Good-Bye, eBay and PayPal

My relationship with eBay and PayPal has ended. I've been both a buyer and seller on eBay for twelve years and have used PayPal for eleven. But they have implemented some hostile changes in policies towards sellers like myself which I can no longer tolerate.

The worst of these policies is the 21-day hold PayPal now places on payments received; you need to provide proof that the buyer (a) received the item, and (b) is 100% satisfied with the item. While proving receipt is fairly easy (although a bit annoying to pay additional for delivery confirmation), all a buyer needs to say is that they don't like the item, and they get to keep it for free. I'm very lucky I stumbled upon this information in the eBay forums, as I never received any notice from either eBay or PayPal about this policy change.

It takes hours for me to make a single ornament, and sometimes a full day. I am NOT going to GIVE AWAY these ornaments!

Issue #2 is their dirty practice of hiring shills through a third-party called Liveworld to populate their forums and bully off customers who complain. You can read more about this (and my own enchanting experience in the eBay/PayPal forums) in my blog.

Issue #3 is the DSR scam. On the Help page it clearly states "Detailed seller ratings don't affect a seller's overall Feedback score, but we take these ratings into account when we evaluate sellers to see if they're eligible for discounts and other benefits." When I read that, I said "oh, okay..." and thought nothing more about it. Nobody said, "But wait, there's more!" The truth is, you can have 100% positive feedback but if your buyers give you low stars (which they do for sheer enjoyment -- I received a less-than-5 star rating for "Communication" one time and have no idea why) eBay will suspend your account. That's a far cry from supposedly not having an effect on your account!

And finally, I just discovered that eBay has "downgraded" my status to "Standard;" I only have 500 transactions but I don't have a single negative/neutral feedback (again, I received no email notifying me of this downgrade). The speculation among us small sellers is that they are planning to continue to demote our statuses until we all reach a "punishable" level. I have a seasonal item; I typically began selling at the end of September and I would put a note on the ornament page about this with a link to the auction. Well, come September there will be no ornaments from Sparklements on eBay.

A recent message posted in the eBay forum explained the whole scenario up nicely:

"...you are exactly the kind of seller ebay does not want to bother with anymore. They have decided that one diamond seller could replace 1000's of small sellers like yourself. Think about this. Would you rather deal with the problems and concerns of 1000's of customers vs only 1? eBay and PayPal made rules knowing that the small guys will just go away. This disruptive innovation did not work fast enough so they invented DSRs. Now, a seller will be thrown off a cliff if they receive complaints from less than 1% from buyers. No matter if the complaints were warranted or not -- eBay does not care."

In summary, it is clear that customer loyalty means nothing to eBay or PayPal. I've filed a complaint with the FTC Bureau of Consumer Protection and my state Attorney General and would urge anyone who has been the victim of the 21-day hold to do the same.