tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2431498412944656953.post5797241526908729886..comments2023-09-18T07:43:38.313-04:00Comments on OD Refugee: My eBay AdventuresUnknownnoreply@blogger.comBlogger4125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2431498412944656953.post-12948143243639682002011-06-11T05:01:47.288-04:002011-06-11T05:01:47.288-04:00I rarely buy anything online, but I did use eBay t...I rarely buy anything online, but I did use eBay twice to buy. First, I bought a couple of set of beads for my friend, because eBay was blocking her from using them because she'd paid with the wrong type of payment, which apparently had been taken as payment, anyway. My friend who then surprised me by giving one set to me. They were elaborate and very delicate, and had shipped from Australia. Some had broken off fragile parts, but the seller reimbursed me by sending a whole other set much more carefully wrapped, so I was more than satisfied. Then, I bid on what I thought was a beautiful red stone, which later on turned out to be a gyp, not the actual real stone that was advertised. There was a legal action taken that I could have ended up being part of, but I wanted to keep the stone, anyway.<br /><br />I tried selling my grandfather's Haitian cufflinks, but no one wanted to spend enough on them, so I ended up buying them back, myself, from Stilt, and donating the profit to charity.<br /><br />Stilt has tons of experience on eBay as a Super Seller, both selling and buying. He HAS been burned a couple of times, but by and large, he's done OK on both ends, and I think he still sells, although business is pretty much down of late... and he really doesn't like the large cut that eBay takes.<br /><br />I guess one's experience is the luck of the draw. For some perspective, I bought an iPod charger directly at Fry's store, and after futilely trying and trying to charge with it, and thinking I was encountering many faulty electrical outlets, I finally figured out it didn't work, only to have Fry's refuse to refund my money, since I'd lost the receipt. (It wasn't expensive, but it's the principle of the thing. They routinely store ALL one's personal info in their database, and can pull up your last several purchases, so this shouldn't have been an issue whatsoever. Instead, I heard "we just installed a new program. We can't find your purchase." Grrr!)CheapskateClickshttp://chrisclicks.net/noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2431498412944656953.post-26840900190812227892011-06-08T21:26:52.908-04:002011-06-08T21:26:52.908-04:00"next most eager person bidding" not eat..."next most eager person bidding" not eater.<br />I wasn't going to issue a correction just for "liary" but most eater seemed pretty inscrutable.<br />The links anchored to my name on these comments might interest you. The Motley Fool analyzes how Google fleeced investors (except not in the long run) and eBay lets users say "eBay sucks" and "eBay screws purchasers in favor of sellers" on its own community discussion forums.d'Eve the misspelllerhttp://forums.ebay.com/db1/topic/New-To-Ebay/Here-Is-Why/510009566noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2431498412944656953.post-30330072364152401362011-06-08T21:20:17.505-04:002011-06-08T21:20:17.505-04:00My experiences with eBay are pretty much like your...My experiences with eBay are pretty much like yours. I got ripped off once--the guy claims I'm a liary but I have physical proof he knows he's the one lying. But that doesn't matter because the dispute resolution process was a joke at the time. I gave him a bad review, so he just closed his account and opened under a different name. eBay/Paypal claim the resolution process is better now, but I wouldn't know because, like you, I buy at Amazon instead if I can and use Buy It Now rather than bidding.<br />There are services which allow people to place last-microsecond bids to beat you. If two people are using similar services trying to "win" an item the price can skyrocket.<br />If I actually want something that is being bid for, I put an alarm in my calendar program for the end of the auction. Then I sync up my computer's clock with time.gov and make my only bid at the very last moment. I heard a student I work with complain that he usually "lost" auctions to people who do that. It sounded like a good idea so I do it. There are often several lurkers out there for every auction who never bid except in the last second. It produces a "photo finish" situation resolved by algorithms on eBay's computers. They have an elaborate system for incrementing competing bids that you'd have to read to believe. It sort of promotes outlandish bidding by guarranteeing you won't pay much more than the the next-most-eater person bid. Like I did a last minute bid of 75$US for a coffee maker like one my father had used when I was little. The price was around $20 at the time I placed the bid, less than 20 seconds before the auction closed. Two other bidders who hadn't made any bids yet escalated the price to over %650. It took most of my education in math to sort out the bid history and understand what happened. <br />The next week I made the same last-minute bid of $75 on the same model coffee pot and I only had to pay $31 because the other person making a last minute bid had bid $30. eBay rounded that person's bid up a dollar and gave it to me.<br />They have standards and thresholds for how much they round up the bids. You can see it in the history. I have not bought anything on eBay for years except using "Buy It Now" so I may have many of the details wrong--they may have changed in my memory or the reality may have changed. But at some point they start rounding up by $5 and $10 and maybe more as the bids go above certain levels. <br />That's my experience with eBay. Are you glad you asked?dEveBayhttp://forums.ebay.com/db1/topic/New-To-Ebay/Here-Is-Why/510009566noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2431498412944656953.post-36536977356780078192011-06-08T20:51:35.111-04:002011-06-08T20:51:35.111-04:00Losing a bidding war like the one you described ju...Losing a bidding war like the one you described just means you are smarter and and more governed by reason than the frenzied person who "won". The true winner was the seller.<br />It's a tribute to psychological insight that auctioneers over time have learned to make people feel they won or lost. It is very clever and serves the interest of sellers, not buyers.dEveBayhttp://www.fool.com/investing/general/2004/05/26/going-dutch-with-google.aspxnoreply@blogger.com