Hmm haven't had bad experiences, mostly positives ones with disputes always going my way and getting my money back.

I do find sellers from Asia absolutely fantastic and very forthcoming. So I shop mostly with them and they have usually no shipping costs. I always wonder how they ship stuff so cheap, whereas if I want to post something overseas it costs a fortune, like 10 times as much. Well it's good for their export, so clearly their postal system / government has recognised the value if cheap overseas shipping.

Mau1wurf1977 wrote:

Hmm haven't had bad experiences, mostly positives ones with disputes always going my way and getting my money back

But, if you have a dispute, and have to go to the trouble of returning your item (AND paying the Return Shipping cost yourself)...is that really a "positive experience"? But I know what you mean...and you're right, eBay is usually very good about protecting the Buyer from getting totally cheated when the Seller has misrepresented the item.

Never had to do that as usually the return shipping is more than the item (at from Australia, it is VERY expensive). So you mention this in the dispute.

With the sellers from Asia, they give you a refund or send you a new item straight away. Very customer friendly.

These are all new items though. Things I use in my Time-Machine like SATA PCI cards, drive bays, CF adapters..

I had a "deluxe" HDD bay which can take a 3.5" AND 2.5" in a single 5.25" bay. I pulled the latch and it snapped right off. I explained the situation and got a refund straight away without having to go through a dispute.

I agree that Asian sellers are usually extremely fair and cooperative. The vast majority of Sellers are fair...even though eBay has been making it harder on them to make a decent profit from their sales, with increased fees and such.

mhm been using ebay since 2007 I think and yes it was freindlier back in the those years I remember not being spammed that much by ebay, still I think its a good marketplace and if you find decent sellers its always a joy just make sure to keep a good and polite contact with the seller and check out his trackrecord.

None of my potentially negative eBay experiences ended badly and I can even count them all on one hand:

1. Wanted to buy something from a seller and had hit buy-it-now, but needed to know a full shipping amount before I could send payment. Seller never got back to me and their phone number wasn't working. Sent a message to eBay about it and eventually the seller's account was shut down. Didn't get my item but never paid for it anyways. :P

2. Bought one game and was sent another. Seller offered to send me the correct game free of charge and did so. :)

3. Bought a board game that was missing a few pieces. Figured out exactly which pieces and told the seller... who sent me an ENTIRE SECOND COPY of the game for free... which was also missing pieces, but by combining pieces from both I ended up with a complete game. :D

4. Bought a DVD box set that turned out to be bootlegs from a seller with almost nothing but positive feedback for nearly a year. Told the seller about this and they refunded not only the full price plus shipping but also the cost to ship the DVDs BACK. Curiously, a few weeks later, this seller had numerous negative feedbacks for bootlegs and had their account revoked.

...so yeah, even when things go wrong I've either ended up with the right stuff in the end or back to the same state I started in. *shrugs*

I will admit though, I don't buy a lot of stuff on eBay. My account rating only recently exceeded 50 for the next star colour and I've had the account since early 2001. :P

My problems from Ebay stem from people that have no idea what they're selling.

Darkseed 2 - Got 2 copies for Mac before getting the Windows version.
Also this.

Isle Of The Dead - Got a CD World compilation disc.

Master Levels For Doom 2 - A Doom 2 Disk in the Master Levels CD case. Cost more to ship back than I was refunded.

I have far more complaints about Amazon than I do with Ebay. Though both market places have been quick to resolve them favorably.

Actually, when I started this thread, I was intending to ask mostly about people's experiences with flaws in the eBay "system" -- but I'm getting mostly comments on people's thoughts about eBay's individual Sellers' behavior. But that's fine too.

