Www.isolditfullerton.comISOLDIT FALSE ADVERTISING FULLERTON California

I also own a eBay drop off store. I'm an independent location not affiliated with i-Sold-It at all.

I'm sure Scott at i-Sold-It is as happy to take in saleable items as I am. If we don't accept product to sell, we don't make any money. We get most of our products from consignment.

The business is a service. As a service, the business makes money by charging for work being performed. Cleaning your crap, taking photos, and writing the detailed description can easily eat up an hour of payroll... with no guarantee that the item will sell.

eBay is a service, too. eBay charges for every listing whether it sells or not, because its service is to provide a selling website. So when we list your unsaleable stuff, eBay takes their cut right off the top whether or not it sells. They don't care, they just go to our bank accounts and get their cut right when the listing gets posted.

So the way we make money at the shop is to either (1) sell your items and get a percentage of the sale, or (2) charge you for trying to sell your items and you get your stuff back.

If your items were declined at the counter, it is only because the agent did the completed listings research and found that your item would not sell on eBay or would sell for such a small amount that you would lost money selling it. If they had acquiesced to your demands to sell your unsaleable items, believe me that you would have been far more unhappy. If your item ended up selling for $20, you would have gotten a check for less than $5 for your item because there is like a $15 minimum charge per listing, Paypal takes 3%, eBay takes 5%, etc. If the item didn't sell at all, you'd be required to *pay* $15 (or the minimum) + listing fees for the priviledge of picking up your unsold item and taking it home.

Instead of whining that they wouldn't take your stuff, you'd be crying that you were ripped off. Something like "they took my stuff, said I would get money, then told me I owed them all this money and I have to come take my stuff back."

Plus, because I suspect you are like most customers whom we shops make exceptions for, you would have no intention of coming back for your stuff so you have nothing to lose. Then that shop would have to eat all the costs of trying to sell your crap, plus have to deal with donating it after a series of wasted follow up communications to you begging for you to pay the service fees and pick up your crap. Then I suppose we would find you here making accusations that your stuff was illegally disposed of.. or some such nonsense.

There are plenty of independent Trading Assistants out there that will take the lower value stuff because they run their business out of their house and have less overhead to cover. Perhaps this is the route you should consider in the future. eBay has a directory of Trading Assistants on their website.

It seems to me that Scott took the ethical high-road and did you a favor by not letting you leave your items with his shop.

As an aside... I get a lot of customers that experience huge disappointment when they find out that their King & I commemorative plate collection still carefully preserved in the original boxes with certificates from 20 years ago is worth about $10 on eBay on a good day. eBay has stripped the value out of almost anything and everything. For this reason, it's easy to turn away 50% of what people try to bring in.

We use a saying in our shop that I stole from the movie "Taking Care of Business" with Charles Grodin and Jim Belushi from the early 1990s. Charles' character needs to pawn his Rolex for cash when he loses his wallet... and after arguing a bit with the Pawnbroker about the value of the watch being worth several hundred dollars, the Pawnbroker solemnly states his final offer: "In Philadelphia its worth fifty bucks." So we say: "On eBay, its worth (insert dollar amount) bucks".

in response to James

We have been open one year now and this is the first time that we have had a customer that has complained about the wording in the iSold It franchise brochure.

Our brochure is used nationally by all of the franchise stores since 2005. I have brought up your issue to the corporate office and have asked them what they think. My thinking is that if one of my customers has an issue with something, that we should look into it, because others may have an issue and just don't say anything. While the brochure does go into more detail about "minimum selling value on eBay", we will look into adding a disclaimer with a note at the bottom of the page or we may change the wording a little on that inside page.

Either way, we will use up our remaining brochures for this year and look into some kind of change for our next order that we place.

"But even it it can sell for $50 on ebay, there is no guarantee they will accept it."

If we can find your exact item, or an item that is very close,that is currently selling with at least one bid for right around $50, or our research of closed auctions find that your item sold for $50 or more, we can try and sell it for you unless it's illegal to sell on eBay, so I'm a little confused by your statement.

If you would like to call me (714)990-9164 or send me an email at service.ca0238@i-soldit.com, I would like the opportunity to try again and provide you with our service, a service that has made many many customers very happy.

Scott

iSold it
Fullerton,CA