have to read the auctions, and check things, don't assume, a lot of people lie on ebay about testing things, and a lot of people don't have the equipment to test what they are selling.

I would consider you lucky the sellers you have had trouble with didn't just send you garbage parts and instead cancelled the transactions on their end. Things like that are why generally I try to stick to buying from folks I've bought from before, even if their prices aren't necessarily the cheapest.

These sellers I dealt with were large number of different items sellers except one, the seller did have with small personal collection of stuff to sell who refused to sell it to me by backing out after I purchased. Yes all the money were refunded.

By the way, I am old time ebay user for just over 20 years, same ebay handle no less.

Reason I was muttering about is what a coincidence of compact flash I was trying to get in span of few days all backed out of selling to me after I purchased them. And couple sellers of SSDs as well too, in same time-frame about a week before.

Cheers, Jason

I've had someone back out a couple times, but literally only a couple since ~2000. I tried to get a Discman once from someone -- a model I had loved as a college student and someone "borrowed" permanently. Seller said "the LCD started flaking out and I didn't want to sell a broken product." Kind of appreciated it, OTOH, probably could've repaired it.

I think part of my luck, though, is that I don't tend to buy stuff on Ebay that I can get from less seedy places. Flash drives? SSDs? On Ebay? Naahhh... I'm good. I know CF cards aren't exactly commonplace anymore, so you do what you have to do. But Adrian Black just posted a video about buying SRAM chips on Ebay and having them go bad after a couple uses. Stuff you could still get from real parts houses. Just .... why? Is the $2 you save really that important?

"Tested" means "wasn't on fire when I shipped it" and not much more, IMO. I've bought several 1- to 5GB Western Digital Caviar drives that were DOA or obviously goners with one platter in the grave. I knew going in that was likely to happen, since those models are known to fail often. I noticed a disparity between sellers, with some selling them for $15, and others for $150. I would imagine the latter were actually tested and still functional, while the former were.. just not presently on fire. But who knows? There's no guarantee of sanity with retro component pricing, so it could just be inflated sense of worth for a part that is every bit as broken.

Are you checking seller ratings first?

I almost gambled when I bought another Pentium laptop: Toshiba Satellite Pro 410CDT that was sold as untested, as-is. Decided to bid on it a week ago anyway and won the auction. I then bought an external FDD from another seller and received both in 1 day. I plugged in the laptop and the external FDD to see what happens and it powered on the first time in a long time. Needs new CMOS (3.6V) and Resume (7.2V) Ni-MH batteries and the Li-Ion rechargeable does charge.

The laptop is functioning without issues, except the HDD is starting to go (will archive the files onto a flash drive once I boot from a live version of Linux), so I replaced the HDD with a CF to IDE adapter, which works without issues. Then, the CD drive wouldn't work. First, the laser spindle motor was stuck, so I spun it around to get it free, then oiled it, and it still works. Second, the laser is completely dead. Older CD drives always had issues to begin with anyway. I will buy another drive, source backup batteries, replace the keyboard holder, keyboard or pointer (sticky), and the mouse buttons as they are sticky. Fortunately, the FDD works and one way to install Windows 95 Upgrade and Plus! 95 required me to copy the files from the CD to the CF card on my main laptop.

kolderman wrote:

Are you checking seller ratings first?

This right here.

Checked their rating. All are good.

Cheers, Jason

How would the person who had a bad email for Paypal even have any rating? I guess they could have only purchased from sellers that accept credit cards directly.

Seems really strange that you would have multiple sellers cancel sales to the same buyer for the same type of item in a very short span of time. Something smells fishy.

I buy and sell a lot on eBay so I kinda have a good feel for how stuff works there.

When they say an item is tested working, I assume they haven't tested it. If there is a blurry picture, I assume they're hiding something; if I can't see part of the item, I assume they're hiding something. If the price is suspiciously low, I assume they're hiding something. This isn't always the case, but it keeps my expectations in check and prepares me move on any outcome.

Either way, having it in writing gives you standing. For blurry/missing pictures, I ask them about if the item has any cosmetic damage or is missing any original parts. If I can't get it in writing to my satisfaction, I won't bid.

