The biggest culprit among ‘on line’ shopping sites is the internationally renowned ‘ebay’. While individuals
listing their used items are generally honest, the same cannot be said of
dealers who display their wares on the site. The variety is tremendous and sufficient
lures are offered in the form of discounts to attract customers. But what is
disgusting is that it is a sellers’ market in as much as the attitude of ebay
is concerned. If your purchase goes through clean, consider yourself lucky
because if there is a dispute, you had it.
Despite all the high sounding words
and sweet talking, ebay does nothing to help the buyer. One gets a very
strong feeling that ebay is supporting the seller. Every single item I have
bought through ebay had some short-coming or other but nothing ever comes out
of the feedback or complaints.
Ebay has earned sufficient bad
reviews in mouthshut.com and I wish I had seen them before buying from this
portal. Someone had commented that ebay gets its commission from the sellers
and that the site needs the support of sellers, to survive. Once the sale is
through they care tuppence about the buyer. Very true. This has been my
experience too on more than one occasion. Couple of examples to give emphasis
to my words. An item called ‘electric lighter’ was listed with a photograph
showing three lighters. I felt that there is something wrong and sent a query
to the seller who confirmed that the price is for three lighters.
So I bought the item but before I could pay for it, I received a mail from the seller where
he had indicated that the price is for one unit. So I refused to pay. Pitiably,
ebay threatens me with a black mark for not paying but despite repeated mails
did nothing to pull up the seller for his dishonesty. Even more maddening was
that I had to repeat my story every time I sent a mail, because different
persons handled the same dispute. Nothing happened and the seller Shifa-on-line
continues to peddle his wares, probably cheating many more, right under the
nose of ebay. I would have been satisfied with an apology from the seller
saying that he made a mistake but ebay refused to entertain my request.
I paid dearly for not reading the fine print. Ebay shouts from the roof tops about its “buyer protection
programme”. Do you know that the buyer gets no protection if the parcel is lost in transit? How can a buyer establish that he did not receive the goods that he paid for? How does the buyer establish that he has
shipped the goods is not mentioned. Can ebay accept a booking receipt merely
scribbled ‘Sundar, Hosur’ as possible proof of shipping and not compensate the
buyer? Courier companies are known to leave a full book of the booking receipts
with the customer if there is scope of sufficient business emanating from the
organization. Romachoithani, the seller in this case, was so poor in
communication and had to be prompted several times before he would reply. I
have wasted a fortune on telephone calls trying to trace the shipment. Again
ebay takes no action on the seller but makes me wait 30days before allowing me
to file a claim and another 30 days to complete the ‘investigation’. I have
seen Government offices working faster!!
*Moral of the story – check
twice, thrice your horoscope and luck for this week before buying anything on
ebay. If you get even a whiff of negative wind from the stars, keep off ebay,
because if luck doesn’t help you ebay will not.*