The AUSubaru.com.au Forums

anyone here had ebay bad experiences? I'm just having my first..having handed over money nearly$200.........
the seller (cityefi) is lousy in replying to emails, finally got a response on wednesday, saying hes still waiting for address info, BS, been sending emails with that and querying eta since the 10oct

how did yours eventually sort out?
what did you do about it?
anyone used ebay's dispute mechanism ?

** update **
My transaction turned out ok in the end, the boss sorted it out and they apologised about the stuff up, and sent it next day express delivery. Still just a reply to emails could have resolved any problems weeks ago.
They are also apparently the biggest distributor of Ford Fuel components in Melbourne, so are unlikely to be a dishonest business.

The address info is stored in your ebay profile and he should get it automatically upon your winning the bid.

I had a very bad experience with ebay ( on my first ever purchase) when I bought a nokia mobile phone for $500, the guy accidently sent it express rather than insured mail and it never arrived. Aus Post refused to take any responsibility neither did the seller. In the end convinced him to sell me another one for $300 which meant it was right on the RRP of the phone after adding the two figures.

Every time i've won an auction since it's gone off without a hitch.

I have yet to have a bad experience with ebay

i haven't yet though i did suspect a seller of shill bidding, ebay checkedit out for me and it came back clean.

ebays support seems to be pretty good in dodgy situations

I want to sign up for it but i haven't yet... what payment methods do u guys recomend?

Dave

I always use direct deposit because it's quick and easy for me to do online, I don't have a credit card so i cant use paypal, if you do have a credit card paypal is also a good option.

Paypal all the way for me. I won't trade any other way (used to do money orders though).

My first ever experience on ebay was bad. I bought a Subaru manual-on-CD thing. After stuffing around with money orders it finally arrived and much to my dismay it was on a burnt CD and the setup instructions basically told me how to crack the installation software.
So I thought this being my first ebay transaction I'd leave neutral feedback rather than negative, so as not to offend.
Turns out this guy ripped into me, sending me offensive messages and emails. Then he left me neutral feedback claiming I'd never read the item description. You can read it here

Anyway I complained to eBay and when they asked for evidence to back up my claims I forwarded the emails and messages to them and even offered to take a photo of the goods to prove my case. I was then contacted by several other people who had issues with this individual, and it seems together we got him banned / booted / whatever. As far as I can tell he's not trading on there anymore.

Just a warning to new players too, there is a lot of pirated stuff on there. My housemate buys DVD's in a big way, we have one arrive every day, and more than once he's received pirated gear.

Oh - I just wanted to post another thing about ebay.

It really bugs me how a seller can wait until a buyer has posted feedback before doing so. Realistically once that item is in the mail the transaction has ended, it should be the buyer who posts feedback first. The problem is of course that if the seller is ripping people off he gets the last say.

I have found several good sellers who post feedback upon payment, these are the people I will use again.

yeh i think it sucks about them being able too wait i always pay immediately but dont recieve feedback untill i have left it for them, this is a quote from an email from the last seller i purchased an item off of.

" If you want positive feedback, just give one to us, within a week we will leave positive feedback for you."

i though it was funny

even if you pay perfectly then dont reciee the item in good condition you leave them a negative, and they leave you one for no reason, maybe ebay needs to make an ordered feedback system, maybe soit doesn'tshow upin your list until youhave left it for the other person, that way it is honest because even if the other person left feedback first you dont know what it says until you have left feedback.

We havent had any real bad times but were as careful as you can be.
We dont do business with newbies,if it sounds too good then its not,
check all feed back for hidden truths.
Cheers Pete

Normally I've had no problems on ebay, but I did get caught out with a full set of hydraulic lifters for the EA82. The guy advertised them as new, and the pictures seemed to support this showing the original subaru packaging, but alas once they turned up they were second hand and who knows what condition. (I won't be using them). The seller also disappeared shortly there after becoming "not a registered user".

only one problem:

bought a part for my half dead laptop - i was after the plastic outer casing for my dell. searched high and low, and found a guy in Chicago selling it (US ebay). So after a couple of emails, I bid and won it for 99 cents. Cheering!!

So, After using the automated billing and paying via paypal, total came up to about $30AUS. No sweat, sure its a big jump, but postage will knock it up somewhat. So I paid it.

Then it goes all weird. The guy doesnt answer his emails for a bit, then only replied to my masses of emails once a week. Just wanted to ask if he received my money OK, which method of postage he was sending it, yadda yadda.

Then after about six weeks after the sale, I get an email stating that shipping was going to cost $199US 8O After promptly firing off a few emails enquiring "WTF", he never replied to me.

So I decided to stuff him, and wait a while longer, about 2 weeks after this, my package arrived.

