Summer's Shenanigans

I used to sell on Ebay, but stopped selling on Ebay over a year ago because of the constant fee hikes that eBay imposes on it's seller (like eBay doesn't make enough money). Over the Halloween season, I decided to give eBay another shot and have come to this conclusion: EBAY IS A TOTAL JOKE. It's not even close to being worth selling on eBay and you can tell that there has been a major decline in quality sellers, since nearly everything on eBay is total crap (shipping straight out of Taiwan) or overpriced (because the sellers have to pass on the cost of doing business on eBay to the buyers).

Say you bought a book for $5 and want to sell it for $10 (standard retail markup is 100%). If you sell that book on eBay for $10, it's going to cost you $2.25 in fees, plus the $5 it cost for the product, so you profit a whooping $2.75 for a $10 eBay sale. Ebay is taking nearly HALF of your profit!

Say you have a $15 shirt that you want to sell for $30 on eBay. That will cost you $4.54 in fees, leaving you with profit of $10.46 on a $30 sale.

Ebay hides their fees by making them difficult to understand and by making them variable. You can check out the current eBay fees here:

http://pages.ebay.com/help/sell/fees.html

But, don't forget about the Paypal fees too (Paypal is owned by eBay):

https://www.paypal.com/us/cgi-bin/webscr?cmd=_display-receiving-fees

Also, eBay has decided that sellers can no longer participate in the feedback aspect of eBay. Sellers can not leave negative or neutral feedback for a buyer, no matter what. But buyers can leave negative or neutral feedback for a seller. Gee that seem fair?

Ebay is lame. I hope they go out of business soon. :)

Labels: Business, eBay, Work

I'm so incredibly sick of people that don't do their jobs. Today I spent most of my day chasing people around (via phone and email), trying to get them to do their jobs. I also found out that my license is expired and there is a warrant out for my arrest in the state of California. Not because I did anything wrong, just because people don't do their fucking jobs.

Last time I was in San Diego, I made sure that the DMV had my current address, so that I would receive the paperwork I would need to renew my license online. It never came. Although I did get a bill from the DMV for registration (OH, so you DO have my address, huh?) What else did I receive? A letter from the court telling me that I didn't complete my "work service" and that a warrant would be issued for my arrest if I didn't clear this up with them. I already cleared this up with them. Someone just isn't doing there job (on my tax dollars).

I've had a claim filed with Kaiser for reimbursement of medical bills, for 8 months now. It's just sitting in someones file waiting for me to give up calling and asking for status.

Six months before 2007 taxes were due, I hired a CPA/financial planner to take care of my business stuff (taxes/investments/etc). When I emailed them 2 weeks before taxes were due, they decided that they couldn't really help me. They were nice enough to file an extention for me (enter sarcasm here).

I hired a Quickbooks "specialist" that was supposed to get my company books fine tuned. I gave him a $1200 retainer, that he promptly cashed (within 2 days). Then I stopped hearing from him. Until I finally threatened legal action. Now, he wants me to jump through a bunch of hoops to get my money back. So I'm flying back to San Diego to sue him in small claims court, to get my money back for work that he never performed. Because, you know, actually DOING the work that I gave you $1200 for is entirely too hard.

I can see it now. As soon as I get back to CA, I get pulled over, while driving with a suspended license, record run to reveal a warrant out for my arrest and arrested. Wasting more of my time. Time that could be spent trying to get people to do their jobs, or, dare to dream, doing my own job. All because people are too fucking stupid and/or lazy to do their fucking jobs, and it's all somehow my problem.

Labels: The Justice System, Work