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All Customer Reviews (39)

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eCost.com
Rating 6/10 3/5
modified review posted Jan-26-2011

Summary of eCost.com by a life long independently employed and small business man and consumer activist: eCost is rated low for service and for product condition here by over 1300 people, over a two year time span. Similar complaints about eCost are found all over the Internet. Complaints extend from early 2008 at CONSUMERAFFAiRS.COM.There are occassional positive comments. They tend to be extremely positive and unspecific.

Having been a partner in an eBay online collectibles and used electronics enterprise with 100% positive feedback for five years, and a serious online buyer since 2001, I know something about both ends of online mail order retail. I look for patterns, percentages
and time span.

It is commendable that eCost has assigned a representative to monitor and respond to customer complaints that appear here at resellerratings. It shows that eCost recognizes it has problems and it shows they are trying to do something about them.

Considering how far back complaints go and the percentage of bad experiences expressed here and elsewhere (at least three years), a discerning consumer must wonder at eCosts' response. Is eCost
determined to repair its problems as are some retailers here or
has eCost de facto decided to address issues that appear here at resellerratings.com?

All I can conclude for certain is buyer satisfaction is guaranteed for those buyers who consult and post unsatisfactory service experience here at resellerratings. Also, I am concerned with the general style of eCost response to buyer complaints posted here. No problem can be solved unless the responsible party assumes responsibility for it. What I see here is deflection of responsibility & a lot of PR (public relations).

In this competitive market, I need accept neither, not even for a
low retail price. I can get both excellent prices and service the first time around 99.9% of the time from Amazon, NewEgg, Woot (owned by Amazon), geeks.com & Dailysteals. I'm not saying any of them are perfect (though Newegg comes close). What I am saying is they are well managed sellers and a buyer's probability of walking away pleased is reasonably high.

For instance, Dailysteals has an agent here. DS accepts full responsibility for poor service and does something about it. It has a few wrinkles to iron out. I am convinced Dailysteals is determined to do so because it immediately addressed my complaint and my additional purchases have been smooth sailing. ..But Dailysteals does not have a low consumer rating or a pattern of poor service that extends back three years. It does not try to excuse its fumbles and their agent here is clearly empowered to solve service problems and thus is not forced to apply small bandaids and smooth PR to major wounds. In contrast, I'm unsure about eCost management's motives for assigning an agent to respond to complaints that appear at resellerratings.

I will not buy from eCost until I see a better general rating emerge--not when I have several excellent alternatives.

For people who decide to try eCost despite the consistent pattern of complaints here and ELSEWHERE, do not send a personal check or money order. Use a credit card and know your card's charge back policy, charge backs can be done 30 to 45 days from billing date, depending on the card. Know the correct toll free phone number for customer service. Be reasonable about your expectations and demands. But Do not wait weeks for a problem to be resolved.

When you present a legitimate complaint (damaged or wrong product, paid for rush delivery but didn't get it, etc), give a clear deadline for resolution. You are on a clock (the days from the purchase date your credit card will do a charge back), so put the seller on a clock that is within your charge back deadline. If you are not made whole, get a charge back and be sure to ask your card company for a total refund, price of item, sales tax, shipping and handling. Note: companies I do considerable repeat business with do not charge until they ship. I have never billed anyone until shipment day or after services rendered were completed.

UPDATE: BUYERS Read the buyer comments here and eCost agent's responses, my assessment of buyer comments here AND elsewhere on Internet. I name a specific site with many negative comments. Read
the agent's Jan 31, 2011 response to my assessment. It is exactly what I expected, smooth & polished spin. Look over some of my other reviews here at Resellerratings. You'll see my assessments
are conservative, factual, balanced. I will not buy anything from eCost until (or when, if ever) I see marked change in the percentage of negative comments they get from buyers. In the eCost agent's response to me, there is clearly & precisely the failure to take responsibility that I mention in my Assessment above.

