Sorry.

One of the other threads had a whinge about auctions, so I thought I'd give my own whinge without actually hijacking the thread.

Some years ago I bid on an ebay auction for an IBM Thinkpad - it was the xxxP model meaning that it had a far more exciting screen.

There was a fair amount of bidding and I got it a good price - and I paid via Paypal - so he knocked it back saying Paypal took too much commission (so I paid then - I think).

But I wanted it, so I did a bank transfer - and when the PC arrived, the hard disk was only about 60% of what he said it was ... so I contacted him and bitched, so he accused me of cheating him, because he had spoken to a mate who had said that I got it too cheaply (screen) and therefore I was a criminal and I was welcome to return it and he would refund me my money, less his expenses.

I wonder - HOW THE FUCK CAN YOU CHEAT SOMEONE AT AN AUCTION?

So I told him to stick his solution and I would keep the machine ...

Three days later I got an email from him asking me to cancel the transaction on eBay so he could get his commission back - I forwarded that to eBay - never heard anything - didn't really give a shit anymore ....

What really shits me is the exhorbitant shipping cost many sellers - and mostly American sellers too - expect you to pay. If you shop around for books as an example , the shipping cost on the same book from the USA can range from $25 to over $60.

I am pretty sure sellers flog the shipping cost as a means of recovering the listing and commision fees.

I've had good results buying on ebay so far, and find most sellers are too worried about their reputation to dud you.

American postage is dear, though, and one German vendor charges a lot - but I treat with him before bidding to get a better deal.

I used to buy and sell firearms and ammo on eBay before they banned those items. Then I continued to buy and sell brass and bullets there till they banned that. I occasionally used eBay for other items up until a couple of years ago when they merged with PayPal. Then buying and selling anything there involved dealing with an immense bureaucracy.

After staying off eBay for a while I forgot about their terrible overhead and screwed up "processing". I listed and sold an item and was forced to accept PayPal as payment. A buyer purchased and PayPal received his payment immediately. Then PayPal sent me a message saying that my funds would be released in three weeks. The reasons were that I was a new user, that I had not made a sufficient number of transactions with PayPal, and that I didn't have a credit card on file. I called support and explained to them I had been a user of eBay for over 15 years, I had been a user of PayPal for nearly that long, they had my credit card on file and it was the same one I had used and kept on file for 10 years, I had made hundreds of transactions with a value of several tens of thousands of dollars, and I had 297 feedback comments with a feedback rating of 100%. The lady looked up my account and confirmed what I had told her. I was referred to a supervisor. I informed the supervisor that PayPal was in violation of their own User Agreement. If I had to agree to their agreement then it was a given that they had also agreed and it was clear that by holding the funds they were in violation of the agreement. She concurred but through a convoluted explanation it became clear that the problem was their screwy automated system and they just couldn't manually override it.

Weeks later, I received my funds. The selling Price was $1,315 but I only made $1130. The combined fees from eBay and PayPal were as follows:

PayPal Fees: $38.44 (2.84% of selling price)
eBay Listing Fees: $14.85
eBay Final Value Fee (commission): $131.50 (10% of selling price)
Total cost to sell on eBay: $184.79 or 13.7%

Those are very stiff charges for an auction you list and maintain for yourself. Anyone can see that eBay/PayPal are making out like bandits but they are also making money in two ways that most people do not notice.

1. By holding funds for three weeks on thousands and thousands of transactions they are raking in a sizable income from interest.
2. Both PayPal and eBay are charging their fees based on the selling price. eBay and PayPal are the same company. They work together when it is to their advantage but they work as separate companies when doing that is to their advantage. eBay takes their fees and commission by charging those against your credit card. They do not deduct them from the sales proceeds. If they did, then the amount of money that PayPal would be charging fees against would be smaller. Instead, eBay charged me 11% for listing fees and commission and PayPal got to charge an additional 2.84% on those same eBay fees. In other words, they charged me fees to transfer back money they had already deducted from my credit card. What a scam!

The money is insignificant. I just don't like the idea of someone bilking me.

I am done with them for good. Please kick me if I ever again forget how bad their service is.

I have been an Ebay seller for my own personal things since 2005.

I have never owned a business selling things, but just sold things I no longer had a interest in.

While in Australia I sold quite a bit of stuff on ebay.

Australians were weird about it. About half would want to pick it up in Canberra if they were from Sydney. I had a guy meet me at the gun range in Canberra to buy a scope, so he could inspect it. He didn't understand that he by law already bought it. It was a new scope in the box.

I sold all my dive gear while in Australia. Same problem all over again. I'll just come by your house so I can look at it.

Then I sold a pair of Swarovski 8x56 SLC's on Ebay to a bloke in Victoria, he gave me crappy review after the first guy backed out. He didn't want to be a second offer, but he still bought the item.

It was almost like the time at the Canberra gunshow I had some bullets priced well below retail. An older gentlemen came by and asked me what was wrong with them. I said nothing, but I don't shoot this caliber anymore. He said that is too cheap, and I said ok buy them. He said nope.

About 5 minutes later, I thought "what the hell", so I marked them up $15 per box. The stupid bastard bought everything I had on the table in .308 bullets.

How stupid is that?

My Australian friends used to say that Australians are used to being screwed over. So there is always such a thing as too good of a deal.

