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Other The trials and tribulations of a new eBay seller

Discussion in 'General' started by Pete J, 11 Apr 2015.

  1. Pete J

    Pete J Employed scum

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    I thought I'd write about my eBay experiences since up until recently, I'd only used it to buy the odd esoteric thing here and there.

    Having decided I wanted to upgrade my main rig, I needed to get rid of the current one. Unfortunately, there was no interest from the Bit-Tech sales forums for my old bits, so I decided to brave eBay despite the few horror stories I had heard.

    I started out by selling a few SSDs. For each one I got at least three queries about a 'buy it now' price, which was initially interesting but quickly got old, especially given the some short, abrasive and generally poorly written nature of the messages. I ended up saving a notepad file with a standard response saying something along the lines of 'wait for the sodding auction to finish' but more politely. Anyway, they sold for more than I was expecting - indeed, one went for a decent chunk of the price I had originally paid for it despite being about one and a half years old - I did pick it up in a sale mind!

    I then sold a sound card for about £30. What struck me in particular was someone who asked (in typically poorly written English) if I would be willing to change the postage option from £5.60 to £2.50. Bearing in mind the bid at the time was about £25, I was a little irked that someone could be that tight-fisted. I said I was willing, but he didn't win the auction, which given the penny pinching nature was hardly surprising.

    Next up, I sold some quad channel DDR3 RAM (a 4x4GB kit). I had a query from someone asking if a system could just use two sticks - this worried me as I started to realise that maybe those buying on eBay didn't quite have the computer knowledge they should do. However, someone else bought it in the end. At this point I noticed a general trend - those who ask questions will almost certainly not buy the item in question.

    A few more items, nothing remarkable - I bought and then resold an i7 3930K as I needed to test a motherboard (which I later sold - see below). However, I had to relist an i7 4930K as a bidder (from outside the UK) said he had not realised an LGA 2011 chip didn't fit into an LGA 1150 board :wallbash: . I sent a relatively stern message to him saying that this was a very basic mistake to make and that he should do some more background reading before buying any more computer components. I also reported him, just in case he had reported issues elsewhere with components that he could have potentially got wrong. Additionally, I also had some cheeky git offer me £150 for the i7 4930 - considering it went for ~£250 I think he got off lightly with the polite, 'thanks but no thanks' response I sent.

    The latest experience I had was for a brief period the most difficult. I sold my old LGA 2011 motherboard for a lot less than I was expecting. However, the delivery (no signature required) went to the neighbour instead and the buyer was informed that it had been delivered to a house with a conservatory - a bit weird since there was no house with a conservatory for at least a few hundred metres. The guy flew off the handle a bit - not directly angry at me but immediately initiated a refund request and apparently stormed off to the police to report a theft. I called the delivery company, who promised me that it would be solved in a few days. I was a bit saddened by this as the insurance on the parcel was half that of what the mobo was sold for. It all worked out well in the end though, though it would appear that some buyers take very little to get wound up - the two or three messages I got in the interim period were clearly written in a hurried, emotional way.

    Overall, my experience has been very good. I shall be putting up a couple of GPUs in the near future, after which I think it'll be a while before I will need to call upon it again.
     
    Last edited: 11 Apr 2015
  2. Shirty

    Shirty W*nker! Super Moderator

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    I still sell on eBay, but at times it's nothing more than an exercise in frustration. It is a necessary evil, the secret is to try and include answers to all of the inane questions in the original listing. Though even then you'll get something out of left field some of the time.
     
  3. GiGo

    GiGo was once a nerd.....

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    A friend of mine sold his 3d Printer for about £600. A good sum of money.

    Before the sale he contacted the buyer to say "This is a 3d printer it's not just point and click like a normal one"

    Sent it off to the chap, spent over 1 hour on the phone telling him how it works after the guy messaged him to ask for help.

    A week later, another phone call saying it had broke, my mate being the nice guy he is said send it me back and I can fix it. (The heat plate had melted to another part!)

    Before the buyer sent it back he asked for money back from ebay, because it was defective, which of course they did! Leaving my mate 600 quid out of pocket!

    Ebay have finally settled the dispute, in favour of the buyer! Despite my friend having recorded the phone conversation with the buyer, ebay also said 'it must of been damaged in transit and is the seller responsibility!'

    Ebay need to get themselves sorted out, a complete and utter load of nonsense.
     
  4. Pete J

    Pete J Employed scum

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    Tell me about it!

    I forgot to mention another chap who was interested in my i7 4930K. He asked me about overclocking potential - I told him that I had only tweaked it on stock voltages up to 4.2GHz. He then sent a message back saying this wasn't very good, wanted to overclock up to 4.5GHz and said he was no longer interested!

    :wallbash: Well, I hope he's used to disappointment!

    What took the biscuit was he then sent a message asking me what CPU I had now! I didn't even bother replying to his last messages.
     
