I think your experience is pretty common.

Bloated caps is a deal breaker for those who dont have soldering equipment so I can understand the buyer.

The best thing you can do is to take very very good pictures and state that every defect visable in the pictures or described in the text is not a valid reason for returns. Stating that the board works for you but is sold as defect is also an option but this will lower the selling price for sure.

I only sold one thing over ebay and transaction was OK. So I can't really comment on the selling part.

I have a lot of experience in buying on eBay. My recommendation for a seller (newer or older stuff) would be:

- photo everything in a good detail (so everyone can inspect the components of items). Make sure to photo the parts that are not looking so good - like battery leakage on old motherboards.
- photo everything in a working condition - running DOS, Windows...

If you're not sure about condition as with old hardware you can't be 100% sure. Give the status of items as "Not working, for parts". This way the price will usually be lower but in any case you won't have problems when something isn't 100% perfect.

Even though I'm a careful buyer and ask additional questions about items if needed. There were still some deals gone bad. But I'm usually satisfied with a partial refund.

But you can always join Amibay and sell there. Many people see what you sell and can even alert you if something isn't good on the pictures - it's an open forum and discussion is possible.

I have sold 100s of items on eBay and always try to take enough pictures and state that items are old.

To be fair I have rarely sold MOBOs: they do not sell for enough $ to make it worthwhile. Same with PCs: people are usually too cheap to pay for shipping. After eBay / PayPal / shipping too little is left. And they are very time consuming to package.

Nevertheless there is always a risk of having a disgruntled buyer. Do not take it personally.

There are some eBay buyers out there, that will complain just for the sake of complaining. It's impossible to please everyone.

I used to sell brand new PC games on eBay. While most people were happy, some would complain that the shipping took too long, while others would complain about the method used to seal the game. i.e heatshrink as opposed to cellophane. In each case I just refunded. There was no point in arguing, customer is always right, bla bla bla. If you want to stay feasible on eBay, negative feedback should be avoided or reversed at all costs.

That being said, there are plenty of profitable selling opportunities on eBay, given the prices some people are willing to pay for things.

Secondhand stuff is a bit of a tough sell becuase your opinion of the condition of an item could differ greatly from the buyer's opinion.

As a regular *buyer* on eBay nothing annoys me more than blurry photos and outright incorrect item descriptions. As others have said, make sure your photos are clear and your description is exact.

For example, I had a problem recently where I bought a 5.25" floppy drive. There was only one photo and it was blurry, and the item description was only a couple of words along the lines of "old floppy drive". I bought it in good faith, but when it arrived the faceplate had a massive crack in it that looked terrible. The seller had taken the single photo from an angle where you could barely see the crack. I complained on the grounds that the item was damaged and the damage wasn't stated at the time I placed my bid, and asked to either return it at the seller's expense or for a discount since the drive at least worked so I could keep it as a spare. The seller refused, saying this kind of damage is normal for items 40 years old. I had to point out that the drive manufacture date was only 23 years ago, the item wasn't listed "as is", the damage wasn't stated in the auction listing and the photo was blurry and didn't clearly show the problem. He insisted this damage was normal and refused to pay return shipping or give me a partial refund and referred the matter to eBay, who agreed with my arguments and gave me a full refund, which resulted in a rant from the seller about how buyers are holding him to ransom.

Instead, had the photos clearly shown the crack, and had he listed it using the magic eBay words "as is", then eBay would (I hope) have found in his favour instead - of course had he done that I wouldn't have bought the item, or if I had I wouldn't have complained about it because the damage wouldn't have been an unpleasant surprise.

The moral of the story is to give as much detail as possible so the buyer can make up their own mind and won't get any surprises. You kind of have to think like a lawyer, imagine what people will complain about, then include evidence against those arguments in the item listing. If it's a motherboard, take some side-on photos so you can see whether the capacitors are bulging or not. Or just say outright the board works but the condition of the capacitors is unknown due to age, so returns won't be accepted based on problems with capacitors. Then anyone without soldering skills can just avoid the auction. If someone does complain, you can just point to your item listing where you clearly covered the issue. eBay now has seller protection for cases like this too, which I believe (never had to use it) means you won't be out of pocket if the buyer unreasonably demands a refund (but of course it only covers you if your listing was 100% accurate and it was the buyer's mistake.)

