I probably have everyone beat here.

So I sell a i7 6700k a ways back for around $380, the guy that buys it says he put it in a alienware and it did not work. Having worked on alienwares I asked him what model it was and lo and behold he needed a bios update but he refused to do so he filed a fake NAD case and retuned it.

Well the cpu I got back was not the same cpu I sent him, he removed the serial number and all other markings on the cpu. I filed a appeal witch I lost and took a look at his feed back, he has done this crap before and had a few fake positive feed backs. I contracted everyone that left him fake feedback to find out what went on with them. Meanwhile I file a mail farad case and IC3 and recommended the other sellers that got scammed to do the same.
I also filed a dispute with paypal for taking money out of my account for repaying the scammer witch I won that case.

I won the paypal case and got my money back, then a few weeks later I get a nock on my door, its the feds, the guy was arrested for mail fraud. I never got my cpu back, but I was repaid by the feds and paypal. 😀 The hole ordeal took about 4 mouths and now the scammer probably has a 300+ lb 6.5ft gay guy for a room mate 😲

EDIT:
Pro tip, don't hold money in your paypal, when ebay charges your paypal repay it and do nothing for 2-4 weeks, then open a case on the charge stating that you never received the item bought, ebay will not answer the case and your get you money back.
Also always use two paypal accounts when selling on ebay. One to receive payments and one to withdrawal them to your bank.
It someone files a fake NAD open a new paypal for receiving payments so that you don't have to lose out on sales wile dealing with the dispute.

I stopped selling on ebay after my first sale. I sold a shuttle 486 board to a (nice) guy from New Zealand - the sale went OK - I provided detailed pictures and a youtube clip - even marked the board so he could be assured he was getting the board I demo'd on youtube- so no problems with the buyer - BUT:

- shipping was a pita. I had to spend 40 euro !!! to ship the package because it was a little over 1kg, and I posted shipping as 24 euro - right off the romanian post office's site where they have a bullshit shipping rate calculator. That left me a ~46 euro for the board,

- ebay and paypal's cut - out of the 46 eruo that remained after shipping the board out of witch ebay took 12 euro and paypal 2 euro. I was left with 32 euro and a huge headache. For that kind of money I could have easily sold it locally (witch means I wouldn't have to wait 1 month for the money and no shipping / packaging / testing and uploading to youtube / email hassle) - so that's the last time I use ebay to sell stuff. F#*k ebay, and f%)k paypal.

Got another one.

I sold 4 sticks of ram, the buyer states that 2 sticks do not work. I asked him to try a few things to be sure its the ram.
I asked for the mobo model too. Funny thing his mobo only had two ram slots.

He files a fake NAD and won, but eBay made him ship back the ram. Get this I only get two sticks, and his motherboard only had 2 ram slots. So he gets new ram for free. The ram I get back looked like he ran it though a blinder. I filed a Mail fraud report and appeal tough eBay, EBay payed me off and let the buyer keep his refund too.

That reminds me one time a buyer returned 486sx + mobo combo with CPU rotated 90 degrees. Luckily I spotted that out before running any tests.

I traded in my Nintendo DS Lite, and figured I could sell the box and manuals on eBay. Some people like that sort of thing, y'see. I carefully listed an auction title along the lines of "Nintendo DS Lite EMPTY BOX!" and wrote repeatedly in BOLD that THIS AUCTION IS FOR AN EMPTY BOX.

Item sells (quite cheaply) and I ship it off. A few hours later I get a NAD report. The guy says he bought it because he was "planning to fix it" (as if I said something was broken..?) and he got "so excited" he didn't read to the end of the title.

I could have fought it but this guy seems like an illiterate psychopath and has my contact information, so I tell him fine, mark it return to sender and I'll give you a refund when it comes back. (I am sufficiently terrified about what is going on that I stay home from work one morning to wait for the mail.) That's when I find out that the post office actually charges for return postage on parcels.

I paid up and eventually sold the box to another bidder. I've sold a couple of items like that since then, but I have been much more careful in listing them.

kanecvr wrote:

- shipping was a pita. I had to spend 40 euro !!! to ship the package because it was a little over 1kg, and I posted shipping as 24 euro - right off the romanian post office's site where they have a bullshit shipping rate calculator. That left me a ~46 euro for the board,

Yes, on many occasions I have packaged up items and taken them directly to the post office to get shipping quotes before listing the item. The post office shipping calculator seems to have been a little more reliable as of late, though.

