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New Top Rated Seller Requirements, is this a Joke?
 

I'm so Flippin' Stunned by the abusive agenda led ignorance behind all of this I can't think straight so I'll just do my best.

First I'd like to say this isn't a pity party, it's a real life experience that has happened to me and my business that could happen to a Top Rated Seller at any given moment no matter the service you provide top to bottom relating to the Four DSR criteria.

I can't relate time-frames as for the past 1-2 years I've lost 3-6 hours daily trying to keep up with eBay ever changing, ever evolving agenda with all of it stealing my soul, my peace of mind and my intellectual sanity. For a great period of time eBay requirements first for the 20% discount with Top Rated eventually being attached was all 4 DSR's being above 4.9. During that time-frame, eBay displayed our individual DSR's as well as the "all of eBay" comparrison and at least as far as I could see through the comparrison, maintaining a 4.9 or above was a lofty task and plenty enough a requirement to maintain Top Rated status.

On 7-21-2010 I did a search in one of my regular listing categories and couldn't find a one of my items. I scrolled page after page after page and finally found a fixed price Buy it Now w/Free Ship on page 8, I didn't know what to think. Then I noticed my Top Rated Seller badge was gone believing it must be an error so I called eBay and was told I'd lost my Top Rated status due to 3 1 or 2 DSR ratings for S & H during a 3 month period. 250-300 DSR ratings left me, most of them 5's across the board with a few 4's and maybe some 3's from a couple of mini-ignorant who wouldn't understand the definition of "Item as Described", Communication", "Ship Time" or what a fair Shipping & Handling Rate" was if someone were to walk up to them and say "You need to understand the definition or you'll drop dead where you stand".

I was flippin' LIT so I called eBay Top Rated Seller Support even though I'd been told I know longer had an account manager as of 7-1-2010 after nearly 3 years in spite of averaging $16-$18k in sales per month for the past few. The rep I spoke with advised the 3 individuals who had left me 1 or 2 ratings had all left positive feedback on listings where I charged $12.88 for ship which is well in line with the ship rate others charge who sell the product I do and it costs me far more to get product in and far more to ship out than most others who sell Nascar Product as I do because they are more centrally located both with respect to the distribution centers as well as the Nascar customer base.

How the FLIP can eBay in any way justify not only burying my listings but stealing what will amount to about $300-$350 this month for the loss of my 20% discount, receiving a 5% instead over 3 FREAKS who have zero concept of ship rates, had set me up or were just having a bad day. Who knows which of the 3 it was but it was one of them and eBay should know this based on based on ratings I've received from the greater masses. My 3 Month DSR's sit at 4.97 for Item as Described which is in itself nothing less than ignorant as I sell brand new product, it's just as described if not better than the written description. My Communication DSR sits at 4.99, Ship Time is 4.97 and my Shipping & Handling for reasons stated above is at 4.93 and I lose my Top Rated Seller Status?

I've either stepped in to the Twilight Zone or eBay has been taken over by Aliens from another planet as there is no point of intellect that would back such an action other than the use of the ignorant, a word that can cover a number of mindsets or as the alternative, sellers within the given category who have set another seller up in order to allow the site to steal 15% of what would have been the 20% discount earned if not for the actions of individuals eBay full well knows are out there.

Some of you may read this and say "Well I've maintained my Top Rated status without issue". I have this to say to any comment of that nature, all you people are is one full moon away, a bad day in the stock market, a solar flare or a turn in the economy that may have a number of people being mad at life away from losing what I have.

I told eBay after they suspended me for nearly 2 months without even so much as a courtesy warning earlier this year for my having advised they who were trying to thieve or extort that there could be legal repercussions for their actions as any business would do, actions that for 9 years I was told "You're our boy for protecting eBay from this type of member" that I'd taken a "Forgive them Father for they not know what they hath done" stance to the suspension but in the same breath, I told them if I lost anything further for the blind-sighted ignorance created by agenda I'd do all within my my power to cost them dearly just as I've done a number of entities who thought they could do whatever they wanted just because they existed who found out otherwise by the time I was done. I may in fact fail as eBay appears to have the politicians bought and paid for and if their former CEO becomes Governor of California they will then be a country as well but I'm going to give it everything I have and if you're smart, you'll give it all you've got as well as the tweaks to this system that allows eBay to steal are far from over.

Thanks for reading, FlippinStunned

Welcome to the eBay matrix. You've seen a glimpse of just how far the rabbit hole goes.

Look on the bright side at least you haven't been suspended. Imagine how you would be feeling if your whole account was gone!:lol:

Filed under eBay Horror Story #9,565,311 - check!

It may get even worse. You have already seen that your listings are now buried where nobody can see them. So losing the discount may just be the tip of the iceberg. Far worse could be the lost sales and income you might experience.

Logic and reason tell us that a business would go out of it's way to nurture their best customers (sellers pay the bills after all), who have a long term history of delivering on time, being honest and providing good customer service.

