Beedster

Looks like fun

Folks I've frankly had it with eBay and PayPal following a lengthy battle to get them to sort out a situation between me and a really quite untrustworthy and unpleasant buyer. I won't go into details, but they're here if you'd like to see more Problem is that this has come at a point in time when I need to offload a lot of music gear to cover the overspend on a recent build at our house. So, a guy who was going to buy one of my guitars through eBay suggested that I re-list the gear on Reverb. I used Reverb once - as a buyer - and it wasn't a great experience to be honest. So, has anyone here used it as a seller, and has anything to say to either encourage or discourage me from selling gear there. I'm especially thinking in terms of getting paid to be honest; it all looks too good to be true, and my worry is that I will face just the same set of problems I've faced with eBay/PayPal, but with a platform that, as far as I can tell, links directly to my bank, which thank God, PayPal didn't! Thoughts, experience, comments most welcome Cheers Chris

I refunded him as soon as I cancelled the deal, but he is, I guess, one of those obsessives who rather than realising that he wasn't going to get a quick £600 profit, decided that he was going to try to bully me into the deal again. He told me "eBay have told me that my next step is to contact the Police and report you for theft". Um, theft of what, I have my bass, you have your money? I think in his head I owed him the £600 quid uplift he thought he as going to make on the bass (funnily enough the guy who eventually bought it from me saw the other listing, and then when he saw mine, initially thought I was a scammer. He in fact very nearly bought it from the idiot, but contacted me just to be sure). I'm not sure I understand any of this any more so I'm guessing no-one else has got a clue!

Sorry, did I mention that this was now resolved? I wish. I finally sold my Ovation 12-string yesterday, the buyer paid immediately by PayPal, and PayPal in turn sent me an email saying that the money would not be in my account until 27th of June as the transaction is considered 'High Risk' by them. So, I called (not easy to get through) and apparently this is on account of the previous eBay buyer having raised a claim with PayPal as well as with eBay. I don't get the logic of his being able to do both, as eBay and PayPal are surely in effect the same organisation when you buy and pay on eBay, and eBay found in my favour anyway. But apparently that complaint, about which I knew nothing, is still live. Nice one eBay/PayPal

Ha ha, it's long gone I'm afraid, sold (via eBay I might add) within about an hour of listing it to a very nice gentleman in Italy who had the courtesy in buying the bass to apologise for the behaviour of his fellow countryman in leaving such crap feedback. Goes to show that the majority of folks are great, but that it only takes one to spoil it.

Well that wasn't entirely easy to resolve, and taught me a few things about eBay, the main one being that they will listen hardest to whichever party is prepared to shout the loudest (and this was a guy who sent all of his message IN CAPITALS so I'm guessing it was him, for a while at least). Also, and rather alarmingly, the person who eventually resolved it for me - a process which took several long conversations - suggested that eBay doesn't disclose the nature of complaints made, even to the person who is the focus of those complaints. In short, they initially said they couldn't remove the negative feedback because they had evidence from the seller that the feedback was accurate, but they could not share that evidence with me? Amazingly however, not one of the people I spoke to had actually read the eBay messages between me and the seller, and the guy who eventually did said "no brainer, he's clearly in the wrong", my negative feedback was removed and case closed within minutes. I'll be honest though, I found the whole thing quite stressful, the guy was clearly a little obsessed with getting his own way, and the constant messages and accusations just started to wear me down after a while. Anyway, lessons learned.

+1

The old 'anyone can play bass' routine. Let them do it and learn that not everyone can

Keyboard player set fire to me during the gig, City of London Poly, early 80's. Not entirely an act of musical criticism although I suspect that since we were both vying for the lower register at the time some degree of unconscious intent was involved. Lessons learned: (1) never let the stylist use a whole can of Elnett to get your hair in place, even if you are the bassist in a hair band, and (2) don't let the keyboard player flick cigarettes across the stage in your general direction when trying to act cool.

That 'feeling' has been with me the whole way through this, trying to anticipate exactly what the angle was. He was definitely up to something, I suspect he's just a bit greedy and perhaps not the sharpest knife so telegraphed it to me well in advance (which was nice of him), whereas a good conman would be gone well before I'd even noticed. But yes, that unease that sometjing was wrong was there all of the time.

The 'buyer' refused the eBay refund I sent and insisted that I send the bass, so I have refunded him directly through PayPal (and have an acknowledgment from eBay that he has now received it). I'm guessing from his tone that he'd already sold it (eBay listing closed early), had seen a nice £600 pay-day coming his way, and is now rather miffed. What goes around comes around eh