Is eBay really faultering?

[pokeplayer984]

Lately I've been checking out all sorts of auction sites on the net.  As I'm doing so, I come across reviews of these places.  More recently, I've been seeing people rate the quite famous around the net eBay, giving it a rather low score.

The complaints at hand said that the fees were too high for any beginner to get started on making money selling items.  There was also the complaint of there being little to NO customer service.  Finally, there's the complaint that only PayPal is accepted as a form of payment.  You can no longer pay in check, cash or money order.

Are any of these true or am I just reading a bunch of lies I should just ignore?

[The Friendly Sharptooth]

I have been a regular eBay customer for some time. I'll explain what I can. First of all, I only buy things, so I have no experience to answer anything about starting fees for selling. As for customer service, it is very unreliable. Sometimes I get great service and immediate responses, and frequently I get no help at all for a while. I guess it depends on the people on duty or something. As for Paypal, it gets a little interesting. A lot of sellers on eBay will still accept check and other payment methods besides paypal. However, eBay strongly recommends that you only use paypal, because since eBay is associated with it, if you use paypal and have a valid reason, eBay can refund you because of the records on paypal that verifies your purchase. Other payments are personal ones that eBay are not held accountable for. eBay can't keep track of any other type of payment and has said that they cannot refund you if you pay another way because they don't have a record of it. If they didn't care if the customer was refunded for a problem, they wouldn't have bothered warning anyone to just use the method they can help you with. I like eBay, but responses shouldn't ever take about a week like it has happened to me.

[landbeforetimelover]

Ebay has gotten really crappy.  All it has going for it now is its popularity.  They've grown well beyond their means and refuse to hire more staff despite the fact that they've had record profits these past few years.  They think that their all powerful code makes them a step above the rest and their popularity to be all they need, but they've gotten cocky and I see real troubles in their future.  They think they have a monopoly on the entire industry so they've stopped trying to be so above everyone.  The other auction sites haven't all gone under even though they're not as well known so it's not advisable for Ebay to stop trying its hardest to be on top, but they have.  I say bring 'em down.  Let someone else be on top for a while.  You've made your billions.

[Petrie.]

I buy from amazon anymore because I don't need to pay $5.00 to have a cd shipped to me. :  Apparently sellers jack the shipping price to make up the fees charged by ebay.  I was a seller on ebay about four years ago and yeah, there were fees, but I didn't sell a lot or large volumes of things so I wasn't hit with them.  Technically, because of ebay's popularity, its a privledge of sorts to have a chance at so many hits for your auction, and you pay for that privledge.

[Kor]

That postage & shipping fee is why I dropped buying anything from e-bay and if I want something and am willing to get it used am willing to look at amazon, but never ebay.