Back to eBay

I have been wanting to start listing some of my junk on eBay for a long time but I just haven't done it because I have had so much other stuff that took priority. I still have things that have to come first but I did list a 1996 "Songs of Christmas" Waterford Crystal Music Box for my Son on eBay last night, it is very pretty, has a Nativity Scene on it and plays "Silent Night".

It wasn't all that painful to list it, that was one of the reasons that I haven't been using eBay because they have changed so much stuff and I didn't want to take the time to learn anything new. It wasn't hard and it didn't take me that much time. So I may go ahead and start listing a few things again.

If you would like to see my Son's music box, you can visit the auction here: Crystal Music Box

The last time I checked it didn't have any bids and it is only a 3 day auction, so it will end late Sunday evening. I don't think things sell as well on eBay as they used to but we will see.

Other good news for today is that I found my black light insect zapper. We went to Wal-Mart the other day to get a few things and I looked for a bug zapper there for my Ladybug problem. But all of the lawn and garden section of Walmart has been magically converted into a Christmas section. They didn't have anything for bugs.

So, this morning I looked around here for the black light bug zapper that I knew we used to have but I couldn't remember if it got broken and tossed or not, it has been years since I saw it. I found it and it actually still works, I put it in a dark room and it is busy zapping Ladybugs and whatever other bugs find it attractive. I smile every time I hear it pop.

Crossed Wires

Well, I guess someone got their wires crossed. Mark Burnette was suppose to be interviewed on "Talk of the Town" on 1340 WBIW this morning but they had Military Recruiters on there instead. My Son called to ask me if I was trying to get him to join the military, since he had read my last blog and was dutifully listening to the show this morning. So now I don't know when the show will air or if it has already aired and we missed it.

I did get some of the pictures of Mark and his Mustang ready to post here but I haven't edited the videos yet.

We were very impressed by Hoof-Hearted (think about this name being announced at the Extreme Mustang Makeover and you will understand the joke). He was already named when they got him but Mark and his family call him Buddy. He is heavy boned, thick legged, Mark said that he is sound and has a lot of stamina. He has a natural low head set and is friendlier with strangers than Mustang Sally was. Mustang Sally was the horse that Mark trained for the Midwest Mustang Challenge.


Buddy has a nice head, a kind eye and a nice sized ear for a Mustang. He is also a decent sized horse, Mustang Sally was a tad too small but Buddy is big enough for a man to ride but also not too tall for a height challenged person to own. So if you are in the market for a good trail horse and you are going to be at the Extreme Mustang Makeover Auction, then you should take a look at Buddy.

Here are some more pictures that I took, but I didn't take many still shots, I took mostly videos. The last picture below is my DH riding Buddy before Buddy's long trip to the Fort Worth, Texas competition.

Horse Auction

I haven't been to a horse auction in quite some time, so we went to see if it was all as bad as we had heard. It was as far as the number of horses for sale, there were only eight. They included a mismatched team of mules, one foundered pony, one two year old gangly, skinny sorrel filly and four riding horses. The unbroke mules and the pony brought around $50 apiece. One very pretty registered palomino mare that wasn't ridden in the ring for some reason, they said she was broke but no one volunteered to find out, brought $580. The other riding horses varied in prices none of them were anything special just run of the mill sale barn horses.

The killer buyer was there but as far as I could tell he only bought the skinny, gangly two year old for $30 and one of the riding horses that kept rearing up for $300.

They had some very nice old saddles that brought fairly good prices.

Who Won??

I have been trying to get information on who won the Midwest Mustang Challenge in Wisconsin and can find nothing. I would love to know who the top 10 horses were.

You would think that their website would have been updated during the event or at least by now, it is the 22nd for Pete's sake. Who is in charge of updating their website? I would have thought that the Midwest Mustang Challenge event would have been big news somewhere online.

