New ebay.com.au fees and how to fight it

As you may be aware, ebay has increased its fees to four-finger the small time sellers out of the playground.

10% per item selling price and generally a extra 2.4% of the total price for paypal.  Further to this, the buy-it-now price must be over 30% of the initial bidding price, used to be allot lower.

Many have said they are moving to Gumtree, but Gumtree is owned by ebay and they are starting to exploit it's clients by charging just to edit a listing, what next...  I don't see the point of charging to edit a listing, it has no logic except to ween the user-base onto a fee structure.

Quicksales have announced, zero insertion and final value fees, but nothing sells there yet.  As with any corporations, as soon as it becomes popular, it's time to cash in on the party, so fees could be back around the corner.


To get back at ebay, you can protest by not selling anything there at all.  Here is a better way: 
The goal is to utilize you built up seller reputation and to make ebay appear to be a very expensive place to shop and if you are selling niche items, you definitely have an advantage of making some extra money.

• Continue to list items on ebay, but jack the price up more than 20% and don't forget the postage, increase it as well :)

• Utilize their buy-it-now (free) listing functions and make sure that the price is over 30% of your new total.

• Utilize the scheduler (free) to schedule you new listings to list of the most convenient times without having to be in front of the computer, generally 10 days ahead of time.

Sit back and watch the occasional sucker emptying their wallet for you.  It is surprising how some people like to waste their money.  Generally due to time constraints, lack of concentration, stupidness or just luck on your side.




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Disabling ebay auto-suggest easily and permanently using adblock

Ebay search auto suggest sucks, it is completely broken, often screwing up my typing searches, replacing words without my permission.  It is not all that useful and deserves a bullet in the brain.

There is a option to disable it "Hide eBay suggestions", but it is only cookie based and session dependent.  Not good enough.

Here is how to get rid of it for ever using adblock for good!
Add this line to your adblock plus block list: "autosug.ebaystatic.com"

If you don't have adblock you can certainly add the same domain to your hosts file, there is plenty of resourced on the inter-webs to show you how.

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Privacy Risk on new ebay.com.au website First and Last Name in Cleartext

The new ebay.com.au website has been released with much fanfare but the creaters of the website have now decided to embed the users first name and last name on most pages visited.  The test is delivered under plain http and can easily be captured over the air or wire using Wireshark.

Steps to replicate:

1. Login to ebay.com.au with correct credentials
2. Navigate to he home page
3. Hover the mouse to the top left hand corner under the "G'Day <First Name>"
4. Be greeted with a hover over panel with <First Name> <Last Name> in plain sight.

Conducting a Wireshark trace illustrates the issue.  A sting search in packet details for GH_alertData will display the first / last name.

Why is this bad:
Potentially a hacker can gain easy access to your first, last name and ebay id and use this info to produce a phishing email or collect this data for further attacks.

Where can this happen:
The most likely place for this to happen is over an unencrypted wireless network, i.e at the airport or the cafe.  Wired networks are also vulnerable.

What can ebay do:
Secure their website by using the https protocol for the entire website.

What else sucks:
On a internet connection that can stall, i.e 3G/wifi, the hover function can time out and throw up the message, "We're sorry, there was a problem retrieving this information".  Now the user can easily log out without refreshing the page.
Sidejack friendly...

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How to suggest a feature on eBay

Who knows if there are monkeys operating the features section,  they are definitely in the tech support / customer support section.

Simply if you like to suggest a new feature on eBay:

1. Go to: http://pages.ebay.com.au/help/newtoebay/suggest.html
2. Click the 'Send us your suggestion to improve the eBay site' link. You may be asked to sign in.
3. Write your message explaining your suggestion and then click the Send button.

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Australia Post ClickAndSend Satchel Codes Number Promo ebay Auspost

Australia Post Auspost eBay satchels Product Codes

3kg satchel code 39715

500g satchel code 39712

These codes are not for the prepaid satchels such as the Australia Post Plus White/Red/Blue coloured satchels, but rather the Australia Post ebay satchels.

clickandsend.com.au
https://v2.clickandsend.com.au

By the way, make sure that you lodge each satchel at a post office, instruct the postal clerk to scan the item into the system, therefore you get a tracking event created when the item was sent ;)



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Decoding the ebay rx:EndTime in RSS feeds time date utime unix time

The rx:EndTime in ebay item RSS feeds is related to utime or Unix time

The numerical content is multiplied by 1000 so it has to be divided by 1000 to convert it back to utime.

