Author Topic: Everything eBay! Scams, questions, etc...  (Read 192279 times)

Offline JediJman

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Re: Everything eBay! Scams, questions, etc...
« Reply #735 on: February 18, 2015, 07:23 AM »
Fishy, but it says the Item not Items.  I would have asked before bidding I guess.  Hard to tell if this is intended trickery or just a lazy description.  The buyer could always ship it back for a refund at worst.
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Offline Rob

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Re: Everything eBay! Scams, questions, etc...
« Reply #736 on: February 18, 2015, 10:44 AM »
Here's a situation...  Not mine exactly but one that's come up recently.

A guy's selling 5 of the same figure, all in a picture together.  The description is simply, "You're bidding on the item in the picture".  The price is cheap and free shipping, but these aren't overly valuable things.  The auction says "5 available", by the way.

So you get the item...  Only one figure arrives, instead of the 5 in the picture...  Seems like a fishy thing to me.  Reportable?  Get your $ back?

I did this last year.  I sold a little over 100 figures, mostly army builders for damn near $1,000.  For a given auction I showed a single photo of, say, all 7 Sandtroopers - then said auction is for one.  The auctions had BIN's for $6.99 or $7.99 or $4.99 or whatever the average going rate for a given figure was, had quantity available set to however many I had and were depicted in the photo.  I then encouraged people to check my other auctions so they'd buy a bunch of other stuff.  Lastly, I had shipping at $3.00 for one figure, $0.50 per figure after that.

All in all I probably sent out around 30 packages with anywhere from 1 to 5 figures in them. 

This was around Christmas time of 2013 and of those 30 packages, I had ONE guy who was furious that he didn't get all of the figures shown in the photo, everyone else understood the auctions and left positive feedback without issue.  I gathered that he was a parent or grandparent who was buying stuff for a kid and had no idea what the going rates were for this kind of stuff.

I used 7 Sandtroopers @ $6.99 as an example because that was this one guy's issue.  He filed a claim and left me negative feedback.  I responded to the claim that he clearly hadn't read the auction and that it was unreasonable for him to expect 7 figures that were worth $7.00 each, for $7.00 total.

He responded a few times to my responses, but never escalated the claim to the point where eBay actually has to decide.  So I can't tell you how they would have ruled.  The negative feedback sat on my record for a year then disappeared from the averages like it's supposed to.

The one thing they said when I called to see if there was any way to remove that feedback, was that since I showed photo with multiple figures, there was a chance they could rule against me if he escalated the claim and they advised me to just wait the 30 days and see if he did so.  I think I would have had a good case, but if I do that again at some point, I'll be even more careful to be explicit, and even consider taking 7 photos of the 7 figures, or just using 1 photo and saying you'll get a figure identical to the one in the picture.

Maybe I did a better job describing what I was selling than your guy, but 97% of the people I dealt with understood just fine.

« Last Edit: February 18, 2015, 10:52 AM by Rob »

Offline Greg

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Re: Everything eBay! Scams, questions, etc...
« Reply #737 on: February 18, 2015, 12:00 PM »
Fishy, but it says the Item not Items.  I would have asked before bidding I guess.  Hard to tell if this is intended trickery or just a lazy description.  The buyer could always ship it back for a refund at worst.

I see these types of listings somewhat often and they are kind of a pain. For the US sellers that do it I think there is some level of trickery by trying to lure someone into a quick BIN, especially when the title and description seems rather vague. For the overseas "China factory" sellers I assume language may play a part.

Just to avoid any potential confusion I only use photos of a single figure, even if it's a BIN with multiples available (in which case I note that I'm using a stock photo). Like Rob's case I always assume there will be that one guy who doesn't read the descriptions, and only looks at the pics.

Offline Jesse James

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Re: Everything eBay! Scams, questions, etc...
« Reply #738 on: February 18, 2015, 11:17 PM »
I dig the responses...  I immediately kinda fell in the camp that if you say "you're bidding on the item in the pic", the picture is what you're getting...  Item, items...  it's possibly a mistake, or intentional, but a single pic of the figure would've been more logical than all 5 of the exact same thing.

