E-Bay Horror Stories (Or humourous Ones!)

[bassatnight]

Folks,

I have just put a couple of basses on E-Bay and have been inundated with stupid and in some cases incredible questions from potential buyers already. I have put a few of them below for your entertainment put have obviously removed the names etc - can anyone else top them!?

[i]HI,

I am seeing your bass on Web and want it. I have £150 I know that is lower than your starting cost but I am quite poor and like basses I think it is good to help poor people can I have your bass for that cost or lower please/?[/i]

[i]Hey,

I am new to E-bay can I reserve your bass as I get paid next week and will hopefully have the money then?[/i]

[i]Hi,

What is the reserve price? (I had 7 messages asking this)[/i]

[i]Hey,

I live near you can you call me?[/i]


I could put more up but I am still laughing/crying over these ones!

Steve.

[OldGit]

Some of those remind me of the begging adverts in Private Eye "trouble paying child's school fees. Please sent £50" etc ..

Incidentally I often ask the reserve and always tell people if they ask. I don't see the problem.

[bassatnight]

The reserve price is a tricky one as telling potential bidders may cause them not to bid at all and thus not knock the price up a bit but I do generally tell them. [quote name='OldGit' post='695453' date='Dec 29 2009, 10:51 AM']Some of those remind me of the begging adverts in Private Eye "trouble paying child's school fees. Please sent £50" etc ..

Incidentally I often ask the reserve and always tell people if they ask. I don't see the problem.[/quote]

[vmaxblues]

This one tickled me in a description...

[i]fretless jazz bass mex, useing in my indy band got to sell to play off student det[/i]

If I was him I would be asking for my money back!

[leftybassman392]

[quote name='vmaxblues' post='695458' date='Dec 29 2009, 10:55 AM']This one tickled me in a description...

[i]fretless jazz bass mex, useing in my indy band got to sell to play off student det[/i]

If I was him I would be asking for my money back![/quote]




...unless of course English isn't his first language

[bassatnight]

Just had a very irate person calling me the rudest person he has ever dealt with on E-bay in 10 years (He has only had an account for 4 years!)

He sends me a message demanding I call his expensive mobile number without giving a reason for the call (but no doubt wanting me to sell to him outside of E-Bays Protection) Then when I refuse to call him he sends me a tirade of hate telling me how bad a seller I am etc, he has 30 sales/buys and I have 400 all positive - Some people!


Steve. (losing it with mankind)

[bassatnight]

This was my rude response (apparently):

[i]Might be worth seeing if you win the auction first mate. I am afraid the reserve price is private. (I usually give it out but his bluntness annoyed me) As for ringing you, not sure why I would want to call you, as you haven't won the auction yet?[/i]

[quote name='bassatnight' post='695509' date='Dec 29 2009, 12:01 PM']Just had a very irate person calling me the rudest person he has ever dealt with on E-bay in 10 years (He has only had an account for 4 years!)

He sends me a message demanding I call his expensive mobile number without giving a reason for the call (but no doubt wanting me to sell to him outside of E-Bays Protection) Then when I refuse to call him he sends me a tirade of hate telling me how bad a seller I am etc, he has 30 sales/buys and I have 400 all positive - Some people!


Steve. (losing it with mankind)[/quote]

[Bassassin]

Ebay is full of idiots & scammers - my blocked bidders list grows pretty much every time I try & sell anything.

Re undisclosed reserves - it's something I completely fail to understand the point of. If I was unsure that an item would reach its market value with a low starting bid (99p, in my case) then I'd either start the auction at the lowest amount I'd be prepared to accept, or do a BIN with offers. I think secret reserve prices simply put people off - personally if a seller refuses to tell me the reserve, then I simply move on. As a buyer, the basic rule of Ebay is that another one will be along sooner or later, and be cheaper & better than the one you missed.

When selling I find it helps to discourage the tards by being very, very specific about the terms & conditions of the auction, and stick them in bold red underlined type at the beginning & end of your listing. After a few Ebay sales it's not hard to second-guess most of the questions, demands, requests etc, so you can just politely refer them to the conditions of your sale. If that doesn't put them off, block them. In the face.

Or just sell your stuff here.

Jon.

