The Decline of EBay. Long may it sink. (ebay.co.uk)

Member Name: woodflute

Product:	ebay.co.uk
Date:	29/11/08 (65 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Vast audience for your object.

Disadvantages: Rising cost of selling on EBay, poor service. lousy attitude.

EBay is a monopoly, pure and simple. It is so powerful that it is not accountable to anybody. Their customer service is laughable. If any business with competitors treated its customer base as cavalierly as EBay does, it would soon be out of business.
Recently a visiting friend used my computer to log onto his own EBay account. In the past I had bid on several of his auctions. No bids were offered, no laws were broken and no rules were violated. Nevertheless, EBay suspended both of us for 14 days. After several letters I was told that I had violated EBay rules but that they could not tell me more because " the exact criteria used to take action on eBay accounts are proprietary in nature and can not be discussed due to security concerns." Obviously, computers are talking to each other - about us - behind our backs.
There are net sites that discuss how the behemoth has changed- from serving the individual small seller to protecting the giant super-sellers. You can Google "EBay sucks" and find plenty of sites dedicated to questioning EBay's business practices. But is there an alternative? It's a bit like trying to change your electric company, except that the electric company is more responsive to consumer complaints. It used to be great. But there are so may hassles I am selling via lists and I dread getting involved with Ebays covert rules and regs. So only two stars for this monopoly that's lost its way. Or is it the rest of us who are out of touch with the modern world?

Summary: Avoid it if you can. Find alternative venues.