why i hate e-bay

Ok. so i finally decide to jump on the wagon and give e-bay a whirl. i found
the generator i needed to run lights/fan at my art shows and bid. i was the
only bidder and won it. i tried to do the pay-pal thing but to sign up you
fill in a form that instead of allowing you to fill it all out then submit,
requires you to wait after each field is filled out and the whole page
refreshes. ( my jargon may be awkward) at any rate after about 15 minutes of
this i decide to go with a money order. i send it off, wait and wait, then
get an e-mail from the seller that they don't have the thing. (they had a
bunch more also up for auction???) so they tell me they will send me a
refund. NADA zip zero ripped off. try to go to e-bay and they say they'll
look into it but you won't be allowed to know the results as it is private.
so end of rant. got burned my first time out of the starting gate and
thought i should share as i never hear the downside of e-bay being bandied
about! m

--
www.aWorkofArtGlassStudio.com

Michelle, that's a terrible thing to happen, and I'm glad you let us know
about your experience. While I'm sure there are many happy ebayers out
there, it is experiences like yours that will eventually give ebay a bad
name. In the early days, it was great, but now it's just become a fantastic
way for con artists to rip people off.

"Michele Blank" wrote in message
...
Ok. so i finally decide to jump on the wagon and give e-bay a whirl. i
found
the generator i needed to run lights/fan at my art shows and bid. i was
the
only bidder and won it. i tried to do the pay-pal thing but to sign up you
fill in a form that instead of allowing you to fill it all out then
submit,
requires you to wait after each field is filled out and the whole page
refreshes. ( my jargon may be awkward) at any rate after about 15 minutes
of
this i decide to go with a money order. i send it off, wait and wait, then
get an e-mail from the seller that they don't have the thing. (they had a
bunch more also up for auction???) so they tell me they will send me a
refund. NADA zip zero ripped off. try to go to e-bay and they say they'll
look into it but you won't be allowed to know the results as it is
private.
so end of rant. got burned my first time out of the starting gate and
thought i should share as i never hear the downside of e-bay being bandied
about! m

--
www.aWorkofArtGlassStudio.com

I use EBAY often, about 500 auctions closed.........
I have sold a lot of glass and related stuff to this NG.
I have not had ANY MAJOR PROBLEMS, as either a buyer or seller.
Sometimes the "rules" are cumbersome, but over all EBAY has helped me to
"get rid of" over 3,000 pounds of glass.
About one week ago 3 auctions of mine closed for just under $10,000.00 for
Jerry Garcia lithographs. The bidders were very happy to get a chance at
them. EBAY and PAYPAL sure took a bite, but.......I also, and the owner of
them all got a little fatter, too.

As a general rule, I check the feedback, if I am not sure I DONOT BID!
ALWAY CHECK and or ASK about handling/shipping charges, too.
CARE TO POST THE NAME/ID OF THE SELLER?

sorry if you got burned, especially if you are a first time user, not all of
"US" participants on EBAY should be painted with the same brush.

Howard




--

In the words of the IMMORTAL USED CAR DEALER:
THERE IS AN ASS FOR EVERY SEAT!

--
"Michele Blank" wrote in
message
...
Ok. so i finally decide to jump on the wagon and give e-bay a whirl.
i found
the generator i needed to run lights/fan at my art shows and bid. i
was the
only bidder and won it. i tried to do the pay-pal thing but to sign
up you
fill in a form that instead of allowing you to fill it all out then
submit,
requires you to wait after each field is filled out and the whole
page
refreshes. ( my jargon may be awkward) at any rate after about 15
minutes of
this i decide to go with a money order. i send it off, wait and
wait, then
get an e-mail from the seller that they don't have the thing. (they
had a
bunch more also up for auction???) so they tell me they will send me
a
refund. NADA zip zero ripped off. try to go to e-bay and they say
they'll
look into it but you won't be allowed to know the results as it is
private.
so end of rant. got burned my first time out of the starting gate
and
thought i should share as i never hear the downside of e-bay being
bandied
about! m


M:

Never send money in the mail on Ebay. If you send a money order or
check and it
gets snatched out of the mail, the scoundrels know more than one way
to cash it.
Then, in your case, you get to call the MO company, pay an exorbitant
fee for the cancelled copy, all the while hoping solid information is
discovered. If the amount concerned is below the pragmatic threshold
the postal inspectors or local detectives have, good luck to you plus
the outlay for the cancelled copy to augment your loss.

