International shipping seems to have suffered terribly during November-December (holiday season superimposed on COVID-related lockdowns), but seems to have recovered since to the point of being completely normal now.

For example, I've had two packages ordered from the UK - same size/weight, same shipment type, ordered a month apart, arrived a day apart. I've had stuff ordered in January arriving before stuff ordered late November. The worst case took just over 3 months to arrive (normally takes 2-3 weeks for that route), but also arrived in the end.

I seen some interesting cards and motherboards from Russia but I never bothered to order any since shipping would seem to take forever and I worry about international scammers.

Unknown_K wrote on 2021-03-10, 23:17:

I seen some interesting cards and motherboards from Russia but I never bothered to order any since shipping would seem to take forever and I worry about international scammers.

I've ordered from Russia once, Am486DX4 CPU with heatsink/fan, still using it six years later. Came in in 2 weeks IIRC.

I've never had problems buying from Russia. I mostly buy from or via collectors though.

debs3759 wrote on 2021-03-11, 05:26:

I've never had problems buying from Russia. I mostly buy from or via collectors though.

I have had very good experiences with sellers in Eastern Europe (Russia, Ukraine, Poland, Hungary) . I practically only buy from sellers who deal with retro hardware on a regular basis and have good feedback. IMHO, that helps avoid problems, regardless of seller location .

- Prices are usually reasonable
- Sellers usually seem like they know what they are selling and I have greater confidence that they have actually tested it when they say that they have
- I have never had a DOA
- Since I choose sellers who deal in retro PC parts and overseas buyers regularly, they usually know how to properly pack for long-distance (either that or I have been very lucky) .

Another good reason to consider Eastern European sellers is product availability . As I have said before on Vogons (LOL, quoting myself) : " . For some reason, when I need something retro and don't mind waiting, there often seems to be nice product in that part of the world and often much cheaper than in North America . I wonder if there are some large-scale recycling operations going in those places or if there is some other reason ."

+1 to good experiences buying from Eastern European sellers, no DOAs in my experience either. Most importantly, they usually know what they're selling, so they can test it properly and things are priced fairly, meaning no "50USD for an untested generic ISA controller card" bullshit that you see in many America/Europe listings.

Packaging can be hit or miss, but I've never had anything from those sellers arrive broken.

In fact, years ago when the prices for 3DFX gear were still low, I was looking for a matching card to put my old Diamond Monster 3D II in SLI. However, I ended up getting two mint "Black Magic" V2s from Russia for about $40 (and I was hesitant to pay that much, how things have changed). That seller had a seemingly unending stock!

darry wrote on 2021-03-11, 05:40:

. I wonder if there are some large-scale recycling operations going in those places or if there is some other reason ."

Most of the big IT players have bases in Eastern Europe due to cheaper land prices, so I imagine that pulls alot of the other parts towards them for various reasons.

It may also be that hardware that had become obsolete in the West continued to be used in the East later, putting them half a step back on the price curve from a Western buyer's perspective (expensive > landfill-bound junk > expensive)

I suspect it's the common dynamic whereby the world's rubbish/refuse gets bumped down to the financially-poorer regions of the world, where wages are sufficiently low to make processing it worthwhile, and the motivation to turn the leftovers of others into a viable income exists.

rant about the general state of eBay: What really pisses me off: Sellers who actually manage (somehow, apparently by advanced stupidity) to put really specific info for a rare piece of hardware in the title, which triggers my search alert...
but are actually selling something much inferior of roughly the same category.
And of course, they don't sell for the one buck starting offer.

And by extension, the real problem: eBay couldn't give a rat's ass.
I actually once made the effort to report the listing of one of the worst offenders, out of sheer annoyance. Basically a fraudulent offer, if one doesn't look at the picture really closely.
Via telephone, no less.
After I had written a really friendly PN to the seller that triggered a response somewhere between "lolwut" and "eff off".
So eBay knew, nothing happened.
We can't expect eBay to moderate that entropic chaos out there, but could they give their users any chance to somehow do that in any way?!? A bloody dislike button?
And I can't simply block that fuckup, like in any social media context known to man.
The web might be a global village - eBay is a goddamn slum.

Cuttoon wrote on 2022-03-17, 22:22:

We can't expect eBay to moderate that entropic chaos out there, but could they give their users any chance to somehow do that in any way?!? A bloody dislike button?

