Phil L.

I have used eBay off and on for several years now.
Bought a few things and sold a few things.

But lately I started selling more frequently. Mostly just stuff I have lying around the house and the occasional DVD.

Some observations:

I have not had any real problems yet, just some odd people.

I'll get people who never, ever, send me an email after the auction is over. This is after I've contacted them with my address etc.

I'll get some people who send me two and three emails a day, updating the progress of their payment.
"It's going out tomorrow" "It went out today" 'Do you have other stuff for sale?" etc.

I'll get people who send me payment with their address, but no mention whatsoever of what item the payment is for.
I only have a few items so I can usually figure it out, but geez.

Then I'll get people that send payment, indicate the item they bid on, but don't include their address. Maybe just a scrawled handwritten return address on the envelope, but that's it.
So I try to email them and ask what address do send the item to?
I get no reply. I email again. Do I send it to the barely legible return address from their envelope? No reply.

I get people who never, ever, email me to let me know they received the item (even though I request that they do that)

Did they receive the item?
Are they happy with it?
I'll never know.

Positive Feedback? From some of these people, forget about it.

I get people who said they sent payment.
I don't receive it.
They say it must have got lost so they will re-send it.
Who the hell does this?!?

Then they say they sent payment on a Monday, I don't receive it by Friday. Then I do get it by Wed. It's postmarked the previous Wed. so I know they did not sent it Monday.
Why lie?
Just give me accurate info.
It won't hurt my feelings for someone to tell me something came up and would I mind waiting an extra couple of days.

Plus, how much do you put up with before posting negative feedback.
I would always like to avoid doing that.

calhoun07

That's a smiple one...cut out the barely legible address and paste that to your mailing lable. If it doesn't get to them, that is their tough luck.

strusinsk

I've done that a few times... mail their item back with their own return address from the envelope. No complaints yet.

I have to admit I haven't given negative feedback in a while. Partly gunshy from a retaliatory negative I got once (which was luckily removed). I figure I just ask for my fees back if they're a deadbeat bidder, and eventually they'll be kicked off ebay.

Johnny Zhivago

Yup yup... I get all of the above as well.

You forgot this one... no international shipping and then some bozo wins your auction and emails you with "Oh, I need this item shipped to an address in Equatorial Guinea".

I hate those people.

Phil L.

Ya, that was my concern over the negative feedback issue.
Someone turning it around and coming back at me out of spite.

I had an instance last month where I had not heard from the buyer or received any replies to my emails in two weeks since the end of my auction.
I was even sending the guy emails telling him it was ok if he had changed his mind or whatever and did not want the item. I just want to re-list the item if he does not want it.
JUST LET ME KNOW.

I debated leaving negative feedback but didn't.
Finally I get an email from the guy saying he's sorry he never got back to me and still wants the item, and has already sent the money for it.

So now, another week goes by and I don't receive payment and the guy is back to not answering emails.

I figure, at this point, so much time has gone by that I'm certainly within my rights to leave negative feedback, but as you say, I was a bit gunshy about doing so.

Well the guy's payment finally does show up but I figure I'll just never do business with that person again.

Devoid21

I know what you mean about a guy not responding for long periods of time. What you might want to include in your auction listing payment rules section is something about if payment isn't recieved within say 7 days you have the right to relist and leave appropriate feedback. If I don't hear from the guy then I usually send a payment reminder. That usually gets the buyer going on sending payment.

Abob Teff

E-Bay,

I haven't E-bayed in quite some time. It was just getting to be a hassle with all the wackos on there. Since I'm gone, I guess there's one less wacko though.

Preacher

Most of the people I have dealt with have been very good. Today though i received a TPB that had the envelope come loose a bit and it got wet along the top. When shipping items made of paper they should be wrapped in some sort of bag.

Wacky Ebay moment: A guy who responded, after the auction was over, that he would ship to Canada... but it was now too late to bid.

Trout

I love it when you e-mail a bidder saying that his item was shipped out today, then they complain the next day that they don't have it yet. People can be really stupid.

Startide

Shenanigan's abound! In my several year history as an eBay buyer, about ten percent of the successful auctions i win have been overturned due to seller shilling or other impropriety. However, eBay has made this quite a bit harder (as RandyC had noted in a post about a year ago about eBay). As a buyer, i am excellent in that i send info after i win the bid, and also write clearly and legibly. As a buyer, i am also dangerous in that I will try to use "the power of Jeremy" to see if a friend was shill bidding the auction.

