Jaxondel, You say ebay isn't what it once was so beware. What do you mean? ARe you saying the sellers have changed or ebay? Exactly what was your experience? Ebay has become extremely pro-buyer and has made it very tough for sellers. Most sellers are still trying hard to do a good job despite the vulnerable situation in which buyers can leave negative feedback for sellers but sellers can not leave any for say a non-paying buyer. Ebay sellers' reputations are out there in public like no other business. I call that being a reputable vendor because anyone can see each and every transaction. As far as prices go, you can often get a very good deal indeed on ebay and if you don't want to pay over a certian amount, you don't bid any higher than that. It bugs me that people want to publicly disrespect an entire group of sellers as if they are all the same. On our rose forums it is generally agreed that it is bad manners to publicly complain about a certain vendor until some effort has been made to resolve the problem with that vendor. i.e. Give them a chance and don't make trouble for them carelessly. Well, I think it would be the most fair and accurate thing to not paint all ebay sellers with the same broad brush. It is entirely possible to have your favorites and sing their praises without putting down someone else. Linda

Last year I was reading a private "divorce support" blog. This was a group of ladies discussing their STRESS problems and some ways they developed to raise money to pay for extras after their bum of a hubby left them etc. I sent one of them some Cardboard and Christmas palm seeds and a few other things from my garden and they let me in to read the blog. They had some good ideas that I used in my own ebay selling account. The story was of a gal selling her handmade craft items on ebay and from a small website. She also sold seeds, plants and bulbs she grew from her garden in Florida. She was doing great and everyone in the blog was cheering her on. One day she was very upset. A seller on ebay stole her pictures and some of the wording from her website... and her sales were falling. The seller took her wording from her ebay listings and turned it around. They were careful not to steal her ebay pictures but they took the pictures from her website and copied her designs etc. They made some changes that sound similar to these ebay sellers in your story. Ebay never replied to this gal. And the nasty seller was very nasty to her. Anyway evidently the blog members are located all over the USA... and around 15 members living outside the state of this victim... all bought one item from this seller... the cheapest items offered. After the purchase, they baited the seller with silly questions and comments... and the seller got upset in an email with each of them... threatening wording and snotty remarks from the seller to these buyers. So each buyer had a good reason to give this seller Negative feedback and ratings of 1 and 2 DSR stars. What do you think happens if a seller gets 15 negatives and 1-2 DRS stars? Ha! Ha! Ebay will protect their MEGA sellers by changing ratings but not any seller under that catagory. If a seller gets that many 1-2 star DSR ratings, then ebay suspends the seller... so simple. I was laughing my head off reading the blog story. It happened over a 45 day period. They all used credit cards in Paypal and all got refunds on a DOA or crushed auction. Several buyers claimed they never received the auction when they saw there was no DC on the package. The blog members spaced out the negative feedback so it would not look obvious and each had a different comment depending on what the seller said to them in the email. The nasty seller probably suspected something was up but there was no way he could complain to ebay. In eBay's eyes, he was now a bad seller. They spotted this same seller under a new ID and 10 more blog members stepped up to the plate with 10 different ebay ID's. This seller was still using their blogmate's pictures and wording. They put this guy down within 30 days this time. It was great mental therapy for all these women too... banding together to protect the economy of one of their own members. The women all thought it was a good deed because the seller was also using the pictures from other websites and other ebay sellers too. I would hate to be the ebay seller that stiffs any of these divorced ladies in the future.

I bought some of those 6 dollar cuttings feel bad for sellers too. They put cuttings in very thin box tissue paper it took a month and half to get to me by then i had inquired about it they never answered me. Hit paypal up for my money back they made me wait. Seller uses different name same plants sneaky people. Then almost 2 months here it is at post office go pick up a mangled box that looked like it had been run over 5 times. open it up crushed plants. It took awhile but i got my money back and a couple cuttings for my trouble. Buyer beware they made these plants worth drop like a stone. Feel sorry for the people here that invested in them .

I've been buying on eBay and exclusively using PayPal for many, many years. Things may have changed with PayPal in the ensuing years, but when I signed up you put in a credit card number, and all of your payments were against the credit card. There was a PayPal limit of $2,000 that could be charged against the card. After that, if you still wanted to use PayPal you had to give them your checking account number. PayPal then made three random deposits in very tiny amounts (like anywhere from five cents to a dollar); and those deposits were made on different days. You then had to key into PayPal the dates and amounts of the deposits. This verified to them that the account was, indeed, your own account. (And you got to keep whatever amounts they deposited into your checking account.) After that you have the option of paying for an auction by putting it against your credit card or by a cash transfer from your checking account. I only pay for things with a cash transfer if it is $15 or less (including shipping). But if it's a larger amount, or if the seller is relatively new, I'll put it against my credit card because I like the protection that a credit card payment affords -- if an item doesn't show up, or if it is substantially different than what was advertised, I can notify my CC company and cancel payment. I like to pay for my winnings as soon as possible. But, I never, ever, make the payment until the notice shows up in my Inbox that I've won the auction.