  5. IamJudd

    IamJudd Multimodder

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    I tend to not answer questions about buy it now or ending the auction for money. Any specific questions I answer will be tagged to the auction so that I don't have to answer the same thing twice.
    Recently sold some Pink Floyd figurines from The Wall (99p auction went for £170) - I'm kind of waiting for it to go south but my fingers will be crossed until feedback. Got an HD DVD bundle up at the moment with 53 movies and Toshiba player... Waiting for that to go wrong somewhere also!


    Additionally, I tend to sell quite a bit through Amazon... Have not had any issues with the system at all apart from one guy wanting a VAT invoice on a printer cartridge... Just messaged him back saying I wasn't a company so couldn't help... Sorry. Was fine.

    As an aside, Amazon trades in books for gift vouchers. It's great as you get to see what others are selling it for and the condition, the trade in value and the cost so you can make up your mind on how you want to do it. I had some old 2000ad hardbacks that the trade in value was only a pound less than I paid for them. When I looked into it (now out of print) issues 1,3 and 4 were 9.99 to buy new from sellers. Issue 2, for some reason, was up for over £100!

    Ian
     
    Last edited: 11 Apr 2015
  6. Bradley8988

    Bradley8988 What's a Dremel?

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    Didn't read the whole op but a tip to cover yourself abit is take a photo of serial numbers of items you sell as people have been known that if say my gpu died and had no warranty I would buy yours then say it was doa and return my card as if it was yours and nobody knows any the wiser and eBay sides with the buyer.

    I buy loads from eBay but nowadays very rarely sell on there. Plenty of forums other than here to sell items on even at a lower price I feel it's worth it.
     
  7. 13eightyfour

    13eightyfour Formerly Titanium Angel

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    I no longer sell anything on eBay, I've had some crazy decisions go in favour of the buyer in the past, even after reams of evidence and proof.

    I still buy stuff from there, and like Bradley anything I'm getting rid of goes on whichever forum suits the item, if it doesn't sell I tend to just add it to the skip pile tbh.
     
  8. SuicideNeil

    SuicideNeil What's a Dremel?

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    When selling, it's best to cover yourself with a section of bold text stating things like ' auction only, no buy-it-now so don't bother asking, no international bidders, postage is expensive due to item weight/size & insurance' etc etc.

    Selling specialised equipment ( 3D printer is a good example.. ), I'd try 3D printing forums or websites first, atleast that way you're far more likely to get a buyer who isn't a brain dead retard and ask fro a refund after they break it.

    True story/ semi-unrelated:

    When I worked at woolworths many moons ago, a woman brought back one of those awful JML bag-sealing devices because it wasn't working. It took me 2 seconds to look at the packaging and see that it required batteries in order to fuinction ( uses heat from a small element to melt and seal the plastic food bags it came with ). She got into a right strop when I tried to explain this to her and moaned that it wasn't obvious how it worked; frackin' numpty.

    On another occassion a gentleman was enquiring about the cheap laptops we were selling ( ~£200 POS things running vista ); he was asking about the specs ( I read the box label to him... ), then asked words to the effect 'so, how do these things work exactly, can you explain them to me?.. '. I looked at him with a pokerface and kindly suggested he attended the local college where they offer free night classes for PC beginners.

    Seriously, careful selling anything mildly complex to random strangers, try to find a forum or website with knowledgeable buyers first- ebay as a last resort.

    Failing that, list it as 'spares or repairs', that way if they break it, they can't ask for a refund no matter what :D
     
  9. Guest-17499

    Guest-17499 Guest

    ive always stuck to the for sale section on forums for selling second hand goods, although it theory ebay is safer ive never had any issues
     
  10. Sp!

    Sp! Minimodder

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    I've only lost money on eBay when it was my fault, I list 2 near identical items and shipped them to the wrong people, surprisingly the guy who got the more expensive item at the lower price didn't complain but the guy who got the cheap one at the higher price sure did so I lost out on shipping both ways, I've had a another issue where I made a copy paste error and mixed the details up between listings and had to give some one a refund (and eat the shipping costs). but other wise any issues I've managed to give a full refund and get the money back from the courier for the lost or damaged item.

    And people never read the description I'm forever getting questions that are answered in the description or asking for a buy it now price even when I've stated there isn't one so please don't ask.

    My only advise would be,

    Never sell anything you couldn't afford to lose the value of as it seems that eBay always favors the buyer in a dispute. (I've had eBay side with the buyer who said they didn't receive the item even thou I had a signed delivery not from the courier which to be fair did look very much like it was signed by the diver but even so. it took half an hour on the phone to ebay (mostly on hold ) to get it resolved, well for me to get my money back i'm pretty sure they gave the buyer his money back and ebay / paypal took the cost.

    Always make sure you more than cover your shipping costs, don't forget eBay take 10% of the postage cost and payal have a go too! And make sure you send it to the paypal registered address with enough insurance.