Last year I sold a Pentium 4 2.8GHz Prescott chip for $5.95 + $2.50 shipping. Buyer bought the chip on a Thursday evening, I shipped out on Monday, since I couldn't get to it right away. Went to drop off, but forgot Monday was a holiday, so I promptly contacted the buyer of the error, and would immediately ship out the following morning.

Buyer replied with an angry message demanding I refund them $2.50 shipping charge for "incovenience", and continued to lecture me on how I had all this time to ship (I was still in the appropriate timeframe, mind you; my listing clearly states that it can take up to 3 business days [excluding holdiays]). I explained to this person that I was in my timeframe, and Ebay confirmed this, and explained that listing clearly stated shipping times, and I would refund them, just to be nice. Well, I didn't refund him because Paypal wouldn't allow a partial refund, only a full refund; tried the "send money" option, but Paypal would not allow it. So...buyer receives item. Two or three days later I get this:

We had a heated exchange after I got the CPU back and tested it with MemTest and Prime95. I was being cordial with this person, but he continued to act like an arrogant prick; rude, and accused me of dishonestly listing the item as working. (It was working just fine before I sent it because I tested it.) Round and round he lectured me about how I don't know what I am talking about, and how "Prime95 doesn't compare to real-world applications and usage." Finally he replied back asking if I was such-and-such at Business X, and arrogantly asked "what do you know about computers?"

Mind you, I ship my items out from my place of employment, but it does NOT state the name of the business. I knew at that point he was going too far, and I made a call to Ebay...and did nothing. I had multiple agents, two of which believed he was having 'buyers remorse" another knew his explanation was a bunch of nonsense, and told me to file an extortion case because of those comments, which their fraud department didn't think it was extortion and dropped the case, and a week later ruled in his favor, and he left negative feedback.

When I got the Pentium 4 back, I extensively tested it with Prime95 for over 48 hours in two machines, without any issues. Left the computer running for nearly a week without a problem either. I took screenshots and camera shots of the result and the identifying information to show I wasn't just using any CPU. I filed for a fraudulent return this time, with the evidence, but Ebay didn't care, and didn't want to hear about it.

I put the CPU back up for sale with the same exact listing, and sold it under a week, and got positive feedback from the new buyer.

The postal price rises of 2008+ really put a dent in profitability of eBay.

Brickpad you would file a mail fraud case with the Post office

Errius wrote:

The postal price rises of 2008+ really put a dent in profitability of eBay.

What was it like before 2008? I came to the US in 2009 so I don't know nothin' about it.

I think it was like .10$ more an once or something.
I have a old postal scale from the 80's with the rates on it. Back in 82 it was like 1.50$ to ship a 1lb box.

lazibayer wrote:

Errius wrote:

The postal price rises of 2008+ really put a dent in profitability of eBay.

What was it like before 2008? I came to the US in 2009 so I don't know nothin' about it.

Basically half of what they were in many other countries. So while it would cost me 40 Euros to ship something large to the US and it would be very slow, shipping from the US to the Netherlands would cost only 20 bucks and be fast. Now the inverse is true.

Jade Falcon wrote:

I think it was like .10$ more an once or something.
I have a old postal scale from the 80's with the rates on it. Back in 82 it was like 1.50$ to ship a 1lb box.

I remember the heyday of Priority Mail.. 2 Days, 2 Pounds, $2.90!

Now it costs $6.something for the first pound, and regularly takes 3-4 days.

Never used Ebay, and never will.

Mint Gateway 2000 P5-60 desktop shipped in a box 2 sizes too big... without any packing material whatsoever. I received the box and almost lost my mind. The thing was bent to hell with the front panel completely detached and various screws/plastic strewn about the inside of the box. Fortunately the system still worked but had to really heat up and bend the frame back in place. Still pisses me off just to think about it... GRRRR.

Just got my hard drive returned from the buyer. Not via ebay, though; the transaction was made on Amazon. I took the photo right after I opened the box.

Thank god (or maybe Seagate) the drive is still alive.

I've never sold on Ebay, but my experiences have been pretty good.

My negative experiences are as follows.

An AWE64 that was missing everything but the PCM sampling section of the card (No OPL2/3 or MIDI whatsoever) returned, no issues.