I am insulted by the claim that the complaint rate is very low. If it is anywhere near as low as eCost claims, why are the number of negatives inordinately high here and elsewhere across internet?

modified review This review was modified by flatquasar on February 01 2011 04:48:30 PM
+ Read the user comments for this survey
eCost.com's Avatar
eCost.com, eCost.com rep has responded
modified review posted Jan-31-2011

“Thank you for taking the time to give us your feedback. We process over 200,000 orders each week through our facilities and over 99.7% of these orders arrive on time and exceed our customer’s expectations. Unfortunately a few times each week our performance... or product falls short of our customers’ expectations.

Linda Potter”

GearXS.com
Rating 8/10 4/5
modified review posted Apr-30-2011

A friend and I are into gadgets. We build our own quality computers for ourselves, friends, family members from basic refurbished and otherwise used systems. A few weeks ago we learned about GearXS. We were sceptical about them given their low prices for major brand name refurbished desktop systems, such as Lenovo and Dell. The average person has difficulty getting much for their, even like new, used system. This we know. We also know that corporate off-lease systems go cheaply, partly due to most buyers fear of buying used, partly due to PC maker hype (advertising). but it is unusual for a seller to ask reasonable prices for used PCs. Given box store competition, its not unusual for large sellers to make more profit from used PCs than from new ones.We are experienced buyers and thus know how to keep from being taken (always use a major credit card and know your card company charge back policy), so we decided to try Gearxs. We ordered a Lenovo PC for $89 for my buddy's mother. We were delightfully surprised. Gearxs shipped the computer free and it is exactly what we expected based on the Gearxs ad. We have referred some people to GearXS and they have been pleased with what they received. These purchases took place within the last 3 months. Be sure to read the specifications carefully. The lower priced systems are minus monitor, keyboard, etc. The Dells for $69 to $79 do not ship with memory sufficient for certain popular Internet activities such as Youtube video or movie streaming (need minimum 1GB. 2GB is better). You can order additional installed memory at purchase time. I recommend GearXS to people who want to get a quality home computer but who do not want to spend $500 or more for a new one.

7-30-2012 UPDATE
Beware if you shop for a computer at GearXS. They recently switched from shipping with Windows XP and Vista to Linux. If you are one of the majority who doesn't know Linux be careful. When you ask if the PC still has the Windows sticker, you get a slippery answer. You need to know why these Windows PCs are shipping with Linux. If, like myself, you prefer Linux then there is no problem

modified review This review was modified by flatquasar on July 30 2012 04:47:20 PM
GeekBuying
Rating 8/10 4/5
modified review posted Dec-13-2012

UPDATE: Good NEWS. Geekbuying may prove to be a rare good China located seller. However, They really need to improve shipping. Took them four days to reply to the email inquiry I mentioned here but they did reply. I ordered Dec 1st. Tracking showed arrival at Chinese Postal Service Dec 5. Processed the 6th but did not leave Post Office until Dec 16th. USPS shows item arrived for delivery at my local Post Office Dec 19th. Once item was on an airplane, it proved not to be a solar powered plane as it did reach Chicago within 24 hours. I will update when I get item.

UPDATE II 12-19-2012 Package Arrived! Upgrade rating to 3 stars.

UPDATE III 12-20-2012 Item (iMito MX1 Android Mini PC\ Android TV Box) was well packed & arrived in good condition. Took 18 days to arrive. Upgrade rating to 4 stars. Today, I ordered a Fly Mouse from competitor In4dealz, which has good ratings from Freaktab.com members. I will post how that transaction goes.

Original Post
O.K. Buyers. Check my member history by just clicking my name. I am a true American reviewer. Contrary to what the posts here claim, I haven't received a single response email from Geekbuying. Not one. I'm waiting one more day for USPS tracking to show my item has moved from Peoples Republic Chinese Postal Service to USPS International Air Mail. According to Geekbuying Tracking its been at the Post Office for 7 days! It took five days to move from the seller to the Post Office a few miles away.

