Original Report:
Ebay is an evil, corrupt company that hates freedom and censors it’s
users.
I have been pouring money into Ebay for years. I repair laptop
circuitry – it’s a niche, and I have a growing clientele. ( Check out my
website if you like: Precision Division )
I have dealt with some of the best and the worst of them. Most of my
customers are computer repair shops and most of them are very easy to
work with. I try to keep things moving and try keep everybody happy.
Ebay has deliberately and maliciously been trying to sabotage my
business by canceling my listings. Ebay will now lose **at least** $200 a
month from me now. Was it worth it? Why? Because they felt they had a
point to make? I don’t charge people for repairs until the job is
complete. So, on Ebay, I offer a service – a $1 diagnostic. This makes
sense because there is no way to tell with certainty what a repair will
cost without seeing the laptop first. Ebay takes about $300 a month
from me – I know they’ve been ripping me off, but the listings are good
exposure. The Ebay listing is for a $1 diagnostic. The buyer pays the
$1, and I diagnose the laptop. That’s the extent of Ebay’s involvement.
Despite this, Ebay is maliciously and deliberately trying to interfere
with my business operations and hurt my company while leaving my
competitors to continue with their campaigns.
I also advertise on Google Adwords – and Google would never do this
kind of nonsense. They actually appreciate their customers. I’m not
perfect. I’ve had my share of angry and impatient customers. All
businesses have. But I work hard to keep people happy and I work hard to
improve my business every day.
Recently, Ebay decided that it would be ok to harass me and interfere
with my business. They started to cancel my listings – claiming that
they weren’t in compliance. One ignorant representative even said over
the phone that my listings were “inappropriate”. Yea, about that – I
am upfront and blunt with my customers. Most appreciate and respect
that. I would rather be told like it is, than to be told whatever I want
to hear by some phony businessman with a fake smile and a crooked tie.
But Ebay can’t grasp that concept. I have filed complaints against Ebay
– and what do they do? They spitefully cancel over a dozen of my
listings – as “payback”. Within days of filing a BBB complaint against
Ebay, Ebay cancelled almost all of my listings.
Well this Rip-Off Report is my payback, and you can all rest assured
that this is only the beginning. I have a business to protect – and I
will aggressively defend it. I have saved every email, every
correspondence – every call – and I will build my case against Ebay –
slowly but surely. And what is my case? Well, here it is: They are
giving my competitors an unfair advantage by keeping their listings up
but removing mine. Their listings are vague and poorly written. Mine are
detailed, polished and very informative. Ebay doesn’t know how to
handle competent merchants – so they try to damage them. It’s all part
of the political correctness scheme to deprive us of our constitutional
rights. Our free speech and freedom of expression is a protected right –
and Ebay think that this is not so because they are a private company.
They might have more leeway because of this, but it is still wrong to
oppress free speech and free expression. Someone needs to remind John
Donahoe what country made him rich. Remember – in America, freedom of
speech used to be a right, not a slogan. We must defend our rights
against evil corporations like Ebay that have no regard for anything but
their bottom lines.
I have tried to work with them. The last thing I wanted to have to do
was write this review. They left me with no other choice. I gave them a
chance to work with me first. I spent two whole days re-writing all of
my listings a few months back, just to cater to their demands. But they
still cancelled my perfectly good listings. Ebay has cost me time, money
and energy – and I expect to be reimbursed accordingly. I hope that
those of you reading this stop using Ebay immediately. I can tell you
from personal experience that I have lot a lot of money on Ebay. I have
been burned by dishonest merchants selling severely damaged parts – and
when I notified Ebay, they would seldom even respond to my emails. Ebay
is very poorly managed and in my opinion, is on it’s way out as a
company. The sun is setting on Ebay – and fast.
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The first commenter expressed concern or disappointment in the fact that I do not publicly list my address - but there is a reason for it.
I do not want just anyone throwing a laptop in a box and sending it to me. I qualify my customers. If someone found a laptop in the trash, took it apart and put it back together with duct tape - I'm going to tell them not to send it in. If I were to take ridiculous jobs like that, people would get angry when I couldn't fix it. I'm good at board level repairs, but I can't work miracles, and it's for that reason that I don't accept repairs without the customer first consulting with me.
Shops used to throw laptops at me - hard drives inside and all - and nobody ever put names on anything. I now require that all customers properly tag their laptop in a very specific format. These measures help to minimize the potential for loss, damage and errors during the repair process. As a specialty business that is in demand, I had to evolve. Most of my competitors don't do these things, and are still performing repairs with primitive tools like heat guns, blow torches and radio shack fire starters. I choose to be better than that.
As far as communication goes, I do everything through email so that I have notes to refer to. Some people have told me that they would rather talk on the phone. The problem with that is that it's hard to remember every persons name, details and repair results. Restricting all correspondence to email is simply more efficient.
About the buyer protection comment, Ebay is full of it. They don't offer buyer protection for services anyway - so you can't honestly claim that that is the reason for them removing my listings. I work hard to keep my customers happy - I do a far better job than the other Ebay merchants. In fact, I end up re-doing their work quite often.
Where you came up with the idea that my business is anything but hard working and legitimate is beyond me, but when your laptop breaks - who do you want fixing it? Someone who's just going to swap the parts and charge you a premium, someone who's going to do a temporary repair with a home depot heat gun, or someone who has this down to a science? I use computer controlled equipment, continuous ESD event detection, an array of meters and sensors, halide free non-carcinogenic fluxing agents & high quality silicone pads. No corners get cut.
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As far as the second commenter, maybe Ebay "can" technically censor all listing that they do not agree with, but that doesn't make it right. The listings that they removed were not in violation - they were just very, very detailed. I explained everything to customers upfront - everything. Ebay saw that as confusing, but the wording was very simple and in plain english. I made the use of images, videos and fonts to create an aesthetically appealing yet informative page.
