With low fees and ease of use, it would become a global phenomenon. Ebay has pretty much beaten off all comers too, its brand and size eclipsing its competition.

But along with success comes it failures. Ebay has tinkered with its product and altered the balance of its transactions between buyers and sellers. This is not without reason of course and it has made judgements calls which not everyone agrees with.

Ebay is open to abuse of course, equally from dodgy sellers and conmen, as well as remorseful buyers and pranksters. There is the existence of counterfeit products, non-existent products and sellers who just never send the goods purchased.

Then there are the buyers. And now with the feedback system that underpins the trust system, ebay has removed the ability of sellers to leave negative feedback against buyers effectively punishing its clients whilst appeasing its customers.

A buyer now has free reign to misbehave and not adhere to a contract because now ebay will not act or punish to protect the rights of both parties to a transaction.

I am one such client and customer of ebay who has now been burnt. And I am reluctant to use them again. Here's why.

I recently 'sold' some alloy wheels on ebay. The winning bidder then did not respond for a week desite numerous attempts to contact. Finally, a time was made to pick them up and then no show and no money. I checked with ebay who then send I could lodge a dispute which would result in my fees being transferred to the buyer. So I Iodged the dispute.

Except in the fine print it told me to continue chasing the buyer and wait 60 days. 60 days!

The process only called for ebay to contact the buyer by email, let them know that they are liable for the fees if they do not fulfill their contract to buy from me, activated by them when they won the item at auction's end.

This is when the buyer reacted, told me they would pick up the goods only to vanish from thin air.

Ebay, who can only be contacted by email or live chat - not phone or in person then explained the wait.

Naturally life gets in the way over 60 days, so I largely forgot about this until I received an invoice from ebay billing me for these fees at 30 days. What?

That's right. ebay, who accepts my dispute then charges me the fees in an invoice. Effectively this means I am financing ebay and then after the dispute is resolved I have to ask ebay for reimbursement. That's right, me a little person, selling my old wheels on ebay so I can pay my rent, has to finance a multinational monopoly worth billions using their own dispute process. This is an absolute rip off I thought.

So I chose not to pay. When I remembered that the 60 days was over, at about 80 days, I contacted ebay again. They told me I had 'missed the boat' and did not close the dispute. Apparently it does not end automatically. Ebay suspended my account, will not refund the fees or advance me a credit the same way or discount my bill. My wheels remain unsold. They demand to be paid in full as I am the 'bad person' here.

Its a crock. The buyer gets away with not completing the contract and I cannot leave negative feedback and get saddled with bill. even after I pay the bill, ebay says it may choose at its discretion to credit (not refund) me with the selling fees. The listing fees are not negotiable. Does this sound like a nce way to deal with your customers?

It seems that this continuing disturbing trend of treating your paying customers with contempt (ebay only makes money from sellers) is not only limited to monopolies like ebay but also duopolies like Woolworths, see the GREAT PETROL RIP-OFFpage, insurance companies, see WORKCHOICES page and any other major corporate bully like large Telco's with overseas call centres.

Seems its hard to vote with your feet when there is limited competiton and comptetition itself is a self defeating prophecy. For what is the end result of competition?

One winner...and in business where it has always been survival of the fittest, one winner means a monopoly or perhaps a duopoly like our supermarkets. In either case, its defeat to the consumer who gets ripped off and just gets told to live with it.

Many will say, forget about it, just get on with it...sure, but there a bigger things at play here and the general public ought to have access to REAL anecdotal information. For if we accept monopolistic behaviour in one environment to day, we will accept it in another tomorrow. Pretty soon, comptetition will result in one corporation running the world. A new world order. Not today or tomorrow, but in the future. And that does not benefit anyone but the chosen few. Why would we want to put up with that?

For those who are interested, read the interactive LIVE CHAT with ebay here.

mygreenway.com.au

7 July, 2009

BANKS

Paul Keating instituted the BIG FOUR banking policy when he was treasurer to ensure that the 4 majot banks of ANZ, NAB, Westpac and CBA could not takeover each other, to at least maintain a minimum of four players to enhance competiton but really to restrict a monopoly in the banking sector. Despite the Liberal party attempting to criticise it in the beginning and John Howard looking at reversing this decision, it has been left alone. But when St George, the fifth largest bank gets taken over by Westpac, one sees that this is even limited in its effect. Because St George would often behave in differnt ways to the big four. The same could be said for upstart BANK WEST. It really rocked the boat, so the CBA is trying yo buy it and swallow up its comptetion.

The big four system is inherently corrupt anyway. For when one of the banks puts it fees and charges up or raises its interest rates higher than the RBA, often the other three follow. Clearly its not about competion at all. Its about market tolerance. That is that if all four choose to act with self interest and self greed, then the others cash in. After all, if the big four control 80% of fthe market, where can the consumer go/ Join a smaller player and they inevitably get bought out by the big four.

Its monopoly at play all over again. Just a hint that one corporation will eventually control all of us and make us slaves to the system. Its up to our legislators to choose to help us or beat us into submission. for the individual is about saying NO. Standing up and fighting back. Demand that your MP takes a stand. About the things that matter. Your future and that of your children. we should not be slaves to a system that protects and rewards the very few...

MEDIA

The internet has diluted the strengths of the media to some extent. But the cross media ownership laws also set up by Keating helped divide the media ownership and therefore editiorial control (where opinon is delivered as fact) certain media owners may have.

Again John Howard diluted this which allowed for various takeovers. This only adds to a narrowing of stories of opinions and a widening of profit making which in turn leads to another round of takeovers.

Thankfully, the internet allows for citizen journalists to have their say in the public domain and not just regurgitate media releases, provide pages of distracting gossip and trash and in turn guide 'real stories" by columnists and not journalists...that is to substitute opinion for reporting. 

Again, with limited players, our information is tainted. Political elections is where you see at its most prevalent. Imagine thinking that Barack Obama and Sarah Palin were actually political equals. That FOX NEWS in the States actually attempted to say Palin was more qualified and you see my point.