But on Planet eBay, logic and reason are unknown elements. Most of the people here can relate. We have all lost something with eBay, some just a $200 per month extra income, and some - like you - a business that you were obviously good at and that rewarded you. In many cases it happened out of the blue, with no warning and for silly reasons. That is why we are here.

I was with eBay from just after it changed it's name from AuctionWeb. I had a business making me $75k+ per year, thousands of positive feedbacks and not a single negative. I was happy, my customers were happy and I thought eBay was happy with all of the fees it was collecting.

The first hit came when eBay decided that my item had to be listed in a cetegory that nobody looked at. Then it could not be a featured auction. Then, not even category featured. Then, they just banned it outright.

So, I tried finding different items to sell. But eBay now seemed to have a problen with every listing I posted. I was VERY CAREFUL to stay within their rules, but it made no difference. Auction after auction was taken down. These items were NOT VERO, not counterfeit, not controversial. Dozens of sellers were selling the same types of things. Buy my listings were always cancelled. Of course, they wouild never give me a reason as to why. In a flash I went from $75k per year to mabye $300 per month.

I never failed to deliver an item. I tried and usually answered any questions from buyers within 4 hours. I was never rude to anyone. eBay never received a complaint about me. ZERO negative feedback. I always shipped the same day or the next day.

None of that mattered. It is even worse now.

Most of the people on this forum are honest. They try their best and give good customer service. Most do not sell counterfiets, or any prohibited items. Yet all of them were NARU'd by eBay.

You can search eBay and find people selling counterfeits by the ton! And others who have so many negative feedbacks, you can't understand why they are still allowed to sell there. Or others whose listings, all 3,247 of them, CLEARLY violate eBay policies. Yet they are allowed to continue and you are not.

On their planet, fairness is an unknown concept.

And yes, they CAN and WILL get away with it. There is nothing you can do. Believe me, I wish there were! I wish that you would be the ONE, the MESSIAH we are all waiting for to SUE eBay, make it stick, and force them to change their policies. But this is unlikely.

The problem is, that as long as eBay does not run afoul of the non-discrimination laws, they can pretty much do whatever they want. It is THEIR website, NOT YOURS. And PayPal gets away with far worse. Most people assume that PayPal is a financial institution, and is regulated. But they are NOT a financial institution, so they can also do pretty much whatever they want.

If you think you are angry NOW, just wait for the day that PayPal cancels your account and freezes all of the money in it for 180 days. Or, a couple of days later when you learn that they emailed all of your buyers to advise that you are no longer a registered user, and inviting them to submit claims for refunds. Or a little later that same day when you realize that their money WILL be refunded - even if they NEVER RETURN the merchandise to you.

This could happen - VERY EASILY! We all have horror stories. We were once all going to OWN EBAY once our LAWYERS got done with them! We would CRUSH THEM like a bug, and teach them a thing or two. THAT NEVER HAPPENS, SO GET IT OUT OF YOUR HEAD!

My advice it to approach this as a BUSINESS PROBLEM. Use stealth techniques and spread your risk over many accounts. That way when the next hit comes, it will only affect a small percentage of your business. And it WILL COME. Maybe not today, but at some point in the future. Relying on eBay, especially on ONE account, for your livelihood is really NOT a good idea.

Please don't get me wrong. I am NOT on eBay's side here. I'm just pointing out reality. I certianly wish you the best of luck and hope that nothing further happens to your account. But with eBay, you never know.

Feel the same here .. so true ...

I have been moving my hottest items over to amazon. Thankfully there is a market for my stuff there.

I was looking ofr am arm band with case for my ipod last night for the gym. Ebay did not have one single cheap china rubber Zen cover like I needed.

Amazon had 12 models, I bought exactly what I needed for 2.98 + shipping at amazon.

So sellers are moving on to other venues. I suggest everyone have a website or a store, and send every ebay buyer over there. Use ebay only as a marketing venue to harvest email addresses and buyers for your own store.

Go to Ecrater and opne a free store with no listing fees, and no web hosting or domain name fees, and load up your stuff so that you have somehting going outside of ebay.

I have an Ecrater store, and an Amazon account that is wildly successful so far. And ebay is just for meeting people and marketing to them, not for all my income.

But that said, I would think that there is a reason for when ebay drops a seller, always a reason, and one should be able to figure out why.

Man, this page should be dedicated to those who have gave Ebay everything and got a steaming pile of crap on their head for their efforts.

I was on ebay for about 8 years and paid them about $400,000 in advertising fees. I paid them like $4000 a month every month. I was doing like $200,000 in sales a year.

I was not a top seller. I had about a 98%. I was in and out of "Powerseller Status".

So, I can not claim a 99.8% or anything like that.

Like this guy above, pretty much all customers were happy, I was happy, I thought ebay would be happy with oh $50,000 a year from me.

At any rate, it started back in about 2008, when they started to really enforce the Feedback and DSR's and introduced "Best Match" feature.

Because my DSR's were not supurb, they started listing me down in the listings.

