Back when EBay first sprung up years ago I was a simple consumer and loved EBay. I was able to get a lot of great deals and sold a lot of items without any problems.

Cut to several years later and I’m now a business owner who’s tried to sell items on EBay and use Paypal (they don’t give you much choice) for payment. It’s become impossible, untimely, and unaffordable.

We tried selling a brand new laptop about 2 months ago and had the auction won about 5 times by scammers. We had to relist every time and try to argue the fees but EBay gives you a minimum time to wait before arguing for the fees and a maximum amount of time to wait. If you don’t make that window you’re out of luck.

On top of that, when we finally sold the laptop to a buyer Paypal said we were fully covered under the “seller protection policy” and we even called paypal to verify it was covered and there was no scam.

Sure enough the laptop comes back to us from the buyer about 2 weeks later beat up and of course in used condition and the buyer claims they didn’t buy the item and want a full refund which paypal offers them by negative balancing our account.

I try to get ahold of paypal to find out why this happened and why the “buyer” doesn’t have to at MINIMUM eat the shipping cost. Our return policy was strictly no returns unless item defective.

Well, that seller protection policy turned out to not cover the buyer wanting to return the item. They can do that “no questions asked” even if they claim it’s a fraud charge which paypal didn’t catch.

Needless to say, beware!

We have had simular problems with e-bay and paypal, and have almost given up trying to sell anything of value unless we know the person who is buying…so what’s the point in using e-bay. You would think with all those smart people working there, and all the money they have to work with, they would fix a few more problems. But the problems, just keep coming…

Hopefully this info on eBay’s newest project will change your mind about the company – check out the GOOD news! – WorldofGood.com has just launched their new online Community! , a partnership of eBay Inc. + World of Good, Inc, the Community convenes a global dialogue of conscious people, producers, media providers & more… good people, great ideas & relevant info that’s empowering – to make positive change through commerce!

Visit the site (or click these links) to see original Articles, Blogs , Polls, & Discussion boards, on all KINDS of eco & people-positive socially-conscious topics (from responsible travel, eco-tips, ethical sourcing, Fair Trade towns, HIV/AIDS in Africa, & issues facing producer groups in the Global South). Exciting, no?!

EACH of WorldofGood.com’s_ social network pages have different fundraiser for artisan groups – when each group reaches 6,000 members, WorldofGood.com will donate grant $ to Artisan Development projects in Peru &/or Guatemala!: Facebook , MySpace , Care2 , & change.org . WorldofGood.com* also has a cool Orkut profile & Gaia page !

Thanks for doin’ the right thing… spreading good news on do-gooders doin’ good! :0)

~Lauren