Quote:
Originally Posted by solefoodbk
(Post 693912)
If they ever made us only sell auctions, that would make me leave eBay.
Must of been a glitch...
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OK, given the way eBay is now, I agree. But were you around when it started? Dutch Featured auctions WERE THE BOMB! If I could have cloned myself, I could have made a million dollars easily back then.
Back then eBay was FUN, not like it is now where you are fighting them every step of the way, just waiting for your next beat-down.
Our email addresses were our user-id's and people were actually ENCOURAGED to talk to each other. This was before eBay decided they wanted to be the American version of the KGB, monitoring everything.
I listed items that I expected to get $10 for that went for $30!
If a buyer screwed you over, you could actually leave negative feedback for them to warn other sellers. The only people being banned were the people who scammed others and many people complained that eBay was TOO SLOW in getting rid of them. Back then, it was HARD to lose an account!
Sure, there was competition and not EVERYBODY was nice, they had their share of a-holes, but overall it was a lot of fun selling on eBay.
When Pierre Omidyar stepped aside to bring in the corporate types, that is when they started writing a rule book the size of an encyclopedia. One time someone from "SafeHarbor" (that is what it was called back then) told me I had violated some obscure eBay rule and invited me to look it up. I responded to him "in which volume"? And it just got worse and worse from there. Fees went up, people couldn't talk to each other, eBay started insisting that your buyers were not YOUR customers, they were EBAY'S customers. Whole categories of items disappeared from their website. You used to be able to sell GUNS on eBay! Now you can't even sell e-cigs. The adults only section had crazy rules that you could not show pictures with ANY frontal nudity below the waist and you could NOT use a "blue dot" to block it out. How the hell could you show the cover of an X-rated movie under those rules???
PayPal was giving people $5 for each referral. I made a few thousand dollars just by sending links to my buyers in their winning bid emails. NOBODY was having their PayPal accounts closed. And if they DID close your account, they would send you a check for whatever your balance was. They NEVER asked for your supplier information or held your money (unless the amount was crazy or something). Back then, you could actually speak with representative who SPOKE ENGLISH and wasn't reading off of a script! Their representatives actually HELPED YOU!
I really, REALLY miss the old eBay. I know that we can't go back, but it is a real shame. Back then you could find all sorts of interesting stuff for sale. EVERYTHING was an auction, there was no such thing as buy it now. But now, it is just a low rent version of K-Mart. All of the fun and interesting stuff is gone. In it's place is cheap junk from China, counterfeits galore and closeouts from every major retailer you can imagine.
I think I need to go cry now...
