General Cycling Discussion - Buying high end bike on Ebay?

Ok, I did a search of the forums and couldn't find a good answer to this question.


How many of you feel, or would feel comfortable buying a higher end bike from an Ebay auction, $1000 or more?

Have you ever bought, or been burned on a large dollar amount bike on and auction?

I would be comfortable with it, infact bought my
serotta frame that way.
There are horror stories to be found, but if you stick
to sellers with recent positive feedback (and not just one or
two, or alot of feedback by the same buyer) you should be ok.
on that note tho remember e-bays motto
Caveat Emptor
(gee I hope thats correct and not something like
"buyer of old cows")

Marty

I guess my Trek 7000 can be considered a mid to high end bike (~$1000) and I got it on eBay. What I did was to find a seller close by, and I inspected the bike before I paid him cash for it.

Sold a Ventana El Conquistador Tandem for $3,700 on Ebay.... no problems with the transaction. Bought a Dean Ti frame as well. Again, no problems.

Of course, UPS lost the box with the wheels w/disc rotors & cassette attached, seat posts/saddles and stoker's handlebars and worst of all the Stratos FR-4T suspension fork so we had to do an equitable adjustment on the back-end

Originally posted by uciflylow
How many of you feel, or would feel comfortable buying a higher end bike from an Ebay auction, $1000 or more?

Have you ever bought, or been burned on a large dollar amount bike on and auction?

I bought my Fuji on ebay. I don't do a lot of this sort of thing, but the seller had a hundreds of recent positive feedbacks, so I felt pretty confident, and the transaction went very well.

Assuming a reliable seller, my primary concerns about buying any bike sight unseen would have to do with fit and comfort, and the ability to return something that wasn't what I wanted. In my case, a friend owned the identical bike so I knew it was a good fit and the kind of ride I was looking for.

RichC

kinda hard to tell personally... i have heard of great deals that were duds...and great deals that were actually great deals. best way i think is just to play it by ear and if u think the person selling is shady...u may want to back out.

I bought my Zaskar ~$900 on ebay and had no problems. My teammate bought a Litespeed no to long ago and had no problems either. I just make sure they have good feedback from multiple people, and have been on ebay for awhile. That and if it is to good to be true, it probably is. High end used stuff is not the easiest to find and ebay makes it a tad easier.

I bought my LeMond Zurich on eBay with no problems. I spent a fair amount of time communicating with the seller. They had substantial positive feedback, were quite accommodating with my requests for measurements, and they were verified PayPal users, so the transaction was theoretically insured through their use policy. I felt comfortable enough and the deal turned out favorable.

I would have no problems with it so long as the person has a good rating.

As with the people above, I have only positive experiences buying/selling on eBay, with one exception (preamp didn't work as advertised - I had to pay the $125 for repair). But I have never been burned on any bicycle gear and recently paid $700 for a one year old new Scapin frameset with seat post. Saved $950 from the original retail price. Also bought a pair of new Ksyrium wheels, SID fork, etc. I have been very happy buying and selling on eBay. But do pay close attention to the seller's feedback and do some communicating back and forth to get some level of "trust" between you. Good luck.

The bike sellers seem OK, but I know several people that have gotten burned with car parts, so it does happen
I have never puchased any thing on E-Bay but I do look thru the ads and I have seen misrepresented stuff in the bike section, most recently a alluminum TCR being advertised as a composite bike and one of my customers got pretty stuck on a fixed gear he bought, altho I think this was because he got excited and over bid, the bike was worth about half what he paid for it.

I have bought and sold a ton of stuff on Ebay and haven't had any problems. If you're concerned about buying a high end item consider using an escrow account for the high dollar transaction.

Zack

I have had 30 positive buying experiences on eBay, but I buy almost exclusively from established sellers with impeccable feedback scores. The only minor disappointment was the condition of the rims on a wheelset, but in retrospect I have to admit that the seller's posting was honest. Fortunately, the price was OK and the (Campag.) hubs and (DT) spokes were in great shape, so all was not lost!

Thanks for the replies!:D

This does seem to make me a little more comfortable. I guess it does make the market a little more open for someone wanting to sell a used Trek 5500 etc. I don't see these in the local paper or in bike stores.

I have bought a Serotta, a lightspeed, and a Merlin on ebay. Good experiences. However, when spending big bucks I like to get the seller's phone number and actually speak to them.

Also be very careful about the description and sizing. I had asked and apparantly the seller (the Merlin) did not understand the difference between measuring c-c from c-t. So it did not turn out to be the right size for me. I ended up reselling it (a bit more than I paid, even with shipping).

I have now learned to be very specific and assume nothing.

IMHO - ebay good!

I have 400 transactions, with the highest being $3000 for a waverunner. The only problems I have had are 1) I bought a Specialized frame from a 'female racer' who never produced the frame. Gave alot of excuses but no frame. Luckily I got my money back. I think maybe she just didn't want to sell it for as cheap as I got it for, because within a month it was relisted by her. 2) I bought another Specialized frame, arrived quickly, beautiful frame, one small crack... this was the festina frame which are know to crack by the weep hole by the rear derailuer. The seller said ship it back, he was the original owner so Specialized replaced it with a new Acque & Sapone frame and he sent that to me. I would watch out for the high end bikes with a seller with 0 feedback.

i got my gt from e bay no problem!! but a coworker bought a mini disc player and never seen it!! The thing i found funny was there was no support available. My only advice is dont get caught up in bidding, it is possable for people to bid on the items they are selling to increase the final price! and alot of people get the "fever" and it almost becomes personal or somthing so you keep on uping your bid and bang just like rev.chuck said his pal paid way to much for his bike

I have gotten two bikes and lots of parts and stuff from ebay. No major problems. A couple of things I learned;

1- Communicate with the seller, ask any questions you have and make sure you get the correct answers.

2- Know what you are buying. The more information you have about the product the better off you will be. Many sellers do not know enough (or pretend to not know) about the stuff they sell. You need to.

3- Use proxy bidding. Know what you are willing to pay and don't get sucked into paying to much or missing a good buy because you weren't around to bid. Don't forget to look at shipping and handling, sometimes it is very INFLATED.

Good Luck

Originally posted by happygirl
. . .The thing i found funny was there was no support available.
Actually there is support from e-bay, in the Safe Harbour
area. E-bay is very good about protecting both buyers
and sellers as this is their bread and butter.
Your friend should have contacted e-bay about the sale
with no delivered goods.

Marty

I agree, ebays support is next to nothing. Safe harbor is there, but if the other party refuses to use it, it does nothing. Also contacting ebay is a joke... their pages usually lead you in circles.
It was alot better during it's early years like 96 or so, but then there wasn't near the listing or selection as now. ok, sorry to turn this into an ebay gripe forum...