RMan360

How about people that bid on an item, when they know that they're going to be out of town or on vacation when the auction ends. What's up with that?

Deadman31

Last week, I had Animal House:CE up for bid on Ebay. So this person wins and I send them the invoice. I get an email from them entitled "South Park DVD". I emailed him back saying that it wasnt South Park, it was Animal House. So after 2 days I get an email back and he says he got confused and will send me the money soon. I dont expect to ever receive it

Phil L.

Ya, that is pretty weird and sometimes these buyers boggle the imagination, that's for sure.

icondude

I'd take a digital camera picture of the package like this before I send it.

codefree

All of my auctions say that I only accept Paypal as a form of payment. Funny how many emails I get from winning bidders once the auction has closed asking "What is Paypal?" And I definitely hear you on those that never email a reply at all. I'm waiting on a guy right now who's record is 126 & 0 and I haven't heard back for a week thus far... I don't believe a guy with a track record like that wants to get a negative for a puny $10. As for feedback, I stopped giving it unless I've received it first... there's too many people out there who you never hear from again. Why should I leave 75 feedback comments and receive only 40 in return?

codefree

I think I'll stop spending the extra nickel for the Buy It Now option as I've got a deadbeat (3+/ 3-)who used it and I've haven't heard back from since. Had I not had the BIN option I would have cancelled his bid before the auction closed to allow someone more reliable to bid.

codefree

Can you cue me in on what "the power of Jeremy" means?

gepetto

I have had the same experiences.

I hate it most when they lie. "I mailed it today" but the postmark is really a week from today! Why lie? I don't care if it takes a few extra days to pay me.

---
"All that is gold does not glitter; not all those that wander are lost."
--J. R. R. Tolkien

bv3

There are a lot of bad sellers out there too. Many try to add on extra fees after the auction ends that aren't mentioned in the listing. Like paypal cost $2 more or shipping is higher than it says in the listing. Also, one guy sent me a DVD-ROM drive in an envelope. It was pretty battered by the time it got to me.

madcougar

I don't eBay much anymore, but two years ago I had a guy show up at my house to pay me for a picture of Tejano superstar Selena. I had taken the picture at the Houston Rodeo about a month before she was killed, with a very high powered lens. I didn't know this guy lived in Houston, when I sent him payment info. He came to my house that day with cash, demanding I sell him any other pictures I had of Selena.

Llama

I didn't know about this before, so perhaps you guys don't.

Half.com takes away a lot of the crap that we deal with on ebay, and is easy to sell on as well.

Buyers pay half.com, who sends you a check after a month or so. So buyers and sellers don't need to directly communicate, EVER.

Shipping is pre-determined by the site, and included in the final price. I have found it to be accurate (I'm primarily a seller).

You just need to have an idea what your stuff is worth. It's primarily for old DVDs/Books/CDs that you want out of your house - because there's no bidding (you set the price, like "Buy It Now"), there is no chance of two serious collectors competing for your item.

Startide

One of Jeremy Lancaster's vaunted abilities was to ferret out (like a detective) information about bad 'uns using his access to "other" information services. I have access that bears verisimilitude to what Jeremy has, but from the engineering and research side. So, whilst I cannot look up xrefs to someone's name/info, i can at least look up if they've published anything, or if a newspaper wrote about them or if they might have been in some scientific study as a patient or if they've designed something and what it was.

The Jeremy had the vaunted "human resources" type of access. His last post on dvdTalk was sometime in September 1999 (or thereabouts, my memory is fuzzy). So, he is before many dvdTalkers' time.

I remember Jeremy Lancaster fondly because my first dvdTalk post was in one of his threads.

huzefa

I hate those guys!

huzefa

I don't see what the big deal with international shipping is. You open up your auction to a LOT more people, and they pay shipping anyway. So what's the big deal? Are ppl just so lazy that they can't spend 2 secs filling out a little customs form (which is basically ur address and the buyers address anyway)?

Johnny Zhivago

Good for you.

I don't ship international because I don't accept paypal or other and I'm not going to wait 3+ damn weeks for payment to show up. It's hard enough getting some of these people, who live in the next state, to pay up in a certain time frame as is.