I used to start things at a dollar on Ebay. Only to get nasty emails from folks saying I was selling rubbish or knockoffs. Then when it got to full price, I'd normally of sold it to the same asshole that would bitch about the price in the first place.

BWW - you have to remember that Aussies do get ripped off - after all there's what people call the "Australian Tax", which means that just by being far away from everywhere we get charged more.

But I do like those stories.

I started using eBay back in the late 1990s. I bought a LOT of stuff there and sold some as well. I also never lost money in a transaction and save a LOT.

Sometimes there would be an auction with a "buy it now" option where one have immediate satisfaction with a very good price or bid with the rest and see if the item could be had at an even lower price. I bought quite a few Encore and Contender barrels at the "buy it now" price and then sold them at fair profits.

When eBay showed their true colors and banned the sale of gun parts, I started doing MUCH less business there. They have since gone back to the way it was but I still don't buy much there and since the requirement came in to use PayPal, I haven't sold much there either. In fact, I haven't sold anything on eBay for years.

Those are great stories about mysteries that I, as a buyer only so far, knew nothing about.

On the other hand, ebay auctions, compared with Sotherby's et al, are still bargains. Once we used to pay for things at auction with 'guineas' (21 shillings - a pound for the seller and a shilling for the auctioneer), now the auctioneers charge the sellers at least 10 per cent and the buyers something similar.

As a buyer I've found PayPal incredibly painless, though at one stage they did not even want me to put in a password - and that was a bit scary.

I have been burned by buyers on Ebay a number of times. I am to the point I am almost done selling that way, the latest scam is to claim that it wasn't delivered.

I require a signature for purchase when the package arrives now, but a couple of times even that wasn't enough for paypal.

I got burned once on scam-bay, never again.

PayPal knows it's a problem, but they really don't care.....now a days it's Craigslist with EMT or cash on pickup for general stuff.

Firearms stuff is sold and bought on Gunnuts.ca

Bren7x64

I'm assuming your post was triggered by the thread I was a part of in trying to procure a set of dies for another person.
While posters here on your thread do seem to have problems with their various trades and auctions I must say that our own Trademe site is a very good, well monitored and regulated auction site.

I and the other posters on that thread were not really having a whinge we were just discussing the foibles in bidding for goods at auction. There are always the unknowns in terms of bidders intentions but I, like many others, have bought and sold on Trademe very successfully without any hassles, just sometimes you are disappointed to miss out because you do not want to pay any more.

I have had lots of Trade Me deals , and with a very few exceptions they have all been fine . Its Ebay that tends to be the issue , but then it is vastly bigger than our own Trade Me, and seems less user friendly in some of its policies.

And , as I pointed out earlier , sellers on Ebay view the shipping cost as a way of recovering Ebays fees .Thats really my personal whinge , being screwed on shipping , but I have a US mailing address for those sellers , and can get around that problem without too much effort.

We would all be much worse off without Ebay , for all that above.

Sorry, Eagle - my word was ill-chosen.

I saw the disappointment and it reminded me of a bad experience and I just thought I'd have a vent.

No offence meant. None taken, I hope.

quote:

Originally posted by Bren7X64:
Sorry, Eagle - my word was ill-chosen.

I saw the disappointment and it reminded me of a bad experience and I just thought I'd have a vent.

No offence meant. None taken, I hope.

No problem, I understood your post and was certainly not offended at all, I just didn't want anyone getting the impression that I/we were bagging our auction site. It's a great asset and very popular here providing a good service.

That was one of the reasons I decided to start a separate thread, as well. Just to make sure we were talking about two totally different things - my encounter with a rip-off artist and your encounter which was nothing like it.

Fellows:
I just read this to see what it was all about mostly. I got a great education from it and thank everyone for posting their experience's.
I've never used either ebay nor paypal and won't. Because of their anti stance.

About 11yrs ago I did a friend (sambar02), remember him? Died of a H/A about five yrs ago at a too young age. Great man.
Anyway, his bunch of mate's wanted a great deal of hunting, clothing, reading items and such from the US. I offered to receive and reship them at no cost for doing it just to be friendly. They/he paid by CC and had it all sent to me. Then later, over a few months gave me a list of things to pack in a box or two and ship. The US postage rates made me sick. I'd get a price by taking the boxes to the post office and then come back and e'mail the costs so they'd know how big a check to mail me. We never had a problem doing all this and as I recall there were over a dozen boxes and maybe a 150 items in all. Totaling a afew thousand dollars. I had a closet full for months. No big deal and I was glad to do it. Some of them may be on this page now even. He was my only contact.

They claimed even after the outrageous shipping costs by the time it was all done and paid for they'd saved nearly half what it would have cost around VIC.

I'm looking at kind of the same deal. Am hoping I get my health back enough to make a buff hunt with Matt next year. Can't bring enough ammo along, nor powder or primers. Which here the powder ADI makes there and Hodgedon sells as theirs in the US is now costing around $30 a pound, yet the same powder over there is selling for $55-60 a pound right now. God forbid what it'll be next year.

Where's the logic in all this bullshit??

Thanks for allowing me to share a bit from this side of the pond too. I hope this helps a bit in realizing maybe some of these sellers are not gouging as much as you feel they are, only passing their costs along which is only fair IMO.

George