I’ve sold hundreds of things on eBay and today takes the biscuit.

A set of old hope brakes (with discs and 2 sets of new pads) went for a bargain £36. Fine. I’m happy with that.

Immediately emails start coming in – if the buyer doesn’t pay will you sell them to me for £20? No, there were 3 other bidders who bid more than the £12 bid you put in. The third highest bidder also chasing.

if you bloody want to buy something bid a proper amount of money for it.

Almost as bad as dicks in the forum crying about an email on eBay.

I once had a kid having a go, because I wouldn’t sell him just the front wheel, of the complete bike…..😕

What a let down, from the title I thought this was going to be a used dildo / inappropriate Secret Santa type thread…

I have two bikes on classifieds. I cant bring myself to put them on ebay cos of all the stupid requests you get. People kicking off if you won’t split it or getting arsey because you wont accept their stupidly low imaginary buy it now offer.

Marin

Almost as bad as dicks in the forum crying about an email on eBay.

Haven’t seen any of those. Could you point one out please.

I have two bikes on classifieds. I cant bring myself to put them on ebay cos of all the stupid requests you get. People kicking off if you won’t split it or getting arsey because you wont accept their stupidly low imaginary buy it now offer.

Is this really a problem? They have no power to compel you to do anything, you can just ignore them. Or amuse yourself with a gently sarcastic reply, if you must.

How about the ones that don’t understand the bid retraction policy and are indignant about it 🙂

I sympathise with the OP, eBay seems to be full of idiots asking time consuming questions and then trying it on. They also seem unable to grasp the concept of an auction.

Maybe these people also walk into Tesco and try to offer £2 for their Sunday roast.

Bid retraction policy ? Please explain

sister listed a bunch of posh clothes last week.. auction ended, won by someone.. another bidder said she ‘really needed that dress’ and offered 5 quid over the winning bid if my sister would send it to her instead.. why the **** she didn’t put that number in as her maximum bid in the first place is bizarre!
Dress sent to auction winner

You will just have to ignore the daft ebay idiots. Given the fact it allows you to sell/buy pretty much anything, putting up with silly emails is a small price to pay.

I just do buy-it-now (or best offer) sales now, get hardly any idiots that way.

Give it a try.

idiots asking time consuming questions

I’m not sure exactly how slow you are at reading, but ignoring a few stupid questions takes very little time in my experience 😉

My last eBay sale said collection only for a frame. I priced it at 35 quid because of that. I just wanted the space.

In big bold letters I wrote that under no circumstances was postage offered and it was cash only being I would be physically handing the frame to the buyer. I said don’t ask and that I would not pack or box it up for a courier.

So because of the price I got about 6 questions a day asking for postage.

I’m not too proud to admit that most of the replies asking for postage were met with varying prices from £250-1000 depending on my mood.

Yep, three of my auctions have fell through today purely because they can’t be bothered to pay.

Got to start again.

Someone offered me £50 for a frame that cost me £2500. On the first 10 mins of a bid.

It does seem to be populated by imbeciles

I had a seller ask me if I wanted a frame as I was second highest bidder 30 mins after the auction ended. He got annoyed when I told him no (suspect him or his mate bidded me up)

eBay, full of dicks but better than any of the alternatives.

Some dick Stealth bid with 10 seconds left on a Some Lyriks yesterday.
Not heard a pip and having no repsone from emails so Found him on Facebook and asked for the money. Lol

I am not a fan of Ebay but certainly has it uses, I recently purchased an item and seller sent incorrect item I would not mind if he had anything else for sale.

ebay is full of humans, therefore some of them will be dicks however in 15 years of selling and buying I’ve had maybe 2 returns and 3 bidders who’ve changed their mind after winning out of hundreds of transactions. The idiots can be quite amusing and as nealglover says it takes almost zero energy to ignore them

I’m over 1200 items sold and have to confess I’m with Joemmo, yes you get the odd stupid offer just like the odd stupid human in real life but easily ignored or toyed with (should you feel the need to bait them) but it is much better than a garage full of stuff and no where to move.

Had one issue where I made an error and one where I realised (after I bid – dumbass) that I needed to retract an offer but both easily dealt with taking a human lead approach i.e. assume not everyone is a dick :/

James

I don’t even log onto ebay anymore. Gave it up 5 years ago. I don’t regret it.

Sold a pair of wheels for £10.50 bidder paid and has never collected. Still got them sat on the hall 2 months later.

eBay themselves are dicks – just been put on the naughty step for a week for allowing someone to try a jacket on in person. No sales, messages or purchases allowed for 7 days. Apparently meeting face-to-face is the devils work and is strictly verboten.

