One more bitch (EBAY)

[tom clisham]

No, not my cute little female dog.
EBAY!
So, I've got quite a few spare parts in the garage. Had to get rid of some so the boss could park her car in there during winter.Not a good idea at this time of year. They only bring good money late spring & early summer.
HERE"S THE WORST!
I've got 100% feedback as a buyer. twice now I sold items at a good vaue price, & had the buyer come back looking for me to refund part or all of the money they paid, threatening bad feedback if I didn't. Both times I told them to return the item for a full refund. NO WAY! Just want money from me. Then, they file a complaint with EBAY, Who suggests I do whatever the buyer wants. I don't. Ebay investigates, finds in my favor. Buyer posts bad feedback anyway. NO MORE!

In the spring I'll be selling all my parts on this forum. We are still planning a move to AZ, & can't bring all this with.

Sorry, just needed to vent.

[cywelchjr]

I'm curious, were these buyers with low feedback scores? I do think that's one of the minuses of them doing away with sellers being able to give negative feedback, but then again, that was also used as a club by bad sellers to prevent buyers from giving negative feedback when it was really earned.

One thing you can at least know, is ebay does track those type of actions, and users who keep filing complaints that keep being found to be bogus get banned (I've seen it happen).

[DGXSER]

IMHO, Ebay was a good idea, it worked really well for a while, and now it is like "Outlet Malls", and "Flea matkets". Around these parts anyway, these are just another title to stick on a sign to draw the people in. None of them are really Outlet stores, and the Flea Markets are the same people selling the same items they buy in bulk and resale. ebay is the same thing, what started off as a place for the avg Joe or Jane to go sell their used items to a larger market, has now become a resellers playground. It has some good to it as I would still be dorking around with some carbs if not for Georgefix and others like him. But then I see places like Pinwall that are just tossing stuff at the public quick as they can and no care of what is right or wrong as long as it makes them money. Since there is no face to face, no real people get hurt, at least that is how it seems to be thought of. A product of the digital age we live in.

Ebay is just another online business, Craigslist has basically taken over the place Ebay used to serve. Only problem being there is not much of a search engine and not well categorized. I had some success on ebay when I sold off the parts from Thunderstruck. I have yet to get bad feedback, but I had yet to wreck the bike until I did. Between Ebay and Paypal the fees are sickening so I try to stay away from it.

[crazy steve]

I sold a bunch of stuff several years ago (basically cleaned out a 30-year collection of car parts along with some extra Harley bits) and only had trouble with two buyers. In both cases, it was buyers remorse when a couple of knuckleheads got in a bidding war over the parts and bid them beyond what they were worth. I actually warned them that I didn't think the parts were worth the bid prices. Both made noises, but it went nowhere with eBay. One left bad feedback, but eBay removed it as the buyer had failed to conform to my conditions (or warning).

With that said, I also never tried to get top dollar out of anything unless I knew the item was flawless or extremely rare. I'd list them for what I considered to be a bare minimum price, then let the bidders decide the price. Sure, sometimes they went for cheap, but I almost always got a fair price or better for them. I also clearly stated in my listings my conditions; ask any questions before bidding, I would offer to send additional pics/info if wanted, and no returns or refunds, period; you bought it, it's yours. Vague seller conditions will bring out the scam artists and idiots, you really need to spell it out to protect yourself. If you have very specific conditions and take pains not to over-sell the item, the buyer really has no recourse. Much different selling conditions compared to a face-to-face sale, so you do need to make allowances.

[GLoweVA]

When I search for stuff on Ebay I look to see who the seller is. If it looks like a 'store' type of setup, I steer clear. If it's an idividual seller, then it's probably just a guy who's looking to get rid of his stuff. That's the kinda seller I want.
And then there's always those mislabled descriptions as to what they're selling. Pictures are worth a thousand words and if they answer questions even better.
I've gotten some good stuff off ebay but as the saying goes... Buyer Beware!

+1 on Craigslist. That's where I got my project bike. But you're right, the search feature sucks.

[DAVINCI]

In case you aren't aware, you have the ability to ban any Ebayer from bidding on your items. So, if yo do come across a wacko, you can flag him and exclude him from then on.

[crazy steve]

In case you aren't aware, you have the ability to ban any Ebayer from bidding on your items. So, if yo do come across a wacko, you can flag him and exclude him from then on.

That's not as useful as it used to be since they quit allowing sellers to leave negative feedback, but it is an option...

[cywelchjr]

When I search for stuff on Ebay I look to see who the seller is. If it looks like a 'store' type of setup, I steer clear. If it's an idividual seller, then it's probably just a guy who's looking to get rid of his stuff. That's the kinda seller I want.
And then there's always those mislabled descriptions as to what they're selling. Pictures are worth a thousand words and if they answer questions even better.
I've gotten some good stuff off ebay but as the saying goes... Buyer Beware!

+1 on Craigslist. That's where I got my project bike. But you're right, the search feature sucks.

I don't do that as a knee jerk reaction as I have found several reputable stores on ebay that I have done repeat business with. But when I find one, the first thing I do is look at their feedback, and I don't just look at the ratio, I look at what people WROTE. I try to look at a few of their auctions as well and see if I can see some of their answers to questions, that will usually give you a feel for what kind of outfit they are.

I've had one where I bought more than one thing from a seller and THEN had a problem. They bent over backwards to make things right because they knew I was a repeat customer. I've also had the opposite, where once they had my money I didn't hear from them again for days. This was after they told me that the brake pads I wanted to buy and that they showed a single pair of, that to get two pair just to order one pair and that they would relist in a few minutes. They never did relist them, and didn't respond to my communications for almost a week, actually the day before I was going to open a paypal complaint about them. And no, I'll not ever do business with them again. Last I looked, they don't list anything for the XS1100 anymore either, so apparently when they said they would relist the pads so I could get two pair, they were lying just so they could sell the one set. Fortunately I got a pair of the same type from another vendor (for almost twice the price ), but I wasn't a happy camper. Can you guess what kind of feedback they got? The same the LED headlight guys got . (I don't like deceptive advertising, and I found that almost every other vender specified that those LED headlight bulbs were only good for DRL's) .

[cywelchjr]

+1 on Craigslist. That's where I got my project bike. But you're right, the search feature sucks.

The problem I'm having with Craigslist is that there are a LOT of scams on there. And there is NO feedback system, so you have no way of knowing how reliable someone is or isn't since there is no system in place for someone to gain a reputation which was one of the selling points of ebay in the first place. Don't get me wrong, Craigslist is where I found my bike, and I've found more than one thing on there, but I run into the thing of not being able to get in touch with the person who has what I want a LOT of the time on there. That and if you get someone mad at you, they can go on a vendetta against you and flag everything you post and prevent you from selling anything, and if they do there is NOTHING you can do about it.

[DGXSER]

The problem I'm having with Craigslist is that there are a LOT of scams on there.

Absolutely true. I was recently left to find a new mode of transport that can carry four or people. So I started the internet scouring to find a decent car for a decent price. My 17 yo daughter started looking to as she totaled my truck causing the dilema and she knew she would be driving the car most of the time.

It took about two days for her to figure out that you were not REALLY going to buy that 2008 Honda Accord with 5k miles on it for $2,000. We also found that one local seller only sells wrecked cars, the first pic is of course of the good side, then you open the ad and see the wrecked side. Once again, anything that the price looks to good to be true, probably is.

And then I tried selling a car on Craigslist, and got some very interesting stories. These folks are almost as good as some of the bums in downtown Cincinnati, good stories, a few were almost believable. I think they could give ole Jo Rowling a run for her money.