There are also those collectors who have no intention of proposing a side deal but message the seller out of spite: "The item you just sold for $30 is worth $250." The seller then has to decide if they will honor the original deal, and they do sometimes back out, as people have experienced.

I have to imagine that some of those collectors then complain about how expensive the hobby is becoming, 🤣.

Iv never had much get broken on eBay per-say. But I have had a fair share of things go missing.

I think the only things that have broke on me happen to be motherboards. Work fine on the sellers end, got boop'd akwardly during shipping and all of a suddent won't boot with 3v CPUs anymore X)

These days with Covid running rampant I'm pretty on-top of communicating with sellers and making sure they're shipping things safely (as in, for their own health) and on a reasonable time.

Now more then ever iv had parcels get stuck in a trackingless void for a few extra weeks or simply never show up.

Horun wrote on 2020-07-07, 02:37:

Ahh ok I get it ! Thanks ! We are are not supposed to link to specific Ebay sales here, same with VCFED afaik. Fairly sure I never did that on purpose but have used some ebay seller images for informational purposes.

Vcfed downright encourages it. They are very open to commerce in their forum unlike here. As a matter of fact they have a thread specifically for vintage computer auctions.

liqmat wrote on 2020-07-08, 16:12:

Horun wrote on 2020-07-07, 02:37:

Ahh ok I get it ! Thanks ! We are are not supposed to link to specific Ebay sales here, same with VCFED afaik. Fairly sure I never did that on purpose but have used some ebay seller images for informational purposes.

Vcfed downright encourages it. They are very open to commerce in their forum unlike here. As a matter of fact they have a thread specifically for vintage computer auctions.

If back then VCF had been a bit more open about 486 and later stuff, I probably would have been way more active there.
At some point I forgot my password and created a second account but now I forgot that password as well 🤣

There were some threads here about buying and selling, but those created all kinds of (unwanted) stuff. Tbh, to me it seems like this forum has slowly been shifting the focus too much from the actual hobby to a bit more of "retro computer parts trading experience forum" for my taste anyway. Tbf, even though I did find those ebay threads informative, they somehow managed to gather some odd folks around them which I personally did not enjoy as much, so to say.

VCF is in many ways totally different from Vogons and VCF is definitely one of the more interesting retro computer forums there is to find with lots of expertise and knowhow.

I don't know how they managed to keep the buying and selling stuff out of their regular subforums.

boxpressed wrote on 2020-07-07, 18:56:

There are also those collectors who have no intention of proposing a side deal but message the seller out of spite: "The item you just sold for $30 is worth $250." The seller then has to decide if they will honor the original deal, and they do sometimes back out, as people have experienced.

I have to imagine that some of those collectors then complain about how expensive the hobby is becoming, 🤣.

Idiots will be idiots . They are a renewable resource . 😀

liqmat wrote on 2020-07-08, 16:12:

Horun wrote on 2020-07-07, 02:37:

Ahh ok I get it ! Thanks ! We are are not supposed to link to specific Ebay sales here, same with VCFED afaik. Fairly sure I never did that on purpose but have used some ebay seller images for informational purposes.

Vcfed downright encourages it. They are very open to commerce in their forum unlike here. As a matter of fact they have a thread specifically for vintage computer auctions.

I thought you had to post that type info ONLY in the auctions part only, not in just any topic, at least that is what I was told years ago.

Well, from what I've seen, as long as it's in the "Marketplace" area of the forums they really don't get bent out of shape about too much.

My biggest gripe is when a seller chooses to send the item by MyHermes who are the second largest in the UK simply because they are dirt cheap and you 100% get what you pay for as they are notoriously bad (or should it be good) when it comes to mistreating and damaging packages - it always fills me with dread when I get a message saying MyHermes has your parcel 🙁 the sellers don't always say specifically that they're using MyHermes so it's a gamble some times on eBay. Dented, ripped, torn and water damaged items are their speciality!

My second biggest gripe is packaging! Whether it's poor packaging, too little packaging or no packaging at all - I just don't know what goes on in some sellers heads! Recently I 'won' 5 Iomega REV disks which were simply placed in a plastic postal bag with no bubblewrap or anything! They've been thrown around the sorting offices with no protection so it's no surprise that they have turned up not working! I've received a full refund but this is not the point when buying old hardware or software, it's not manufactured anymore so when you buy something you really need it to be sent properly. When I contacted the seller she said she didnt realise disks needed any kind of protection/packaging in the post! Most tech items need protecting when sent in the most - thought this was common sense 🙁

My third biggest gripe is having to decide whether to keep or return a vintage/retro item (such as a 20+ year old laptop) that has been damaged in the post due to the seller not packaging it properly - yes you can send it back and get a refund, but then you dont have the vintage/retro kit you wanted! On more than one occasion I've decided to keep the damaged item for parts.