I've order items from two excellent China eBay sellers. They send Air Mail & I had items within a week. I decided to "try" this seller just so I could post a review. I was suspicious they post fake reviews here and then one of their people insulted me here. I will certainly keep shoppers posted about outcome of my order!

The way China located sellers work their scams is they give you a shipping window that runs past when you can do a credit card chargeback. Better informed scammers like Paypal because most buyers are not aware that Paypal arbitration is a waste of time for most foreign countries. That's why I advise people to link Paypal only to a credit card and then skip arbitration and do a credit card chargeback. KNOW YOUR CREDIT CARD TIME LIMIT to chargeback! Discover Card is the card that sides with the buyer. They are best for online and foreign purchases

modified review This review was modified by flatquasar on January 01 2013 11:53:20 AM
Haband Online
Rating 10/10 5/5
modified review posted Apr-01-2012

I consider these reviews Highly suspicious. Wondering if Internet Activists are writing them, I checked the ratings of another outstanding seller, Blair. Sure enough, they too have roundly bad "reviews". I've purchased a few hundred dollars in clothing a YEAR (and so do two of my closest friends) for many years from Haband & Blair. The only complaint any of us have is they are, by today's standards, occasionally a little slow about shipping.

I purchase every way, by mail order, telephone, & online. I get excellent product, accurate shipment every time. Neither I or anyone I know have ever been overcharged or had any surprise charges on our credit cards. These are reputable companies, owned since 2007 by Golden Gate Capital, which does over 2 billion a year in direct marketing clothing sales AND their call centers are still American -- Pennsylvania and Georgia.

I hadn't ordered anything from Haband for 10 months, so I decided to make an online order before I wrote this review. I ordered two pairs of pants on 3-22-2012. As usual, I got two email notices, one verifying my order & a notification my order had been shipped. The pants arrived 3-31-2012, 9 days, about 5 days sooner than past orders. As always, I got exactly what I ordered. A postage free mailing label was included. I have returned items because the color wasn't quite what I wanted. Both Haband and Blair allow for such exchanges. Each exchange was processed to my satisfaction.

I'm including my REAL INVOICE number and I think resellerratings.com should verify the numbers for all the other reviews here and for Blair... I wonder if the complaints are about the service or are these complaints slander against two outstanding, companies that had no choice but close their US clothing plants, or go bankrupt. After the big box stores outsourced, Haband and Blair had no choice but do the same. At least, they did not hand the work over to China, a nation hostile to America. They use Latin American & our Asian allies.

I highly recommend Blair (business clothes) and Haband (more casual) to shoppers seeking to save money on quality clothing.

Ice Monkey
Rating 10/10 5/5
modified review posted Mar-22-2012

I do most of my shopping online & I buy only from the best online sellers. Amazon is my major "store". My favorite deals store is Ice Monkey. So far, I get my items at a speed that ranges from rivals Amazon to excels over Amazon. I get what I order and like clockwork Ice Monkey addresses any problems.

I find this consistently stellar service odd because Dailysteals, which owns Ice Money is troublesome when it comes to missing items and can be slooow with shipping. I only buy from Dailysteals these days when its a serious bargain that costs only a few dollars and Ice Monkey doesn't have it.

Maybe Ice Monkey management and staff should take over Dailysteals!

In4dealz.com
Rating 10/10 5/5
modified review posted Dec-29-2012

Buying direct from mainland China online sellers is very risky business. Under ethically challenged eBay CEO Meg Ryan, bad seller was almost synonymous with Shenzhen, China. After Ryan left eBay, the bad sellers branched out to procuring a Hong Kong front store, turning Hong Kong buying into risky business & some landed at Amazon marketplace and they took to launching their own websites carefully designed to mislead buyers into assuming they were shopping on a North American website.