    Lastly if anyone pays by paypal and picks it up in person, get them to sign for it (I usually print the order summary and write collected in person and the date and time on it). I've had a friend who didn't get any proof for a couple of hundred quids worth of car parts that the guy later claimed he never received and then got the money back from paypal.
     
  11. MrJay

    MrJay You are always where you want to be

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    Only really had issues when buying, people taking my money and nit dispatching the items. One cheeky bigger said he was broke so couldn't afford to post it... even though id paid £12 for a courier.
     
  12. TheBlackSwordsMan

    TheBlackSwordsMan Over the Hills and Far Away

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    Interesting reading, tribulations indeed. I've been selling stuff on ebay for the past 4 years, I've shipped to UK, France, Sweden, Norway, Spain, Italy, Germany, Switzerland, Austria, Australia, New Zealand, Japan, Hong Kong, Thailand, Slovenia, Russia, Brazil, USA & Turkey (Maybe a few other places but I can't remember) and was lucky enough to only receive 2 refund request for undelivered packages (USA & Germany). I usually sell vintage razors but, a few weeks ago I decided to try my luck with GPUs.... The first buyer did the purchase, paid and then asked if the GPU was compatible with a MacPro :-/ The second buyer contacted me to say that the GPUs wasn't working, I send him installation instructions and he replied that he had plugged only 1 6pin as his PSU only had 1 :-\ I'll go back to my razors XD
     
  13. fix-the-spade

    fix-the-spade Multimodder

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    Just ignore those messages entirely.

    I delete any message about buy it now pricing, shipping to countries other than the UK when the listing says UK shipping only or any technical question that the listing addresses.

    Not answering generally discourages the delicate souls who post these questions from bidding, if they can't read the listing, they probably can't be trusted with whatever they're buying either.
     
  14. TheBlackSwordsMan

    TheBlackSwordsMan Over the Hills and Far Away

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    You can also use the Ebay blacklist, I use it to block anyone who send me rude inquiries :)







     
  15. Nexxo

    Nexxo * Prefab Sprout – The King of Rock 'n' Roll

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    At least when your buyer mishandles the razors he becomes a problem that solves itself. :p
     
  16. TheBlackSwordsMan

    TheBlackSwordsMan Over the Hills and Far Away

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    I have never received a single complaint concerning mishandling. Coincidence? I think not. :lol:
     
  17. Parge

    Parge the worst Super Moderator

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    My worst was selling my Oculus Rift to some cretin who didn't have a clue. If I'd met him in real life, and it wouldn't have involved a prison sentence, I'd have clocked him round the face.
     
  18. julianmartin

    julianmartin resident cyborg.

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    ...nothing about your post suggests that...!
     
  19. TheBlackSwordsMan

    TheBlackSwordsMan Over the Hills and Far Away

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    Talk about badlucks and badlucks come to you... sold a razor a few days ago and the payment has been held by Paypal. The transaction is under review, they want to make sure the owner of the Paypal Account did the purchase : / I explained to the buyer that I can't send the parcel as long as the payment is not cleared by Paypal, waiting for the reply. I hope he will answer rudely, this would give me a reason to cancel the transaction...
     
  20. Vault-Tec

    Vault-Tec Green Plastic Watering Can

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    I had this recently.

    I sold my old phone on Ebay and it was dodgy from the offset. Firstly when I ran the address provided it took me to nowhere so I refused to ship the phone until the buyer had updated his Paypal confirmed address. He ignored me for four days so in the end I decided to contact him on the email address in his Paypal and he eventually replied two days later giving me a new address.

    I sent the phone RMSD and it arrived the next morning and was signed for by Mohammed. I waited about three to four weeks for feedback, then figured he just wasn't going to leave any.

    Another couple of weeks go by and tbh I had pretty much forgotten about it until one morning I wake up and have received an email from Paypal and notice my account says -£130 in red. I phoned Paypal to ask them what was going on and they said that apparently the buyer had reported that he did not authorise the payment.

    They said the case would be resolved within 7 days so I figured what the hell and went about my normal day. I needed some cable ties from Ebay so I bought them and checked out. Then I noticed on the receipt part that it said "Total payable £131".

    I went to Paypal and it no longer said -£130. I then went to my bank account which said -£131 as my last transaction, leaving me with about £8 for the rest of the entire month.

    After long dragged out arguments on the phone with Paypal AND having to prove that the phone had shipped and been collected twice (so make sure you keep shipping receipts for Ebay stuff forever !!!!!! they finally gave me seller's protection and refunded the money.

    Had I not kept that receipt? he would have won and I would have been out a £130 phone.

    And this seems a common skank tactic on Ebay so as I have highlighted ALWAYS ALWAYS keep proof of shipping. What I do is return home from the PO then write the item number and a description on the receipt. That way no one can prey on your tardiness/forgetfulness.
     

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