To me, the picture makes it look like there was intent to sort of scam a BIN.  There's not enough $ involved to make it a huge deal, but I think I'm going to advise a request for some $ back, and if that doesn't fly, threaten to go to Ebay and negative feedback.
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Offline Greg

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Re: Everything eBay! Scams, questions, etc...
« Reply #739 on: February 18, 2015, 11:28 PM »
I dig the responses...  I immediately kinda fell in the camp that if you say "you're bidding on the item in the pic", the picture is what you're getting...  Item, items...  it's possibly a mistake, or intentional, but a single pic of the figure would've been more logical than all 5 of the exact same thing.

To me, the picture makes it look like there was intent to sort of scam a BIN.  There's not enough $ involved to make it a huge deal, but I think I'm going to advise a request for some $ back, and if that doesn't fly, threaten to go to Ebay and negative feedback.

Don't threaten the seller that you will go to ebay and/or leave negative FB! That's a rule violation which I believe can actually get YOU in trouble. I'd hate for you to lose out on any claim for doing that.

Just curious would you be willing to share the auction link?
« Last Edit: February 18, 2015, 11:29 PM by Greg »

Offline Jesse James

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Re: Everything eBay! Scams, questions, etc...
« Reply #740 on: February 19, 2015, 12:04 AM »
It's a friend of me mine who bought stuff for her kid, not me, but I should've worded that better (lot of that goin' 'round eh?:P).  I will be telling her to just write, be cordial, all that...  No threats, just let her know we'll handle it if he's not cooperative.

I do find it deceptive...  Her feedback may play against her as she's only like a 20-something I think.  I dunno.  I never filed a complaint so it's not my bag.  I'll try and get the link off her tomorrow for you.
« Last Edit: February 19, 2015, 12:32 AM by Jesse James »
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Offline Greg

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Re: Everything eBay! Scams, questions, etc...
« Reply #741 on: February 19, 2015, 12:17 AM »
It's a friend of me who bought stuff for her kid, not me, but I should've worded that better (lot of that goin' 'round eh?:P).  I will be telling her to just write, be cordial, all that...  No threats, just let her know we'll handle it if he's not cooperative.

I do find it deceptive...  Her feedback may play against her as she's only like a 20-something I think.  I dunno.  I never filed a complaint so it's not my bag.  I'll try and get the link off her tomorrow for you.

Jesse, your posts are deceptive trickery! I feel swindled out of my very valuable time! ;D

Honestly I would just avoid any mention of further action. I haven't personally had experience with the "threats" as either a buyer or seller, so I have no idea of how closely Ebay adhere's to those rules, but it's something I wouldn't want to take a chance with. Hopefully the seller steps up and at least offers to cover shipping costs for a return, so your friend can avoid the hassle of the Ebay Resolution Center.

Offline Jesse James

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Re: Everything eBay! Scams, questions, etc...
« Reply #742 on: February 19, 2015, 12:31 AM »
Yeah I'm going to just let her know to contact the person over it and see if she can get some $ back...  If they're a dick, no harm in escalation I suppose if she wants to.  I don't know that I would over essentially nothing big financially, but then again if you feel cheated and the whole thing isn't worded well, eh why not?

But yes, no threats or anything...  Wasn't on the table, just to be clear, I just meant let her know we'd go that route (feedback and contacting Ebay).  I assume simply contacting that you're not happy gets the point across that you're going to leave negatives if you're not satisfied.

Shipping costs were free, but I always just factor that into price ultimately.  It's become my hassle in a way, ugh.  ::)
« Last Edit: February 19, 2015, 12:33 AM by Jesse James »
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Offline JediJman

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Re: Everything eBay! Scams, questions, etc...
« Reply #743 on: February 19, 2015, 11:32 AM »
Just something else to consider - it is a royal pain setting up Ebay auctions IMHO.  Setting up multiple items in one picture or using the same picture for multiple auctions is a time saver versus creating everything from scratch five different times.  I hope it works out for your friend - just some added food for thought.
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Offline Rob

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Re: Everything eBay! Scams, questions, etc...
« Reply #744 on: February 19, 2015, 01:17 PM »
Just something else to consider - it is a royal pain setting up Ebay auctions IMHO.  Setting up multiple items in one picture or using the same picture for multiple auctions is a time saver versus creating everything from scratch five different times.  I hope it works out for your friend - just some added food for thought.

