eBay ripoff merchants

CiDeRmAn

I am a regular user of eBay, forever buying retro consoles and games, much to my wifes disapproval.
But of late I have noticed many nasty little efforts to rip us, the buyers, off time and time again.

Recently I got a Nuon, a rather unloved console, home to just one game of note, Tempest 3000.
In the item description it was said to be in perfect working order and I reckoned it was a safe buy, and bid on it.
In the end it cost me, including postage from Canada, 153 euro, quite a few bob, but I was happy to pay.
As I awaited its arrival, via surface mail so I knew I had a while, I got a happy email including the tracking number and that he had sent a DVD cleaner disk because the Nuon was "sensitive".
Now, this was never mentioned before, especially in the item description.
When the console turned up, nearly 7 weeks after I paid the auction, I plugged the Nuon into the stepdown, popped in the game and she worked, lovely. Of course that was the last time it worked, or read a disk of any kond.
Not happy.
The cost of return was quite high, the time it would take long and no guarantee that he would return the money, not to mention the rarity of the machine, so I went online and found an easy repair.

This consisted of buying a similar vintage Samsung DVD player and replacing the Nuon drive with the one from this, the donor machine.
I found one on eBay, again, with only a day to go with no bids, starting at £1.
Happy I stuck down a max bid of £15 and headed off to work.
Upon my return I found that I had indeed won the auction, and somehow the price had increased to my max bid.
I thought this was surprising given the obscurity of the item so I had a look at the bid history to see who my opponent was.
Who ever it was had a name like "testerXXX" and had never ever bid before, had logged onto eBay and gone straight to the auction of an outdated DVD player. He joined on the day the auction ended and hasn't bid on anything since.
It didn't stop there with the postage costs seeming very high at £45!
I checked the weight on the item decription, 2.8kg and entered it into the Royal mail website and got a price of £17.50 and I contacted her to let her know.
She replied that the weight of the item didn't include the cables, remote and packing and this brought the weight to over 5kgs so the shipping would be £39.30, then it dropped to £25.10, the last of which I didn't mind paying.

Basically the seller of the Samsung DVD player, I reckon, pushed the price of the item up using a bogus eBay account, then tried to pad out the price of the item further by attempting to charge a ridiculously high shipping amount.

As for the guy who sold the Nuon, he knew the machine had issues and sold it anyway, otherwise I would never have got comments about the "sensitivity" of the player after I bought it.


Sorry about the length of the post, it's just as gamers we buy from eBay all the time, and I don't want anyone to wade through the sort of crap I have had to endure.
I have had very positive experiences on eBay but this one left a really bad taste in my mouth.

Anyone else have any stories?

yoyo

CiDeRmAn wrote: »

I am a regular user of eBay, forever buying retro consoles and games, much to my wifes disapproval.
But of late I have noticed many nasty little efforts to rip us, the buyers, off time and time again.

Recently I got a Nuon, a rather unloved console, home to just one game of note, Tempest 3000.
In the item description it was said to be in perfect working order and I reckoned it was a safe buy, and bid on it.
In the end it cost me, including postage from Canada, 153 euro, quite a few bob, but I was happy to pay.
As I awaited its arrival, via surface mail so I knew I had a while, I got a happy email including the tracking number and that he had sent a DVD cleaner disk because the Nuon was "sensitive".
Now, this was never mentioned before, especially in the item description.
When the console turned up, nearly 7 weeks after I paid the auction, I plugged the Nuon into the stepdown, popped in the game and she worked, lovely. Of course that was the last time it worked, or read a disk of any kond.
Not happy.
The cost of return was quite high, the time it would take long and no guarantee that he would return the money, not to mention the rarity of the machine, so I went online and found an easy repair.

