eBay

Back in prehistoric times, bosses worried that workers were using the office Internet connection to look at pornography. After that it was Amazon.com. Now it's eBay and the other auction sites.

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Walk through any office around 8:30 a.m. and everyone's logged on and ready for another day. Only thing is, instead of reading the CEO's latest rantings, they're buying antique waffle irons on eBay and selling some left-over parts from that old Studebaker out in the back yard.

The whole thing works more or less on the honor system, which is pretty much how speed limits work. Our suspicion has been that if you held up a radar gun, you'd find a lot of people speeding -- and a lot of others (or maybe the same ones) not coming through with the merch.

Here are a few of the more recent complaints we've received:

Dr. of Wilmington, NC October 16, 2008

To all Federal and State agencies protecting the civil rights of the disabled veterans and handicapped citizens. This involves one the best known companies in the world today, EBay, about the complete lack of transparency. I have appealed to the Federal Trade Commission. Chamber of Commerce, and others to bring this company into oversight by consumer agencies.

I am totally blind, 100% disabled veteran of the Korean war, where I served as a medical officer. For over forty years as a disabled citizen, I have spoken for the largest minority of citizens in this country, the 38 million handicapped, many of whom, like me, still work and pay taxes. I will not go into great detail here, but I have a long history of business with EBay. I can supply facts and figures about the number of people I have employed and the funds involved.

Without warning, my EBay business was suspended with EBay. As has been reported to me by my local bank, who tried to resolve an account problem with them. The local DA and police who tried to get information from them involving ID Theft, and many other things which I could discuss, the company is almost entirely isolated from anyone who wants to contact them about a problem, whether by mail, phone, or internet. I challenge you to look into this anti-citizen, this anti-customer attitude which prevents resolution of problems and certainly handicaps the commerce involved with the employees and public relations.

It is an insult to the law abiding American citizen who believes in the free enterprise, capitalism and age old system of treating fellow human beings with decency that I appeal to you to look into the commericial practices of this company doing business world wide since evidently the judiciary is isolated from them. I am not currently able to do ecommerce with EBay. I have employees whose lives depend on working, and I have nothing for them to do.

Patricia of Deltona, FL October 15, 2008

Patricia of Deltona FL (10/15/08)
I have been buying and selling on Ebay for 4 years. I have (had) over 1500 positive feedback. I never did anything wrong. I followed all of Ebay guidelines, paid all of my fees on time. No complaints or negative feedbacks. I have recently had to close my car dealer business and am trying to sell my things (from high hand bags to sort after car parts, etc.)when I logged on few weeks ago to check the status of my 20 items I had listed and one 300.00 ended item that I needed to collect on and ship, Ebay had shut me down...suspended my account.

It's been 3 weeks, several phone calls & emails later and nothing. I still can't get an answer or response. Ebay took the money for my fees and the items that sold, but closed the account so no one could pay me for the items they won. Ebay sent an automated email stating I was linked to an account that was suspended...which is untrue. I can't discuss this with anyone because they can't help me when I finally get through by phone, they tell me to email...(Ebay hides any phone number) and absolutely no response to contact us by email.

Ebay is one the biggest companies in the world. They offer a service. The consumer pays for this service, but who does Ebay answer to when they screw people out of their hard earned money and take away the service they offer that many people depend on for income? What gives Ebay the right to steal from the us without being held accountable?

I lost almost 500.00 and continue to lose because I can't sell anymore.

Pamela of Long Island, NY October 14, 2008

Pamela of Long Island NY (10/14/08)
I purchased a pre-sale case of baseball cards for 1,000 and never received them and can no longer get my money back due to ebay 's time limit rules but they let this guy sell something that wasn't to be released for 2 months I researched his feedback and his time on ebay all was good now paypal and ebay have told me there is nothing they could do this guy gets away with my money.

I lost a lot of money and A lot of time that ebay and paypal telling me to report it to fbi they still have not responded. ebay then they told me to go to police they laughed at me and said they don't deal with that then ebay told me to take him to court and court told me I have to file the court case in california. Give me A break so I guess you can just rip people off and get away with it. are there any honest decent people left in this world?

Sung-Hee of Gangwon-Do, OTHER October 13, 2008

Sung-Hee of Gangwon-Do OTHER (10/13/08)
Potterybarn gift cards purchased on eBay. Buy on Sept. 10 and Sept. 23 were on the ships. On Sept. 19, but already the Annapolis mall gift card was used in full.

427.67 gift card for the full amount of financial loss.

Linda of Lombard, IL October 12, 2008

Linda of Lombard IL (10/12/08)
I'm paying a monthly fee for my store. Now, in order to force sellers to pay more to change their listings into Fixed Listings, EBay is NOT showing the items in many categories for our stores anymore. THIS is NOT the original agreement when we opened our stire.

I PAY for eBay to show my store listings & now they sent a lame email saying that if there are more than a certain # of listings, the STORE listings will not be seen by anyone. This is outrageous! There should at least be a link to view STORE ITEMS. How can things in a store now be sold if no one can view them? I think there should be a class action suit.

I am defitely selling a lot less items in my store. This is a loss of revenue. If there is limited exposure, then there should be a % of the monthly fee refunded for each item that can't be viewed in an eBay search.

Sandy of Freehold, NJ October 9, 2008

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