Turkey Basted

I set up a new evil-bay account. I jump through all the requisite hoops, only 10 items a month, 24 hour shipping, 21 day wait for payment. I sell some dinnerware to help Master (my mother-in-law, don't ask where that nickname came from, lol) out and,...drumroll please...an idiot buyer strikes again, but not before a comedy of errors that apparently only happen to me.

Buyer pays. I attempt to print out the shipping label, and get an error message saying to pay using my poo-pal account. Well, ASSHOLES, my money is on HOLD. I don't have $69 in my bank account...any of them.

Since my phone needs minutes and a charge, I e-mail poo-pal requesting they release shipping funds only from the transaction. I get a response saying to call. I charge my phone, log in to my Virginmobile account and top-up. I keep trying to dial out and get the snotty-toned "I'm sorry you have to top-up" message. I call them and get an Indian outsource who keeps insisting that I put $20 more on it. I write them a pissy e-mail and get a form e-mail regurgitating what the indian guy said.

Fuckin' A. I e-mail poo-pal again, I explain that I have NO phone access at this time. By this time, the turkish buyer is pissing and moaning about "When will I ship?" I tell him I am having problems with evil-bay shipping, please be patient. poo-pal responds..."Call evil-bay customer service, here's the phone number" Did I not just tell them I HAVE NO PHONE ACCESS?

The turkish guy gets all pissy and wants me to cancel the transaction, I refund his money and then cancel. He is out nothing but $109 for 24 hours...he leaves me a negative. There goes my feedback. I hate people.

Screwed Over On The Evilbay Highway To Hell

I am learning the many ways that the unnamed one screws over a "noob" seller. First, when you start a new account there, you are allowed only 10 auctions a month.
Poo-pal does the requisite holding of the funds. This is usually until 3 days after the item has shown up as delivered, but it can be up to 21 days. You just TRY calling your mortgage company and telling them "Sorry. I've got the money, but it's on hold. Thanks for your patience" - lol.

Recently, I've also found that if you sell internationally, be prepared to have enough in your bank account to cover costly foreign shipments, because you WILL be footing the entire bill until poo-pal decides to release the funds, if it doesn't get delivered, or your buyer pulls a fast one...Oh well. Too bad for you.

Yes. They now are not releasing shipping funds. They will allow you to fund up to $15 or 30% of the item cost if it exceeds $15, on "credit" that's it, the rest is on you. By credit, I mean they allow you to be "billed later" which causes more unforseen problems when the transaction was a month ago, and they suddenly decide it's time to be paid, you've forgotten because it's been so long, but Bank of America is ever-so-happy that you did...lol

So, in short, the poor guy who bought my mother-in-laws dishes had to wait around for two days while I went back and forth with idiots who cannot seem to grasp the fact that because of Virgin Mobile, right now new seller Amy is phoneless and unable to contact them via phone...since they conveniently don't have an e-mail address. The guy paid me nearly $70 for shipping, but since they won't release it, and I don't happen to have that amount lying around to blow on shipping, I had to refund him and cancel the transaction.

How that company has continued to prosper with business practices like this, I'll never know. Not only are they missing out on a shitload of fees that they used to get from "smalltime" sellers when they get banned for stupid reasons, but they are probably costing themselves countless fees from newer sellers that are forced to cancel transactions when they can't foot a huge shipping bill.