Its Time For Someone to Investigate Ebay

Ebay has changed from the time I started selling on ebay 10 years ago. In its lust to become an Amazon clone they have forgotten that its the sellers who made them what they were a few years ago but not today. Many sellers have left ebay because of exorbitant fees, no recourse against buyers who think its a good way to rip people off (this includes scam bidders), not allowing sellers to accept money orders or personal checks and overall bad customer service.

Many sellers have gone to places like etsy, formed their own internet stores or given up.

Since Ebay announced that no one can pay via check or money order I've seen my sales go down. I do accept these forms of payment but I'm not allowed to advertise it under the ebay rules. If someone emails you if you will accept it then you can. Many people don't want to bother and just don't buy.

Ebay doesn't care about buyers because they don't accept a varied amount of payment options and because they allow sellers with more than 50 negatives in a year to stay on ebay because they sell in high volume. It is obvious that some auctions are scams but in many cases people don't know.

It is time for the government to investigate the practices of ebay. Many things they do seem to be very odd. For example they give power sellers a discount based on their monthly ratings but they do not allow the sellers an opportunity to see how those ratings were left by the buyer. How can a seller improve himself if he doesn't know why a buyer doesn't give him a good rating?

Doing it this way allows ebay to possibly lie and say you get a 5% discount instead of a 15% discount and you have no proof one way or the other if they are telling the truth. You have to take their word for it. Is that fair? If Ebay's business is bad for a month do they lower your rating? They may be telling the truth but how do we know?