[PaulWarning]

[quote name='Bassassin' post='695538' date='Dec 29 2009, 12:29 PM']Ebay is full of idiots & scammers - my blocked bidders list grows pretty much every time I try & sell anything.

Re undisclosed reserves - it's something I completely fail to understand the point of. If I was unsure that an item would reach its market value with a low starting bid (99p, in my case) then I'd either start the auction at the lowest amount I'd be prepared to accept, or do a BIN with offers. I think secret reserve prices simply put people off - personally if a seller refuses to tell me the reserve, then I simply move on. As a buyer, the basic rule of Ebay is that another one will be along sooner or later, and be cheaper & better than the one you missed.

When selling I find it helps to discourage the tards by being very, very specific about the terms & conditions of the auction, and stick them in bold red underlined type at the beginning & end of your listing. After a few Ebay sales it's not hard to second-guess most of the questions, demands, requests etc, so you can just politely refer them to the conditions of your sale. If that doesn't put them off, block them. In the face.

Or just sell your stuff here.

Jon.[/quote]

I don't understand why people use reserve prices either, I never bid on them

[maxrossell]

I've essentially had it with eBay. It seems that the only way to make it work is to try to weasel people. You never win an auction by bidding honestly because there's always some guy with an auction sniper set up. You can never sell anything by just announcing the price you want for it because people would apparently rather you start at 99p and hope you don't end up making half what the item's worth. If you set a reserve price you can either announce it in the listing or field hundreds of emails asking what it is (thus maing it totally pointless). That, and of the last twenty-odd items I've sold on there, five of the buyrs contacted me afterwards and asked if I wouldn't mind cancelling the sale as they'd changed their minds.

There's no point buying anything new on a BIN on eBay because the same stuff can always be found cheaper elsewhere. Even if you find a guitar at a nice price the guy always wants fifty quid postage for it (presumably to offset his eBay and Paypal fees). Generally if it's too big to fit in a Jiffy bag a lot of sellers are just too lazy to shift their arses to a post office, so you have to go collect it at the other end of the country. Half the listings don't give enough information, the other half are full of crap about how rare and vintage and valuable their run-of-the-mill items are.

[lemmywinks]

It's not that bad Max, there's still a ton of bargains on there from perfectly legitimate sellers.

I buy most of my computer stuff on eBay, it's miles cheaper than anywhere else for the stuff i want

I got my Warwick Fortress this year for £250, also had one of these for the stupid price of £40:

[url="http://www.elonex.com/products/webbook_windows.shtm"]http://www.elonex.com/products/webbook_windows.shtm[/url]


There's always going to be idiots in every walk of life, i quite like digging up bargains but there's a hell of a lot of cr@p to trawl through. Same as a car boot i guess

[Rich]

[quote name='bassatnight' post='695445' date='Dec 29 2009, 10:46 AM'][i]HI,

I am seeing your bass on Web and want it. I have £150 I know that is lower than your starting cost but I am quite poor and like basses I think it is good to help poor people can I have your bass for that cost or lower please/?[/i][/quote]
Oh yes. That's an absolute belter :lol:

I see no problem with using an auction sniper if I know that I'm not going to be on line at the time the auction finishes -- e.g. during working hours, or at 2 in the morning or something.

[mrcrow]

[quote name='bassatnight' post='695445' date='Dec 29 2009, 10:46 AM']Folks,

I have just put a couple of basses on E-Bay and have been inundated with stupid and in some cases incredible questions from potential buyers already. I have put a few of them below for your entertainment put have obviously removed the names etc - can anyone else top them!?

[i]HI,

I am seeing your bass on Web and want it. I have £150 I know that is lower than your starting cost but I am quite poor and like basses I think it is good to help poor people can I have your bass for that cost or lower please/?[/i]

[i]Hey,

I am new to E-bay can I reserve your bass as I get paid next week and will hopefully have the money then?[/i]

[i]Hi,

What is the reserve price? (I had 7 messages asking this)[/i]

[i]Hey,

I live near you can you call me?[/i]


I could put more up but I am still laughing/crying over these ones!

