The eBay Takeover of 2020 is terrifying. Where IS eBay???? Why aren’t they stopping this?!???

I am concerned by the complete and total loss of control that genuinely seems to be changing eBay indefinitely. This should alarm everyone, especially sellers because if eBay keeps this up, eBay won’t be around in 10 more years, which will push all OF YOU to Amazon and Walmart.com and the last thing sellers want is an even more clear monopoly of Marketplaces to sell on; there’s already only 3 main Selling Platforms and Lord help us all if that dwindles down two.  What's even crazier is that it seems that the more eBays stock rises, the less they tend to care about BUYERS on their platform:

And, if you are a seller and you have not witnessed what happens when a company scares off BUYERS, it's a terrifying situation: as the buyers deplete, the sellers go elsewhere.  Then, without sellers there aren't buyers.  Next thing you know, it's MySpace, WoolWorths, Circuit City or Henri Bendel.  If you have never heard of these companies, it's because they ran their buyers away and closed after a long, highly successful run.

If you haven’t noticed “The eBay takeover of 2020”, here’s what’s going on:

Since being off school due to COVID-19, our 14-year-old (Luke) has been a part-time employee at the Big Brand Wholesale warehouse (Guess who is sorting all those pallets?!)

He saves up his pay and chooses to purchase these Collectors Edition Transformers, which are pretty damn expensive ($65-$120 each!). The selection on eBay is absolutely the best and, as a small business owner, I always encourage as many purchases as possible be made through fellow small businesses / online sellers; so buying off eBay has been common in my household since 2005.

In March 2020, Luke got his first paycheck of 2020 and rushed to buy this:

I always explain to the kids that shipping from China is going to take at least a month so we expect to not receive it until April. The seller quickly provides tracking… Hooray!

Then the problems start…. Weeks pass and tracking still has not “activated”:

As you can see, this parcel was never actually accepted by the mail carrier.

When you contact the seller, they do reply and they tell you that the carrier must have lost the parcel. They say they will immediately reship. Then they provide you with a new tracking number.

More weeks pass and the new tracking number still has not activated. This time the seller stops responding or tells you "I am looking into this" then ceases replying.

We went through the whole eBay Dispute process and got his money back through PayPal.

He then orders the identical item from a USA seller. This seller also gives us the identical run-around.  The USA seller also accused the carrier of simply "not scanning the parcel", then they claim they are waiting for USPS to call them back... this goes on and on for 50+ days.  The USA seller then stops responding.

We go through the dispute process and get his money back through Pay Pal on May 14th. He then buys the same item through a 3rd seller…. 

We just started the dispute process last night (July 13th) so we should have his money back by the end of the month.

THIS IS INSANE. This is an utter WASTE OF TIME, ENERGY, MONEY and, it’s just overall shitty.

But wait, it gets WORSE. Watch the video below to see the total garbage eBay is allowing on their site:

As a SELLER, you need to be aware that this eBay Scammer Takeover of 2020 WILL impact your eBay product sales. After 15 YEARS of happily buying off eBay, I have no choice but to walk away.  My issues are not only with the Transformer purchases, but also with my personal purchases mostly from USA sellers. I know walking away is so awful because there are tons of great sellers, but there is no longer a way to distinguish which ones they are unless they are "Power Sellers".  

I know what you're thinking, you're like, "Just LOOK at the feedback BEFORE you order! DUH!" - We did.  Every single time.  Every seller we ordered from, when the order was placed, was at 90% or higher positive feedback and all of the sellers we purchased from had between 200 - 600 feedbacks.  Sounds legit to me!  

You may also be thinking, "Just don't order from China!" - We have tried that too.  In 2020, I have personally been scammed by 4 USA sellers + the 1 USA seller my son was scammed by.  That's 5 USA seller scams out of 11 purchases (in addition to 2 China scams)!  That means there over a 50% chance that whatever you buy will be a total scam.  Who on earth has time to deal with this?!?! 

And lastly, I am seriously disturbed by the sellers who are defending eBay.  I have read tons of forums where loyal eBay seller say "eBay is NOT allowing people to do this!  Don't blame eBay" - you're seriously telling me that a company worth 36 BILLION DOLLARS has "no way of stopping this!" .  I call shenanigan's!  It is eBays DUTY to provide a "safe" marketplace; and that doesn't mean "you'll get scammed a lot, but we will ultimately reimburse you AFTER you invest a lot of time and energy into the dispute" - HELL NO.  Whatever eBay is doing; they're not doing it right because Amazon, Walmart, Poshmark and other platforms are not experiencing this.  Sure, every platform is going to have some scammers, but this is out of control, and if you defend eBay, shame on you for ACCEPTING this lack of service and quality.  

I have contacted a few of my associates who have been long term eBay Top Rated Power Sellers ; these are sellers who made MASSIVE BANK off eBay from 2008 - 2017 (before eBay allowed China to 100% infiltrate everything) ...and all of them report that they have experienced a large loss in eBay sales in the past 18 months.  All of them are now selling on other platforms in addition to eBay to subsidize the lost revenue from eBay and all of them are reporting success on PoshMark, Walmart and Bonanza.  All of them also agree that eBays "Seller Support / Customer Service" has been nearly non-existent since COVID started; and all of us agree that this is completely unacceptable.  

Final word:  I truly feel horrible for all of the wonderful, hardworking sellers and resellers on eBay who have made this site their home.  You BUILT eBay and made it what it is (or "was").  I wish I could tell you that things will get better, but I genuinely do not know.  I would strongly suggest finding alternatives ASAP because if the ship is sinking, you don't want to cling to it.  We have  brutally honest reviews on every other Marketplace alternative.