EBay - Seller Beware

So I’ve been using eBay to buy stuff for about 4 years.  I'm not a frequent user and normally only buy the odd techy thing that has either been discontinued or I can't find locally.  In those 4 years I have never had any problems at all, good sellers with great communication, posting on time, well packed etc etc.  I've always paid instantly and it has been as straight forward as any online shopping I’ve ever done.

This week I went to sell my first item on eBay.  Thanks to a little bit of over enthusiasm on my part I ended up with 2 brand new x-box 360s.  All I wanted was to get my money back on 1 of them so I figured sell it quickly on eBay at a bargain price (they are still going for around the £400 mark) and everyone’s happy...or not as the case may be.  First of all eBay’s seller charges are high, can't remember of the top of my head how high but I was looking at £10 for a very basic 1 picture listing BEFORE anything was sold or any payment fees etc are taken.  Never mind eh, as long I could get my money back I’d be happy?  I did a three day listing and set the "buy it now" price of only £360 with a £300 reserve.  I specified only UK bidders and payment only by paypal or a personal cheque.  How could I fail?  After 2 days and a few bids someone finally decided to buy it outright at £360.  Great, I was chuffed.

I then got an e-mail from the buyer that went along the lines of "Hello, I’m a Nigerian scammer and I want you to post your item to Nigeria via UPS.  It will cost you lots of money to do this.  I will send you cash in the post.  Oh yeah I’ll need your full name, address and bank details as well."  Is anybody elses alarm bells ringing here?  I politely sent a message back telling them to f**k off.  Wound up I thought I’d search the web for any info and as it turns out this is a very common scam, in fact stuff the web, of the 3 real life in the real world people I know who have tried to sell an electrical item on e-bay all have had the same.  They have all tried re-listing (more eBay fees) but have eventually given up, some £50 down with nothing to show for it.  The great thing in all this is that as soon as your item is sold, eBay charge you a final amount fee as well. EBay are well aware of this scam, but have never done anything to help protect the people paying their fees.  

All in all I’m looking at a minimum of £30 worth of fees to sell my item (not including any paypal charges) and that’s if it is sold to a genuine buyer the second time around.  On average it appears to take 3-4 times until something is sold to a genuine buyer.  I wouldn't mind if eBay refunded some of the charges but they do sweet FA.  You can raise a dispute with the buyer at which point you "may" get your final fee back depending on what the buyer says, but if you want to sell something you've just gotta keep on listing and keep on paying those fees!

How hard would it be for eBay to add some sort of buyer address authentication to people bidding over a certain amount?  Considering they and paypal are one and the same I doubt it would even take a week to implement? Also, seeing as how they know all about this stuff why not stop people registering an account and bidding on high value stuff when they have no feedback? Will they though, I doubt it.

So that's it then, for as long as there is a hole in my ass I will never use e-bay again, to buy or sell.  They are charging rip-off amounts of money and offering nothing in return.  I decided to sell my x-box the old fashioned way, asked around the office and found a cash buyer no probs.  E-bay are nothing less than complete and utter coonts and I look forward to the day when their business falls flat on its face amongst complaints, law suits and all sorts of other shitte.