mjh, being a police officer i feel i have a duty to fulfill, too many con - artists on ebay, so it is my BLOODY BUSINESS.
IAN.
I agree with you ian. I noticed that this seller has multiple negitive feedbacks and several neutral that also should have been left as negative feeback but were not in fear of the seller leaving them bad feedback. I also noticed most of the bids were placed by people that were new to eBay and really though they found a great deal. They just do not have enough experience to know if it sounds to good to be true on eBay it probally is. They also probally do not know how to read all of his negative feedback and figure out the scam. In the states we have a saying about police officers. They are never really off duty and are always aware of what is going on around them. They good ones also know when something is just not right. I believe as an officer you are just performing your duties. To protect and serve the people.
Soulcrusher
100% feedback does not always a good seller make (Hmm…I think I sounded like Yoda[;)]). I recently had a transaction on ebay with a seller that had 100% positive feedback and it was the worst ebay experience I’ve had!
On the listing the seller indicated insurance was available, but when I payed for the item the insurance wasn’t available so I didn’t get it. Additionally, the only ther time I had purchased insurance was when I won a very high priced and delicate item. To this point I had never had any damage to models or any other items received through ebay.
The kit was poorly packaged and arrived with a sticker from my post office stating that the contents might be damaged. I opened the box to find pieces missing and damaged. I immediately contacted the seller and the response I received was both beligerent and non-compromising. Two weeks of trying to reach a compromise failed.
Maybe I caught the seller on a bad day - who knows. However, it goes to show that 100% positive feedback is not a 100% guarentee. Just my [2c]
As it now stands there are ZERO bids on the item. Bidders are retracting bids stating item description changed as their reason. Ian did us all a good deed alerting us and telling buyers about the item and the unscrupulous ebay sellers. I for one hope he will do it again in the future. FSM forums isn’t just about modelers helping modelers it’s also about modelers protecting modelers from getting ripped off.
Ian. I salute you Sir! [^]
I’ve had a look at the seller’s record and yes, he has accumulated 9 negatives in his two years of trading - Shock, Horror! He’s also dealt satisfactorily with 650 people who left postive feedback, many of them multiple times, to a total of 1061. His percentage in real terms is therefore 99.2%.
He’s obviously been careless in adapting an existing auction template to an empty kit box and forgotten to delete the references to the parts, but so what? - I’ve made similar errors. If he really wanted to defraud why mention the word “box” at all? Let people go on thinking it’s a complete kit.
I’m not saying he shouldn’t have his failings pointed out, an honest dealer would be glad to be informed he’s made a mistake and would correct it immediately, as he appears to have done, but it shows the danger of playing the Lone Ranger and riding the eBay plains protecting the ignorant and righting wrongs - you’ve got to get it right or you’ll do more harm than good. With all due respect (and I sincerely mean that) I would expect a policeman to appreciate the danger of vigilantes better than most.
I have one negative against my name. I sold an item and the buyer claimed, quite incorrectly, that it was misrepresented and even implied fraud. He left a neg wihout ever contacting me about it. I would happily have refunded him and sold it to someone more knowledgeable and appreciative and would have preferred to do so. Interestingly however, he chose to keep it at the price paid and refused any further communication - so this injustice stands.
There is fraud out there, as in all human endeavour, and it behoves everybody using eBay to keep on their toes, but it’s not nearly as prevalent as some would have us believe.
Michael
MJH has my vote. eBay has posted guidelines, it is a valuable resource, ruddratt is also correct: follow the rules. Look at the pics, read the descriptions.
Bondoman- eBay + 50 purchases and all positive.
Actually, it should be a ssimple as searching eBay for the item number indicated in the email. It should be an invalid item number and come up as not found.
I’ve gotten a lot of these emails over the past few years since I started selling on eBay. They’re always for something totally unrelated to what I’d ever sell - like car parts. If I don’t recognize the eBay userid I just delete the email. A few years ago my account was hijacked (my own fault - I had a pretty simple password) and it was a nightmare sorting things out again afterwards, especially with the bidders who thought they were winning items that I was selling - when in reality I wasn’t selling anything at all at the time. It’s the simplest rule to follow - never click on a link in an email unless you know precisely who sent it and why. If you’re not sure, type in the web address yourself and check it out that way. You can’t trust anyone any more - even a friend’s email address.