If you are going to purchase on Ebay, use Paypal. Under certain
conditions, transactions up to $500.00 are insured via Paypal.

You should be quite glad if you get your money order back.

Regards,

Edward Hennessey

- no,no,no

I have some friends that recently got burned as well. In their case he was
selling a guitar. He was asking 1500.00 for the guitar. A buyer sent him a
check for 3000.00. They contacted the buyer and was told that it was a mix
up with another E-Bay purchase. The buyer said "he trusted them" and asked
them to send the balance back with the guitar. ....You guest right, the
check was bogus. Not only did they lose the guitar, the bank made them
cover the check out of their personal checking, AND dinged them for NFS fees
for the check.

Buying or selling you got to be careful!

Sorry, I hope they catch these guys.

Take care,

Randy Hansen
SC Glass Tech
Scam Diego, Comi-fornia

Greetings and Salutations...

On Sun, 22 Aug 2004 00:54:18 GMT, "Michele Blank"
wrote:

Ok. so i finally decide to jump on the wagon and give e-bay a whirl. i found
the generator i needed to run lights/fan at my art shows and bid. i was the
only bidder and won it. i tried to do the pay-pal thing but to sign up you
fill in a form that instead of allowing you to fill it all out then submit,
requires you to wait after each field is filled out and the whole page
refreshes. ( my jargon may be awkward) at any rate after about 15 minutes of
this i decide to go with a money order. i send it off, wait and wait, then
get an e-mail from the seller that they don't have the thing. (they had a
bunch more also up for auction???) so they tell me they will send me a
refund. NADA zip zero ripped off. try to go to e-bay and they say they'll
look into it but you won't be allowed to know the results as it is private.
so end of rant. got burned my first time out of the starting gate and
thought i should share as i never hear the downside of e-bay being bandied
about! m