Buyers are a very mixed bag – a fair amount of scammers and likewise idiots – like the chap who gave me negative feedback because his postman got the parcel soaking wet by leaving it in the rain. I’d have happily taken it back for a refund (and claimed on RM), but didn’t get the chance. But also you get some genuinely nice people – buyers and sellers – who go out their way; picked up a gas stove last weekend and the seller arranged for a neighbour to be in with a key so that I could collect at a time convenient to me…

in 15 years of selling and buying I’ve had maybe 2 returns and 3 bidders who’ve changed their mind after winning out of hundreds of transactions. The idiots can be quite amusing and as nealglover says it takes almost zero energy to ignore them

Same story here and have sold over 1,000 items. If I have time to waste I do like taking the piss out of people with stupid questions (I do add them to blocked list before hand though as don’t want an idiot to win the item on rare occasion I use auction instead of Buy it Now as they are likely to be more trouble)

A few weeks back a person was pretty much saying the frame I was selling was cracked as it is a common problem with that frame apparently. He seemed put out with my replies. The best bit was he contacted me after the auction calling me petty for blocking him as he actually tried to buy it.

I do sell 95% of my things Buy It Now / Payment required immediately and with no offers so I am avoiding a high number of the idiots I suppose.

just been put on the naughty step for a week for allowing someone to try a jacket on in person. No sales, messages or purchases allowed for 7 days. Apparently meeting face-to-face is the devils work and is strictly verboten.

Eh? How did they find out?

Same story here and have sold over 1,000 items

Yeah, same here – And was looking for something in my purchase history the other day and realised how I rely on it for little things like batteries, bulbs, tools, phone accessories, bike bits, etc etc… just so much stuff, cheaper and more convenient than anywhere else!

Do they still take 10% off you for bike sales? And then don’t paypal take another X%?

Eh? How did they find out?

They would have caught it in a email. If you arrange for someone to come round and look at something ahead of auction finishing you could just sell it to them for cash and avoid eBay fees. They would catch this when you cancel the listing as it is a check that is made. If however you amend the listing to put a huge starting price on the item and let the auction run it’s course you may not get found out….

And was looking for something in my purchase history

And I was just looking at my selling history and notice I have sold £44,000 of items since 2003. Genuinely amazed at that.

Best advice as some have already said – stick your items on a neverending fixed price listing at the highest £ you reckon you’ll possibly get and automatically accept offers over a realistic amount & then forget about it until it sells. You’ll lose out on the occasional last minute bidding frenzy that bumps the price up by an unexpected margin but it’s less hassle in the long run & there’s no last minute worry that your frame / brakes / forks / whatever will unexpectedly only sell for £3.76.

eBay themselves are dicks

This, massively so. This applies-

There are ways around it, if someone wants to buy something and collect it (paying cash) just get them to send an ebay message saying that they’re just coming to look at it and will complete the purchase through ebay once they’ve decided if it’s for them or not.

^^ genuine question, how do you get them to say the above in a message without stating you want them to say that via an eBay message to them in the first place?

Won’t eBay then also your knuckles for the “coaching”?

As I said before, it is the cancellation of the listing that triggers the inspection of email activity. As long as you don’t cancel after some email correspondence about buyer coming round you will be fine. And to avoid someone buying your non cancelled item just amend the price to a price no one will pay.

Alternatively just get them to buy it via eBay and actually pay for the service, the person buying it is only there because of eBay. You people wanting something for nothing all the time.

Didn’t know you could buy them on ebay, what a time to be alive!

I’ve said to buyers, where I’ve collected an item and paid cash, if they don’t want to pay fees, just say we both agreed to not go through with the sale. One bloke said, yeah, great! Then erm, left me feedback 😆
(I don’t do this really ever Mr Ebayspybot)

They would have caught it in a email. If you arrange for someone to come round and look at something ahead of auction finishing you could just sell it to them for cash and avoid eBay fees. They would catch this when you cancel the listing as it is a check that is made. If however you amend the listing to put a huge starting price on the item and let the auction run it’s course you may not get found out….

From messages.

Despite the messages clearly stating that the chap was coming around to try on and not buy they said it was in contravention of the rules. Clearly they have both algos and people monitoring messages.

Any hint of an email, postal address or mobile number in a mesaage and it’s instantly flagged too.

Apparently in these instances the correct process is for the person to ‘buy it now’ but not pay, come and try it on, if they decide otherwise then we both have to cancel the transaction. Otherwise they have to complete the transaction.

FFS.

^^ genuine question, how do you get them to say the above in a message without stating you want them to say that via an eBay message to them in the first place?

Won’t eBay then also your knuckles for the “coaching”?

I just ask them (nicely) if they wouldn’t mind confirming in writing so that ebay don’t think I’m trying to sell off-ebay, and explain that I’ve had a couple of bans already and can do without another one. No rapped knuckles (so far…)