But, I had a 98% and there were guys with 78% (literally) at the top, somehow scamming the "Best Match" thing they just introduced.

And then there were guys with like 99.8% half way down the listings (figure that one out).

I was dead last. You could not see me until like the last second.

During those three months, lost about $12,000 in profits/revenue.

So, I asked Ebay for a refund of $4000, seeing their "Best Match" was not working right.

I figured, "Hey, I paid them $400,000, I think they can cough up $4000". Nope. GreedBay would not go for it.

As they described it, it should have put those with the highest feedback at the top and those with the lowest at the bottom.

Rather, at first, it looked more like a monkey randomly pushing buttons with guys with worst feedback on top and guys with almost 100% in the middle.

And how I got dead last, I have no clue. But it killed my business.

So, I just left Ebay at that point.

After that, I just started to sell through dropshippers.. I had like 10 or more sellers on ebay at any given time.

But then, like the guy above stated, Ebay started to crack down on what you can list..

More horsecrap.. So, you can not list basically anything that is remotely popular or brand name.

Its automatically "illegal" if you are not like for instance "Sears" selling on Ebay.

So, I watched my seller's accounts drop like flies.

I felt bad for them.. It was greatly annoying..

At first, I had huge success with the dropship.. But like usual, anything that starts really making money on Ebay, Ebay has to KILL.

Thats what I learned.. If you find anything that can make you good money, Ebay will eventually kill it or try to.

Maybe its that they are just afraid of lawsuits, I don't know.

So, then after the dropship, started to do DIRECT SALES on my websites..

I heard Robert Kiyosaki mention about "own your own real estate". So, I put 2 and 2 together and realized that websites are "digital real estate".

So, I had success again for about a year and a half doing direct sales from my own sites, left alone by eBay.

But, of course, like usual Ebay comes to the rescue to kill the good thing you made.

Paypal starts holding funds like a greedy Judas. Wanting to make money off their sellers.

So, I am able to live with it a while, but then I realized, I can make more money and quicker just putting Amazon Affiliate links on my pages.

As Amazon pays in 60 days. Paypal has a 10% 90 day rolling reserve. So, do I want to wait 90 days to make my profit from Paypal, or do I want to wait 60 days for Amazon to pay me?

So, all I had to do was swap out paypal buttons for amazon affiliate buttons to make the change.

At any rate, it seems anything Good I made that had Paypal or Ebay involved was destroyed by Ebay or Paypal.

And actually, overall, any company that is Number 1 online in their perspective field (i.e. ~ Google, Ebay, Paypal, Amazon, etc), seems to treat their selling customers like horse-manure.

I can safely say this for all of them, as I have been screwed by all of them. Although, I would say Amazon is probably the best of the bunch..

But all you need to do is a search and you can find where amazon, Ebay, Google killed someone's Ebay, Adsense, etc account.

However, for affiliate commissions, I recommend Viglink and Skimlinks. They are sort of a "union" for affiliate marketers. And they have done well for me so far.

Basically, what I am saying is for the long run, if you plan on being in business online, it is wise to phase out Ebay and Paypal and have your own websites.

Amazon is probably the best of the bunch.. Google Checkout.. Its good at first, but they do the same garbage as Paypal.

Paypal, though, is more honest than Google Checkout. I found Google Checkout lying and doing things wrongly when I was dealing with them. Paypal atleast follows their own rules, however crazy their rules are.

Never depend upon anything that is 3rd party related to your success. Google (seo), Ebay, PP, etc...

The same applies to only having ONE traffic source, Ebay.

Build your own sites, use paid traffic from various sources, and have several merchant accounts if you expect any long term success.

Totally RIGHT!

Actually, I think I am paranoid now.. I am actually working on having no less than TEN (10) accounts paying me.

We are talking like multiple of various companies paying me advertising, affiliate comissions, text ads, etc.

I figure then, if one goes down, you have the other 9.

I was recently docked due to bad DSR and lost A LOT of revenue and profits. I am looking into starting my own site and driving traffic through Google Adwords. Does anyone use Google Adwords solely on their website and had success in maintaining a good ROI on your clicks? In my product market I would need about a 4-5% turnover on clicks to get good profit that I am looking for.

Why not use ebay to drive traffic to your site? Simply watermark your pics with your logo

So many WoTs in this thread :)


Best not to rely on TRS. If you have it ..good, if you don't ..also good.

...Who's idea was to bring up a 2 year old thread?

This is definitely a good idea, although against eBay policy. However, I see A LOT of sellers that are even posting their .com domains on their Subtitles and their listings also.

However, I am wanting to make a completely different rev stream that is "guaranteed" if I am able to conjure up the right ad campaign to get more sales then I spend on Adwords (ROI).

From using keyword spy tools, I see so many other people in my market that have bull**** websites that a little kid could make and they are still spending over $5k on Google Adwords PER MONTH....

That gets me thinking because they have a piece of **** website and still spend that much monthly...how easy would it be to take over a market like this?!