Ebayers are going to Ebay. My biggest enemy is myself, as most of my problems are a result of me:

1. not examining the item thoroughly enough upon receipt
2. due to unfamiliarity with an item, not knowing what kinds of damage to look for
3. not testing the item soon enough

For every big box copy of Doom shipped in the actual big box or Voodoo 5 5500 AGP shipped without a box (both actually happened), there are eight other instances of me doing a, b, or c.

I won a boxed PC game on ebay for 1 GBP a week ago and I still haven't been able to get the seller to send me an invoice for the total including shipping.

He's basically refusing to sell it because I nabbed it so cheap.

And there is no way of reporting this other than leaving a negative feedback and forfeiting the purchase.

😵

appiah4 wrote:

I won a boxed PC game on ebay for 1 GBP a week ago and I still haven't been able to get the seller to send me an invoice for the […]
Show full quote

I won a boxed PC game on ebay for 1 GBP a week ago and I still haven't been able to get the seller to send me an invoice for the total including shipping.

He's basically refusing to sell it because I nabbed it so cheap.

And there is no way of reporting this other than leaving a negative feedback and forfeiting the purchase.

😵

You hate to see this. Please follow through and leave negative feedback. Like you said, that's all you can do.

If it were up to me, I'd ban users for doing this after one warning. After explaining the ability to set a reserve, use buy it now, or set a higher starting bid, second offenders would get the boot. If you risk a low starting price to attract bidders, you must accept the consequences as you would the reward.

Just had the refund on a BIN for the Cisco aeronet for my 486 this morning. Just a refund, no reason given. Just ordered another and a Wavelan Silver for less from two places so if one cancels....I get the other.

someone is selling this card as "tested - fully working" 🤣

piatd wrote:

If you risk a low starting price to attract bidders, you must accept the consequences as you would the reward.

My guess is this is the problem in most cases and believe me it’s not fully the sellers fault.
Years ago I could see this a million miles away as becoming a guaranteed problem as eBay became less popular with fewer bidders.
eBay also eliminated the ability of person to person communication, which on rare items was important since you could spam a failed buyer of said item by sharing your eBay listing with a hey I have this for sale too.
As much as people hate spam eBay is very poor at sending internal automated you might also be interested in emails that actually are anything you would want. I had many sales that were 100% because I sent an eBay message to the single buyer of said items, in many cases they thanked me as they weren’t on eBay looking at eBay listings at that point.

If your a small seller but not so small as to get free listings you get raped by eBay if you list it at an appropriate starting amount , your listings also get buried
eBay favors large Chinese zombie sellers.

Because eBay has lost the community aspect traded for large foreign corporate garbage its lost most of its charm
(One of the reasons I don’t use amazon either).

Sad but true.

I dont sell on ebay anymore too many times now you get buys swapping out your rare item with something else or says is broken, or missing they get their money back and you get something else in return. feedback is meaningless.

BloodyCactus wrote:

I dont sell on ebay anymore too many times now you get buys swapping out your rare item with something else or says is broken, or missing they get their money back and you get something else in return. feedback is meaningless.

That’s why I sold everything working or not as broken without returns and took the hit on value.

I haven’t sold on eBay in 8 years and haven’t bought in 6,
I was one of those odd folks that was about 50/50 buyer/seller, very rare to find that in the current environment.

What did me in near the end was that I always started every listing for years @ 0.99 and never had an issue but then it became the situation where I didn’t even get a single bid on 0.99 XTs, Tandy’s or other stuff I once had, the market really crapped itself and eBay started charging more.

Because I got so few eyeballs I just gave up.

my guess is they don’t allow “no returns” sales anymore either,
yet I still had good feedback go figure.

appiah4 wrote:

I won a boxed PC game on ebay for 1 GBP a week ago and I still haven't been able to get the seller to send me an invoice for the […]
Show full quote

I won a boxed PC game on ebay for 1 GBP a week ago and I still haven't been able to get the seller to send me an invoice for the total including shipping.

He's basically refusing to sell it because I nabbed it so cheap.

And there is no way of reporting this other than leaving a negative feedback and forfeiting the purchase.

😵

It's a good idea to offer to pay a little extra in these situations. Otherwise the item gets 'lost in the post' or 'broken during packaging', or the seller just can't remember where they left it, or some other mysterious obstacle prevents you from getting it. I've been though this enough times to know the routine.