RobbieTunes

I agree with this. Prove it was delivered, and you get your money, if the buyer doesn't decide to go with some other scam, like claiming it was "not as advertised."

rootboy 

Happened to me just last week. On a fly reel. I wasn't happy, but just figured the seller sold it locally…or something.
Seller can do anything. It's their item, after all.

miamijim

Without irritating anyone...if your not successful on Ebay your doing something wrong.

gomango

I came to the conclusion that while I was making money, it came at the expense of precious family time spent with my wife and kids.

I had only the occasional ebay irritations to contend with, but I was always a very low volume seller.

Even those minor problems took up too much time though and it didn't generate enough additional income to make it worth my time.

I decided to spend more time with our boys playing sports, not taking on another job.

Also, I realized I could make a lot more tutoring high schoolers trying to raise their ACT scores if I really wanted additional $$$.

daf1009

I actually had one guy give me a very low offer for a frame...and he said..."you have to sell it to me at this price, so that I can turn around and sell it at a profit." I laughed...and send him a counteroffer of my BIN price, stating that "why should I minimize my profit to maximize yours?" He has not replied...but, of course, that may be because I blocked him.

gomango

That could well be.

My fly fishing hobby dwarves this bike hobby and I have a suspicion it could take over one of these days.

I fight to spend as much time on the water as possible with friends or all by myself.

Either way, it's really a special way to enjoy our summer season here in Minnesota.

thinktubes 

^^^^^^^^^^^
Ebay is still a job and takes a lot of work. Agree on cutting into family time and there are better ways to make buck.

photogravity

I've not sold anything on eBay, but buy stuff quite a bit. Lately I've purchased a number of vintage felt fedoras, some of which were not the advertised size. In one case when I contacted the seller they indicated they'd give a refund, but the item was so cheap I didn't want to pay shipping back, so I'm going to hang onto it and use it to practice my 53w1ng 5k1||z. The second one was a size that fit one of my friends and was dirt cheap so I gave it to him as a gift, and the third was not so cheap but, as with the second one, fit my friend and the seller offered a 25% refund for the item which I gladly accepted.

Sunday, I made my biggest eBay purchase ever - a $10,000+ item which I hope meets my expectations.

wrk101

So true. My wife and I sell a lot of stuff on consignment (not bike stuff). It is so easy, drop it off, they do the rest. Anymore, we move a lot of stuff that might bring $50 to $100 on eBay. But we can move 100 items on consignment in the time it takes to sell 5 on eBay. Sure, we get a lot less per item. But without these alternative outlets, we would be swamped.

armstrong101

Can someone tell me why BIN is safer for sellers than open auction?

rootboy 

Finally bought that Confente? Gonna put an IGH on it?

repechage

Let's see, the Confente sold earlier.... A Rene Herse?

photogravity

Nah, it's definitely not a Confente. This may seem blasphemous, but I've seen a couple Confentes in the flesh and, while nice, they did not seem to live up to the hype that surrounds them. A Herse would be a far better guess but, alas, the reality is that the item in question is not a bicycle at all. I'm far too cheap to pay $10k for a bicycle. In actuality, the item is a car.

Wileyone 

Didn't Ali Baba have "40 thieves"?

Spaghetti Legs 

The shenanigans IMO go both ways with buyers and sellers probably about the same rate as in general society except possibly a little more so since there is a lower likelihood of consequences than with face to face interactions. These are the same people that cheese their way into long lines, doggedly wait in a parking lot for someone to leave a spot near the store while other cars stack up behind, etc.

I recently was the only bid on an nice Eddy Merckx. It was a low feedback seller, but from brick and mortar bike shop. It was $700, so really good price but not a complete steal. I went on vacation a couple days later and when I got back 2+ weeks later, still no bike. When I emailed seller, the money was refunded. I called the bike shop and got a vague "sorry we sold it to someone else" along with a fair amount of attitude. I wasn't surprised about the cold feet on the sale but pretty slimy to wait and see if I noticed they took my money.

armstrong101

What I don't understand now, is with the internet, just because you're scamming someone far away, it doesn't mean you're home free. When you steal money off of someone via Paypal, they know your name, address, email. You can screw anyone around, doesn't matter where they are. Posting info to 4chan, finding them on FB, etc. there's so much you can do to screw them back. I can't see why anyone would do this given the potential for retaliation.

armstrong101

So the store didn't automatically return your money after selling the bike to someone else? WTF? You could've actually sued them for damages because the sale was a binding contract.

himespau 

I get this from time to time (on a much smaller scale) with items from China (dealing with 2 such things now). They put a really long shipping time and list it as shipped (but no tracking info) and then hope you'll have forgotten about the $20-50 you spent in the 2 months once the delivery window has passed (I almost did this time).

miamijim

I undersatnd exactly what your saying and agree.... I could make a lot more money picking up work on the side but choose not to. Bike are a hobby for me, nothing more, nothing less. My comments are about doing something the right way versus doing it at all.



It eliminates the cheapskates. Someone either wants your item for the amount you want for it or they dont. A lot of 'auction' buyers are looking a for deal...they're bargain hunters.


Nope. Just as ebay policy allows buyers to return items for any reason they also allow sellers to back out of a sale for almost any reason. I've backed out of 2 or 3 sales over 7 years.

MZilliox

mw too, but there seems to be a brotherhood amongst fly fishers. in no other hobby are the sellers so genuinely ready to make sure someone gets hooked up with decent kit. a sport of gentlefolks perhaps.

OP sorry about these issues, people suck

BlueDevil63 

In my experience no they don't, despite what others are saying. If you offer returns then yes that is a valid reason. If you don't offer returns the only way they can get Ebay support in a return is if the item is not described correctly. Granted there is a lot of leeway in that but no, if you don't offer returns they can't just say they changed their mind and get Ebay support on the return.

treebound 

Too much hassle and time involvement dealing with the after sale situations to make ebay a first choice for me when selling something.

Craigslist has it's moments, goes dead/flat at times, and lots of gamers and no-shows as well.

I have relatives who are using some sort of deal system on facebook, but I'm not sure how it works, but it could work out with peer pressure and publicity if things go sour.

Lately I've been looking into offerup.com and so far I'm iffy about it. Seems more like a parallel to craigslist but not as open to phantoms due to having to register as a user, but even that can be gamed. I may try selling a few things on it to see how it goes for me. The bike I was looking at buying is still posted as available, so who knows if the seller had another buyer or not. In the end it is just another option to buy and sell items without a storefront as a hobby oriented person.

Gamers and scammers are active everywhere these days. As a seller you have to weigh your options and take your chances and decide what is worth the effort to you.

In the mean time I think I'll do a search on fly rods and reels to see what is posted locally.

armstrong101

Yes Ebay may allow them to back out of a sale, but the law doesn't allow them to take your money for nothing.

armstrong101

I think I read about this. It was started by a group out of Montreal or something, and it was started because they found using Kijiji led you to deal with "creepy" people sometimes, which they wanted to avoid. So this "new" Kijiji requires people to use their Facebook profiles to transact, which is argued/advertised as being safer.

Haven't you guys noticed that Kijiji is now masking emails? At least in Toronto it has been, the last month or so. i don't see buyer's emails to me (just a string of numbers) and the buyers don't see my (seller's) email either. That does help I think.

youngbull

its just not seller oriented you get screwed no matter what so that's the cost of doing business with ebay