Ebay…just…aghhhhhhhhhhh

Sell two items.
Buyer one, sorry I thought it was for everything in the picture not just the one thing you HIGHLIGHTED IN BIG CAPITALS. Can you offer it to some one else.
Buyer two, can you send to Portugal. Not quite sure what part of the UK Only that is.
At the same time I was watching some Campagnolo brakes, went for £17 more than new from the shops?

Ooh quick, i’ve got some campag brakes and bits to flog.

I used to eBay a lot. Now I mainly purchase rather than sell for the same reasons you outline above. Dimwitted morons cocking things up for you right left and centre.

That said, buying is a bit of minefield considering what some folk think old bike tat is worth these days. As well as over inflated postage.

It ain’t what it used to be.

I have sold a shite load of computer stuff I’ve the last few weeks and the questions I have been asked are unreal. All the info and specs have been in the adverts and every time I get

what model is…
Does it come with…
How much to post to…
Will you except next to nothing for your £200+ graphics card.?

Numpties.

I’ve had a run of people cancelling bids because they’ve ‘put in the wrong amount’. Except they then don’t put in their correct bid. Cue blocking.

It really has got frustrating to use, hasn’t it?

As well as over inflated postage.

Difficult one that. As a buyer, you want as cheap postage as possible, as a seller, you have to spend time packaging the item well, maybe buying packaging materials, going to stand in line at the now far away post office on your lunch break, and pay for a service which hopefully gives you some cover and comeback if any disputes arise..

I normally lose out on the postage I feel.
Agree though, loads of idiotic questions when everything has been provided and eBay generally being heavily on the side of buyers.

Between the “It’s on e-bay it must be a bargain”
or “I just won a pair of forks that I now have to pay money for” – thats not winning thats buying
and “here is something I’d like to sell to somebody I will never ever meet as it’s a complete heap of crap and been thrashed to an inch of it’s life/nicked/stolen/fake”

I tend to avoid it these days, unless it’s for something like phone screen protectors or cases etc. where it’s just a handy shop front for cheap importers.

We are still using it a fair bit, probably about two purchases to every sale, but it seems to work OK for us. Maybe that’s because the kind of stuff we sell is unwanted kids’ clothes and shoes and unfashionable bike bits so we get a more mature buyer?

The only recent annoyance was when somebody bid on a set of cranks then didn’t pay, then eventually after I contacted him he gave us feedback: “Hi really sorry but did not bid on ur item but for some resson it say I have one”, muppet. I sold them the next day to my neighbour who had been meaning to bid and hadn’t realised it was me selling!

Rarely have issues on my items…however I always offer free postage and almost always go for Fixed Price, I know when I’m buying I don’t want to wait until the closing seconds to bid, I see it at a price I’m happy with, I want it now! Also if its a less common item you can get a bit of a premium whereas an auction will struggle to get a good price.

I’ve got a few laptop bits on 30 day Fixed Price which ended yesterday, was doing a run to the tip so went to cancel them with 7hrs to go, apparently they will now charge me the listing fee to cancel early! (one cancellation allowed per year) So I left them, and forgot they were set to automatically renew so now I guess they got to clutter up my garage for another month. Its only a few quids worth, the big ticket items went in a few days.

I sold a coat.
I posted the coat – tracked.
The coat arrived.
Buyer says coat didn’t arrive.
I send screen shot of Royal Mail website saying coats been signed for.
Buyer says it hasn’t arrived and doesn’t fit anyway and looks more ‘green’ than in my photos.
I remember why I stopped selling on eBay.

If you use it wisely it can be great. If I’m after something I always look for items that finish at weird times and you can pick up some good deals. Yesterday I picked up a delonghi dehumidifier for £16 with no reserve that normally go for £60-80! It was set to finish at lunchtime on an Easter Sunday when most people are spending it with family. Some people don’t how to use it to their advantage.

Those Campagnolo brakes I was looking at. There was a CRC ad for the same thing on the same page. So top of page s/h £41.00 plus £7.99 post. Bottom of page £35 all in brand new?

Difficult one that. As a buyer, you want as cheap postage as possible, as a seller, you have to spend time packaging the item well, maybe buying packaging materials, going to stand in line at the now far away post office on your lunch break, and pay for a service which hopefully gives you some cover and comeback if any disputes arise.

I had a buyer moan about the price of postage, he had paid a whole £0.80p extra than it cost to post. I took me days to find a suitable box then go on the hunt for something to pad it out with. In total I must have spent the best part of 4 hours driving around. I explained all this and told him he still owes me £10 in fuel. Tosser.