It probably does take a bit of experience to figure out what buyers are likely to complain about, and as others have said, some people will just leave negative feedback because they are negative people, so there's not really much you can do about that. If you're a low volume seller just leave a comment against the negative feedback - most buyers will either not notice the negative or read your response and figure out who they believe, so it's not such a big deal for those who only sell here and there.

I sold some motherboards on eBay several years ago. They can be a pain. It's a complicated component that can lead to countless reasons for the buyer to be unhappy. If you want a good price then they require a lot of testing and a lot of description. In spite of your efforts, the buyer can still end up not setting something up correctly, or find some function that isn't working as expected, or there's some incompatibility with their hardware, etc. At this point you either have to try to help them fix the problem (assuming they're coherent, friendly, and interested in being helped), or give up with a return/refund/etc.

I got into the habit of writing detailed ads describing everything I wanted the buyer to know, but writing an ad like that became a burden. Plus there are still people who buy stuff without reading.
Writing detailed descriptions may be a double edged sword - anything you say in the ad better be completely accurate, or the buyer might use the ad to blame you for whatever misunderstanding occurs. Perhaps just telling buyers to "do your own research" is safer from that point of view.
In practice, I don't recall an ad of mine getting blamed for a misunderstanding. What did happen was people who didn't read or missed some important point, probably because the ad was too long.

Shipping keeps getting more expensive, and we're at the point now where shipping plus fees will cost as much as many boards are worth. If there's any problem with the transaction, some of today's buyers will expect you to eat the shipping cost both directions, or let them keep the item for free. In the end, nobody makes money except the post office. For boards that aren't worth much, it's probably best to sell the item "as-is" and minimize your liability.
I like when sellers have a separately itemized shipping charge with a good combined shipping discount, and a correspondingly lower price on the individual items. Then I can buy multiple items to be shipped together, which makes it more economical for everyone. You can even mention in your ad that you have other items offered with combined shipping, and some people will check them out. The only problem with this is that some buyers believe in the "free" shipping gimmick and might ignorantly ding your feedback for calculating it separately.

If you want selling motherboards to be as painless as possible and don't mind getting less money for the sale, then a simple description "as-is" "do your own research" coupled with clear photos is probably the way to go. I would also declare whether the item works and has anything obviously broken, but this also could be used to put you on the hook for those claims.
If a board seems temperamental or it plain doesn't work then make sure you say so - otherwise the buyer will feel deceived. Declaring the item as non-working minimizes your liability but you won't get much money for it.

It's probably best to always look for any physical defects (broken sockets, etc) and declare them directly. Bulged capacitors are a well known issue nowadays so buyers will look for them. The reality is that some types of old motherboards almost always have bulged caps. I pretty much expect it from old boards, but some people who can't solder are still prone to be upset about it.
I personally think that if you tested the board working and didn't make any claims about the condition of caps or other low level electrical components then you should be in the clear, but getting an eBay employee to rule in your favor would probably come down to luck.

I think bundling the CPU and RAM was probably a good idea, as it could cut down on buyers having compatibility issues and thinking that the board is to blame.

It's certainly possible to overlook things that buyers think are obvious. I once sold an old camera and got a neutral feedback complaining about a blemish on one side that had not been declared. I had honestly never thought about it.

If you respond to feedback, always use a pleasant tone and direct it at future potential buyers, not the buyer who you're angry at. You don't want future buyers to perceive you as hostile or difficult to deal with. The goal should be to make it look better than it was without your response.
Unfortunately eBay's feedback comments are so pitifully short that it's hard to say much more than "YAY great buyer wowwow A+++" before you run out of characters.

AllUrBaseRBelong2Us wrote:

Not sure if this is off-topic, but I'm curious about other people's experiences selling old hardware on eBay, and also I would like some perspective on my recent experience.

If you know what you're doing you will have no problems selling on eBay.

AllUrBaseRBelong2Us wrote:

The buyer gets the board and lets me know it has three swollen capacitors and he wants his money back.

It should been either way pictured very well so the buyer could see it or described in the listing. It's the best to do both.

AllUrBaseRBelong2Us wrote:

I didn't really think to inspect my boards closely at the component level and take note of each imperfection.

That was your mistake number 1. It especially applies to used items.