eBay

[Crundy]

OK, I'm officially fed up with eBay. It just seems to be popu from a real store as it was on offer, to get another remote, and therefore decided to sell the game disc on eBay. At the top of the description I wrote (this is literally the size and font colour I used):

Wii Play 9 games (without Wii Remote)

This was during the Nintendo drought of December 2007, and so quite a few people bid. The winning bidder (i.e. after they had won the item) sent me a message asking "I presume this includes the Wii Remote?"

*headdesk*

The latest reason I'm annoyed is because I bought a serial number for a PC game and got an email saying "Thanks for your purchase, your serial number has been emailed to x" (where x is an email address I have never heard of, and has nothing to do with my eBay or PayPal account). I've sent two messages now with no reply. Which means I'm probably going to have to go through the tedious "item not sent" process to get my money back. Seriously, can you imagine this happening IRL?

[fuelair]

Yes, I used to do E-bay.

[Crundy]

Yes, I used to do E-bay.

What was the final straw for you?

[Pythra]

I used to sell a lot of model kits on eBay on my dad's behalf. The biggest problem I had was international buyers complaining about the postage cost. We'd always clearly state UK postage and explain (you'd think it obvious...) that international postage would be considerably more. We'd even put the dimensions and weight of the item so people could calculate postage for themselves, and always replied to people who bothered to ask for the cost of mailing abroad.

A lot of international users would just go blindly through the payment process and pay the UK postage. Others became incensed at the price we quoted and called us conmen. Now we only post within the UK because it was so much of a headache to handle the idiots.

[SphereGuy]

I've bought and sold hundreds of items on eBay (the correct spelling, btw) and only ever had one problem sale. I purchased 10 hard drives and only got 5. I wrote back stating I only got 5 and the this is what the reply said, "If any don't work just return them and I'll replace them." I replied that they all worked fine it's just that I purchased 10 and only got 5 to which I got, "If any don't work just return them and I'll replace them." I then replied that I would leave a negative if I didn't get this resolved to which I got back, "If any don't work just return them and I'll replace them." Before I could leave a negative his account was deleted.

Other than that I've sold everything from Volkswagens to a "haunted ring" and have bought mostly nostalgic items like nixie tubes and hand held football games. Recently I purchased all the parts needed to rebuild my daughter's car after an accident for less than what I would have paid at the junk yard.

[kookbreaker]

I used to sell a lot of model kits on eBay on my dad's behalf. The biggest problem I had was international buyers complaining about the postage cost. We'd always clearly state UK postage and explain (you'd think it obvious...) that international postage would be considerably more. We'd even put the dimensions and weight of the item so people could calculate postage for themselves, and always replied to people who bothered to ask for the cost of mailing abroad.

A lot of international users would just go blindly through the payment process and pay the UK postage. Others became incensed at the price we quoted and called us conmen. Now we only post within the UK because it was so much of a headache to handle the idiots.

Its a real pain, but there seem to be far too many folks who seem to think that international shipping is some el cheapo process. They can send a letter for about $.90 so why can't I send that 4 pound box for $3.00?

Worse were the ones who got on my case because their buddy sent and item to them once and didn't pay as much. Of course, it was the USPS shipping that had no accountability, no tracking, no insurance, and no assurance that it would not be stopped by customs (which is *killer* when it happens).

[Rob Lister]

eBay, the greatest fence ever to exist. Or so my cousin stated...in court.

[DoubtingStephen]

I got a quick education about eBay security when they began dunning me for their share of the proceeds from a set of drums I never sold because I've never tried to sell anything in that den of thieves.

It seems that someone once stole a laptop from a Wells Fargo employee that cleverly had several thousands (millions?) of credit card names, addresses and numbers in an unencrypted file.

At the time I had not yet severed all connections with Wells Fargo and eBay.

I kept telling them that if their security practices were so poor that they allowed criminals to impersonate honest citizens that this was their problem, and they would never see a dime from me. They still have not gotten a dime.

[AgeGap]

I can't understand why they allow sniping. How hard would it be to extend the Auction time a little after a bid is made at the last second? This would benefit buyers and sellers alike.
Yes, I have been sniped.

[Rasmus]

I can't understand why they allow sniping. How hard would it be to extend the Auction time a little after a bid is made at the last second? This would benefit buyers and sellers alike.
Yes, I have been sniped.

It wouldn't benefit eBay much, though, would it?

The sniper does overbid the current price, so they do benefit eBay. Any change to the system and you would have to compensate.

Also, I think I may have heard that turning the eBay process into a true auction would result in a legal mess for eBay. And, I imagine, it would bring their buisness down, too. I want to *know* when I've bought something and not have to wait an arbitrary time for the sale to be confirmed.

[Blackadder]

I bought hundreds of items (mostly collectables that I could resell with a profit locally or books for myself) and also sold some stuff.

So far it has been very good. I think I had some trouble about 5 times. On 300 items
bought that is less than 2%. The little financial loss it caused me is tenfold repaid by the 98% of the times it went fine and saved or earned me a lot of money.