Stalking and More

We have gone from getting 4 or 5 eggs a day down to one. My little flock is free ranging farther and farther away from home and I don't know where they are hiding their eggs. We hunted everywhere we could think to look this evening and couldn't find anything. So I guess I will have to get up with the Chickens in the morning and stealthily follow their every move until I crack this case.

I finally got my home permanent last night, it took me from 10:00 until midnight to curl it myself with my husband curling the ones on the lower back of my head. I had asked him to help me and being the wonderful man that he is, he reluctantly agreed. He did end up going to bed before I got it all curled and so, I had to wake him up to add the curling solution and the neutralizer to my head. He did a great job but I hadn't had a perm since I was a kid and I had forgotten how toxic the fumes are or they are much worse than they used to be. Anyway he did complain bitterly about the smell and I thought that I wasn't going to survive, I just couldn't breath and my eyes and throat were on fire, plus I got a small burn on my forehead. Today I look suspiciously, like a male lion.

I talked to a friend today who had sold some horses on contract two months ago. The payments weren't made so she went to pick them up and they were starved, one of them died when she got it home and she couldn't even find one of them, so she assumed that it had already died. This is sad when so many people had hay in their barns this winter and held onto it in order to get as much out of it as possible. Tomorrow they are cleaning out their barns and auctioning it off at the Springville Feeder Auction. Too late for some horses in the area. My husband had said all along that there was plenty of hay out there, it was just panic, too much talk and then greed that caused all of the problems this winter.

eBay Strike

I received this email this morning and support it, everyone should stay away from eBay for all of next week in protest, February 18th through February 25th. This new system is just ridiculous, it would be a good time for someone else to start a auction website.

I'm not sure if everyone is aware of this, but Ebay is making drastic changes for people who sell and buy on Ebay. If one looks at it from the surface, the changes don't seem too bad. But if you look a little deeper, they're really very scary.

Many sellers and buyers are going to be having a strike on February 18th through February 25 that includes no buying, no listing, no selling, no auctions on those days. If possible, if you are an Ebay buyer and seller, I would really appreciate it if you could honor those dates, for nothing else, then on MY behalf because the changes have the possibility to really hurt me as a seller.

Right now, the Ebay marketing machine is billing these changes as "fee reductions" and that is what the media initially reported because they way the changes were announced were quite deceptive. But, for those of you who aren't really super active on Ebay and are wondering what all the changes entail, a summary of them follows.

First, they are reducing the listing fee by 5 cents and making Gallery free. On the surface this looks great and this is how they are marketing the change - as a "fee reduction". However, if you read the fine print you'll find that they are slyly raising Final Value Fees (The fee the seller pays when the item sells at auction) by as much as 33% to 66% for some sellers. The percentage of increase differs by seller because all sellers sell items with different values and the Final Value Fee is based on the dollar amount of the item. So we save a nickel to list an item, but pay 33% more after the auction is over. This first part of the changes, while quite disgusting, IS bearable.

Second, they are removing the ability for sellers to leave feedback for buyers. Now, Ebay has always been successful on the basis of both buyer and seller being able to rate each other based on the success of a single transaction. They are removing this for sellers. This is very scary for the seller population because as sellers, we already are held hostage by what we call "Feedback Extortionist Buyers". These are the buyers that buy something in an auction and then send an email that says "You send me the item free or I will leave you a negative and ruin your Ebay reputation!". While people like this are quite few and far between, they do exist. I've got over 792 transactions and I've come across 4 difficult buyers who no matter what I couldn't please them. I managed to scrape by without a negative because they were booted from Ebay, but the point of the matter is that while most buyers are wonderful, these psycho types of buyers DO exist. Now with this new feedback system, ONE rogue buyer (and even my selling competition) could ruin my reputation very easily. Even if I provided a 100% perfect transaction and the item was received the very same day and all was perfect with the world, that one person could ruin me if they wanted to. All they would need to do is buy 5 or 10 items from me and leave five feedbacks separately - because each and every negative will count against the seller. This would mean the end of my store and my business on Ebay over one rogue buyer. Why? Read the next section.