Steve.[/quote]

never had any useless emails on ebay except the two ...how much to send to italy which i think were genuine

i have had instruments on a uk site which costs £1 a month for 8 months...most have sold to genuine..obviously..buyers
but i still get the ones which ask the price condition and would i take £3,000 more by bankers draft and the courier will pick it up in the morning..
apart from the obvious scam and poor english...all the particulars are on the site with comprehensive photos in a flikr slide show

i report them to the website and they list them on a black list

[Guest johnzgerman]

[quote name='maxrossell' post='695624' date='Dec 29 2009, 02:42 PM']I've essentially had it with eBay. It seems that the only way to make it work is to try to weasel people. You never win an auction by bidding honestly because there's always some guy with an auction sniper set up. You can never sell anything by just announcing the price you want for it because people would apparently rather you start at 99p and hope you don't end up making half what the item's worth.[/quote]

if someone snipes an item you are bidding on then they were clearly willing to pay more than you were for it so its perfectly fair (ebay advises people to bid the maximum amout they are willing to pay as it will keep bidding on your behalf up to your maximum amount) seems reasonable to me.

ebay is an auction site, sounds like im stating the obvious but a lot of people just put the price they want for the item as the starting bid. as this is almost always the same as or more than the item is worth it ceases to be an auction and no one bids on the item anyway because there is no longer a possibility of a bargin. its funny how the 99p auctions more often than not achieve higher prices because they have attracted lots of bidders with the low start price.

2 rules for buying really-make sure the listing is not dodgy(not hard if you do a bit of research into the seller first), and only bid the maximum amount you are willing to pay and of course do this at the very last moment so you catch out all the bidders who didnt bid the maximum they were willing to pay first time.

[Protium]

Currently got a buyer claiming an item broke in transit. I know for a fact that for it to be broken it would have to have been stamped on or hit with a great deal of force due to the masses of packaging around it. Plus four similar items have been delivered unscathed.

Now, I have all the forms here to send off to royal fail for a claim (I always send recorded delivery, just in case a buyer tries to stiff me... Well worth the 75p in this case). I've asked for pictures of the "damage" but conveniently his computer now crashes whenever he tries to upload photos. Hmm.

Its a pain in the arse now though as sellers can only leave positive feedback... What use is that?

[Conan]

Complicated innit?

I was under the impression that if you didn't set a reserve price, then you had to let the item go for whatever the highest (or only!) bidder was prepared to pay? Surely then, not putting a reserve on it is very risky as you could potentially have to virtually give away a valuable item!

On the other hand, an item is only worth what people are prepared to pay for it - so it kind of pisses me off when people list items for a certain price and refuse to go any lower. Why use an auction site? Just stick it in the local paper!

Or maybe I'm just jaded as the two basses I listed on there just before Christmas only just failed to reach their reserves...

[bassatnight]

It a tough one as the seller you want the most money possible for your item and as a buyer you want to pay the least amount possible.

If you have a Bass thats worth at least £1000 you would be an idiot to have no reserve and put it on at say a £10 start and if you start the auction at say £900 you just won't get any bids so from that perspective a reserve is common sense - it at least gets the ball rolling as it were, pepole with smaller budgets may think they will strike lucky and start bidding.

If you go to an auction house you will not be told a reserve price so why should E-bay be any different?

As a buyer on E-Bay you are looking for a bargain, you are hoping that someone with no sense will put an American Fender or a Wal or whatever on and sell for £250 so when you see the bass you really want and there is a reserve you are asking the seller because if the reserve is high (for you) you will look elsewhere and not bid. As the seller is it in your interest not to divulge the reserve and put potential bidders off?

I suppose the answer is already there on the site - as the reserve price is not shown and is only known to the seller. (You also have to pay extra for a reserve price)





[quote name='Conan' post='695672' date='Dec 29 2009, 04:03 PM']Complicated innit?

I was under the impression that if you didn't set a reserve price, then you had to let the item go for whatever the highest (or only!) bidder was prepared to pay? Surely then, not putting a reserve on it is very risky as you could potentially have to virtually give away a valuable item!

On the other hand, an item is only worth what people are prepared to pay for it - so it kind of pisses me off when people list items for a certain price and refuse to go any lower. Why use an auction site? Just stick it in the local paper!

Or maybe I'm just jaded as the two basses I listed on there just before Christmas only just failed to reach their reserves... [/quote]

[PaulWarning]

[quote name='Conan' post='695672' date='Dec 29 2009, 04:03 PM']Complicated innit?