A favorite ploy of the more skillful bad Shenzshen China sellers is to "warn" buyers of longer than normal shipping times and then blame arrival of used & damaged items on the Postal Service. Of course, credit cards are charged immediately upon placement of an order & refunds, if you ever get one, take weeks.

There are a few good to excellent Shenzhen, online sellers. I decided to carefully test two who are said to be good by gadget forum members and who take pains to appear trustworthy here at resellerratings. I tested Geekbuying and In4dealz, ordering a mini-PC from Geekbuying (Dec 1st) and a Measy Fly Mouse from In4dealz (Dec 21)

Both appear to be good sellers. I find In4dealz is clearly better of the two. I used Registered International Airmail for both orders. They were handled by the same Chinese post office in Shenzhen. Geekbuying wants me to believe that my mini-PC sat at the Chinese Post Office from about Dec 2 to Dec 16 before it was flown to Chicago. I received it Dec 19. I came close to ordering a charge back.

I didn't order from Geekbuying competitor In4dealz until Dec 21, yet I received it Dec 28th! They offer buyers choices, UPS & DHL are two of them. Based on several years of buying from good Chinese and Hong Kong sellers, I am impressed with In4dealz. They are trustworthy and efficient. You save considerable money with them as they cut out the middle men for you & they are honorable sellers who do seem to want to provide quality, money saving service.

modified review This review was modified by flatquasar on January 01 2013 11:52:11 AM
iolo Technologi
Rating 2/10 1/5
modified review posted Jan-09-2012

iolo sells a good, solid Windows maintenance program called System Mechanic. It cleans and repairs the registry, does a superb job of defragmenting your hard drives, is a software uninstaller that is much better than the one that comes with Windows. I recommend the package and I did recommend iolo as an excellent company--until now.

The product is excellent but I warn you here about their business practices, which appear to have changed significantly in 2011. You never truly know a business until it slides into hard times. That honest, reliable plumber or auto garage can suddenly go dishonest when the owner has two kids in college, gets into a drug or gambling habit, leaves the wife for a wild young thing or the business passes to the spoiled, overindulged children. The wise consumer must ever be alert! I purchased & used System Mechanic updates for several years. I always paid each year for updates as my expiration date neared. Over two years ago, I was offered a serious discount if I bought two years of updates. I accepted the offer. Shortly afterward, I stopped using System Mechanic as I evolved to using Linux 99% of the time, using Windows when I have no other choice. I always hated the giant monopoly but the horrible Windows Vista was the final straw for me.

Recently, I noticed an unauthorized iolo charge to my Visa card for System Mechanic. I don't even have the program on my Windows 7 computers! I called what is supposed to be a customer service number that iolo lists with card companies. I got a answering machine and was very quickly given another customer service number. In my experience, when stand up companies try to slide automatic renewals on people they make it easy, for the few who check their credit card bills, to call and have them revoke the "for your convenience" unauthorized charge.

When you get a run around phone number on your bill near the charging parties name, that usually means a run around will follow. I called Visa and had to close my account as compromised card and have a new card and number issued.

If you decide you want system mechanic, do not use your credit card or a personal check. Pay by money order. In today's corrupt climate, using a check or a credit card on Internet is akin to granting power of attorney over your account. By the way, authorizing anyone to auto charge your credit card, Debit Card, or personal checking account is very unwise. You grant them the power to make withdrawals from your account. Ethical government would require business to explain this to consumers. Businesses (a lot do it anymore) that make auto charges to your account without signature permission from you should face criminal charges just as you would if you used someone else's credit card. And voters should remove from office every politician who reversed security responsibility from the financials and reworded it "identity theft". Make them return to issuing credit card accounts ONLY in person and with two pieces of photo identification and return to making merchants ID every use of credit cards and checking signatures. Identity theft has always existed but until this century, securing against what is called identity theft today was the responsibility of businesses, not individual consumers.

