贝宝风波危及eBay复兴大计

    令卖家更加出离愤怒的是，事实上，还没等到21天期满，贝宝立刻就提走了3.25%的服务费，eBay也提走了9%的服务费。即使通常由买家支付的邮购费也被延迟转入卖家账户。不仅如此，电子港湾还进入卖家的个人银行账户，收取邮购成本，致使有些卖家在不知情的情况下就被银行收取了透支费用。“我收到最后一笔付款后马上关闭了我的贝宝账户，” 俄亥俄州迈阿密斯伯格市居民丽莎•霍尔曼表示。彼时，她在eBay上做生意已有四年之久。她接着说：“我再也不会在eBay上卖东西了。我发誓，也不会在这个网站上买任何东西。”

    eBay发言人阿曼达•米勒表示，此新策略面向的对象是那些“未来交易中出现问题的风险高于平均值”的卖家。但为何那些数年来从未被投诉过的卖家一夜之间便成了风险所在，她却拒绝解释对此做出解释。米勒证实：“所有贝宝收支差额均保存在一个付息银行账户中。”她拒绝透露eBay利用卖家应收付款到底赚了多少钱，只说“它对我们的业务无关紧要。”当有人问及上述款项是否被用于其他投资时，她同样拒绝做出回答。

    无数被激怒的卖家因此对eBay和贝宝展开了“狂轰滥炸”，纷纷威胁要关闭在这两个网站上的账户。如果问题如果被置之不理的话，eBay很有可能重蹈“Netflix”的覆辙。 去年，这家流媒体视频服务公司因为不识时务，擅自大幅提价，导致大量会员成批离开，公司股票价值因此下跌了60%以上。“我曾经希望，那会是eBay的Netflix时刻，”卡拉博罗表示。自打eBay对其账户实施延迟支付后，她就停止了一切销售活动。此外，她在其他网站购物时选择使用信用卡，而不是贝宝账户。她还强烈要求朋友们也向她学习。“他们没有想到，eBay的卖家同时也是它最忠诚的买家。我们作为卖家被其盘剥的同时，我们在eBay的购物欲望也被彻底粉碎了。”

    译者：大海

    Vexing sellers even more is the fact that PayPal takes its 3.25% fee and eBay takes its 9% fee right away instead of waiting 21 days. Even shipping fees, which are normally covered by the buyer, are put on hold, and eBay goes into the seller's personal bank account to cover the shipping costs – a move that has caused some surprised sellers to be slapped with bank overdraft fees. "I closed my PayPal account immediately after my last payment was released," says Lisa Holman, a Miamisburg, Ohio resident who had been selling for four years. "I will never sell on ebay again and I have vowed not to buy on eBay," she adds.

    Ebay spokesman Amanda Miller says the policy is being applied to sellers who "pose a higher than average risk of future transaction problems," but declined to explain why customers, who had been selling for years without complaint, were suddenly considered risks. Miller confirmed "all PayPal balances are stored in an interest-bearing bank account." She declined to say how much money eBay earned on sellers' money, except to say it was "not material to our business." She also did not respond to questions asking if any of the money was invested in other instruments.

    That leaves eBay -- and Paypal — under an avalanche of angry sellers who are threatening to close their accounts. Ignored, the problem could become a bruising "Netflix" (NFLX) moment — a reference to the tone-deaf miscalculation the video streaming company made last year when it introduced a price hike that caused subscribers to abandon the company in droves and the stock to lose more than 60% of its value. "I have hoped that this was eBay's Netflix moment," says Calabro, who has stopped selling until the hold is lifted from her account. She's also opting to use credit cards, rather than PayPal, when buying items from other online sites, and is urging friends to do the same. "They haven't taken into account that eBay's sellers were also eBay's most dedicated buyers. When they crush us as sellers, they crush our desire to buy there too."