[AgeGap]

@Rasmus. If you are sniped on a bid and you are given a little extra time, you could put in a higher bid.
Buyer wins cos they get the item.
Seller wins cos they get best price.
eBay wins cos they get more commision.
Sniper loses cos there is no sniping.

I think iGavel works this way.

[Elaedith]

@Rasmus. If you are sniped on a bid and you are given a little extra time, you could put in a higher bid.
Buyer wins cos they get the item.
Seller wins cos they get best price.
eBay wins cos they get more commision.
Sniper loses cos there is no sniping.

I think iGavel works this way.

You don't need extra time to put in a higher bid. You should bid your maximum to start with. If everyone did that, there would be no benefit to sniping.

[Rasmus]

@Rasmus. If you are sniped on a bid and you are given a little extra time, you could put in a higher bid.
Buyer wins cos they get the item.
Seller wins cos they get best price.
eBay wins cos they get more commision.

As of now, that is what the sniper does: He places a higher bid than anyone else has, thus increasing what the seller gets and also increasing the comission eBay makes.

There is no reason to assume that snipers, on average, are offering less than anyone else would have. If that was the case, then what is stopping everybody else from bidding more in the first place?

Sniper loses cos there is no sniping.

Yes, and the sniper is also a bidder who brings commissions to eBay.

I think iGavel works this way.[/quote]

[Ian Osborne]

There is no reason to assume that snipers, on average, are offering less than anyone else would have. If that was the case, then what is stopping everybody else from bidding more in the first place?

But if the auction is extended when a bid is made in the last second or two, it gives others the opportunity to make a higher bid. That's what sniping is all about - getting your bid in just before the deadline to deny others the time to react.

[Elaedith]

But if the auction is extended when a bid is made in the last second or two, it gives others the opportunity to make a higher bid. That's what sniping is all about - getting your bid in just before the deadline to deny others the time to react.

But if they already bid their maximum, they don't NEED time to react. Ebay's proxy bidding system will automatically increase their current bid for them to outbid the sniper if their max is higher than the sniper's bid.

The sniper only wins if their bid is higher than the max of the current bidder plus any other snipers. The sniper has no way to know what the maximum bid is going to be, and if the sniper bids in the last seconds and gets outbid they have no time to react. The sniper has to bid once and bid their max, which is what everybody should be doing with a proxy bidding system.

It is not the last person to bid before the close of auction who wins, it is the person with the highest maximum bid, regardless of when they placed it.

[Ian Osborne]

But if they already bid their maximum, they don't NEED time to react.

You're assuming the maximum bid is immutable, which is to overlook the human element in auctions. The current winner is just 50 pence/cents over your maximum bid. Do you let it go, or spend a little more than you initially intended?

If the bidders' maximum bid was a clear, black-and-white issue, no one would ever need to snipe. The fact people do strongly suggests it isn't.

[SphereGuy]

I love to snipe and rarely bid on anything with more than 10 seconds left. Yes, the sole purpose is to have the highest bid and leave the other bidders with no time to react. This is the way I see it, in simple terms. If an item is currently at $1 and you are willing to pay $5 for it but you only bid $1 and then I come along and I'm willing to bid $4.50 then I will put in $4.50 in the last ten seconds then I won the auction at a good price. That person, who is willing to go $5 should have put that in, in the first place, then I would have gotten out bid by him anyway. If he does it right, and puts in $5 as his maximum bid, and I put in $5.05 and he, like someone above stated, decides, "oh, I would have gone 10 cents higher than I intended because I really wanted that item but had no time to react" then he should have just put $6 in to begin with. The idea is to put in the very highest you are willing to go, not just higher than you think others will go.

So, if I see something I want at $1, and I think it worth $5, but I really want it so I'm willing to go as high as $10 and just to be sure I outbid anyone else who bids $10 I'll usually pad it with a few odd cents so I'll snipe with $10.38 with 10 seconds to go. If someone bid $11.00, so be it, I lost, but most of the time I'll get what I want at the price I want and I don't feel sorry for the other guy who didn't use the system the way it was intended to be used.

The highest bidder gets it, it doesn't matter if that was placed with 5 days left to go or 5 seconds left to go.

Always put in the very highest you are willing to go, then if you don't win you'll at least be able to say "well, I wouldn't have paid that much for it anyway, I'll wait for the next one."

[Crundy]

Update on my game serial purchase: The seller apologised and sent me an invalid serial number. It wasn't even in the right format. I'm guessing this is going to have to go to a dispute for me to get my money back. The annoying thing is, the seller is a power seller with a load of previous, happy, buyers for the same item :confused:

[moopet]

My most interesting story is that I once bought an item on ebay, paid for it with my paypal and it arrived addressed to my girlfriend. The only connection is that we both have the same address registered for ebay and paypal.
I checked the emails and logs, and it went through my paypal and ebay, arrived at hers.
I mean, what kind of mickey mouse security balls up do you have to install to get that?

