Community weekly poll: 4/05/05 Do you use eBay? If so, how often?

Daily User, mostly good but you must be carefull

In reply to: 4/05/05 Do you use eBay? If so, how often? by Lee Koo (ADMIN) 

I use ebay every day and buy or sell something just about every week. For the most part I have had very good luck with both.
But you have to be very carefull. Be wary of sellers that don't list a fixed shipping price or at least employ the shipping calculator. A lot of sellers will have a low price and then kill you on shipping.
Also make sure you clearly list every detail of the items you are selling. This is especially important for used items. Too many people out there can't or won't read the listing correctly and then expect you to make their errors go away.
Apparently some catagories are much better than others, I've found snowmobilers to be a great group to deal with.

(NT) WELL SAID!

Re EBay Ousting Bad Sellers

After dealing with one lemon of a seller (and being contacted by other buyers who were also scammed by this particular seller) and filing several complaints with eBay, the seller was booted from selling on eBay. Did that stop her? No! She resurfaced on EBay again under another name but same town. How could I tell? She rejected my bid on an item and I found that unusual. I checked her website listings and found them the same(unusual) wording and bearing some very strict and unusual terms of the original seller. I brought this to eBay's attention and she was booted again. As I kept bidding on items within this particular category, I came across her listing again except now she didn't list her city anymore, just "Somewhere in the USA. Again, I complained to eBay and she was booted. My complaints were in great detail citing specifics in her previous website ads and asking eBay to check them out. Eventually, I gave up on my sleuthing.

So, eBay is far from perfect as proven by bad sellers who just keep resurfacing and go unnoticied unless as burned buyer brings it to eBay's attention. Just another example of "Let the buyer beware".

BillyMac777/WWW.CLIENTMAX.COM

Just wanted to highlight a dodgy situation that happened to me and to many others as I am finding out by emails from those making a purchase through clientmax. I bought a $5 bottle of cleaner and they wanted to charge $150 to ship it to the UK. Others living in the US have spent $10 on a product and had to pay $60 to get it shipped. I found them unreasonable, not forthcoming, a challenge to get a hold of and unwilling to negotiate.

good luck with ebays - feedback

ebay does not care if someone lies in the feedback. I recently received an email from them stating this very fact. When I told them it was slander and they are a part of by allowing it they only quoted some unheard of law that allows them to do it. Ebay could care less! Maybe we should call them E Bait.

Fraud in the guise of eBay

In reply to: 4/05/05 Do you use eBay? If so, how often? by Lee Koo (ADMIN) 

After missing out on a much wanted item on eBay, I was contacted by someone proporting to be the vendor. He told me that the winner had dropped out and that I could have the item for the price I bid last. This was followed up by a message that looked very much like an eBay invoice. After paying $700 AUS to this person, I found that it was a fraud. I was probably foolish in what I did but eBay were less than helpful when I reported it. I had to retell my story to at least 4 different support operators. There seems to be no record kept of support tickets and no follow through by the support operators. I didn't expect any recompence for what was probably my error but I did expect better communication protocols from such a big company.

I buy regularly but have been burned a few times...

In reply to: 4/05/05 Do you use eBay? If so, how often? by Lee Koo (ADMIN) 

NEVER BUY "AS IS" unless you can live with a faulty product. NEVER BUY AT ALL if you must pay by check since there will be no recourse if the sale goes bad. I made the mistake of paying by cashier's check on three separate occasions and got badly burned on one of those and moderately burned on the other two. (I guess I'm a slow learner)

Brief descriptions of each occasion follow:

Bought an HT receiver that sporadically dies every now and then and would not work out of the box. Seller claimed it was UPS damage, but then the unit spontaneously powered up a week later. This has happened twice since. I'm SURE the seller knew of this problem and chose to dump the receiver on ebay. I was the unlucky winning bidder. Paid by check - out $295 dollars.

Spent $175 for a turntable in "excellent condition" that ended up needing over $100 in repairs and adjustments including a replacement for an RCA cord whose wires were cracked and almost blew out my speakers. Dust cover was so scratched as to reduce the overall value of the piece, but seller would accept no responsibility and ranked me out for writing her about these problems since the ad said "as is". At least in this case, the item is usable.

My third experience of this type was with a 98% rated seller. Also a turntable described to be working perfectly, the tonearm adjustment was broken and setting the proper pressure is very difficult. (Thanks to all the kind people who helped me learn how to get around the broken part, particulary Joel at the Turntable Factory). I demanded a partial refund and the seller complied so that his feedback would not be ruined. Fortunately, once the tonearm was pressure was set, the machine does a decent job.

These days I stick to purchasing books, LPs, CDs, collectibles and other durable items that don't have a high pricetag. (The LPS and CDs must be rated very highly by 99+% sellers). I NEVER buy from anyone with more than 2% negative ratings AND I try to pay by credit card at all times in case it is necessary to dispute the charges. (So far I have not had to do that, but the day that Paypal puts a hold on my account for disputing a sale with a seller will be the day that I tell Paypal to "kiss it." And then, Ebay will see me no more.)