Your ebay experiences: good or bad?

[Dave_G]

I have done 43 transactions on ebay and have had only 2 transactions that wern't perfect.

1) I goofed and sold an import Thin Lizzy 2 lp set and mailed it but placed it in a thick, big bubble wrap envelope and the USPS destroyed it. My customer was slightly upset, the lp's were fine but the jacket was pretty beat up by the time he got it.

2) I ordered a "buy it now" cd, a Rick Wakeman import form this guy. Well, they told me it was out of stock and I said well why in the hell did you advertise it buy it now. Well, 4 months later out of the blue the cd shows up and my credit card got charged. Problem was that I went and bought another one in the meantime figuring the 1st deal was closed.


Other than that I have had great transactions, getting some great obscure stuff like Mi-Sex cd's, Icehouse, and neo prog stuff. I have never gotten dirty or scratched up product.

Dave

[MindGoneHaywire]

I've had over 3,000 transactions on Ebay & overall I have to say it's a great thing. I started in the summer of 2000 but at least 2,500 of those have been since the spring of 2002. I've bought maybe 100 items all told & only had one problem. I do get the occasional deadbeat, but I'd say that only happens about one time per each 50 transactions or so, maybe more. If the item is worth a few bucks I re-list it, if not I chalk it up. You can claim the credit on the commission that Ebay charges on the sale, but the listing fee is non-refundable, so that's 30 cents lost. I've used two accounts & have ratings of around 900 & 1200, with one negative on each, both from complete idiots who were newbies & didn't understand how to use Ebay. Overall it's been a great thing. If I were selling something different than CDs it might be a bit more complicated, because one man's 'excellent' is another man's 'very good,' so you have to be real careful about how you grade things. But I sell plenty of vinyl as well & I've never had anyone tell me the records were any worse than how I graded them.

[Troy]

Jeez J, 3000?

I've had a whopping 9 transactions on ebay. Some items (like a 30 year collection of Playboys and I'm currently listing an $1,800 *hideous* Thomas Kinkade painting for someone else) were sold for friends, but most of them were rare and unusual CD's that I took a chance on and didn't like.

I've had many instances of people bidding on items and never paying for them. Maybe 50%. These morons just disappear. I frankly find ebay to be a big PITA. For the ammount of work involved chasing these pricks down for 9 bucks, it's not even close to worth it. And buying seems terribly over-inflated.

[MindGoneHaywire]

Somewhere around 3,000 at this point, yeah. Right around there. If you combine my ratings on my two accounts, I'm almost to 2,100 combined. But I have at least 300 transactions I got positive feedback on that were repeat customers, so it doesn't count towards the rating. So that means there are about 600 transactions I didn't get feedback on. That's not bad, I guess. I think others might get a little less since I send an email after every transaction mentioning that I've left feedback & asking for them to reciprocate. Some sellers sell so much they don't have the time to communicate with all their buyers individually like that. I've had times where I've sold well over 100 items in a weekend, but over the course of the past 2 years I guess I've averaged about 30 transactions a week.

My attempts to rejoin the workforce have been difficult & frustrating, and despite a promising glimmer or two here & there, my long-term outlook remains extremely cloudy. In the meantime, Ebay is the only thing I can really do. I'm a lot more functional at home than I can be if I have to travel anywhere on a regular basis, which is next to impossible for me. But I have a work ethic & don't like spending hours at a time in front of the television. There are times when I have no choice. Otherwise, I spend whatever time I don't spend in a state of near-endless frustration haggling with the agencies I'm working with that help people with disabilities find work either posting on message boards or doing other stuff online, and selling stuff on Ebay. I'd read more, but I have difficulty with anything beyond newspapers; getting through a book can take a very long time. So I do what I can. And after nearly two years of near-continuous sales I can actually say that I have thousands of satisfied customers literally all over the world. I've sold to people all over North America & Europe, Japan, & Thailand, Chile, Brazil, & Argentina, and probably a few other places. Sounds nice, I guess. Oh, and it's the only way I really get to hear any new music!

[Swish]

I've never sold anything on e-bay, but I've bought a number of things, all used items that may be difficult to find otherwise. For instance, I bought my Mesa Boogie Mark IV guitar amp which are no longer in production and could not be found locally. It was in great shape, exactly as advertised, and the transaction was excellent. I only deal with sellers who have a solid feedback rating and who also accept PayPal. I always compare prices elsewhere, when possible, to make sure the price is reasonable. I just ordered a new racquetball racquet from an online retailer but checked e-bay first. One guy had a "buy it now price" of $119.00 for one model that I liked and claimed "you can't buy this model in stores any longer". He had a fine rating and all, but that same racquet could be had at the online retailer for $79.00, so the guy was full of crap and I let him have it with both barrels. He never responded to my e-mail to which I had attached the link for the racquet from the RacquetballWarehouse.com. Maybe I should have let it go, but it just pissed me off.

Again, if you know what you're buying and you take the right precautions, you can do well on e-bay.

Swish

[Jim Clark]

Haven't bought too much off Ebay but the transactions I've made were great. Mainly CDs for there isn't too much that can go wrong there unless it has a gouge or something. Haven't looked around too much lately since by the time shipping charges are added I can generally find a better price at one of my online CD stops. I'm sure there are deals to be had if you spend a lot of time searching through the crap and don't mind waiting for an auction to end in 6 days only to find that some idiot bid up the item to over what it would cost at any local Best Buy. There was a period when I had the time, but I guess I don't anymore.

I've had good luck with Half.com as well. The only thing I've learned is when looking for a remastered CD to talk to the seller first since they group remasters in with the original versions there. Most will list as "not a remaster" but I've learned the hard way that not everyone is so thorough.

jc

[unleasHell]

I bought a mint Sekonic L-608 Light Meter (which sells new for $700) from a guy about two weeks ago, he had recently changed his name, but did have 39 positives (no neg's). He was asking such a low price for Buy-it-Now ($349) that I could not believe my eyes, I mean in searching under "Completed" Sales they were going for about $500.

Now that was a bit scary, remember the old saying "If a deal is too good to be true..." Not wanting to miss out, I bought it (and paid via Paypal), and it takes the guy two days to get back to me, then he tells me if I don't get it by Tuesday to let him know, well I didn't get in by Tuesday, so I email him and he says it was stuck at UPS as the shipping box was damaged, so he says fixed it and sent it overnight with the US mail. Oh and get this, for my trouble he was refunding me $15 (even though he only charged me $10 for shipping), so again I'm nervous. Whoever heard of giving a ebay refund for being two days late?

Then I read on a Camera site I frequent how a guy just got ripped off of $120, he had just bought something from someone who had 100% positives and when he went back and checked, the guy got 6 quick negatives and unregistered from ebay, making me more suspicious.

The next day comes and my wife is gone so I get a little slip from the Post Office. I go down the next day and THEY CAN'T FIND MY PACKAGE. After like, 15 minutes, they look and it is in the incoming mail from the main Post Office (????)

Well, the story has a happy ending, as when I opened it, everything was as stated,a mint Flash Meter for less than half price (with the additional refund), so YES you can get good deals on ebay.

OK, I did get a moldy LP from a guy but he took it back and refunded me...

[Dave_G]

Dang!

Must be some high humidity to mold vinyl!

Dave

[Troy]

I have lots of moldy vinyl. Stuff sits in boxes in damp garages and mold will literally grow on the disc itself! Smells real sweet. I just wash 'em in the sink with a sponge (wipe WITH the grain) and some mild soap. Yeah, they still sound like crap, but at least they won't contaminate my TT.