birgittaw
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posted on June 6, 2006 05:53:56 AM new
I swear it's a good thing for the humility index and reality check to buy things on eBay now and then:
*Seller charged $4 for wrapping. OK, it's a fragile three piece item. One torn sheet of bubble wrap around a porcelain ladle, better bubble around gravy and not bad around the plate. Fill was an egg carton. Of course the ladle was broken into a million pieces.
*Seller with lots of excellent feedback gets 99c for andirons. Shipping parcel post is $20. I pay with PayPal, no andirons ever show up after a month. Sellers says she/he sorry they didn't arrive. No delivery confirmation number of course -- did not offer insurance either. I can't see where the buyer protection is in this case, unless she/he have money in their PP account.
* Seller says she only takes PP funded payments or personal check (after auction closes of course). No credit cards. I send tons of emails with appropriate links to PP and eBay policy, we finally get it paid with CC (after above transaction caveats) and she upgrades to business account. Box arrives. Only the front of the andirons (different andirons than the lost ones) are there. Oh, she sent a second box which should be along in a day or two?
* Two items from long time seller. Tons of emails from me, "it's in the mail" from them. Never show up. Never hear back except once. File PP, account empty, at least did chargeback on CC on that one. Two items I really really wanted too. Drat!
And I don't even buy that much on the Bay. So that's four out of the last seven transactions. Not what I'd consider a stellar batting average for a buyer.
How about you all out there?
B/
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LtRay
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posted on June 6, 2006 06:11:16 AM new
I thankfully had not had any of those problems but I can see why ebay business has gone down the tubes.
Some of the items I searched last night were going for a tenth of what they should be selling for. I'm afraid our customer base is getting as fed up with poor sellers as some of we sellers are getting fed up with eBay's continual degradation of service!
I don't like to complain, but even Taoist will say enough is enough!
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LtRay
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posted on June 6, 2006 06:14:58 AM new
Brig, I forgot to add this. I have read PP's "buyer protection". It is a joke. All my Paypal transaction are now done with a credit card even if it means I have to transfer all the money out of my account first. I refuse to pay for an ebay transaction with a PayPal balance.
At least if you use your credit card through PayPal you have real recourse for a seller that fails to deliver.
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LtRay
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posted on June 6, 2006 07:35:59 AM new
This ebayer has a few words to say, lol
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roadsmith
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posted on June 6, 2006 08:15:43 AM new
Love it. Too bad potential sellers won't read it.
Trying to buy a particular pottery dish pattern for a friend, I'm amazed at what people want to charge to ship. For a tiny bowl, 1" sides, 5" diameter, $8.00. Of course we don't bid.
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ladyjewels2000
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posted on June 6, 2006 08:40:21 AM new
I don't buy very much either but my husband will find speakers he wants every now and then and I'll bid for him.
The last pair arrived packed in garbage bags with no peanuts or other cushioning at all. It's a good thing they only had to be shipped about 150 miles.
I think she/he was mad because I requested shipping before bidding and was told $20. After the sale it changed to $45 which of course I refused to pay.
[ edited by ladyjewels2000 on Jun 6, 2006 09:16 AM ]
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photosensitive
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posted on June 6, 2006 08:42:02 AM new
I have bought 500 or so items since 1997. I think I have had very good luck with my sellers. The disasters have been mostly small and well handled by the sellers. It might help that a lot of what I buy is paper and books so not so hard to ship.
The prize for worse transaction goes to the UK seller who sent a 3 piece china item sandwiched between two thin squares of styrofoam with plastic tape wrapped around it! No box, no packing, absolutely impossible that it could make it across "the pond" without being shattered! They sent a personal check in refund that cost me more than half the amount of refund in processing fees.
-----o----o----o----o----o----o----o----o
“The illiterate of the future will be the person ignorant of the use of the camera as well as of the pen.”
Maholy-Nagy, Vision in Motion, 1947
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zippy2dah
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posted on June 6, 2006 09:02:05 AM new
I used to take offense when a buyer would write and ask me to please wrap their item well and to please use bubble wrap instead of newspaper on a heavy, glass item and please don't wrap the top AND the bottom of the vintage cookie jar together, etc, etc.
Now I understand that not everyone reads feedback comments and I know they recently ran into a twit of a seller (or 2 or 3) who thought they were just moving across town instead of shipping across the country.
The stories I read, yours included, boggle my mind! All you have to do is stand in the PO for five minutes and watch how they toss the packages around (while people are watching, even) to know that newspaper won't work with ten pounds of glass.
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zippy2dah
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posted on June 6, 2006 09:03:28 AM new
Twenty bucks for garbage bag shipping! Unbelieveable!
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WashingtoneBayer
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posted on June 6, 2006 09:38:14 AM new
fee avoidance for over priced shipping is now the norm instead of the exception.
Ron
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fluffythewondercat
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posted on June 6, 2006 09:42:28 AM new
I have made many excellent buys on eBay recently. It's gotten so I don't shop anywhere else unless I absolutely can't find it on eBay.
5 pairs of Ralph Lauren jeans (Macy's $65 a pair) for less than $100. Can't beat that.
The sellers can't be making much money. If they want to spend their lives racking up a dollar or two profit per sale, hey, it works for me. Their choice. I make at least $4.50 per sale. Don't think I'd settle for less.
fLufF
--
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birgittaw
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posted on June 6, 2006 09:47:26 AM new
Oh, these are/were all excellent buys ... or they were until they got lost, broken or partially/never shipped! Hence the cranky buyer heading.
B/
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fluffythewondercat
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posted on June 6, 2006 09:48:20 AM new
Oh, and as far as the "few words" buyer goes? The tacky crap in her pictures should have been thrown against a wall BEFORE it was shipped.
I will never figure out why bidders are so surprised when their white-trash Niagara Falls souvenir ashtray ends up being poorly wrapped or chipped. HELLO! Who do you think BUYS these things in the first place? Yeesh.
fLufF
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fluffythewondercat
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posted on June 6, 2006 09:50:55 AM new
I guess by "excellent buy" I mean shipped promptly, packaged properly, little or no problems. One dress arrived smelling a little of mothballs, that's about it.
Oh wait, I did buy a relatively expensive (wait for the irony) Mexican peasant dress that arrived with rust stains and pencil marks on the bodice. Filed a SNAD PayPal dispute on that one. We'll see how it works out.
fLufF
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classicrock000
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posted on June 6, 2006 10:20:46 AM new
"One dress arrived smelling a little of mothballs, that's about it."
so fluffy, did ya ever smell mothballs?
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
If you dont want to hear the truth....dont ask the question.
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LtRay
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posted on June 6, 2006 11:18:35 AM new
Don't answer that Fluffy!
Mexican peasant blouse, lol.
As for ms. buyer, my thoughts exactly. This woman has over 1500 feedback. I don't even want to think about what her house looks like. Resin figurines?? I know I'm gonna offend someone with this, but in the South we have a term for people who buy resin figurines. W.T.
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stonecold613
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posted on June 6, 2006 12:08:59 PM new
[i]so fluffy, did ya ever smell mothballs?[/b]
I don't think it was her nose doing the work on the moth's balls.
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irked
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posted on June 6, 2006 12:44:47 PM new
LOL on the balls,
My wife can't stand resin figurines, she wants only the breakable ones which I have a tendency to knock off the shelfs.---I am a klutz around her breakables it seems. She swears I do it on purpose. I tell her she just puts them there so she can pitch a fit when I knock them off. OH well another story entirely. Another reason I try not to sell breakables.
**************
I married my wife for her looks...but not the
ones she's been giving me lately!
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