I sold a pile of parquet flooring, that had been on the floor if a bank for many, many years.

The buyer complained it was dirty and used.
😕

I was watching two XTR cranksets last night.
One was an auction, with no BB.
The other was Buy It Now complete with a BB at £125 and free postage.
With 30 minutes to go, the auction one was at £124 plus £8 postage.
I bought the Buy It Now one.
The auction one went for £150

few bits left to sell then I’m done with it. The number of eejits and fraudsters seems to be on the increase. Latest being someone in USA who bought coat back in November(!) and then a few weeks ago decides it wasn’t him that bought the coat so kicked off a credit card chargeback. I’ve sent the tracking details (sent to his house and to him in person – name is correct etc) + screenshot.

However, eBay and Paypal in their infinite wisdom have taken the money back out of my account AND the fees that the credit card company charge for ‘handling’ whilst it’s ‘investigated’.

This process may take between 30 and 180 days apparently.

Happening more and more. Fees are high as a seller and 0 confidence that there’s any protection so when current listings end that’ll be that, as a seller at least.

Sold some electric motor bits and pieces for a customer – untested as it wasn’t complete. Buyer receives, and then complains that one battery doesn’t work, so opens a dispute. He says that a new battery will cost him £300, I point out politely that he didn’t buy a new battery, he bought an untested one.

So offered either a part refund of £100, or he could return it all and I’d refund him for the lot.

“I’m not returning it, I got the rest of it at a good price, I just want a new battery”

eBay gave him £100.

After having various time wasting and experiences of “things not turning up” I do as spooky does,I put it on at a fixed price,make sure the postage is covered and make sure the postage is signed for.
IMHO I think eBay has gone expensive,some tech stuff is cheap like I phone/iPad chargers and like steelfan sais iff you use it to your advantage you can get good deals,I wouldn’t sell anything expansive on there and every payment I receive through paypal gets transferred out into my bank account as eBay/paypal have been known to freeze accounts for no apparent reason because they can,I’ve had some problems when I’ve been selling but the buyer has been understanding in most cases as the situation was out of my hands but there are folk that abuse it on purpose and it’s us sellers that loose out.
I’ve even thought about doing everything “pick up only” but that means people coming to my house and I’m far to paranoid for that 😯

Been looking at cars on there recently and its really quite surprising how many people ‘Have moved house recently and cannot seem to find V5,Reg docs,Service history,Receipt for repairs etc’.

That instantly puts off anymore interest in that vehicle for me.

Unovolo – my Mazda6 is on there with FSH, V5, receipts etc
It’s on here too. Can do you a good deal
😉

Not everyone is a muppet on eBay but I’m slowly thinking that there aren’t many honest buyers or sellers on there

Like some t**t that ‘wins’ a £100 sheet of asbestolux, pays me the .99p by paypal, has to hire a car to collect it, lo and behold it won’t fit in the car, expects me to stop my work (I’m a builder) to help him fathom out how to get it home. Clown!
If its cash on collection you want (and you won’t be sending the item anyway) best closing your paypal account immediately the auction ends.

I won’t risk eBay these days too many scammers and chancers. It sucks that the seller seems to get no comeback from these rogue buyers.

I sold a rear mech the other day and posted it out tracked.

The buyer opened a dispute 3 days after the auction closed to say he hadn’t had it, i checked the tracking and found it had been delivered about an hour before he’d opened the dispute. I presented the tracking info to the buyer and it mysteriously turned up an hour later (11pm)

Shyster.

Once listed a Thule roof rack and included a photo from manufacturers website. Buyer comes back after receiving in the post to tell me it was not a roof rack but roof bars I sold and that he wanted his money back. What he was expecting was a great big metal box/tray type thing like what you see on the top of Camel Trophy LR’s. Knob. Made a complaint to EBay saying I was taking advantage of a disabled person… HTF was I supposed to know who I was taking advantage of???

Otherwise stupid questions aside I’ve got on OK with Ebay.

Yes, heavy annoying items sold collect only then have buyer ask me to post them if they cover ‘all costs’.

Only to find that my going rates in annoyance are prohibitive

I only buy, I can’t be arsed to deal with muppets, and have to spend time hunting around for packing materials, getting to the post office, etc, but I must say I’ve only ever had one dispute, when a seller just refused to send the item and also refused to have any communication with me, despite repeated emails. eBay get back to me within hours and refunded my money with postage added.
Most of what I’ve bought have been small items, but I’ve bought two flying jackets* from the States which came through with no hassles at all. I am very careful when it comes to checking sizes, though.
*One winter weight, one Summer, in case anyone wondered why I bought two! Both around $80, for jackets that retail for £350-400 new. Bargain. 😀

I sold a rear mech the other day and posted it out tracked.