Ideally you would be able to respond with a on an sale that looks fraudulent/bad - not as a feedback to an item you bought, but as a general "buyer beware" warning. Probably the main concern against enabling something like this is that it would be abused.

I know some eBay items have "reviews" that you can leave on the item itself, but probably not specific and esoteric like the thing you described.

@ebay hate
How can they allow for sellers to cancel a sale? Especially after the item has been paid for!
The point of an auction is that the highest bid just gets the item, isn't it? No taksies backsies?
And the worst part is if the sale is cancelled you can't even leave negative feedback. Who comes up with that type of nonsense?

Cuttoon wrote on 2022-03-17, 22:22:

rant about the general state of eBay: What really pisses me off: Sellers who actually manage (somehow, apparently by advanced st […]
Show full quote

rant about the general state of eBay: What really pisses me off: Sellers who actually manage (somehow, apparently by advanced stupidity) to put really specific info for a rare piece of hardware in the title, which triggers my search alert...
but are actually selling something much inferior of roughly the same category.
And of course, they don't sell for the one buck starting offer.

And by extension, the real problem: eBay couldn't give a rat's ass.
I actually once made the effort to report the listing of one of the worst offenders, out of sheer annoyance. Basically a fraudulent offer, if one doesn't look at the picture really closely.
Via telephone, no less.
After I had written a really friendly PN to the seller that triggered a response somewhere between "lolwut" and "eff off".
So eBay knew, nothing happened.
We can't expect eBay to moderate that entropic chaos out there, but could they give their users any chance to somehow do that in any way?!? A bloody dislike button?
And I can't simply block that fuckup, like in any social media context known to man.
The web might be a global village - eBay is a goddamn slum.

I would love a Block Seller button, I have a list of known dickhole sellers that I manually ignore their sales if they hit my search, would be nice if I could make it so their sales never show up.

dr_st wrote on 2022-03-20, 07:22:

Ideally you would be able to respond with a on an sale that looks fraudulent/bad - not as a feedback to an item you bought, but as a general "buyer beware" warning. Probably the main concern against enabling something like this is that it would be abused.

More precisely, we should expect Ebay to do some moderation - once there are complaints. They can be expected to be qualified and busy enough to notice when
- item clearly marked as "orange" in the photo gets sold as "apple" in the title or
- (unrelated) BIN item spamming the wrong category with a dozen times the same offer or just plainly misplaced
- seller (at least professional one) makes - time and again - the effort to fill out the "filter relevant" description like "PCI" on a VGA card but never learnt that "PCIe" isn't the same thing.
(Why have the bloody category in the first place? Almost half of "PCI" cards on there are PCIe, then some are AGP, some ISA and some are gardening tools.)

dr_st wrote on 2022-03-20, 07:22:

I know some eBay items have "reviews" that you can leave on the item itself, but probably not specific and esoteric like the thing you described.

afaik, that's only if there has been established a dedicated sub-category for the specific item, like "sound blaster ct2990". And about the product per se, not the offer at hand.

There is a "report" button with an extensive menu to report things, that, basically.... Ebay is required to weed out by law or would really have trouble with, like contraband or real fraud.
Yep, that should go without saying. But not enough or too clumsy for minor problems.

TrashPanda wrote on 2022-03-20, 08:16:

I would love a Block Seller button, I have a list of known dickhole sellers that I manually ignore their sales if they hit my search, would be nice if I could make it so their sales never show up.

Yep, at least give us that. I'm a paying "plus" member since 10 years, ffs.
"I understand you can't quite kick that obnoxious fuckup out right away over forgetting to ship a one Euro CD-ROM drive, but his way of handling it, attitude, language - I'd just like to delete him from my cyberspace, thank you very much."
Weeding out 76 % false positives and BS in search alarms is annoying enough...

TrashPanda wrote on 2022-03-20, 08:16:

I would love a Block Seller button, I have a list of known dickhole sellers that I manually ignore their sales if they hit my search, would be nice if I could make it so their sales never show up.

Use Odd.com eBay Searcher. They are really great, and have updated their search capabilities recently. Now they can search all eBay marketplaces (not just eBay US), you can fine tune all the keywords, categories and subcategories, and they have a seller whitelist/blacklist option. You get an email with all the new listings that were hit by the search keywords, since your last email.