This consisted of buying a similar vintage Samsung DVD player and replacing the Nuon drive with the one from this, the donor machine.
I found one on eBay, again, with only a day to go with no bids, starting at £1.
Happy I stuck down a max bid of £15 and headed off to work.
Upon my return I found that I had indeed won the auction, and somehow the price had increased to my max bid.
I thought this was surprising given the obscurity of the item so I had a look at the bid history to see who my opponent was.
Who ever it was had a name like "testerXXX" and had never ever bid before, had logged onto eBay and gone straight to the auction of an outdated DVD player. He joined on the day the auction ended and hasn't bid on anything since.
It didn't stop there with the postage costs seeming very high at £45!
I checked the weight on the item decription, 2.8kg and entered it into the Royal mail website and got a price of £17.50 and I contacted her to let her know.
She replied that the weight of the item didn't include the cables, remote and packing and this brought the weight to over 5kgs so the shipping would be £39.30, then it dropped to £25.10, the last of which I didn't mind paying.

Basically the seller of the Samsung DVD player, I reckon, pushed the price of the item up using a bogus eBay account, then tried to pad out the price of the item further by attempting to charge a ridiculously high shipping amount.

As for the guy who sold the Nuon, he knew the machine had issues and sold it anyway, otherwise I would never have got comments about the "sensitivity" of the player after I bought it.


Sorry about the length of the post, it's just as gamers we buy from eBay all the time, and I don't want anyone to wade through the sort of crap I have had to endure.
I have had very positive experiences on eBay but this one left a really bad taste in my mouth.

Anyone else have any stories?

EBay takes shill bidding like this very seriously, report that suspicious activity to them would be the best bet, also the other item you got was not as described (he didnt mention you needed to use a laser cleaner disc to use console in item description?) so this again is false advertising and should be reported to ebay. I'm not sure how far you'll get but I can guarantee if that seller was found out to be shill bidding, he/she will be warned or even banned from ebay if its a repeat offense!

Nick

Sherifu

That sucks, I especially hate if the seller is bidding on their own item with dual accounts. If you paid with paypal open a complaint against the first seller. Go after your money.

Ri_Nollaig

i hate that kinda bullshi.t, especially when they are clearly over-charging on delivery!
one question tho, I didnt think they would know what you max bid was, so how did they re-bid to get it to that without going over your max bid ? after all they want you to buy it (just at the max price you where willing to pay)

yoyo

Ri_Nollaig wrote: »

i hate that kinda bullshi.t, especially when they are clearly over-charging on delivery!
one question tho, I didnt think they would know what you max bid was, so how did they re-bid to get it to that without going over your max bid ? after all they want you to buy it (just at the max price you where willing to pay)

I think the seller does know the max bid put on Ri_Nollaig, just not the bidders!

Nick

CiDeRmAn

I agree regarding the max bid thing, they had no way of knowing my max bid, however, they may well have had an idea what the machine was worth to them and bumped it up to that, circa £14 or so.
I have reported it to eBay since the intial post this morning and await the results.

Regarding the postage I think this is a far more widespread method of padding out prices, especially on cheaper goods.

For example a guy bought a game from an eBay seller in Dublin and was charged €4.99 for shipping but when he got the game, a 360 title, it's postage on the box was €1.30, a large descrepency and with no excuse given except that the buyer should be grateful he got the game cheap and within 5 days, not very satisfying.

I find, in general, US sellers to be far more reliable when it comes to item descriptions and shipping prices, a lot of this is down to the use of FedEx or DHL and the upfront nature of the charges.

Shipping costs seem to vary wildly even on the same items from different sellers from the UK and Ireland on the site, so just beware, and make it your business to check these things out before you pay, so you are not being screwed.

Placebo

rkm wrote: »

That sucks, I especially hate if the seller is bidding on their own item with dual accounts. If you paid with paypal open a complaint against the first seller. Go after your money.

yeah that is a regular at this stage, ebay allows user to put in the amount they would like it to be sold for, the max amount i think [not buy it now] why cant they use that. Think it requires thm to pay a few extra cents.

yoyo

Placebo wrote: »

yeah that is a regular at this stage, ebay allows user to put in the amount they would like it to be sold for, the max amount i think [not buy it now] why cant they use that. Think it requires thm to pay a few extra cents.