By the way, I find the free CCleaner ( you can download it from: download.cnet.com) does the job just as well as System Mechanic anyway. CCleaner is so good its reduced the price point and sales for programs like System Mechanic

isale4you
Rating 10/10 5/5
modified review posted May-03-2012

Many people look to buy one of the excellent Chinese branded Ainol Novo 7 tablets. It is extremely risky to buy from a Shenzhen, China seller. They have moved to new tricks, planting agents in Hongkong and now they have many online stores that cover the fact that they are located in China. Some of these sellers are Focalprice, Chinagrabber, etc. Tip never buy from an online seller that doesn't include their address as part of "Contact Us", FAQ, or "About US". The Hongkong trick is to make you think the product is located in and shipped from HongKong, when orders are simply forwarded to Shenzhen, China & buyers aften get the "Shenzhen service", not the good HongKong seller service they expected.

There is a USA seller on eBay who buys drop ship, makes sure his products are good. I bought two Ainol Tablets and two keyboard\cases from him the past three months with excellent results. He answers email and does so quickly. Shipping is fast (I get each item within four days). He makes sure the Ainol tablets are set to English and uninstalls the Chinese Apps. I strongly recommend him.

Joe's New Balan
Rating 10/10 5/5
modified review posted Apr-07-2011

I order shoes for my extended family members who work on their feet all day. quality shoes that fit properly are critical. And I order shoes for several family children from Joe's.

I am impressed. I routinely place my free shipping orders and have them arrive within three days. I live over 1200 miles from Joe's New Balance. We save quite a bit on the price and always take advantage of free shipping. After Dozens of shoes, I've never received a wrong shipment. If I ever do, I'm sure Joe's will correct it free of shipping charges.

I'll take buying high quality shoes from a superb online retailer over a local store with luck of the draw services anytime. Lower price. No shipping. Most important, With Joe's my family members NEVER have to settle for a shoe among the ones the store has in your size and no going to the next size up or down the scale to compensate for a shoe store not having the width you need.

I am a 2nd generation business person and I've been a consumer advocate all of my life. I cannot think of a retailer who exceeds the efficiency or quality of service I get repeatedly from Joe's New Balance Outlet.

modified review This review was modified by flatquasar on April 07 2011 07:09:18 PM
Just Deals
Rating 4/10 2/5
modified review posted Feb-04-2007

I recently purchased a factory refurbished Negear WG111v2 USB 2.0 adapter at a good Buy-It-Now price @eBay. It arrived promptly, professionally packaged, & contained official looking literature.

The Justdeals auction did not inform buyers that the adapter does not come with the necessary software. You learn that only after you open the box and find a note that you locate & download the driver and utility from the Netgear site. The Adapter looks odd from the start. There is no sign it was or could be opened to refurbish. It just looks very used and the s/n and bar codes are carefully blacked out with magic marker, which is easily removed, by the way, with alcohol.

As I suspected, the S\N does not contain any letter or number sequence mentioned in the Netgear Support\downloads for WG111 & WG111v2 series adapters (which I found to be poor to lousy. Information & directions appeared to be written by a tech who can write but doesn't like to).

I had to guess and pick packages. I tried the original v2 package, which did not work. I finally had success with the newest package, which I had to re-download and install and remove twice before I had success.

Warning: I suggest only advanced computer users consider buying a refurbished wifi device from justdeals. I own Netgear WGIII adapters. They are easy to install and get working, provided you have the Negear CD that is supposed to come with them.

I've had high speed broadband for four years and never have trouble getting good downloads of online software packages. I had considerable trouble with Netgear packages. A few of them are missing critical files. I think they are corrupted. I downloaded a bug fix package for my WG111 & cannot use it because it is missing several files. Netgear documentation of its adapter series is very general and incomplete.