[BlackCat]

I used to hate snipers, until I became one. Now I realize, it's the only way to bid. One thing that no one has mentioned here is the "nibble bidder." This is the most annoying bidder, as they "nibble" up to the previous bidders maximum, presumably because they're too cheap to pay too much. I understand how the eBay system works, and I prefer to get a decent price, but I have no problem paying my maximum. But, these nibble bidders are so aggravating, they way the cheaply bump up the price of the item. Snipe bidding is the only way to outsmart them, as they can't nibble your bid at the last 10 seconds of the auction.

Even though I'm a sniper, I've had other snipers outbid me, and I've outbid snipers who came in after me. It's all about the maximum. If I lose, well, I didn't want to pay that much anyway, onto the next item.

Seriously, try snipe bidding. You might like it. It's a rush, too.

[Ian Osborne]

One thing’s for sure. eBay’s customer services are absolutely dire, as demonstrated by the run-around I got recently while trying to get a simple answer to a simple question.

A couple of months back, I sold two DVDs in auctions that ended on the same day and were won by the same buyer, a first-time occurrence for me, who was new to selling. I clicked the ‘send invoice’ buttons on the emails eBay sent to confirm the sales, and waited for the money to roll in.

The person who bought the two DVDs paid almost immediately, but paid for them together with only one lot of postage. As I hadn’t offered a discount I thought this was a little cheeky, and sent him a message politely asking for the remainder. He replied, “Sorry but under your final invoice, the P+P was £2. Under eBay policy, you cannot increase the postage after payment has been made.” Interesting. I checked the emails which produced the invoices, and one of them did indeed combine the postage costs, something I definitely didn’t agree to do in the listings. Had the buyer ignored my eBay-produced invoices and sent an email of his own asking for a cheaper one? If so, it seemed very underhand. Time to check with eBay…

The first reply I got was an automated response offering answers to common situations, inviting me to send the question again if it didn’t solve the problem. It didn’t, so I did. I got a second reply agreeably quickly (same day, in fact), but the response was basically another form letter in which eBay washed their hands of the problem. ‘Situations such as these are considered by eBay as a member-to-member conflict, which users should resolve between themselves … we can't get involved directly in disputes between trading partners.’ Pretty shabby considering I hadn’t even asked them to get involved. I’d simply explained the situation and asked whether I had to accept the reduced postage fees under eBay’s rules.

I hit the ‘reply’ button once more, and repeated my request for a clarification of the rules. Again, I got a fast reply which was of no use whatsoever, being a lazy cut-and-paste from the user agreement. It was from a completely different person too – so much for taking ownership of the problem. I tried a third time, pleading for ‘a simple answer to a simple question’, and got another fast reply from another customer services representative. And again, it completely ignored my question, informing me that it’s my job to state clearly in my listing what postage I expected. Gnnnn – if she’d read my email properly, she’d know I’d done exactly that!

Thankfully, as well as talking to eBay, I’d also raised the point on an independent internet forum (not this one), and the users there were far more helpful than eBay’s own customer service monkeys. It transpired the invoice combining the postal costs was sent automatically by eBay because although I didn’t offer to do this in the listings, there is a postage preference on sellers’ accounts that’s set to ‘combine postage’ by default. I wasn’t aware of this – I didn’t even know this preference existed. As the buyer was entirely innocent, I immediately posted the DVDs under the payment he had already made, and bemoaned the fact that three of eBay’s customer service employees managed to miss what should’ve been obvious.

[TheDaver]

Edit: Exactly what Starthinker said here (http://forums.randi.org/showpost.php?p=3993583&postcount=18), except I'm the type who usually enters the highest bid I’m willing to pay right at the beginning.

There’s a certain glib satisfaction in knowing somebody tried to snipe you but failed. Even if you’re paying very close to your limit.

[alfaniner]

I've found that it's not usually worth even checking bids on your items until the last day. It is kind of exciting to see the price go up in the last few hours/minutes!

[Zax63]

I think sniping also helps prevent shill bidding, where people use a second account to try and bump up the price.
Like others have said, highest bid wins in the end, bid your absolute maximum and have no regrets at the outcome. Also remember that just because it sold for just a little over your maximum doesn't mean that the winner didn't have a much higher bid.

[Ian Osborne]

I think sniping also helps prevent shill bidding, where people use a second account to try and bump up the price.
How so? How would knowing an auction might be sniped dissuade the seller from shill bidding?

[Zax63]

How so? How would knowing an auction might be sniped dissuade the seller from shill bidding?

It's not that it dissuades them, I think it just gives less opportunity for the shill bids. With most of the bidding coming in the final few minutes it seems it would be hard to get the shill bids in and make any difference to the outcome. No facts, just my opinion so feel free to disagree.

[Ian Osborne]

It's not that it dissuades them, I think it just gives less opportunity for the shill bids. With most of the bidding coming in the final few minutes it seems it would be hard to get the shill bids in and make any difference to the outcome. No facts, just my opinion so feel free to disagree.
Sorry, but I can't see it myself. The last few minutes of the auction is the time when you're least likely to see shill bids, as the bidder runs a greater risk of ending up with the product instead of merely inflating its price.