For example

rx:EndTime
xmlns:rxurn:ebay:apis:eBLBaseComponents
content 1330125134000

Dividing the content by 1000 gives
1330125134

Put this into a utime online conversion such as http://www.epochconverter.com/ and you get
GMT: Fri, 24 Feb 2012 23:12:14 GMT

The GMT end time can then be converted to your local time by the usual methods.
pages.ebay.com/internationaltrading/timezones.html

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paypal politically exposed person, why ask this question?

Politically Exposed Person

A Politically Exposed Person (PEP) is someone who performs important public functions, for example:

Heads of state, government and cabinet ministers;

Influential functionaries in nationalised industries and government administration;

Senior judges;

Senior party functionaries;

Senior and/or influential officials, functionaries and military leaders and people with similar functions in international or supranational organisations;

Members of ruling royal families;

Senior and/or influential representatives of religious organisations (if these functions are connected with political, judicial, military or administrative responsibilities).

politically exposed person

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[solved] How to run manage multiple ebay / gmail accounts on firefox

If you want to log into multiple ebay accounts on firefox for shill bidding / selling etc,  it is simple.

Just create multiple profiles, the example below is for Linux

Copy these instructions before going any further.

Close firefox

In the command line type "firefox -P"

Click "add profile" and call it "default2", don't overwrite your existing profile or your bookmarks will be lost.  Create as many profiles as you need!

Close off the profile manager

Now you can create a shortcut for you new profile
"firefox -no-remote -P default2"

So your original firefox shortcut will open the "default" firefox profile and your new shortcut will open the profile called "default2", notice that profile default2 has no bookmarks etc.

You can now change the appearance / settings of the profile default2 to match whatever.  I made mine look like a different colour.

Works for multiple gmail accounts, twitter, facebook the list goes on and on.  It will never work for accounts that rely on IP addresses like file download sites i.e oron or rapidshare.


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Australia Post stuffs up again, ebay satchels

I decided to buy some ebay satchels from the Australia Post ebay shop...
One week ofter they promised to send them, nothing...
Now I get this email from Auspost saying they are comming in late.  Hate Australia Post, they are cunts.

Thank you for your interest in the Australia Post/eBay flat rate satchels.
It has been brought to my attention that some of the orders dated the xx/xx/xx were not included on the download from eBay for some reason.
Because it is unclear how many users were affected, all orders have been resent today, and should arrive to you in the next few days.
I would like to take this opportunity to apologise for the delay, and for any inconvenience caused, I am working with eBay to find the root of the problem, and to make sure it does not occur again.
Kind regards,
xxxxx/x | Australia Post
eBay Store Manager
eBaystore@auspost.com.au
www.auspost.ebay.com.au

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Missing items for sale on Ebay, difference between ebay.com and ebay.com.au

Same seller, difference between .com and .com.au

Even buying things is a chore on ebay...

Nothing available for sale...

Items available for sale...
If you cannot see it, how could it be there?  Sometimes it pays to try ebay.com before ebay.com.au
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Ebay mobile version sucks on Android on everything

Why do these idiots at ebay waste their time, the mobile version of their site is so crippled it makes users want to curl up in a corner and die

Don't even think you can use it to sell anything either, there is just no buttons for it - crippled.

Of course, uses can opt out and use the classic site (still not 100% on Android) but the redirect is cookie based and if you delete your cookies, you are presented with the same shit again.

The only solution is to create a bookmark www.ebay.com.au/?redirect=mobile

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Fake 32GB MicroSD Cards being sold on Ebay H2testw

Tests using H2testw have found this to be about 2Gb only.  If you got one, you have been ripped!!!!!!


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new changes in freight on ebay au

Check this out on ebay au.

"Starting in August, you will have to specify postage details, handling time and return policy. In addition, insurance options will be removed."

We all know that ebay likes to finger people, so this is nothing really new.  From what I gather, ebay and Australia post are getting into bed together, making it impossible for sellers to make money on postage.
This can be qualified by the recent introduction of ebay branded Australia post satchels.  All which offer a chump change in savings....





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