I sent Justdeals email about my problems THE DAY I received my item, which was Jan 27. I have not recieved a response. I do not think I will. I will not be buying another refurbished item from them.

modified review This review was modified by flatquasar on February 04 2007 09:20:34 PM
MacMall
Rating 10/10 5/5
modified review posted Jul-02-2012

You can be sure that a high percentage of the people who hate a seller for unrealistic, irrational reasons are most likely to write a review of them and the review will be extremely negative. On the other hand, satisfied buyers are unlikely to write a review. I know. I was a 100% feedback used electronics seller at eBay (for eight years) and I've been a 100% feedback buyer for 10 years.

Given these facts, it is impressive when a seller is highly rated by buyers. I know MacMall from their ebay store and they maintain a consistently high feedback rating there.

In May, they made an incredible offer, one I have not seen matched anywhere as of this date. They offered the newly released samsung Galaxy Tab 2 7" tablet for just $219 and free fast shipping! They sold over 1,000 and no one posted even a minor complaint.

I got mine in two days and it was well packed. I stood ready to get a charge back from Discover Card, as I was skeptical any retailer could honor such an unbelievable offer. I registered mine immediately to make sure it wasn't a knock off. Well, MacMall shipped the real deal & did so for over 1,000 buyers!

I cannot comment on the service supplied by the Macmall.com site but I can report that the staff that operates the Macmall store branch at eBay is consistently outstanding. I strongly recommend them.

modified review This review was modified by flatquasar on July 02 2012 08:37:34 AM
Miles Kimball
Rating 10/10 5/5
modified review posted Jul-26-2012

I buy everything I want from them about twice a year, when they offer free shipping. I've been a customer of Kimball, Walter Drake, Harriet Carter & Carol Wright (mostly Carol Wright & Harriet Carter) for many years, buying from them products I could not find in local stores. Two years ago I stopped buying from Carter & Carol Wright because they failed to evolve adequately from traditional mail order to Internet Retailer.

The quality of Carter & Wright products declined and their shipping is too slow by today's standards. Now, I buy most of our hard to find products from StarCrest of California. They frequently offer special prices and free shipping.

Periodically, I buy from Kimball, whose prices are usually higher than the others but they have maintained product quality & they have really stepped up their shipping processing & speed. These are all old mail order catalog companies that have continued long after kings of mail order, Sears abandoned it and J.C. Penny's seriosuly scaled back.

I recommend Kimball. They sell hard to find products at competitive prices and they have modernized their processing and shipping to better match the big online stores such as Amazon, Newegg, Tiger Direct, & eBay "Top Rated Sellers." Kimball, like Starcrest, always gets my order right and unlike Harriet Carter and Carol Wright these days, Kimball doesn't offer complex confusing "free Shipping" deals, or ship out much cheaper products than you expected from the photo & description.

modified review This review was modified by flatquasar on July 26 2012 01:57:49 PM
Newegg.com (USA
Rating 10/10 5/5
modified review posted Dec-12-2010

In my experience with Newegg, it deserves the high reputation it has among tech professionals & tech enthusiasts. I'm been a customer for ten years. I am impressed with Newegg's consistently excellent prices, service & efficiency. For instance, on Dec 4 I ordered a Playstation 3 deal. Despite free shipping, I had it by Dec 9 and this is my normal experience with Newegg. (I live in Michigan)

An unintended benefit are the exceptionally good buyer comments or reviews, many written by tech professionals. Most feedback elsewhere is useless. At Amazon.com, for example, you must wade through dozens to find a single useful "review".

The Newegg buyer community is exceptional. I've saved considerable money and headache by reading product reviews, which tell you how good certain low priced products are --if you just download and use etc firmware update, this driver, etc.