I was under the impression that if you didn't set a reserve price, then you had to let the item go for whatever the highest (or only!) bidder was prepared to pay? Surely then, not putting a reserve on it is very risky as you could potentially have to virtually give away a valuable item!

On the other hand, an item is only worth what people are prepared to pay for it - so it kind of pisses me off when people list items for a certain price and refuse to go any lower. Why use an auction site? Just stick it in the local paper!

Or maybe I'm just jaded as the two basses I listed on there just before Christmas only just failed to reach their reserves... [/quote]

I would have thought that putting a reserve of say £100 and starting the bidding at £100 is the same thing, the only difference is with the later everybody knows where they stand, or maybe I'm missing something

[budget bassist]

[quote name='Bassassin' post='695538' date='Dec 29 2009, 12:29 PM']Re undisclosed reserves - it's something I completely fail to understand the point of. If I was unsure that an item would reach its market value with a low starting bid (99p, in my case) then I'd either start the auction at the lowest amount I'd be prepared to accept, or do a BIN with offers. I think secret reserve prices simply put people off - personally if a seller refuses to tell me the reserve, then I simply move on. As a buyer, the basic rule of Ebay is that another one will be along sooner or later, and be cheaper & better than the one you missed.[/quote]
Yep, i rarely bid on an item if it has a reserve. I don't see why people can't just start it at that price, as as for putting people off by putting the reserve price, if they're not prepared to meet the reserve price if they know it, they're not going to meet it if they don't know it either, it puts me off bidding not knowing it because a lot of the time it's set stupidly high.

[urb]

I hate to admit this but I got seriously burned on Evilbay a couple of years ago and got scammed when I thought I was buying a new iMac... that didn't exist. It's a long story and I did try and involve the police, the upshot being that they couldn't be arsed, and to cap it all off Ebay eseentially f***ed me over as well as once they deleted the bogus item there was no 'evidence' of what I was trying to buy... and therefor no case. The twist in the tale was that the account of the seller had been hacked into and when she discovered this she was very helpful, I even spoke to her on the phone I thought I was getting some way to unravelling what had happened, then all of a sudden she stopped communicating and led me to suspect that she had something to do with it. I was contacted by two other people that had also bought non existent Macs as well, but all this was still not enough for Ebay to give a sh*t... I hate that site, you don't save that much money and like others have said bidding is a nightmare, I've had nothing but good experiences with the Basschat market place and if I ever need any more Mac hardware I'll buy it new, like I ended up doing so with my iMac... you live and learn!

Mike

[benebass]

[quote name='Protium' post='695670' date='Dec 29 2009, 04:00 PM']Its a pain in the arse now though as sellers can only leave positive feedback... What use is that?[/quote]

In my experience, buyers will have their negative feedback removed if it offends a high-volume power seller - read [url="http://basschat.co.uk/index.php?showtopic=67423"]my post here[/url] for details. Not sure whether I'd trust eBay again after this - they didn't respond to me after I asked for more information on why my feedback was removed...

Cheers,

B.

[Cat Burrito]

This is fascinating stuff. I've over 800+ Positive Feedback on EBay but mainly as a buyer. I reckon I have only sold about 50 items (all music related) and never had any spam. I've sold stuff on forums and with the exception of Basschat always had spam. It's worth knowing this as I plan to have a gear clearout to fund a holiday in a few months. Scary stuff!

[Bassassin]

[quote name='Conan' post='695672' date='Dec 29 2009, 04:03 PM']I was under the impression that if you didn't set a reserve price, then you had to let the item go for whatever the highest (or only!) bidder was prepared to pay? Surely then, not putting a reserve on it is very risky as you could potentially have to virtually give away a valuable item.[/quote] Theoretically yes - but it's highly unlikely if you have a good, easily-searchable listing, with detailed, honest description & good photos. Helps if what you're selling is fairly desirable in the first place. Why is a reserve (and therefore a"pretend" low start) better than just starting at a price you'd be willing to accept, assuming you don't have the guts to risk a low start?

