ebay and fancel artists -

hobbywhelmed · Post by **hobbywhelmed** » Fri Aug 11, 2006 9:12 am

I was in contact with a fancel artist last night, whose auction had disappeared. She told me ebay cut her auction because she mentioned in the listing that she also does commissions.

Apparently, they're cracking the whip again on possible deals outside of ebay.

You know how it is, when your profit margin slips a bit - So much for the previous campaign to "make ebay part of your business and selling experience". (emphasis on PART. Come to think of it, that program must have been a long time ago, before the start of power-sellers and drop-shippers and people listing a hundred auctions of the same item they'd bought in bulk -)

wELCOME cONSUMER · Post by **wELCOME cONSUMER** » Fri Aug 11, 2006 12:51 pm

I don't know when this went into effect, but they've also limited how you
can contact other members. For example, a seller was selling an item I was
interested in but the price was too high so I did not bid. In fact, no one bid.
The item ended with no winners. I attempted to contact the member via
eBay to get the item (either relisting for less or to sell directly to me, I didn't
really care which. I just wanted him to know I was interested for a certain price.)
Well, a screen pops up and tells me that since I've had no dealings with this
guy (ie - no transactions via eBay) that I really have no right to be contacting
him and thus wouldn't allow my message to go through. The item was never
relisted and his email address/contact info was no where in the previous listing.
I may never see that item again, and this was several months ago.

Absolutely pissed me off to no end. I can understand wanting to limit spam
or something, which is why they make you type in that secure code thing,
but to not allow any contact whatsoever?! Blah.

hobbywhelmed · Post by **hobbywhelmed** » Fri Aug 11, 2006 3:00 pm

That's interesting - They don't give a problem if you contact while the item is still active, or if the seller has any other items you can go through. And that's right - people who have contacted me about one thing or another after the auction have always gone through the Contact the Seller for another auction! I was wondering why.

For sellers, they also monitor how many emails you're doing - I know a guy who sells a number of things, and who tells his repeat customers that when he has multiples of something, not to bid on the auction, but to contact him and do the deal directly. But after a while, you had to call him on the phone rather than contact him at his ebay addy, because he said ebay was complaining about the number of his emails regarding auctions that never completed.

Especially when it's an auction for something ebay will likely close down, I always print the page since when they pull an auction it now disappears completely from your watchlist or bid-on list, and you've lost the seller's name completely. At least then, unless they pull every auction, you've got a name and can contact the seller through another auction.

RoboFlonne · Post by **RoboFlonne** » Fri Aug 11, 2006 3:28 pm

Ebay regularly pulls my auctions so I have to keep changing them until they are all Ebay APPROVED!

Look! They Even stamped me as being EBAY APPROVED! Yay!

It's really alot of hassle.

klet · Post by **klet** » Fri Aug 11, 2006 4:25 pm

I've had the same thing happen to me, WC. I contacted the winner of a lot of Saint Tail dvds (still missing one!

) to see if he'd sell, but ebay would not let me contact him.

So, are they really losing money? Because I assume that they're driving away a lot of money by being such Nazis.

I know I refuse to upgrade to a paypal premier account because they canceled some of my auctions last year without notice. If they had sent me a warning email or something, I would have gladly upgraded. Not that they really care about that kind of thing. *sigh*

They should also stop sending out ebay magazines and anniversary cards.

hobbywhelmed · Post by **hobbywhelmed** » Fri Aug 11, 2006 5:27 pm

Klet - THEY think they're losing money. When they decided to raise store fees after finding out 85% of things are in stores (never mind that they had promoted stores as the place to sell small items like accessories, etc.), they said the average selling time for an auction item is 14 days.

Ok, but what percentage of auctions complete with a sale? I see tons of the same things listed over and over again!

I think, if you see anything in an auction you might remotely be interested in, send some sort of question, comment, whatever, so you've got that email addy! Of course, all the extra bandwidth usage will freak the corporate headquarters!

sugarcels · Post by **sugarcels** » Fri Aug 11, 2006 5:55 pm

I was WONDERING why I couldn't get ahold of sellers after there were no bids on their auctions. I was interested in this cel and was going to email them to ask if they would relist it, but couldn't find the information anywhere, when I knew I could before. Now the auction has disappeared and I can't even recall the seller's name. ARGH!

As a seller, this also frustrates me on a new level.

Sugarflower · Post by **Sugarflower** » Fri Aug 11, 2006 5:59 pm

hmmm, are you able to contact the seller if you had one of their ended auction pages saved to your watch list?

~Sugar

wELCOME cONSUMER · Post by **wELCOME cONSUMER** » Fri Aug 11, 2006 9:14 pm

Sugarflower wrote:hmmm, are you able to contact the seller if you had one of their ended auction pages saved to your watch list?

~Sugar

That has nothing to do with it. After the auction is over, the "contact seller"
link disappears. You have to click the person's user ID and then attempt
to contact member from there. If you bought something from the person,
then your display screens will read differently than if you did not win
something from them.

eBay, like any corporation, has projections. They raise their quarterly
projections higher and higher. When their profits do not meet these
expected projections, then they can announce to their shareholders that
they are "not doing well." This is similar to Reganomics. A lot of companies
do this because simply making the same profit each quarter is not
acceptable. They want more. Grow grow grow, expand expand expand.

There are auction alternatives online. Now if we could just get people to
use them. Then eBay would be in real trouble.

hobbywhelmed · Post by **hobbywhelmed** » Fri Aug 11, 2006 9:22 pm

"A lot of companies
do this because simply making the same profit each quarter is not
acceptable. They want more. Grow grow grow, expand expand expand.
"

As I observed years ago, we usually call that a tumor.

wELCOME cONSUMER · Post by **wELCOME cONSUMER** » Fri Aug 11, 2006 9:34 pm

Nah, it's a zit. And eventually, it bursts.

hobbywhelmed · Post by **hobbywhelmed** » Fri Aug 11, 2006 9:59 pm

"Nah, it's a zit. And eventually, it bursts."

--Hopefully not until I finally decide to get my tri-color neon retro diner-type wall clock.....

wELCOME cONSUMER · Post by **wELCOME cONSUMER** » Fri Aug 11, 2006 10:03 pm

hobbywhelmed · Post by **hobbywhelmed** » Sat Aug 12, 2006 6:59 pm

I was out frolicking today - (powwow - another chance to eat and shop, often simultaneously. Oh, yeah, and lots of Native American music and dancing too) - and missed the end of a fan cel auction I was waffling over.

So, I decided to try the contact thing. The link was missing from the finished listing, so I did what some of you tried, clicking on the member's name, and then the box for contact member. I've never bought anything from this person before - but it let me contact her/him via email! (Of course, the default is to have my addy kept invisible. Had to unclick the box.)

I wonder if they changed the problem, or if feedbacks have anything to do with it - the other member only had 12 and I have over 900. I wonder if it went through to "help out" newbies (the cynic in me is snorting right now), or if I'm over some feedback "barrier".

Interesting.

wELCOME cONSUMER · Post by **wELCOME cONSUMER** » Sat Aug 12, 2006 7:03 pm

I have 1,000+ feedback and the person I attempted contacting had several
hundred as well, so I'm not sure what the exact reason was for the block.
It might be random? Or perhaps people complained to eBay about this
problem and they fixed it. It really did tick me off to no end but it did happen
a few months ago. Hopefully it's no longer a policy or random glitch.

Glad to hear you were able to contact them!