Third, as if one and two weren't bad enough, if a seller has below a 95% satisfaction rating on Ebay, Ebay will not display your auctions in the search engine. For example, if I sell 20 items one month and 1 of them has a neutral or negative left for it by a buyer (deserved or not), I can no longer list auctions on Ebay and have them be seen in the search engine. Yes, thats right. I can list, Ebay will take my money, but all of my auctions will be on page 857 of the listing and never be seen by any buyers. So once I get one negative, it is virtually impossible to recover from that by selling additional items becuase non of my items will be seen to be purchased by another buyer later. Its a no win situation for a seller.

Fourth, as if all of this wasn't the most horrific thing you've ever heard, they're making changes to Pay Pal - which is the method most people use to accept payment over Ebay. From now on, if you have less than 100 feedback and you sell an item Pay Pal will not give you your money for 21 (TWENTY ONE DAYS!). Yes, you read that right. Say, Susie sells a 50 dollar item and the buyer pays through Pay Pal. Susie is then forced to ship the item FREE without any payment. After 21 days has passed, THEN Pay Pal will forward Susie her money. This folks is just horrible. Do you know anywhere else on the planet where you can demand that someone selling you an item give you the item FREE and ship it to you FREE while you hold on to your money for 21 entire days? I sure don't. On top of this "under 100 feedback" thing, again if I have less than a 95% rating or get one negative or get one neutral - again - Pay Pal will hold my money for 21 days. Imagine how must interest Pay Pal and Ebay will accumulate on billions of dollars being held in 21 day incriments - yet another disguesting way for them to squeeze MORE money out of the system.

Fifth, they instituted "Seller Rewards". Essentially, if you meet certain criteria as a seller you can earn 15% credit on your account. The catch is that you have to sell 1,000 dollars or more on your account every month and have to have a 4.8 rating on all your "stars". I feel that these guidelines are impossible to reach and that they were designed to be impossible to reach on purpose so that Ebay, yet again, would not have to actually pay out the discounts. To give you an example of how hard these are to reach, out of Ebay's top 500 Powersellers (These people are the creme of the crop on Ebay and make lilke $100,000 a month on Ebay)...anyway out of tje top 500 of them, only SEVEN qualify for the 15% discount. SEVEN.

And finally, when all these changes were announced, the Ebay sellers went ballistic. The response from Ebay management? We were told that our complaints and anger and frustration and tears were - and I quote - "NOISE!". Yes, we are nothing but "noise" to the Ebay management, yet they are making million dollar salaries off of us.

I know I am so mad, myself. I have 100% positive feedback and I've completed almost 800 transactions. I'm not a bad seller and I bend over backwards to make a buyer happy. I have a very good record. But ALL THAT HARD WORK and ONE rogue person could ruin it for me. Or even someone who competes against me can very easily get a new nick, by stuff from me, leave negs - and take my listings right out the search engine!!). It's not fair at all. Not to mention, if somehow I do screw up or get a rogue buyer, Pay Pal won't even let me have my money for 21 days. When you do this type of work full time, that is a terrifying thought.

So I'm here to beg you guys, if possible, and even if you don't understand all the ins and outs of Ebay and what a seller has to go through to sell on Ebay - PLEASE RESPECT THE STRIKE we are organizing. Please! Please don't buy or sell on Ebay from Feb 18th through Feb 25th. Please tell your friends and family members to do the same. We know that not everyone can respect it - some people make ends meet by selling on Ebay. But for those of you who can, us sellers would very much appreciate it if you could respect the strike on those days.

Also - if you are an Ebay seller - and you are angry like the rest of us, CNN and FORBES is quite interested in how we feel. Quite a few people, including myself have flocked to CNN MONEY to get their attention. So far, the comments and anger and speaking out are actually working - the media is starting to pay attention and Ebay has stepped up their marketing tactics. We feel that they're getting a little worried over all the outrage.

