[Archived] Ebay

[Presty On Tour]

i have to say i'm a big fan of ebay, though i think i'm getting addicted!

picked up some real bargains and have had no problems at all.

just type in what you want and 99/100 it's there for a price miles under high street prices.

only sold a few items but it's exciting to watch a bidding war on your items for sale.

i heard of people getting screwed out of money but i think as long as the feedback is good, you should be ok. Anyone here about the guy selling xbox's for £££ and he was only selling xbox's as in the cardboard box without the console!

shopping from your home is ideal, cheaper and its yours at a touch of a button. No wonder high street shop profits are in such decline and are closing down.

[Cocker]

i heard of people getting screwed out of money but i think as long as the feedback is good, you should be ok. Anyone here about the guy selling xbox's for £££ and he was only selling xbox's as in the cardboard box without the console!

My mate tried to buy an Ipod. When he went on the user had a good rep however, after a while when it didnt come he went back and loads of people had laid into the seller because their Ipods handnt turned up and he had the money.

In the end all he could do was report it to ebay

[LeftWinger]

I got screwed out over £500 on there once. Learned my lesson - and carried on using it but being careful to cover my back - and I've had no problems since.

[Hasta]

My mate tried to buy an Ipod. When he went on the user had a good rep however, after a while when it didnt come he went back and loads of people had laid into the seller because their Ipods handnt turned up and he had the money.

In the end all he could do was report it to ebay

I had a similar incident where loads of us got ripped off. However we ended up making statements to the police and the lad got charged with fraud. 12 months later I got a letter from his solicitor with an apology from him and a cheque for my money back. Was ony £10 but glad I, and the others, bothered to report it. He'll not do it again.

[James No. 7]

eBay can be fairly addictive. In the early days when I first signed up and got used to the concept, I started buying and selling like crazy. There were heaps of little nick-nacks that I picked up and got to sell a few things I really didn't need either. I expanded on my Super Nintendo collection by several times and expanded on my other collections and memorabilia, mainly football, stamps, etc. I agree that there is a thrill when people are in a bidding war over your stuff.

I ended up getting over it, sort of self-imposed because I know it can take a good chunk out of the income. I recently started going crazy over bidding again after getting a new flow of income, but I will have to stop myself once I get everything I want. Some of the stuff was necessary for uni, while others have been in the gaming area which I have been contemplating getting for some time. Plus I picked up on a few more needless nick-nacks.

I have only wasted small amounts on items that never arrived. Mainly for the UK and the US, although the items from the US were usually insured so no real problems there. I learnt my lesson from the UK item that never arrived, which was not insured, so I have not bought an overseas item without insurance since. Actually, I usually get insurance with doemstic postage too. US items in particular are bad for not arriving. One item arrived months later because a sticker partially covered the address. In the very early days, I had one of my packages on my door step ripped open to see what the contents were. Nothing was stolen though.

I'm glad I haven't come across any crooks yet. Then again I don't buy really expensive stuff over eBay. Usually the most expensive stuff I want are games platform, but the newer ones are usually not cheaper over eBay. The games sure are, though.

[LeftWinger]

I had a similar incident where loads of us got ripped off. However we ended up making statements to the police and the lad got charged with fraud. 12 months later I got a letter from his solicitor with an apology from him and a cheque for my money back. Was ony £10 but glad I, and the others, bothered to report it. He'll not do it again.

You were lucky Hasta mate. A few of us got ripped off to the tune over over 3k! The police basically weren't interested - and couldn't do much about it.

[Paul]

I've found e-bay really good for selling things I no longer want / need. I've taken over a £1000 selling on stuff I probably would have dumped otherwise. Sold one item for £300 to my complete astonishment. I think you have to be very, very wary of buying anything - I know I'm being honest when I'm selling but I've had two poor experiences buying on e-bay - both with concert tickets. I know, I know.

First time was with the Stones at Don Valley. The seller sent me a phone number to call her on, which turned out to be a record promo company and no one had ever heard of her.

Second time was buying Springsteen tickets in Holland. The guy claimed the tickets were in Ireland, e-mailed me as the winning bidder from Italy, and then offered to send me a PDF file to print off as my ticket.

I didn't pay any money to either seller but had a pretty unpleasant exchange of e-mails, in thened I just ended up deleting the messages without reading them.

Other than buying on e-bay my experience of online shopping has been excellent.

[tcj_jones]

Out of interest, what was the item you sold for £300?

[LeftWinger]

Out of interest, what was the item you sold for £300?

His wife

[Paul]

His wife

........and extremely good value

It was a saxophone. We paid about £450-500 for it 7-8 years ago when my eldest saw himself as a budding sax player - we've all been there. I'm told the quality of new Japanese saxophones is now so good and they are so cheap the second-hand market has collapsed. Most first-timers used to buy second-hand but now buy new as prices are very low. We were offered an insulting amount by the music shop so I decided to stick it on e-bay with a reserve of £300 and it sold to a guy in Holland. We had a bit of hassle getting it to Holland but for £300 I was ready to go by easyjet to deliver it!!!!

One thing I haven't been able to sell is books. I have some very good, very expensive reference books I no longer use - we're talking perhaps £200 new. These are in genuine pristine condition and I put them up for half the current new cost - didn't get a single bid. I'm told Amazon is good for second-hand books so I'm going to try that next.

