| sacka_man | 10-21-2011 04:29 AM |
Hello my friends! Glad to be here. Here's my story.
I have been a member of eBay since 1998 and I instantly thought it was the most awesome thing ever. The community was so incredibly awesome and everything was so cheap (both the service and the products). I remember buying used CDs for $3 each when in stores they were $15 (this is when people actually bought CDs), used video games for half the price than they were at used game stores, and lots and lots of great deals on pokemon and magic cards.
Made an account and shared it with my brother. We got around 600 or so feedback on it (which at the time I thought was a lot) and eventually we both wanted our own accounts so we both abandoned that one and made our own.
Made my own account in around 2005 and got around 3000+ feedback over the next few years buying and selling, up until about 2008-09 when they started doing the DSR thing. Apparently my DSR ratings weren't good enough. I think my shipping time rating was about a 4.1/5 which is lower than average. I ended up getting limited, and could only sell 10 items a month. LMAO!!! WTF?! Seriously eBay? I give you hundreds of dollars a month in sales and you're limiting me to selling 10 items a month?
So I worked hard and tried to get my DSR ratings higher. The limit was eventually lifted and I was happy about it, sold again for a while as usual, then it was limited again. WTF? Ironically, at around the same time the account was limited, I was in the process of getting scammed from a buyer taking advantage of the eBay buyer protection system, who pulled the old "bait and switch" on a $300 item I sent him. He sent back the item which he claimed he received (which in reality was not the same item that I sent him) and of course eBay and Paypal sided with the buyer, automatically charging my account and leaving my Paypal account with a $300 negative balance. At the time I had around $200 or so in eBay fees, so I decided "screw this horrible company". At this point I could not even leave negative feedback to the buyer who scammed me. I pleaded my case for hours with "trust and safety department" and it was very clear that eBay did not give a crap about me. I decided to cut all business with eBay, and eventually the account got NARUed.
I watched from 1998-2008 eBay grow from a very new and clean, efficient, friendly AWESOME community, which literally only charged 2-5 cents to list an item, into a huge conglomerate that they are today, merged with Paypal, making decisions which clearly demonstrate their completely lack of regard for their sellers (aka their customers), but at the same time making them billions of dollars every year. It was exciting at first watching them grow, until I realized it was at the expense of the community that I loved. I guess it is true that money is the root of all evil.
So, that's my story. I have successfully made a few stealth accounts since then, but I feel like what I know about eBay stealth is very little and that I could definitely benefit from being involved in a community like this. I definitely feel that the eBay stealth community is one that I will fit into very well.
Ideally, I would like to know how to create accounts at will so that I can open accounts and close them at will. I have had some success with my stealth accounts in the past, but I still have a lot to learn. I've been on these forums for a while now but never wanted to buy the eBook. I mainly bought it just so that I could view and post in this section of the forum... hopefully that alone will be worth the 38 bucks! :) | 