I strongly recommend Newegg

NewspaperARCHIV
Rating 2/10 1/5
modified review posted Sep-05-2011

Caution. Newspaper archive severely hypes their service. The site seems professional & impressive but there are unacceptable problems from the start. The best you can get to try them out (this should have alerted me but I haven't tried a pay database service like this before) is to sign up for a so-called 3-month trial for just under $10 a month and you are led to believe you can get chat assistance and cancel. You are not told or asked if you want them to auto renew your subsription "for your convenience" of course. You find out they do this only AFTER you submit your payment method. Fortunately, I used Paypal, which I do whenever I can doing online business. I know Paypal policies and features. I went into my account & disabled "scheduled payments" to the Archive

After 30 minutes, I knew I made a mistake. I submitted several experimental newspaper searches and got nothing. I tried a newspaper I know is fully contained in an E database. What I found is this Archive is a turkey. Its data is very patchy. I searched names I know appear in many articles 1960 to 1972. I got a couple of target results, a lot of junk results for 1971 & 1972 and I got many results for different people and for two institutions only for 1910 -1915.

I was able to test my results by running free trial runs at ancestry.com. There I got many on target results as I should have. Since they were free sample searches, you can read only a tiny amount of the results, enough to see if they are ones you seek. I tried several times over two weeks to get an agent online. Most of the time the box said "unavailable"
Several times I tried to speak with someone. Never got an online connection. I sent many emails, never got a response. So, I am out $30 for 3 months of a useless service.

I strongly advise you to stay clear of newspaper archive

PayPal
Rating 8/10 4/5
modified review posted Jul-02-2012

I never thought I would feel the need to post a review of Paypal. After reading "reviews" here I feel ethically compelled to add my experience and thoughts. 1st, I am a critic of Paypal but I also form my opinions based on as much quality fact and fair mindedness as I am capable. 2nd, having experience with Paypal as a seller and as a buyer, I see Paypal from two entirely different points of view, that of the seller and the buyer.

As a former online seller, I did not like Paypal much, after eBay bought Paypal and applied it to eBay. Paypal markets it services to the range of sellers, from small to very high volume. A third distinction is Paypal and eBay marketplace and eBay and online sellers. As a small used electronics eBay seller, Paypal was the primary reason I stopped selling on eBay.
Why? It seemed to me that eBay used Paypal to monopolize and narrow payment instruments. As a seller, I was left no choice but to use Paypal as the way to receive payments. There are two problems with this. 1) Paypal fees are expensive for smaller sellers. There are other cheaper alternatives which eBay prohibited in favor of its Paypal 2) Paypal Arbitration on eBay is really eBay arbitration and too many times it ruled against small sellers when it should not and ruled for large sellers when it should not. Paypal became CEO Meg Ryan's tool for narrowing eBay to mostly high volume sellers and stores. If eBay wants to be a store marketplace then it should outright become one and not advertise it is one thing when really it is another. Such deception is the mark of incompetence and the mark of a dishonest & thus bad business.

From a buyer's point of view Paypal is a problem because the only arbitration between sellers and buyers is eBay and eBay's Paypal and it is not arbitration at all. When there is built in conflict of interest, arbitration cannot exist. Out the gate, eBay marketplace arbitration is A CONFLICT OF INTEREST. It is an oxymoron. Its comparable to a court Judge acting as Judge in cases involving family members and friends. That is not a fair or neutral courtroom. A fan for Home team cannot serve as the game referee.

The same is true for eBay arbitration and eBay-Paypal arbitration. Scam buyers get over on small sellers as the arbitration leans toward the buyers. When the seller is a high volume profitable customer of eBay, arbitration leans toward the seller against the small buyer.

Despite this, I highly recommend buying online using Paypal whenever possible. Its free for the buyer. Use Paypa but do it after first knowing the score.

NEVER connect your Paypal account with anything but a major credit card. If you sell and use Paypal for payments open two accounts: one you use only as a seller and one you use only as a buyer. NEVER COMBINE THE TWO.This way neither eBay or eBay-Paypal can control your buying transactions. Skip arbitration and go right to your credit card company. Know the charge back policy of your Card. We have certain clear rights by law when we use a credit card (not debit but credit card). You do not have these consumer powers ANY OTHER WAY with any other payment method.