In fact, as long as we're talking about Seller behavior that can be irksome -- doncha just love it when you get an old hard-to-find game Complete In Box...and the nice Seller has gone to the trouble to ship it in wrapping paper instead of an outer hard box? SQUISSSHH SPLATTT!

yes I know what you mean thats why you always should draw his attention to pack it secure, just be polite and explain it to him that you are a collector and care for the package to arrive secure and most people will understand, I also hate it when people dont know how to secure game packages or discs. I did order some Xbox 360 games from Ebay once (I think Halo 3 and ODST) and they all did arrive just fine but the seller used clear duct tape to secure the discs inside the case which is a very stupid thing to do because when I tried to carefully take off the duct tape some of the nice disc surface came off 🙁 the disc worked and installed just fine on the Xbox 360 thou but the gamedisc looked messed up with some of the cover art being scratched, it would have been so much easier if the seller would actually put in some normal newspaper into the gamecases to secure the movement of the discs inside the cases and not duct tape or just put them into normal paper envelopes for DVDs and put them in the case with newspaper around but oh well 😒 I also hate removing duct tape traces or price tags from game cases its just so damn annoying....

I think the ebay system itself is good and I have only positive things to say about it. Paypal on the other hand....

I guess the only bad thing I'll say about ebay is what they charge for you to sell something is too high. There fee's are generally too high.

fees to add a single picture, fees for 8 more pictures, fees for subtitle, fees for another title settling. it continues and ....it all adds up. Then there fee's when you sell the item are pretty high. Plus if the buyer doesn't pay you have to start sending out emails and contacting ebay.

I wonder how many billions of dollars then have made since they started.

I had a user change the postage price on me and I just left him negative feedback and he refused to sell to me again. Which is a good trade.

digitaldoofus wrote:

As a longtime eBay user, it is my opinion that almost everything eBay has changed over the past decade...has been for the WORSE. […]
Show full quote

As a longtime eBay user, it is my opinion that almost everything eBay has changed over the past decade...has been for the WORSE. Please use this thread to voice your own favorite rants against the many flaws in eBay.

Let me start things off by noting a disturbing practice of which many of you might not be aware:

Did you know that eBay's checkout system actually allows the Seller -- *after* the auction ends -- to CHANGE (i.e., RAISE) the stated Shipping Cost at which you won your auction...WITHOUT YOUR KNOWLEDGE? In other words, after the auction is OVER, eBay allows the Seller to come in and RAISE (without the Buyer's permission) the end-shipping charges that were stated at the auction end. Sounds fair, right?? RIIIGGGGHHHT...

This has happened twice to me in the past two months. One time, the Seller changed the postage cost of a simple (small) paper wall-poster from $4 to $10. The second time, a Seller changed the shipping on a simple Keyboard from $10 to over $47...just for shipping the keyboard! In both auctions, the Sellers and myself were, and are, residents of the USA.

So, what's YOUR favorite eBay rant?

I would refuse to pay and file a complaint with ebay if that happened. If ebay refused to help me, I would still refuse to pay and neg the seller. Sellers can't neg buyers anymore so what do you have to lose?

sliderider wrote:

digitaldoofus wrote:

One time, the Seller changed the postage cost of a simple (small) paper wall-poster from $4 to $10. The second time, a Seller changed the shipping on a simple Keyboard from $10 to over $47...just for shipping the keyboard! In both auctions, the Sellers and myself were, and are, residents of the USA.

So, what's YOUR favorite eBay rant?

I would refuse to pay and file a complaint with ebay if that happened. If ebay refused to help me, I would still refuse to pay and neg the seller. Sellers can't neg buyers anymore so what do you have to lose?

Yes, that's sort of what happened. In both cases, I refused to pay the inflated shipping, and the when the Sellers realized they were "caught", they eventually lowered the shipping to a (near) reasonable shipping rate. But I have to wonder...what about all the people out there who buy items, and they don't pay as much attention as I do, and they end up getting burned by dishonest Sellers? You see, under the current check-out system, the Seller can simply modify the Shipping charge and send you an "official" looking eBay/PayPal INVOICE that might make some unsuspecting buyers think "Oh well, maybe I just didn't notice the shipping was so high on this item, but I guess it was so I'll pay what I owe". Or else, other buyers just might not pay attention and pay it automatically without realizing that they are being cheated.

My gripe is, that eBay should disallow the Seller in the Checkout procedure from modifying the Shipping charge and generating an Invoice unless the Buyer agrees to any potential changes ahead of time. This solution wouldn't be hard to implement