[Damage]

My own golden-rules for buying .......

- check out the sellers feedback. dont buy from sellers with high levels of negative feedback. be wary of new sellers (zero feedback). be wary of sellers wthat only have feedback for v.low value items. check out the items that they have sold previously. does it make sense.

- only pay via paypal. that way if it goes tits-up you can file dispute in in ebay and paypal. if seller will not accept paypal be wary!

- be wary of sellers with non-verified address

- try to buy from people with buying and selling feedback

- check out their history. longtime members are more likley to be ok. be wary of long periods of inactivity

- buy preferentially from people in the same country as yourself (check out item locations, etc on seller feedback)

- be wary of sellers who's auctions always allow bidder anonymity. they probably get mates to artifically bump up the price

- NEVER be tempted to buy in a "private" deal - you will have no comeback whatsoever

- NEVER be tricked into giving any details of your accounts etc

- dont respond to anyone sending you a message if you havent bid on their auction

- READ the item description thoroughly. make sure you undertsand what you are bidding for.

sold a sinclair ZX80 about 15 months ago for almost £250. bet its worth double that now!

[Rovermatt]

Ebay is fantastic in the vast majority of cases. I got my brother a spanking new Notre Dame Fightin' Irish jersey for Christmas (his year in the US resulted in him becoming a big college football fan) from a power-seller in Ohio and thanks to the strength of the pound ended up paying only £35 all in (including Express postage). I've been able to expand my McFarlane NHL collection and got some brand new DVD box-sets (including The West Wing seasons 4,5 & 7) and second hand Xbox 360 games for much cheaper than pre-owned titles would be selling for in Game.

I've never had a bad experience on there thank goodness, but I'm always laborious about checking for the best seller as well as the best deal. I think the general rule is that if it's too good to be true then invariably it is.

I did have one transaction where I bought a DVD box-set from a seller in England who charged me £5 for second class postage and then took an eternity to get it to me. When the item eventually arrived, it turned out that it was posted from Hong Kong (which wasn't stated and usually puts me off) and was in fact not region 2 as advertised but region 4. Thankfully region 4 (Australia) plays on region 2 players but it could have been very different. And she wondered why I left neutral feedback.

Ebay are clamping down on high postage costs. Many sellers (even reputable ones) hike up their postage so as to make a tidy profit which is very sneaky and simply a way of conning you into thinking you're getting a good deal. I found The Wire season 3 with a 'buy it now' option and it turned the guy was only 20 minutes from where I live. I asked him if he would lower the postage price if I bought as I lived locally. He was having none of it claiming that the figure quoted was standard and it 'wouldn't be worth my while' to lower it

[ABBEY]

Ebay is fantastic in the vast majority of cases. I got my brother a spanking

wowowow

[rebelmswar]

The reason I dont trust ebay

Click

[Hannah]

The reason I dont trust ebay

Click

Wicked I have been looking for one of those everywhere!!

Only joking! I am addicted to ebay but my friends really laugh as I go on about winning whatever I have bid on and they are like its not a competition you still have to pay for it!!!

[Hasta]

You were lucky Hasta mate. A few of us got ripped off to the tune over over 3k! The police basically weren't interested - and couldn't do much about it.

The guy who ripped me off was at college in Scotland and was living in some coastal backwater village. To the police up there it was probably the biggest case ever.

[ABBEY]

bloody fife and his antics

[Claytons Left Boot]

E-bay, or as I call it, The Rovers club shop.

[Beta Ray Bill]

E-bay, or as I call it, The Rovers club shop.

nah, with ebay you can report crap transactions...

[SAS]

ive been done over twice

first time, ended up as a postive. as if you pay by pay pal over £15 you are covered. I bought a phone, it was probably nicked or something and totally blocked to the UK so i reported, got mymoney back, but the guy never wanted the phone back, so i sold it as faulty on ebay and got £50

second time i bought a football shirt for £11 never turned up and seller was not on there anymore lost that money

[Wolves_Rover]

I've been using Ebay on and off for about 6 years.

I've only left negative feedback once in that time when some guy sold me a sodding DVD-R of Deadwood season 1 after advertising it as genuine.

By and large it is a useful place to pick up knick knacks and has proven very useful for finding cheap dvds for my film studies degree.

the P&P issue is something that irks me and I don't tend to buy from sellers who try to advantage this way, a few pence extra for the trouble of wrapping it up and walking to the post office is fair enough but charging in excess of £3 for a DVD is having a laugh.

I picked up a 2nd hand Rovers away shirt from '94, was in very good condition and was only £10, very happy with it.

I don't sell stuff at the moment - too busy with Uni but will need to flog a load of stuff when I graduate so will probably use ebay to do that.

[Ozz]

A useful blog/guide to using eBay. Pretty upto date too.

[revolutionrock!]

To use ebay!

Nothing is much simpler .

[American]

I found it great early on, but too hard to weed through all of the junk nowadays.

Found a lot of great cribbage boards back in the day.

[rover6]

I wonder if anyone can give me any advice - whether ebay related or not.

I'm trying to sell a few items of commercial kitchen equipment. Eg. Gas oven, frier, pizza oven etc.

I've put some on ebay but it seems that they won't sell unless I drastically lower the price. I'm not an experienced ebay user but I suspect that people are highly wary of splashing large amounts without having physically seen the stuff.

Are there any alternative avenues?