Setting a minimum bid price also doesnt make the auction look so attractive, thats why they shill bid, people would more likely bid on a auction with no reserve price, than one with it

Nick

jonny72

I always..

Read everything on the page carefully
Look at total items sold, feedback percentage, and see if the feedback is legit
Email them to confirm shipping and postage costs

I never ever just throw a bid on something, I pick the max price I would pay and stick that on it in the last 5 seconds. I also check bidding patterns if its something expensive, I check completed items and also the time of day (you are much more likely to get something cheaper on a Saturday afternoon, than a Sunday evening)

All these precautions have saved me at least hundreds of euros over the last 2 years, maybe more.

Latest one? Electric razor that retailed for almost 200 sterling, got it for 20 euros. It pays off if you do your homework.

Stephen

The shipping price scam is an ancient one on ebay. They do this for 2 reasons. 1, to make the item look cheaper in the listings, and 2, ebay don't take their cut out of the postage price, only the item price. Ever tried to buy anything from Hong Kong on ebay? Item sells for €1 or so and then costs €30 for postage :rolleyes:

Wertz

yoyo wrote: »

I think the seller does know the max bid put on Ri_Nollaig, just not the bidders!

Nick

Nope.

Only the bidder knows his max bid amount.
Shill bidders "nibble" at prices by bumping them by 50p or whatever the minimum increment is a few times to gauge what an interested bidder has set their max to...avoid this by not bidding until the closing moments of the auction.
Since the OP thinks he was shill bidded against, it might be worth opening a dispute with eBay and seeing if you can wangle a refund or something.
You could also open a paypal dispute with the canadian guy as goods differ from those described...don't know how far you'll get though...

PhilipCohen

In Australia, the UK, Ireland and the Philippines, eBay has now obscured auction bidding to the point that genuine bidders have got absolutely no chance of detecting and thereby protecting themselves from “shill” bidding (a criminal offence in most civilised countries) by unethical vendors. Notwithstanding eBay’s statements to the contrary, this application of absolute anonymity by eBay on these sites serves no purpose other than to deceive consumers; and the same criticism has always applied to eBay’s other shill bidders’ facility, “User ID kept private”. Again, notwithstanding eBay’s various pronouncements about shill bidding being banned on eBay, eBay is now effectively (and knowingly) “aiding and abetting” such shill bidders, at the expense of consumers ...

If you are an unethical shill-bidding seller or a buyer who is not concerned that on the above-mentioned sites eBay is effectively “aiding and abetting” such shill-bidding sellers to cheat you, read no further; otherwise a lengthy critical analysis of this matter at:
http://www.auctionbytes.com/forum/phpBB/viewtopic.php?p=6498345#6498345

humanji

Where is shilling illegal? I know it's annoying but never heard of it being illegal. And the anonymity does have it's good side. There are weirdos out there who stalk people through sites like eBay. I remember seeing a guy who was stalking Paul Daniels, listing everything he bid on. In that regard, people should be afforded some privacy.

noodler

Of course its illegal.

If an employee in an auction house was bidding on items at an auction to put u the price, that would be considered illegal. It is the same thing.

humanji

Hmm, thought I replied to this and then my post disappeared

Anyway, I know it's annoying when this happens and most places frown on that sort of thing, but are there actual laws against it? I'm not trying to be pedantic, I'm just curious.

noodler

I amn't being smart either. But I am as sure as I am sure that murder is illegal. But I ain't going looking for the law.

elekid

Several years ago I won an auction for a rare Gameboy Colour game and shortly after I received a message from the seller saying "I received your email so just to confirm your name is x and your address is y", giving a different name to mine and address in America. Turns out that a rival bidder had sent the seller an email claiming to be me in the hope that the seller would ship the item off to them instead, but luckily the seller had to the sense to confirm the details through the Ebay account that won rather than relying on an untraceable email so we got it sorted out. I know the seller wasn't at fault in this case but you can't be too careful on Ebay.

noodler

Yeah, well I am pretty sure he would have been liable in that case had he gone ahead.

Nevertheless, the f-in cheek of your man.