Low and behold, it was parts for ANOTHER MODEL LAPTOP!! Totally different to what he described it as (I made bloody sure it was going to be compatible for my laptop). After leaving him negative feedback, he was very quick to reply to me....even MSN'd me!!! Asking me why I wasn't happy. I told him to check his inbox.

He was some sort of high volume seller, and must of made like 50 sales a day. Wisdom in hindsight, i checked his transaction history, and found a few nasty feedbacks.

Strangely, he never left me any bad feedback.

I have only had one badish experience on ebay and that was the arrival of a busted up computer monitor but after sorting through things it came good.

I have never had a bad experience.

Whenever spending more money than I would be prepared to throw into the wind I always...

Check the feedback AND what other items the person has been selling - by looking at this stuff you can get an idea of what volumes and whether they are a reseller/merchant/one off type seller. I bought some camera stuff off someone and when checking their feedback saw that they mostly sold decorative plates with other assorted household items - you can quickly guess that the item was their own or for a friend/family member. Other sellers just sell one type of equipment, ie they are a reseller/merchant.

I always look at the feedback of the last few people to buy from that seller too, you can usually protect yourself from shilling in this way - Shilling is the practice of setting up fake users to bid on items to push the value up. You can often suspect this is happening in auctions that have had numerous non-paying bidders and 0.01 start prices.

I don't buy from overseas, Australian laws protect me when I buy from Australia, not anywhere else - I have certainly thought about buying stuff though and probably will eventually...

I will rarely bid on an item that doesn't have the postage price listed. I am prepared to pay $30 postage on an item that is selling for $20 less than I was prepared to bid...

I take pride in my feedback, I don't leave feedback until after the buyer leaves theirs - I am not holding their feedback to ransom, rather I would rather see the transaction through to completion before leaving feedback - to me feedback is the tinkle of the bell as they walk out the door - Thank you, come again!

On that, I hate feedback, one or two tacky statements about the transaction, what more can you say than "Happy auction, great seller A++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++" means nothing really... However, negative feedback is good - I always read negative feedback, and the auction page involved to get the full story and make my own judgment on the seller/buyer....

Sellers cannot add GST after the auction completes, if they try to, direct them to the ebay help page that says they can't. If they persist report them to ebay.

I pay however I need to - I always choose bank deposit first though, I work for one, following this stuff up is easy for me should anything go wrong.

I always pay the moment I get the payment email (sometimes the seller makes changes to postage etc if you ask them to send normal mail instead of express.

Normal mail has the option of $2.35 registered and $5 person to person (you and only you can sign for it). Registered post includes insurance up to $100, any more than this is $1.10 per $100 or part thereof. You can't register pre-paid satchels.

For anyone thinking of joining ebay, it is certainly worthwhile, heaps of bargains to be had. (I had a genuine nokia phone charger NIB delivered for $5.50 - yes, including p&h). As they always say in the paper - caveat emptor - ie, buyer beware, be careful and you should be fine...

Here's my bargin of the month:

Bought a Roland RD-700SX musical keyboard that was 3 weeks old in mint condition.

RRP is $5300 ($4999 usually), cost me $3250 + $65 freight!

Cheering!

yeh it definately pays to check the postage price, I was looking at a gt style wing at a buy it now price of $50 i thought wow bargain but knew something wasn't right, the postage price was $499

i was really really glad i checked,

as pete said if it looks too good to be true it probably is

spaceage wrote:yeh it definately pays to check the postage price, I was looking at a gt style wing at a buy it now price of $50 i thought wow bargain but knew something wasn't right, the postage price was $499

i was really really glad i checked,

as pete said if it looks too good to be true it probably is

Haha, that is funny

If the item is located in Australia it is probably in contravention of the ebay postage policy...

yeh i'd say it would be, i think there were a couple of spoilers and some recaro race seat all from the same seller all $50, all with rediculous postage prices, if i remember right the seats were $589 postage

I'd say with those postage prices they are trying to avoid ebays % fees......

anyway theres hope that my transaction will come good, got a email with apology about stuff up, and its getting sent today, yippee!! I'm in dire
need of fuel pump, tis staying under 50kph and closeby trips only.

is it possible to amend your own feedback on ebay? I'd like to, once I get my
pump....

I love ebay. I won 14 auctions just last weekend. I have a couple of bad ones, but the good outway them 100:1

Whenever spending more money than I would be prepared to throw into the wind I always...

Use these words as gospel. If you are doing it with a direct deposit. If it is worth a bit it pays to use paypal. We brought a DVD screen for the car, it blew up when we plugged it in. The seller didn't want to do anything about it. We contacted ebay or paypal, not sure which now. But they told the seller he fixes it, or they withdraw the money from him. Whata good thing.

Postage is always a dodgie thing. Overseas sellers put heaps on buy it now products to make sure they get the price they want. You need to read the whole auction before you commit to buy.