Here is a link to the CNN MONEY site where you can leave a comment along side other sellers if you wish: Leave a comment here!

Christmas Present

It finally arrived, I bought some Amber on Nov. 16th, 2007, in plenty of time for Christmas. I used a Buy-It-Now button from a seller from Lithuania that had a very good feedback score with lots of sales. If you remember from a previous post, my Husband told me that I was nuts to buy something from Lithuania. Around a week later the seller contacted me to let me know that it had shipped. So, I waited and waited.

I finally contacted the seller right before Christmas and he told me that it can sometimes take as much as a month to arrive in the U.S., I should get it in a few days. Christmas came and went and no package from Lithuania. He finally gave me a registered mail number and told me to check at my local Post Office. The Postmaster told me she would check the number and call me back, which she did within a few minutes, it had not come through their office.

Sometime in January I opened an "Item not received" dispute at eBay. All this did was cause the seller and I to communicate which we were already doing. I would complain and he would tell me to be patient, back and forth.

I kept checking the reg. # at USPS.com and it always said the same thing "Origin Post is Preparing Shipment LITHUANIA 12/05/07, We have received notice that the originating post is preparing to dispatch this mail piece." Finally around the first of February the USPS.com website no longer had information on my number because it's online time limit had expired, I had to email them and ask that the tracking information be reinstated and they did but it still said the same thing.

I next told the seller that I wanted my money refunded and he said that he wouldn't do that unless the package had been lost in the mail or was returned to him. So, he could not do anything about this until Feb. 28th. Which was conveniently long past the 90 day cutoff time for me to leave him negative feedback or report him to eBay. This was the last straw, I knew what he was trying to pull. So, I told him that if he didn't refund my money that day, I would report him and leave a negative.

It must have really scared him because he just ignored me and of course, I didn't do what I said, I just kept waiting. Then I received a notice from eBay this morning that my 90 day limit for the dispute was about to expire. It said that if I didn't file a complaint with them, the dispute would be closed and the seller would not be disciplined. I knew I had to do something right away and then the mail came and the beat-up package was here. Of course, Christmas was long gone.

The moral of this story is: Don't buy Christmas presents from Lithuania or expect your package in one month. I am still waiting for a billfold that I ordered from Lakeside Collections, they must be waiting on it to arrive from Lithuania.

Still Waiting...

I order most of my Christmas gifts online, I buy a lot of stuff from Amazon.com. I also get one of those LTD Commodity catalogs and the Grandkids love to look through it and pick out junk that they want. I learned very quickly that if you order from them, you had better do it as soon as the catalog comes out or you won't get your stuff before Christmas. Also you are always in the dark about how much shipping and handling charges will be, they ship all of the items separately to make the most money they can and when it is all said and done, you cannot believe how much this junk has ended up costing you, that is why they sell stuff so cheap.

So, I started using Lakeside Collections, which carries the same products and actually is an alias of LTD, but they let you pay shipping and handling fees upfront. I seem to get my stuff quicker with them, but here it is the middle of January and I am still waiting for one Christmas gift that never came.

I also used a "Buy It Now" button on an auction on eBay, the seller is in Lithuania, but had very good feedback and sells tons of stuff on there, so I thought I was safe. I paid for the two items on November 16th and today is January 17th, the package still has not arrived. The first time that I contacted him about not receiving the items, he told me that it sometimes takes a month. That would have been in plenty of time for Christmas.

I think that I have been patient enough, I have filed a dispute with eBay but he hasn't answered it for a couple of weeks now. The worst part of this is the fact that my husband told me I was stupid to order something out of Lithuania and that I just got taken. I hate it when he turns out to be right like this.

I had some online returns this year which was a first for me. I had to return my Grandson's Heelys to Amazon.com, they are the tennis shoes with the wheels in the heels for all of you out of touch people. Anyway the return was very easy, I even printed the return label right from their website and didn't have to buy postage.