As powerful as Paypal maybe at eBay, Paypal is minor fish compared to Visa, MasterCard or Discover.

By the way, with a charge back you can get your entire bill refunded. Yes, shipping and sales tax included. Furthermore, you punish a bad seller when you do a charge back, especially when Paypal is involved. Credit Card companies charge sellers fees for a charge back AND SO DOES PAYPAL when a credit card does a charge back to Paypal!

Using Paypal, you credit card information doesn't fly across Internet and the seller doesn't get your personal account information.

modified review This review was modified by flatquasar on July 02 2012 01:42:36 PM

About flatquasar

Reviewer Stats

flatquasar is a top reviewer!
Total Reviews 41
Helpful Reviews 0
Forum Posts 21
Homepage
Member Since 12-Aug-06
Last visit 10-Aug-12

Favorite Stores

Check out all the stores loved by flatquasar

  GeekBuying Rating 8/10
  In4dealz.com Rating 10/10
  Beach Camera Rating 10/10
  eBay Rating 8/10
  GearXS.com Rating 8/10
  Miles Kimball Rating 10/10
  PayPal Rating 8/10
  MacMall Rating 10/10
  Crucial Rating 10/10
  Skype Rating 10/10
  isale4you Rating 10/10
  Haband Online Rating 10/10
  Blair Rating 10/10
  cubavera Rating 10/10
  Ice Monkey Rating 10/10
  us.playstation.com Rating 8/10
  Roku Rating 10/10
  Dell Financial Services Rating 10/10
  Joe's New Balance Outlet Rating 10/10
  eCost.com Rating 6/10
  Walmart Rating 8/10
  Cowboom (a Best Buy brand) Rating 10/10
  Newegg.com (USA) Rating 10/10
  Amazon.com Rating 10/10
  Woot! Rating 8/10
  AmondoTech Rating 10/10
  Buy.com Rating 10/10
  Dell Rating 10/10
  Unity Electronics Rating 10/10

All Stores

Check out all the stores reviewed by flatquasar

  GeekBuying Rating 8/10
  In4dealz.com Rating 10/10
  Beach Camera Rating 10/10
  eBay Rating 8/10
  GearXS.com Rating 8/10
  Miles Kimball Rating 10/10
  PayPal Rating 8/10
  MacMall Rating 10/10
  Crucial Rating 10/10
  Carol Wright Gifts Rating 2/10
  Skype Rating 10/10
  isale4you Rating 10/10
  ReversePhoneDetective Rating 2/10
  Haband Online Rating 10/10
  Blair Rating 10/10
  cubavera Rating 10/10
  Ice Monkey Rating 10/10
  us.playstation.com Rating 8/10
  BuyComcast.com Rating 2/10
  Roku Rating 10/10
  iolo Technologies Rating 2/10
  QuiBids Rating 2/10
  NewspaperARCHIVE Rating 2/10
  Circuit City / SYX Rating 2/10
  Dell Financial Services Rating 10/10
  Joe's New Balance Outlet Rating 10/10
  eCost.com Rating 6/10
  Walmart Rating 8/10
  Cowboom (a Best Buy brand) Rating 10/10
  Newegg.com (USA) Rating 10/10
  Daily Steals Rating 2/10
  Amazon.com Rating 10/10
  Woot! Rating 8/10
  AmondoTech Rating 10/10
  Just Deals Rating 4/10
  Buy.com Rating 10/10
  Dell Rating 10/10
  Unity Electronics Rating 10/10
  TigerDirect / Systemax Rating 4/10

Least Liked Stores

flatquasar likes these stores the least and has left a poor review for them.

  Carol Wright Gifts Rating 2/10
  ReversePhoneDetective Rating 2/10
  BuyComcast.com Rating 2/10
  iolo Technologies Rating 2/10
  QuiBids Rating 2/10
  NewspaperARCHIVE Rating 2/10
  Circuit City / SYX Rating 2/10
  Daily Steals Rating 2/10
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