Foo - Don't be an idiot like me. Never sell a bike.

Last week I used eBay for the first time in a while. I needed to sell my bike fast and eBay, despite its flaws, is the best place to do that.

With the current state of the economy I shouldn't be surprised that the bike sold for less than I had hoped. I couldn't really help my timing, though (I was out of state...long story), so I just had to accept my bad luck. Then I go to UPS and they quote me at $100, more than double the estimate their stupid online calculator gave me. I was beginning to think that I should have just shipped the bike home to myself instead of selling it.

The buyer paid immediately, but it turns out that PayPal put a hold on my funds because of their "You have an eBay feedback score of less than 100, and you sell an item for more than $100" rule. I'm pretty close to 100, but not quite. Damn. Now I have to wait until the buyer leaves feedback or until 3 days after my item is confirmed as shipped. I could really use this money by the end of the month, and it's going to be a close call.

So today I check the tracking hoping I can start the 3-day count and here's what it says: "THE RECEIVER DID NOT WANT THE ORDER AND REFUSED THIS DELIVERY / RETURNED TO SHIPPER." I've double checked the address and it looks correct. Besides, "refused this delivery" sounds like something more than a wrong address. I have no idea what's going on. I just e-mailed the buyer and who knows if I'll get a response.

So what happens now? It says "returned to shipper," but I happen to live more than 1500 miles from where I shipped it. They do know my address, though, because I've used UPS before and I remember the guy at the counter mispronouncing the name of my street. All I know for now is that the package was in San Francisco as of 12 this morning. It has a rescheduled delivery of 10/24, which could be possible as a return to where I shipped it from, but wouldn't happen as a return back to Indy. I have a bad feeling that it will get sent back to the UPS store and I'll have to pay to have it shipped here.

Has anyone ever had something like this happen? I'm going to start searching UPS's site to see what I can find.

As for eBay, what happens there? Like a moron, I already left positive feedback because I was hoping that would encourage the buyer to leave my feedback sooner, which would mean I would get my money sooner. I already paid my eBay fees and PayPal took its chunk of the money.

I already lost enough money on this deal, and I don't want to go through the process of selling the bike again (which I would do on RBR this time). This sucks. The lesson? Always keep your bikes. Never sell one.

Im sorry dude. I hope this turns out well.

Or you could use Craigslist or some kind of pawn shop. You should rephrase it to be never sell your bike on ebay if blank blank blank. Saying never sell a bike is ridiculous. On the other hand hope you get things straighten out.

Ebay is horrible sometimes...I will never sell anything on there again. Had too many bad experiences...I have 100 percent good feedback as a seller and buyer...but I dont like all the changes they made.

I have a 1984 Nishiki Olympic 12 that I bought new and now it has a bent frame from a wreck in February of this year. Logic says I should dump it, but... I JUST CAN'T. In fact, I rode it to work today. You're right, DXchulo, you should NEVER sell a bike!

Last week I used eBay for the first time in a while. I needed to sell my bike fast and eBay, despite its flaws, is the best place to do that.


ebay is still a good deal for selling some things - but not everything. Eg, bikes. the shipping costs cut into your price because bidders factor that in. They might pay $100 for a bike they can come look at and buy but only $50 for a bike bought unseen that they'll have to pay another $50 to have shipped.

But stuff happens - good luck, and my advice is stick with local sales - CL and free classifieds - for big stuff like bikes.

ebay is still a good deal for selling some things - but not everything. Eg, bikes. the shipping costs cut into your price because bidders factor that in. They might pay $100 for a bike they can come look at and buy but only $50 for a bike bought unseen that they'll have to pay another $50 to have shipped.

But stuff happens - good luck, and my advice is stick with local sales - CL and free classifieds - for big stuff like bikes.

I've used both eBay and RBR in the past. RBR is nice because it only costs $2 and they don't take a percentage of your sale, but selling there can be a slow process and you get a lot of e-mails from people that are a waste of time. I only had a week to sell and not much access to the internet, so I had to go with eBay.

There's not much of a used bike market around here, so shipping it is almost necessary.

Ebay is horrible sometimes...I will never sell anything on there again. Had too many bad experiences...I have 100 percent good feedback as a seller and buyer...but I dont like all the changes they made.

It's definitely not very seller-friendly these days, is it?

I've used both eBay and RBR in the past. RBR is nice because it only costs $2 and they don't take a percentage of your sale, but selling there can be a slow process and you get a lot of e-mails from people that are a waste of time. I only had a week to sell and not much access to the internet, so I had to go with eBay.

There's not much of a used bike market around here, so shipping it is almost necessary.

You mean road bike review? I didn't realize they had that service.

I know there are some sites for buying/selling upscale bikes - all DA and Record equipped recent model which are good deals for someone who wants to upgrade, etc. But for the average decent bike (say $100-1000) I think local in-person is best, for both buyer and seller.

I bought my last expensive bike used thru ebay and I lucked out, it turned out fine, but I was pretty worried till it arrived.

It's definitely not very seller-friendly these days, is it?

No. It's gone downhill.

About never selling a bike, well when you don't ride it and you kinda outgrew it - and you want another - it's fodder for the new bike. I have 1-1/2 that I'm thinking of selling in the early Spring - of course the roadbike I decided was to go - went down on a few months ago and while I normally take the damage to myself on those slo-mo falls (gravel) - instead I chewed the frame a bit (not badly - but still, my bikes are pristine) and am awaiting a friend to look at. sigh. Figures

However, I've been lucky to sell local. On other things - bike parts or smaller (easily shippable) kinda things - I go thru the ex who does a lot on e-bay while I do not, and am a little shied off of as well - like to see/touch what I'm going to buy - however I am stretching out a bit and looking at some cross frames ... thinking.

Sorry you had a bad experience.

Turns out this is a UPS error.

How can they get the wrong address and claim it is "refused" by the receiver?

I would tell you the new lesson is not to use UPS, but in my experience FedEx isn't much better.

Hate to hear of your problems. Sounds like the fees you paid to ebay and paypal are a loss, they did their part which was assist in sell and transaction.
If the bike is still in transit try calling UPS and see if they can deliver to a UPS station closer to where you are living now. Here where I live the UPS station operates out of Lancaster, a nearby city which is close to where I live but is always closed by the time I get off work. When I ask them to leave the package at their station for me to pick up, I always tell them to deliver to their in North Dallas. That way I can pick up my package during work.
Ernest

Hey hope things work out for you. I think bite the bullet and take the loss as best you can. I never sell anything on eBay that has awkward dimensions, and a bike is one of them (unless you go for collect-in-person deal).

Sorry man, the real problem here is eBay. It was a great place in the 90s and early 2000s for buying and selling, but it's gotten ridiculously bad since then. I will never buy anything "big" off it. Last summer I had a similar fiasco selling and shipping an oscilloscope.

I refuse to buy anything from ebay that I can't just write off.

Both ebay and CL were great services to buy or sell goods... until all the scammers moved in, and the companies that owned them decided to chase dollars rather than keep their good names. ebay also is planning to force everyone to use paypal.

What would kill ebay would be an auction site that is an active auction/consignment site, and not just a passive site that takes zero interest if a sale is good or not. Here is what I want to see: Seller ships item to the auction site, then lists it for how much and what type of auction. Auction site lists item. Buyer places bid. Auction ships item to buyer, cash to seller, minus a percentage. Everyone is happy, nobody gets screwed. If the buyer places a fake bid, the seller still is paid. The seller also can't ship someone a box of rocks or a p-p-powerbook [sic].