What a massacre. Most of them are chipped too, those idiots didn't even take the time to remove them properly, just forced them out with a screwdriver.
Fak you, scrappers!
They still think that extracting gold gets them more $$ than selling these to collectors in a decent condition.

NOTHING. Absolutely NOTHING makes me cringe harder then those channels on YouTube who's sole goal is to show you how to find old CPUS and melt them down.

Like, idk. I get that scrappers probably don't really think too hard about what their smelting down. Gold is money but if they waited for a buyer on eBay but theyd make so much more.

And preserve history.

From a sustainability point of view, though, recycling items that contain certain precious metals may make more sense than having said items hoarded by collectors.

One of the best comments under a scrapper video: "After all that shit, you got about $40 worth of gold (guy bought CPUs for $88) , and spent over 12 man hours and possibly hundreds in supplies and equipment."
My thoughts exactly. A scrapper made a comment that he can recover ~ 0.7 grams of gold from a single Pentium Pro, that's ~$31 minus expenses and work hours.

Where is the sold listing menu from Ebay?
I usally Google "ebay sold listing" but it doesn't come up in search now.
They removed the feature?

it's a filter in the search results, "Sold Items"

I'm having a difficult case atm... I bought something off ebay, and when I checked their other listings, they had the same thing listed twice (yeah yeah I should have checked before), it wasn't something you can just have two of, it was a very specific lot of items with the same pictures.
both listings sold... so after I won the one I wrote them asking what's up there and who's getting it (both were won for €1).

didn't get a reply... so I wrote them again, and again... no reply... now after a few days they opened a case for unpaid items... still no reply mind you, so I wrote again asking for clarification... is there any way I can contact ebay about that?

shipping costs are rather high and they only accept bank transfer, so as this all seemed shady to me I wanted to communicate before I paid... them not replying makes it even more shady, can I have an eventual negative rating removed if the seller is obviously doing shady things and I simply don't pay? seeing as there is no recourse for me if I pay and get nothing back.

whatever I click on ebay I always just end up at "contact the seller"... which I've been trying for a week now.

edit: actually found ebay's phone number for once... they are looking into it and are going to contact the seller directly.

Yes I see it now, thanks!
Can a buyer get negative feedback on Ebay at all? I thought only the buyer can leave negative feedback.

uh I don't really sell on ebay so idk... but I never heard that a buyer can't get negative feedback
the support person said if I get negative feedback I should just report it.

imi wrote on 2020-07-10, 12:49:

uh I don't really sell on ebay so idk... but I never heard that a buyer can't get negative feedback
the support person said if I get negative feedback I should just report it.

Yup, checked, sellers can't leave buyers negative feedback. It's been that way since like 2012.

imi wrote on 2020-07-10, 11:42:

it's a filter in the search results, "Sold Items" […]
Show full quote

it's a filter in the search results, "Sold Items"

I'm having a difficult case atm... I bought something off ebay, and when I checked their other listings, they had the same thing listed twice (yeah yeah I should have checked before), it wasn't something you can just have two of, it was a very specific lot of items with the same pictures.
both listings sold... so after I won the one I wrote them asking what's up there and who's getting it (both were won for €1).

didn't get a reply... so I wrote them again, and again... no reply... now after a few days they opened a case for unpaid items... still no reply mind you, so I wrote again asking for clarification... is there any way I can contact ebay about that?

shipping costs are rather high and they only accept bank transfer, so as this all seemed shady to me I wanted to communicate before I paid... them not replying makes it even more shady, can I have an eventual negative rating removed if the seller is obviously doing shady things and I simply don't pay? seeing as there is no recourse for me if I pay and get nothing back.

whatever I click on ebay I always just end up at "contact the seller"... which I've been trying for a week now.

edit: actually found ebay's phone number for once... they are looking into it and are going to contact the seller directly.

Not accepting Paypal is enough of a red flag for me to pass on an auction altogether, no matter how rare the item might be .

That said, I hope your issue gets resolved in a satisfactory way .

well seeing as how paypals agreement with ebay runs out this year afaik there's going to be a whole lot less of auctions offering paypal in the future 😒

I'd say currently it's about half-half paypal vs bank transfer here (idk if it's different in other countries)

is not a red flag automatically if the seller has recent good ratings for sales, but seeing as how this seller simply did not communicate at all apart from sending me bank details and opening a case for unpaid auctions and asked a lot for shipping for each item without combining them and had the same thing listed twice, I did not want to risk it even if the actual amount isn't that much.

Yeah, If paypal ever goes away for ebay, I'd probably stop using ebay by at least 90%. It's why I don't buy anything on Aliexpress, don't need the stress in my life.

I'm sure sellers will cry bloody murder when there are no customers left on the platform, despite spending the last 10 years crying bloody murder about being forced into paypal

Here, Paypal is nearly universal. I only use cash for pickups, otherwise paypal.

Edit: Australia here. I'm in Perth, its about 5 weeks postage at least from overseas, a couple of weeks from items posted over east.