyers nearly a year ago, 1 buyer that was not a US domestic buyer that bought a US ONLY listed items without even checking to see if I would ship to their country and when they did not like the shipping cost I refunded their money and filed for a FVF credit, 1 that made a best offer on a free s&h with a USA address and then changed the address to South America during checkout, and 1 that left low DSR's and a negative comment on positive feedback for an item that they were unhappy with after their coworkers laughed at the item when they took it to work to "show it off" and they did not even contact me about returning the item for credit, which they would have been allowed to do as I sold dozens of that item. This means that, for myself, with 100% positive, 4.9+ mthly avg. DSR's, and annual low DSR's of 0.54% and less do not qualify as a "Top Rated Seller" while sellers that have DSR's of 4.8 and less with negative feedback within the last month qualify as providing better service and a better buying experience than I do. Whats up with that?
quote:Originally posted by watchtower218:
Yea, this article was good for a laugh... a short, sickly laugh I mean.
What a bunch of propaganda... the writer is obviously a member of ebay managment.
NOTHING ebay has EVER done is actually for the benefit of the buyers or sellers, PERIOD.
I understand and agree that any given business must do certain things at certain times in order to stay profitable and viable in the market (ie: to keep their doors open) but the utterly dishonest B.S. that ebay has laid on us sellers through the years is enough to make you puke.
They've taken a great idea and place and turned it into an utter nightmare for sellers and buyers alike... I personally closed my ebay store just a couple days ago. I refuse to be treated like dirt by these scumbags any longer.
I agree 100% with everything written below, the 'free shipping' ebay is trying to shove down out throats is a freakin' joke - if only the simpleton buyers would realize it's costing THEM MORE rather than less for us to line ebays pockets with free shipping... but that will never happen - ebay has a staff of some of the greatest spin doctors (READ: LIARS) ever assembled to mislead buyers and sellers alike on each and every issue they have ever devised to screw everybody over...
Just plain pitiful what ebay has become... I'll miss it. (the old ebay that is!) Personally I hope the idiots at ebay who have devised all these various scams against buyers and sellers alike burn in the hottest darkest corner of hell for awhile for taking a great company and turning it into the worlds largest con job!!! L.O.L.!
I hear you I have all of my current store listings on eBay expiring at the end of there 30 day period and I'm closing my eBay store by the end of the month.