ECN Forum Forums General Topics of the Trade General Discussion Area Ebay

It is all in how carefull you are. But even then, you can still get bit.

I habe made almost 100 purchases and used to have a perfect rating. I bid on, and won, a setup for communicating with my cell phone through the computer. It was the cable and the software from Motorola. Good price, great feedback.

I get the package and all is OK. The cable is Motorola OEM. The disc, however, didn't look exactly right. I attempted to load it and it failed to load. 4 hours later I call Motorola for support, and eventually discover that the CD is bootleged.
Fortunately I had not left any feedback yet. So I tried to contact the seller; no answer. So I leave a negitive feedback; he blasts me for lying and being a sore bidder.

Well, two weeks later I look at his feedback and he has 20 or so negitives for that very disc. I just happened to be the poor slob who was first to catch it.

Oh well, lesson learned.

Ed

BigEd FWIW - Ebay has resolved issues like yours many times before. Your previous 100 positive feedbacks and the sellers 20 "busted" negative feedbacks would be a clear cut case to them. They will erase your negative feedback record and eventually terminate the scammers account. First step is the live Ebay help link. I've fended off a couple of scammers "potential negatives" before with their help. I'm at 166 positives, no negatives so far...

I've just had my first Ebay drama today after approx 80 purchases. I recieved this email about 4 hours ago:

The following is a notice from eBay Trust & Safety regarding:

Item Number - xxxxxxxxxxxxx
Item Title - xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

Our records show that you were a bidder on this item. We recently removed this listing and have suspended the seller's trading privileges. Due to privacy concerns we will not be able to share further details related to this seller.

If someone claiming to be the seller asks you to complete a transaction outside of eBay, we strongly recommend that you ignore the request. Transactions for items listed on eBay that are completed outside of the eBay marketplace are not covered by the Buyer Protection services offered by eBay and can be highly indicative of fraud.

If you have not sent payment to the seller, we urge you to not proceed with the transaction.

If you have already paid, you may wish to pursue recouping your funds. Some steps you might take include:

1. Ask the seller for a refund
2. If you paid by check, ask your bank to stop payment
3. If you paid by credit card, contact your credit card company's security department
4. If you have made a payment by money order or wire transfer, you may contact that company for further information at 1-800-325-6000 (Western Union), or at 1-800-926-9400 (Money Gram)
5. If you paid with PayPal, review the Buyer Complaint Process at:

/csg/p?www.paypal.com/cgi-bin/webscr?cmd=p/gen/protections-buyer-outside

6. Review eligibility requirements for eBay's standard purchase protection program at:
http://pages.ebay.com/help/confidence/isgw-fraud-claim-requirements.html

There are many tips on how to protect yourself with any Internet transaction in the eBay Security Center located at:
http://pages.ebay.com/securitycenter

Our goal is to ensure that your eBay experience is safe so that you can buy confidently. It is rare that something goes wrong with a transaction on eBay, but we're here to help you protect yourself in the event it does. If you have any questions, please reply directly to this email.

Regards,
Customer Support (Trust and Safety Department)
eBay Inc

I had paid for the purchases & freight about 2 hours prior to recieving this email, the seller has shut up shop & now the fun begins. I paid for the items using funds transfer from my account, I contacted the bank & the girl said that because the funds are going to another bank, it may be stopped before the funds have been moved. Will keep you posted.

When I'm looking at a seller's feedback and see one or two negatives among hundreds of positives, I generally follow the links through to look at the feedback for the person who gave those negatives.

In virtually all those cases I find that the person giving bad feedback is generally being unreasonable in some way or another (e.g. complaining that it's been 48 hours and he "still" hasn't received his goods ).

Fortunately, I've not run into such an awkward customer yet, so I've clocked up 160 positives with no neutrals or negatives yet (as mentioned before though, quite a lot of my transactions are repeat business).



[This message has been edited by pauluk (edited 10-15-2005).]

Yeah, eBay is pretty good at fighting against bad sellers (and bad bidders) as well.

I had one incident when I was selling some high-end audio amplifiers. I had eight of them listed and one buyer wanted all eight of them! Sounds great, right? Well.....

Each amp had a total shipping weight of 40 lbs., so I had stated in the auction text (twice) that I would not do any C.O.D. on these items. This chap wanted them sent C.O.D., I sent him an email reminding him that they cannot be sent C.O.D. due to the weight. (Final price with shipping was around $350.00US each.) He insisted that I had to send them C.O.D. because the payment summary at the top of the page said C.O.D. was one method. (That summary carries over from previous auctions by a seller and is sometimes overlooked in the auction set-up process.) I reminded him that the rules on eBay state that the text of the auction superceed any other information.

Well, he of 450+ feedback (a few negatives) puffed up and insisted that if I did not pay him to cancel his bids he would leave negative feedback for me, but if paid him he would leave a positive.

Well, can we say extortion, boys and girls?

I sent a copy of his emails to eBay along with the link to the auction. eBay ruled in my favor and banned this bidder from the site. (Did I mention the guy was a doctor?)

This was the only bad experience in over 110 transactions.

I also have a 93 all positive rating, with about 17 or so repeat transactions. (Repeat business from either a seller or buyer doesn't count toward your total feedback rating.)

It's in the way that you use it.... (wasn't that a song?)

Ebay left me swinging in the wind. I bought a "30' pool light". It was a 15 foot pool light with 15 feet of extra SJOW in the box.
The seller "PhatDude" said I cut the cord and gave me a negative. Ebay said I could get them to look into it for $25. I just live with the negative.

Well you could have just twisted the wires together, wrapped them in tape, and dropped it in the pool, couldn't you? Honestly, some people are just so picky.......

(Or maybe you could have used it with Joe T's famous "soap bottle extension cord" ).

Ebay is a great place for old electrical gear like pulse clocks and masterclocks, also reel to reel tapes I have bought NOS.
I have bought quite a few items over the last 3 years and had no problems with the dealers.
I check the feedback rating and 95% or better is fine to me.
Have done about 44 buys and my profile is 100%.

In one case I bought a clock in Italy and was quoted air freight, post office there said that no surface option was available hence very expensive postage. When the seller posted the clock the post office had a lower rate to NZ. the seller offered me a refund for the extra I paid via Paypal or could sent me another clock of the same type for free. I opted for the other clock. and the second parcel arrived in due course.

I have to say that postage is the killer and is very expensive up to 20 Kilo's.

For bidding the best is to wait to the last minute and stick to your budget.

The wife used to work for Grainger HQ in their securtiy/loss prevention department.

They had a ring of assistant managers that were short-listing meters (ordered 4 received 2) or listing them as broken or otherwise "damaged in transit", then selling them on EBay for a fraction of the normal retail.

They were caught (IIRC) because one of the perps listed the serial number in the auction, and it was traceable to one of his sign-offs.

Now that wasn't very smart.