That's why I set mine up... it was just easier and I figured I explained it clearly.  Quite frankly, I don't think buyer's deserve any leeway if they're confused by a photo but the item details are clear.  I would NEVER look at a photo, buy something and send money without reading the auction and asking any questions I had beforehand.  I think eBay is too protective of buyers most of the time.

Offline McMetal

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Re: Everything eBay! Scams, questions, etc...
« Reply #745 on: February 19, 2015, 01:25 PM »
The one thing I don't like about the group photo is that you never know which figure you're getting from the lot. It's not like you can actually stipulate "I want the third guy from the end, with the crisp paint apps".

As a regular buyer and seller I personally think you should always picture the specific item that is for sale, just to avoid hassles/confusion, but I also agree buyers should read carefully and ask questions up front. And I definitely agree it's a pain setting up auctions...ugh.
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Offline Jesse James

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Re: Everything eBay! Scams, questions, etc...
« Reply #746 on: February 19, 2015, 06:33 PM »
The thing with the group pic is that they're all identical.  So if you wanted to sell simply one figure, why not just picture one?  Why picture all 5?

It still hasn't arrived even so I'm not even sure this is going to be any issue, I'm just sort of curious now.  This problem has sort of become my problem since I'm more experienced with Ebay in general, but I never really had an issue on it that didn't get resolved quickly and wasn't any big deal.

This isn't either though, I don't think anyway.  More a nuisance.
« Last Edit: February 19, 2015, 06:34 PM by Jesse James »
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Offline GrandMoffNick

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Re: Everything eBay! Scams, questions, etc...
« Reply #747 on: May 19, 2015, 09:03 PM »
This is the description to a custom SW fig on eBay. I laughed my ass off so I had to post it here.

"Custom Jawa Banker Deathlord represents the EVIL of the Banking Empire in action figure that you would have wanted, had it came out in 1978. Made from heavily damaged vintage figures and accessories.

Fun facts of the day folks.....Did you know that bankers have started, organized and funded every single major war in the last 300 years at least? Often times funding Both sides. Did you know that for every $1 you deposit in a bank the bank can then lend $10 out to anyone else they want to and charge crazy interest on that loan, when the interest you earn by allowing the bank to use your money is......that's right folks, next to nothing? Did you know that once you deposit your money in a bank it is now no longer considered your money and is now the banks? They can freeze and seize at will for whatever reason.

Paypal.....those *@&% Suckers like to draw money from my bank account when I have perfectly available funds in my paypal account. In so doing, they have now overdrafted my bank account 7 times incurring fees from my bank totaling over $200 because they wanted to use more of my money for their evil. The bank charged me $29 every time paypal tried this because they wanted to use their money for their evil and told paypal NO. Charging someone $29 to say no to someone else is Wrong! I HATE BANKERS!!!!!!!

The figure was made by me last night to help channel my rage. He encompasses the scavenger nature of a Jawa and the pure Evil of Darth Vader! Combined they equal a Banker......but cooler.

Thanks for looking and sorry for the rant"
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Offline Jesse James

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Re: Everything eBay! Scams, questions, etc...
« Reply #748 on: May 19, 2015, 09:54 PM »
Someone missed a dose.  :-\
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Offline McMetal

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Re: Everything eBay! Scams, questions, etc...
« Reply #749 on: May 20, 2015, 09:06 AM »
LOL, PayPal does suck. Wait til their split from eBay is complete...going to be even worse soon.

My latest rant is yet another series of revisions to their seller fees that has all but crippled my side business. Only 20 free listings per month now and no more free BIN listings for DVD's and videos.

I don't understand why they simultaneously push members to sell more and then make it prohibitive for them to do so.
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