I think you have to be mad to sell stuff on eBay without using tracked postage (or at least signed for delivery).

I got extremely annoyed with eBay last night…. Well maybe my incompetence but I waited till about 1and half mins till the end of an auction for a chameleon frame and like a plank no bids so I thought it was mine only to get outbid by a quid with me desperately trying to refresh on the phone. Please can someone tell me how people lurk in the shadows then outbid you last second? It’s happened a few times now so I need to gem up on my bidding technique….. I really wanted that frame and it went bloody cheap too 🙁

Just bid the maximum you are willing to spend near the end. If you get it, brilliant, if you don’t, it went for more than you wanted to spend.

I got extremely annoyed with eBay last night…. Well maybe my incompetence but I waited till about 1and half mins till the end of an auction for a chameleon frame and like a plank no bids so I thought it was mine only to get outbid by a quid with me desperately trying to refresh on the phone. Please can someone tell me how people lurk in the shadows then outbid you last second? It’s happened a few times now so I need to gem up on my bidding technique….. I really wanted that frame and it went bloody cheap too

They are using a sniping tool- google.

Confused about your thinking though. You wait until just about the last minute then you put a bid on….but were prepared to pay more (I’m assuming, as you wanted to put another bid on once outbid). So why didn’t you bid more in the first place? You only pay the minimum amount to beat the next best bid so bidding higher does not cost you more. I’m always amazed when you look at the bid history for items and the same user is bidding again and again going up a little bit at a time to outbid the someone else – it’s not a real auction – you don’t have to behave like that. First rule of ebay – bid late (automated or manual) and bid once (the maximum the thing is worth to you). Anything else is just rank amateur!

Just bid the maximum you are willing to spend near the end. If you get it, brilliant, if you don’t, it went for more than you wanted to spend.

This.

I don’t know why anyone would bid any earlier than the last five minutes myself. It’ll only push the price up.
I usually do nothing and then put my maximum bid in during the last twenty seconds. If someone outbids me then good luck to them with their new Velour slacks.

Anything else is just rank amateur!

Yep that’s me….. I guess I have some silly notion that if no one has bid and I leave it to the last Minute then I might just get a bargain, if however I put in a maximum and ( trust issue) the seller bids it up then my bargain has gone but I may get it for the maximum bid…. Well it kind of works in my head, I guess the days of eBay bargains are gone? Hence I prefer to buy from here.

I had a buyer moan about the price of postage, he had paid a whole £0.80p extra than it cost to post.

It’s my pet hate, that. Aside from the fact that it’s postage and packing and therefore more than just the price of the stamp, whatever price it is the buyer has agreed to it at the point of sale. It’s not a secret. If you think the P&P fees are unreasonable, don’t bid; don’t buy it and then piss and moan that the stamp was 20p less than you paid for postage. Smeghead.

Unovolo – my Mazda6 is on there with FSH, V5, receipts etc

Thanks for the offer but not really what I’m looking for, I like weird little cars 😕

I don’t get peoe complaining about the postage costs. It’s clear what the buyer will charge so either accpet and bid or don’t. It’s not rocket science

I don’t get peoe complaining about the postage costs. It’s clear what the buyer will charge so either accpet and bid or don’t. It’s not rocket science

No, me neither. I had one the other week where someone started trying to negotiate postage after they’d won the item. They were told that the postage was what the postage was; when they then asked me to cancel the auction they were very put out when I told them I’d be blocking them from bidding on future listings…

I sell loads on ebay – never had any problems. Free postage on BIN items (just include the postage in the listing price) and just offer hermes courier on auctions.

That’s what I do. My main gripe with Ebay is that every time I come to sell something they’ve ‘improved’ it. Which means they’ve ditched a load of useful features and hidden others. That and scumbag buyers holding me to ransom with chargeback threats – “There’s a problem, I’ve been quoted £60 to fix, pay or I start a chargeback” – “ok, send it back and I’ll refund you” – “oh it’s working now” etc etc

Any idea why people mark feedback as private? I just sold a bike to someone who has 100% positive feedback and has been a member since 2008. He’s offered to pay via PayPal and collect the bike a week tomorrow, so is this thread making me paranoid that something is not quite right?

something is not quite right, you appear to have a genuine buyer, you now need to insist on PP gift in order to royally shaft him