[quote name='bassatnight' post='695699' date='Dec 29 2009, 04:34 PM']If you have a Bass thats worth at least £1000 you would be an idiot to have no reserve and put it on at say a £10 start[/quote] What - and have hundreds of potential bidders swarming around it, hoping it's going to be them that bags a £10 Rick 4003? That's [i]exactly[/i] what you want. If it's an item with a known & specific market value (like my theoretical Rick) you can be assured that it will reach that, will have attracted probably hundreds of watchers, dozens of little low-bids, and if it's still low in the last 12 hours of the auction (which again, is what you want) then there's a very strong likelihood that you'll get some serious 3 or 4-way competitive bidding in the final few minutes, which will shove the final price significantly higher than market value. People take bidding really personally, and there's nothing like a grudge-match mixed with Ebay Madness.

I've sold 50 - odd guitars & basses on Ebay and have seen this dozens of times. For the record, every one of my auctions has been 99p, no reserve, and even with Ebay's exponentially growing fee structure, I'm very, very happy with the end results of my sales. The actual process of dealing with bidders, stupid questions, people who can't/won't read listings etc is another matter, but goes with the territory.

J.

[bassatnight]

Your a braver man than I, I sold a mint Lakland 44-01 on the bay with no reserve and got less than £400 for it it hadn't even been played. That was a lesson learnt, there is always a chance you will not get the bidders and could potentially end up giving a decent bass away!

If its a Wal or Sadowsky or similar your theory would probably work but what a risk to take!

[quote name='Bassassin' post='696069' date='Dec 30 2009, 02:13 AM']Theoretically yes - but it's highly unlikely if you have a good, easily-searchable listing, with detailed, honest description & good photos. Helps if what you're selling is fairly desirable in the first place. Why is a reserve (and therefore a"pretend" low start) better than just starting at a price you'd be willing to accept, assuming you don't have the guts to risk a low start?

What - and have hundreds of potential bidders swarming around it, hoping it's going to be them that bags a £10 Rick 4003? That's [i]exactly[/i] what you want. If it's an item with a known & specific market value (like my theoretical Rick) you can be assured that it will reach that, will have attracted probably hundreds of watchers, dozens of little low-bids, and if it's still low in the last 12 hours of the auction (which again, is what you want) then there's a very strong likelihood that you'll get some serious 3 or 4-way competitive bidding in the final few minutes, which will shove the final price significantly higher than market value. People take bidding really personally, and there's nothing like a grudge-match mixed with Ebay Madness.

I've sold 50 - odd guitars & basses on Ebay and have seen this dozens of times. For the record, every one of my auctions has been 99p, no reserve, and even with Ebay's exponentially growing fee structure, I'm very, very happy with the end results of my sales. The actual process of dealing with bidders, stupid questions, people who can't/won't read listings etc is another matter, but goes with the territory.

J.[/quote]

[Bassassin]

That's unfortunate & I can understand your perspective based on that. It is a risk, but very much a calculated one - it's inevitable that the higher-profile brands will get a lot more attention - and therefore bidders - than more niche names.

The risk can be minimised, though. On Ebay you can use the completed listings tab to search, & gauge what Ebay's market value is for a particular brand & model. You can then study the listings themselves, based on price differences, and work out (if it's not already obvious) which listings get a better response (more page views, more bidders), and why. Ebay's default search parameters address the listing title only, so you must make sure it contains specific keywords that somebody searching for the item you're trying to sell will use in their searches. You also want as much passing trade as possible so people doing general searches (for example "Musical Instruments > Guitars > Bass") will see and notice the listing. Which means keywords that get them in (easy) and a bold & noticeable thumbnail pic - coupled to a potentially outrageous bargain start price.

This method definitely works for me and what I sell (predominantly vintage MIJ guitars) but obviously comes with no guarantees. Broadly speaking I prefer to sell through BC these days, but it's horses for courses - the market for Moridaira Strat copies on here is a tad limited, in the same way that there are a lot more knowledgeable bassists here than an Ebay listing's likely to reach.

My only "failed" Ebay sale so far (apart from a couple of auctions I cancelled to sell directly to BCers) was a near-mint 1989 Ibanez SR800 fretless, which I listed with a £250 BIN - and got no takers. I subsequently sold it here for £25 less - which is what I would have paid in fees anyway. I experimented with a BIN because I was pretty certain that if I'd 'Bayed it at 99p, no reserve, I probably would have got about £100 for it - it's neither a common nor a particularly popular bass "out there".

J.