Large Scale Central

EBay rant!

General Discussion
#1

This afternoon (5 hours ago) I listed a LGB train on my local eBay with a seven day listing. So far the listing is only on my eBay account. It does not appear in my items for sale list, nor does it appear as a search item under the ‘G scale’ search field. I contacted eBay ‘Live Help’. Apparently, the listing is being ‘indexed’ to check that it conforms with eBay policy. The only difference between this listing and my numerous other listings over the past three weeks is that I included a link to You-tube showing the train in operation. I thought that this may encourage a sale.

Apparently, the indexing could take 48 hours. Meanwhile my listing sits in the cold awaiting the green light. How is a bidder to know an item is available when eBay withholds it for two days? No mention of recompense. Just the last two weeks eBay got over $300 in fees and its sister company PayPal over $150 in fees. You just got to love free enterprise!!!

#2

They did the same thing to me last winter on one of the engines I sold.
I had also included a link to a you-tube video of it running.
Rick

#3

Think of it this way, though. What would ebay charge you for adding video to your ad if they owned YouTube? And have no worries. I’m sure they’re looking for a way to make money off of you by enabling you to bypass the indexing feature for a small additional fee–kinda like the “pay your money to avoid waiting in the airport security lines” programs. There’s far more money to be made in nickels and dimes than Franklins and Hamiltons (or whoever is on your paper money.)

Later,

K

#4

Listing appeared with no fanfare or apologies nearly eight hours later. I know that Friday night is maintenance/update time so I avoid listing at this time. Just eBay flexing its muscle. Let us hope Google does not get control or we will have eBay listings all over the search engine.

Latest thing on eBay when you log on is it takes you to a page full of paid advertising, with a link to your homepage. It says that if you wish to not be directed to this page of advertisements (messages from eBay?) then go to your profile and modify it not to be sent to this page. However, it does take nearly a week for your profile requirements to be addressed. Meanwhile for thew next week, a page of advertisements just to log on. On principle, I never purchase anything from a telemarketer or from a door to door salesperson. I put this eBay advertising affront in the same category.

#5
Tim Brien said:
Let us hope Google does not get control or we will have eBay listings all over the search engine.
Tim, if I understand your post, in a roundabout way, it already has.

Here, type LGB 2071D into The Google.

The third hit is for “model trains yard” dot com, click on the link, it takes you to a eBay listing.

The fourth hit is for “trains LGB” dot com, clikc on the link it takes you to another (closed) eBay listing.

My question has been, who actually ownes these “eBay linking” sites?

#6

Garrett,
its becoming like a newspaper. One hundred pages of adverising and two pages of news. With the eBay linking, well it depends how much you want to pay for the privilege. Google would be only too pleased to take as much as eBay offered.

How long before there will be a ‘membership’ fee to join eBay or maybe an annual ‘donation (subscription?)? Maybe a premier membership devoid of the now all to prevalent ‘Buy it now’ eBay stores listings. At one time you had to select the sellers’ stores listings. Now you have to wade through 42 pages of LGB ‘Buy it Now’ offerings just to find the real listings posted by individuals. The prices that these sellers stores list, I wish that I could get just half of that for my listings. Who are they kidding - Bachmann Big Hauler coaches for $104.00???

#7

Tim, at one point DVD/CD listings were like Amazon even.

Let us say you typed in “The Best of Lou Rawls” in the CD section, instead of many listings, you got a discription of the CD, cover art, track listing, etc. and then a tiny link saying “get your copy starting at $5.99” or the like, just like Amazon.

Apparently I was not the only one that thought this blew the big chunks, as it went away after asking for “feedback” regarding the format.

I miss the old days of Postal money orders, having to actually go to the post office to calculate postage and the buyer and seller actually had to correspond with one another.

…and then the changes to eBay started being dictated by stockholders instead of users…

For a while, was having luck bying things from a part owned eBay firm “Craigslist”. There was a site called “Craig Look” that did a nationwide search. Type in LGB, you got LGB trains from everywhere. It was VERY popular with classic automobile folks as you could easily search for a 1962 Studebaker Lark nationwide. But it got taken down for whatever reason after threats by Craigslist…too much competition for eBay itself I bet.