128MB of EDO ram that I had bought under the listing of FPM, returned, no issues.

But those are my only two issues I have had, and that was when building a 486. My Pentium 3 machine was purchased with no problem in the slightest.

Brickpad wrote:

Last year I sold a Pentium 4 2.8GHz Prescott chip for $5.95 + $2.50 shipping. Buyer bought the chip on a Thursday evening, I shi […]
Show full quote

Last year I sold a Pentium 4 2.8GHz Prescott chip for $5.95 + $2.50 shipping. Buyer bought the chip on a Thursday evening, I shipped out on Monday, since I couldn't get to it right away. Went to drop off, but forgot Monday was a holiday, so I promptly contacted the buyer of the error, and would immediately ship out the following morning.

Buyer replied with an angry message demanding I refund them $2.50 shipping charge for "incovenience", and continued to lecture me on how I had all this time to ship (I was still in the appropriate timeframe, mind you; my listing clearly states that it can take up to 3 business days [excluding holdiays]). I explained to this person that I was in my timeframe, and Ebay confirmed this, and explained that listing clearly stated shipping times, and I would refund them, just to be nice. Well, I didn't refund him because Paypal wouldn't allow a partial refund, only a full refund; tried the "send money" option, but Paypal would not allow it. So...buyer receives item. Two or three days later I get this:

Extortion2.PNG

We had a heated exchange after I got the CPU back and tested it with MemTest and Prime95. I was being cordial with this person, but he continued to act like an arrogant prick; rude, and accused me of dishonestly listing the item as working. (It was working just fine before I sent it because I tested it.) Round and round he lectured me about how I don't know what I am talking about, and how "Prime95 doesn't compare to real-world applications and usage." Finally he replied back asking if I was such-and-such at Business X, and arrogantly asked "what do you know about computers?"

Mind you, I ship my items out from my place of employment, but it does NOT state the name of the business. I knew at that point he was going too far, and I made a call to Ebay...and did nothing. I had multiple agents, two of which believed he was having 'buyers remorse" another knew his explanation was a bunch of nonsense, and told me to file an extortion case because of those comments, which their fraud department didn't think it was extortion and dropped the case, and a week later ruled in his favor, and he left negative feedback.

When I got the Pentium 4 back, I extensively tested it with Prime95 for over 48 hours in two machines, without any issues. Left the computer running for nearly a week without a problem either. I took screenshots and camera shots of the result and the identifying information to show I wasn't just using any CPU. I filed for a fraudulent return this time, with the evidence, but Ebay didn't care, and didn't want to hear about it.

I put the CPU back up for sale with the same exact listing, and sold it under a week, and got positive feedback from the new buyer.

Rarely, I have noticed that motherboards sometimes cannot handle faster processors, even if they are identical to the original, with the exception being higher multipliers. In general, though, there are way too many variables. Sounds like way too much hassle for a $6 item. Even if everything goes well, selling something for $6 on ebay just is not worth the time and effort. I haven't sold anything on eBay in over 10 years because the money coming in just isn't worth the hassle. Think of how much time and stress this consumes. Then calculate how much you make at your day job. My eBay selling days are over unless I am about to default on my mortgage payment.

Artex wrote:

Mint Gateway 2000 P5-60 desktop shipped in a box 2 sizes too big... without any packing material whatsoever. I received the box and almost lost my mind. The thing was bent to hell with the front panel completely detached and various screws/plastic strewn about the inside of the box. Fortunately the system still worked but had to really heat up and bend the frame back in place. Still pisses me off just to think about it... GRRRR.

I had the exact same thing happen, although the boxes were way too small and no padding was used. The two cases were just as you described. I filed a complaint with UPS. They refunded the shipping cost and never took the damaged goods away, claiming it costs them too much.

I sold an FX5900XT Pixel Link Proview Limited Golden Edition to a guy back in 2006, it was working fine when I shipped it, was in an anti static bag, surrounded by bubble rap in a box, that i then put into another box with packing peanuts and shipped it off. The guy went insane, it arrived but wouldn't post, I offered to refund him, and he demanded i pay him extra because of his inconvenience, tried to file mail fraud against me, which I found out when I got interviewed, because he claimed I was intentionally cheating people out of their money by selling broken merchandise on purpose and listing it as good.