--
www.aWorkofArtGlassStudio.com

First off...sorry to hear that your first experience on Ebay
was a bad one. Ebay is one of those arenas where it IS the newbie
that gets burned, both because they don't always understand the
dangers, and because they don't understand the (arbitrary and somewhat
capricious) rules that govern it. For example, a chunk of the
folks that sell on Ebay are surplus recyclers. Whatever they have
now, they may or may not ever have again.
Now...a thought or two about the transaction, in no
particular order.
1) Did you request that the money order be returned by
registered/insured mail? If so you would have had, at the least
a tracking number, or, at most, would have been required to provide
an ID and a signature to pick it up.
2) Even "regular" mail can be tracked, sort of, if it has
been a fairly short time since it should have been mailed.
3) If the money order was, indeed, mailed by the vendor
back to you, and has disappeared in the mail, you should go ahead
and fill out the paperwork at the local post office indicating
that it has been stolen. The Postal Inspectors do care about
this, and, more than likely, if YOUR MO disappeared, other things
have vanished too. You may not get it back, but, at least you
will make life miserable for some Postal employees for a while.
3a) When you DO go down to the Post Office and fill out
the "lost or stolen mail" form, be sure to print out copies of
the emails confirming that the vendor sent the Money Order, anything
that shows their address, and attach this info, with a copy
of the receipt for the money order, to the forms.
4) It may be that the vendor has been slow about sending
it. I suspect that refunding money drops fairly low on the
priority list of most folk, so it might take a week or three
to get it into the mail...then there is the usual delay at getting
it to you. How responsive has the vendor been to your Emails
now that the transaction has gone south?
5) Depending on how long ago this purchase was, there may
be some things you can do about this particular transaction on Ebay.
Ebay does have a "non-performing seller" complaint form that you
can fill out. Trust me...the sellers care about this, and sometimes
if they have been a problem to deal with, simply mentioning that
this can happen will get action.
6) Unless it has been too long (60-90 days, or so), you can
leave negative feedback for the vendor. Of course, if you DO, you
will likely get a retalitory negative feedback, which could be a bad
thing. The good news is that it is worse for a vendor than it is
for a buyer.
7) I suspect that the generator was probably a couple
hundred dollars or so. That is enough that the $10 or so that the
money order folks will charge for canceling the money order and
returning your cash to you will be worth it. Hopefully you got
a Western Union or Postal money order, so you will have a
receipt for it. If you got one from a "convenience store", though,
and your only receipt is the cash register printout, that might
well be a bit more of a pain in the butt.
8) If it does look as if the vendor has actually ripped
you off, you can always file a complaint of fraud with their
State Attorney General. Frankly, this will only get you a nice
form letter saying that it has been noted, and, inviting you to
come to their state with a lawyer and have all the fun you want
pursuing the case in the courts. However, this can be a hidden
"gotcha" that will bite the vendor on the butt if they ever
run afoul of the law, etc. Also, of course, filing a complaint
with the BBB in their state is a fairly simple thing and
worth the effort. Of course, this should be the last resort,
as it IS pulling out the big guns.
9) Although Paypal is not without its problems, it is a
simpler and less painful way to send money to another person than
most. It sounds as if you might be connecting to the Net
with a dial up line (and God help you if it is through AOL *smile*).
If this is the case, it might be easier for you to find a
broadband connection to use in the sign-up process. While I don't
recall the form being that slow to use, it has been some years
and I am sure they have screwed with it, and made it more painful
for those with slow connections (It seems to be the rule of the day).
I would suggest either your public library, or a cyber-cafe. The
former will be free, of course, but, might have time limits that
make it harder to get through the process.
10) Be sure to read the feedbacks for a given vendor on
Ebay before buying anything from them. That public record is
an easy way to see how others have fared with the vendor...and
will likely be the road YOUR transaction will follow. I tend to
avoid low-feedback vendors, as it makes me a bit nervous to send
chunks of my hard-earned money to a total stranger with no
information on how they are going to act.
11) Post a few specifics here as to who the vendor is
that you had the bad experience with, and, what YOUR Ebay ID
is, so we can all go see what happened.
12) Ebay can be a good resource but, as with any large
flea market, you, the buyer, have to be cautious. Know what you
are buying, and know what you would pay out in the "real" world.
I have seen a lot of items recently where the starting bid is
only a couple of bucks below the "street price" that one can
find by doing a simple google search on the net. In one case,
I saw an anvil, being sold by Harbor Freight for $70 showing
up on Ebay with an opening bid/reserve of $80. Now, it was a 100
lb anvil, made of Russian Steel (and is actually a pretty decent
anvil), but, I know that these vendors were trying to take advantage
of the enthusiasm of folks on Ebay, and, may well not have had the
anvils in hand in the first place. They were taking bids, and
having HF drop-ship the anvil to the high bidder.
13) Try to remain calm. A bunch of folks I know "fall
in love" with the item they are bidding on, and, so bid more than
they had planned in a competition to ensure that it remains "theirs".
While this is great for sellers, it is bad for buyers. Remember
that there will always be another one, and might be another one
already...so if you don't get THIS one, it is not the end of the
world. Also, remember...it is not yours until you can tear into
the box and get your hot, sweaty hands on it. DOn't love it until
then.
Regards
Dave Mundt

Greetings and Salutations...

On Sat, 21 Aug 2004 22:30:49 -0700, "Randy H."
wrote:

I have some friends that recently got burned as well. In their case he was
selling a guitar. He was asking 1500.00 for the guitar. A buyer sent him a
check for 3000.00. They contacted the buyer and was told that it was a mix
up with another E-Bay purchase. The buyer said "he trusted them" and asked
them to send the balance back with the guitar. ....You guest right, the
check was bogus. Not only did they lose the guitar, the bank made them
cover the check out of their personal checking, AND dinged them for NFS fees
for the check.

Buying or selling you got to be careful!

Sorry, I hope they catch these guys.

