EBay

eBay is an e-commerce website founded in 1995 by Pierre Omidyar, a philanthropist, and headquartered in San Jose, California. It is free of charge for buyers, however, sellers are charged listing and final value fees.

In General

 * 1) It has been discovered that eBay port scans users without their permission.
 * 2) *It detects ports used by certain remote desktop programs and remote-access trojans that may be used by hackers to access victims' accounts, however, it has led to privacy concerns.
 * 3) They use automated algorithms to detect and suspend suspicious new accounts. However, the algorithm often falsely bans users who are new legitimate users.
 * 4) They collect sales tax, even on used items and sellers who earn less than the threshold for collecting sales tax.
 * 5) *There is no exemption, even though many people are reselling items they already paid sales tax for and used items (which they usually paid more to buy it when it was new and isn't profiting from the sale).
 * 6) Hypocrisy: After Dr. Seuss Enterprises announced that they would end the publication of six Dr. Seuss books (mh:wonderfulbooks:And to Think That I Saw It on Mulberry Street, mh:wonderfulbooks:If I Ran the Zoo, mh:wonderfulbooks:McElligot’s Pool, mh:wonderfulbooks:On Beyond Zebra!, mh:wonderfulbooks:Scrambled Eggs Super!, and mh:wonderfulbooks:The Cat’s Quizzer) that they believe present "hurtful and wrong" imagery, eBay began deleting any and all listings for the six Dr. Seuss books, claiming that each title violates their offensive material policy, but despite this, eBay continues to host listings for books filled with truly offensive content, such as Adolf Hitler’s mh:dreadfulbooks:Mein Kampf (which inspired antisemitism and Nazi support throughout early-20th century Germany) and Thomas Dixon’s mh:dreadfulbooks:The Clansman: An Historical Romance of the Ku Klux Klan (whose contents directly inspired the racist film The Birth of a Nation).
 * 7) The Verified Rights Owner Program (VERO) allows intellectual property owners to report listings that violate their rights. eBay states in their VERO program FAQ that they prohibit the use of VERO for taking down listings for reasons relating to unauthorized distribution/reselling of products. Despite this, many companies abuse this to prevent competition with their authorized retailers, and Ebay sides with the intellectual property owner despite them claiming they prohibit this practice.
 * 8) *Legally, the first-sale doctrine law allows people to resell genuine products they own with the brand name to describe the product.
 * 9) *Printer ink cartridges, even genuine ink, are notorious for being risky to sell on eBay due to certain printer manufacturers abusing VERO to prevent their ink from being resold.
 * 10) *Adobe will take down listings for genuine software licenses, even for programs they no longer sell licenses for. This is presumably to force new users to pay for their subscription-based licenses instead.

Buying

 * 1) They have an ABYSMAL global shipping program where products can be mishandled. Items that go through the program are guaranteed to arrive damaged.
 * 2) Most people working for the GSP carelessly and recklessly cut through the packaging of the items, and it can even affect the items themselves. They are also known to outright remove certain items from the boxes sometimes.
 * 3) The "Results matching fewer words" feature is useless, it shows up when a search is too long, but it will show up unnecessarily when you are trying to find something. It can also show irreverent results.
 * 4) There are sellers who rip off buyers by drop-shipping from another e-commerce website or seller and listing for a higher price. You can purchase the same exact item from the original website for the original lower price if you find the same exact item for sale. However, it is difficult to spot if an item is drop shipped or not.
 * 5) *This is against eBay's User Agreement, however, but it is not enforced well.

Selling

 * 1) Whenever an item's auction ends and the seller wants to continue it, they have to pay an extra fee.
 * 2) Buyers can bypass sellers' no refund policy by opening an item not as described claim, and eBay will side with the buyer 99% of the time. The seller will have to return no matter what (even if the listing was accurately described), and pay for the shipping.
 * 3) *Even if the buyer states a very false claim, what the buyer claimed was clearly mentioned in the description, or it is entirely the buyer's fault, eBay will still side with the buyer. eBay usually does not care if buyers abuse the return system.
 * 4) Pretty much the only seller protection eBay provides is if the buyer claims they haven't received the item and tracking proves the shipment was delivered, eBay would side with the seller.
 * 5) * If it is the courier's fault that a package is delayed, eBay often still sides with the buyer even though the package will likely be delivered soon. This causes the seller to lose the item and the money if the shipment is if the buyer opens an item not received a claim, even if it is not the seller's fault. If the package does end up being delivered to the buyer, they are not obligated to pay the seller.
 * 6) With any return reason, the buyer can ship back an empty box, a different item, etc. and the seller would be forced to refund.
 * 7) *Thankfully, eBay will usually side with the seller if the seller files a police report for fraud.
 * 8) Frequently, bidders in an auction end up not paying or canceling their purchase. It wastes the sellers' time having to give previous bidders a second chance to offer, or relisting it.
 * 9) *Sellers can open an unpaid item case if the buyer doesn't pay in 48 hours, which gives the buyer 4 days before they receive an unpaid item strike. If the buyer never pays, the seller can receive back the final value fee. However, it wastes a total of 6 days if you intend to sell the item sooner.
 * 10) **This is the only way you can receive back the final value fee if the buyer never requests to cancel. However, you may still want to open an unpaid item strike if the buyer requests to cancel, as the buyer will receive an unpaid item strike.
 * 11) If you are a new seller, you are very likely to get many scammers trying to target you.
 * 12) *They will usually ask you to text them and not use eBay private messaging, so that eBay staff cannot review communication for fraud investigation.
 * 13) *They will send you a fake email imitating a PayPal received payment email.
 * 14) **Sometimes they will ask you to include gift cards as well. If you fall for this, you will lose the item and the value of the gift card.

Good Qualities

 * 1) Like mh:freshwebsites:Amazon, you can find almost anything on the site.
 * 2) For buyers, it is usually easy to receive a refund if the seller scammed you.
 * 3) You can often find good deals on items.
 * 4) Sellers can automatically block buyers who have more 2 or more unpaid item strikes. They can also block users from buying, which can be used to prevent buyers you have previously had a bad experience with from buying from you again.
 * 5) Sellers can request removal of negative feedback for reasons that aren't the seller's fault. They also have a policy that forbids buyers from extorting negative feedback to push a seller to offer or do something, and will usually remove such negative feedback if the seller requests it.
 * 6) Sometimes, you can find really rare items you can't find anywhere else. You can even find things you can't find at your local stores like Japan-only Naruto toys and Hindi Thomas and Friends DVDs.
 * 7) In March 2020, eBay banned the sales of face masks, hand sanitizer, disinfectants, and other high-demand products related to the COVID-19 pandemic to stop the use of the platform for price gouging.
 * 8) The Authenticity Guarantee program allows select shoes, handbags, and watches to be authenticated by an expert before it is sent to the buyer at no extra cost. This helps buyers avoid counterfeits, and helps sellers avoid fraudulent returns/disputes.

Trivia

 * If an item being sold through the global shipping program cannot be shipped to the buyer due to shipping an import restrictions at the buyer's country, eBay will refund the buyer out of pocket but keeps the item, so the seller still gets the earnings. eBay will recover the costs by reselling the item domestically.
 * The most expensive item ever sold was a 405 ft. long, 10 level luxury yacht designed as the most expensive yacht in the world. The auction started at $6.50 and ended at $80 million. However, that cost was only the deposit, and the yacht was actually sold for $168 million.
 * The Everything Else category often has many unusual listings.