Take care,

Caveat Emptor is the rule, especially on Ebay.
I also hope that from now on, your buddy will wait
for the check to clear before sending any of their own
money out. Either that...or send the original check
back via FedEx/UPS/Registered Mail, and, request one
for the correct amount...and when that one comes in,
wait for it to clear.
One of my clients sells world-wide, and, has
gotten some pretty good counterfit checks in. One
check came in that looked like a bank draft, and
was almost perfect. The only thing that gave it
away (other than the fact it would have bounced
eventually) was that it had been printed with a laser
printer, and, some of the color came off on the inside
of the envelope as it was being mailed in.
"Trust but Verify" (Probably one of the
FEW things that Pres. Reagan and I agreed on).
Regards
Dave Mundt

HI Michele

I'm very sorry to hear of your bad experience with Ebay.

I've been buying and selling on Ebay for a couple of years now - and
only had a handful of bad experiences.

Paypal is probably the safest way to pay for an item - they were
having problems over the last few weeks, and there were a number of
complaints on the Ebay 'boards' about slow response from the Paypal
website - the sign-up process is generally very fast.

A good place to find help is the 'Community' section on the Ebay site
- this contains a number of forums populated by ordinary Ebay users -
I'm assuming that you are in the USA - so
http://forums.ebay.com/db2/forum.jsp?forum=107 will take you into the
"Trust & Safety (Safe Harbor)" section.

I think you should probably repost your message to the Ebay forum -
but before you do so it might be wise to read the Rules for Posting -
http://pages.ebay.com/help/policies/...me=CMDV:BD0002
as postings that don't conform can be 'pulled' by Ebay's staff.

You didn't say how long you have waited for the refund....?
There is a 'Non-performing Seller' process - and a 'Feedback' process
- the feedback is public and warns other Ebayers to avoid 'dodgy'
sellers. If sufficient Ebayers register their complaint then the
offending seller will have their Ebay account closed. If they are
professional scammers then they'll start up again next day under a new
ID - but that's a different matter.

I'm afraid that Ebay is just like 'the real world'. 99.9% of the
people out there are basically good & hones - but it's the other .1%
that you've got to watch out for.
Don't give up on Ebay because of the one bad experience - post to the
SafeHarbour board (keep it calm and factual - otherwise you won't get
any help g) - and you'll be surprised at how helpful most people on
Ebay are.....

Good luck
Adrian
Suffolk UK

This is more than just an e-bay fraud. I recently got two e-mails that
purported to want to buy equipment or art glass from me to ship to Africa.
Aside from the fact that I didn't have either to sell, offers like this have
come up in discussion groups where the people send a check for extra money
and "trust" you to send the extra money and the item back, but they really
need your product now to open their store, gallery, business, so please
rush.
--
Mike Firth
Hot Glass Bits Furnace Working Website
http://users.ticnet.com/mikefirth/hotbit46.htm Latest notes

"Randy H." wrote in message
news:5cWVc.88944$Lj.14024@fed1read03...
I have some friends that recently got burned as well. In their case he was
selling a guitar. He was asking 1500.00 for the guitar. A buyer sent him
a
check for 3000.00. They contacted the buyer and was told that it was a mix
up with another E-Bay purchase. The buyer said "he trusted them" and asked
them to send the balance back with the guitar. ....You guest right, the
check was bogus. Not only did they lose the guitar, the bank made them
cover the check out of their personal checking, AND dinged them for NFS
fees
for the check.

Buying or selling you got to be careful!

Sorry, I hope they catch these guys.

Take care,

Randy Hansen
SC Glass Tech
Scam Diego, Comi-fornia

In article , Dave Mundt wrote:

Caveat Emptor is the rule, especially on Ebay.
I also hope that from now on, your buddy will wait
for the check to clear before sending any of their own
money out.

Waiting for the check to clear isn't sufficient, either. If the
check bounces later due to NSF, the bank will take the money
back from you. Hard to believe--you'd think that's what the
bank is getting paid for--but I've heard it happening a number
of times. The most common version of this scam is to send too
large a check, which clears, get the seller to send a Western
Union wire for the balance, then cancel the check.

Mike Beede