Feedback rating is a great thing, but having less than 100% feedback can happen to anyone, at any time. I have a rating of 678 that’s 100% positive, but I nearly got my first negative 2 years ago from a guy who was sure I hadn’t paid for a $2 baseball card. Problem was, I had paid with Paypal and had already received the card in the mail - with a note from the seller, no less. He opened a dispute which I eventually won, but I had all the proof in the world that I was right and he was wrong, yet he held my precious 100% feedback in the palm of his hand. I was lucky he opened a dispute - if he had just given me a neg, that would have been that and I doubt it could have ever been removed. I was right and he was wrong, but that wouldn’t have changed my feedback rating. Yet I know there are many eBay shoppers out there that would see that negative, and read his (unfounded) complaint, and assume that I was not to be trusted. That would not be fair to me, and would have negatively impacted my sales.
I have a friend who sells on eBay - he’s a single father and uses the $ he makes on eBay to help raise his son. Recently he got his first 3 negs in 4 years of selling. He has a rating of over 2200 and only 3 negs. Retaliatory, all 3. One guy won an auction for an item worth over $200, and the next day told my friend “he didn’t have the time to pay him”, and wanted to basically withdraw his winning bid. My friend got hit with the ebay fees for a $200+ transaction no matter what, so he left the guy a neg with a comment explaining - very civilly - why. The would-be buyer responded with a neg and a comment warning people to stay away from this ‘bad seller’. Another guy never paid, and after waiting 5 weeks for the guy’s payment (which never arrived) and sending him several emails to remind him, he relisted the item. The guy immediately responds with a negative and a complaint that my friend “refused payment - to sell for more”. Right.
So having a rating of 100% is nice, but it doesn’t always tell the whole story. You should at the very least read the comments with the negs, and the responses. The ones to avoid are those that sound like the losers on today’s “reality” dating shows - they’re all eager to win the date, but once they’ve been rejected they come up with all sorts of reasons why the person they were trying to impress moments before is now not worth a wad of yesterday’s chewing gum. Childish lashing out and temper tantrums are a real warning sign of someone to avoid - would you shop in a store where the employees yell at the customers and call them names? Neither would I. Even though these days it is getting harder to find salespeople who actually care about their jobs or their customers, it’s still worth the trouble to try and find the ones that do care.
I have to agree with MJH and alumni- there are a lot of “tit for tat” negative feedbacks left. You did the wrong thing by me, therefore I leave you negative feedback, then you leave me negative feedback, I do a follow-up with more neg. comments, etc etc. I experienced the highs and lows on E-bay. Bought and sold a lot of models, and met some really nice people in the states. Guys that would throw in a spare vacuform model for free just because you did business with them, people that were so professional with their packaging, people that would refund you the difference if they quoted too high on postage.
I was on the E-bay USA site one night and saw a picture of a naked women. Should have heard the warning bells then and there (why would there be a picture of a naked women in the Model section, I hear you ask ?) Good question. “YOU KNOW YOU WANT IT” was the caption. Like an idiot, I clicked on it. Next thing my e-mail account gets hacked into and my password compromised. Thankfully e-bay were quick to act, and it didnt cost me anything.
Ian Lanc, greetings from a fellow traveller. (Although in the U.K. I think you refer to traffic cops as “Black Rats” ?)
I have treaded in Ebay very, very lightly … made the usual dumb first timer mistakes (mainly getting into bidding wars and paying wayyyyyyyyyyy too much) … and have to say I appreciate any advice I can get, with I will take in, ponder and then act on based on my life experiences. It’s all about being aware of your surroundings, not unlike looking over your shoulder occasionally while on a long hike in the woods to see how things look from the opposite direction, so you don’t get disoriented and lost on your way back.
If you are interested, I have two pieces of advice for buyers:
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If its too good to be true, its too good to … etc. eBay is full of counterfeit stuff, in particular luxury items like scarfs, teen fashion, etc. The best place I’ve found to learn about that is…on eBay forums. I just never buy anything very expensive sight unseen, anyways.
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I use an online bid site. There are a few good ones. When I see something I want, right away I place a “snipe”. The way it works for those who don’t know, is you enter the eBay auction number and your maximum bid. It waits until a few seconds before the auction closes and only then bids. There is a small fee but usually these sites will give you a few for free to get you hooked. But it covers odd hours, like when you are at work, and it keeps you from going overboard on budget. You can update or delete your bid at anytime prior to the end.
Bondoman
Letting the Ebay staff alone “deal” with this would 9 times out of 10 lead to very slow or nill action. Cheers to all who hunt out and expose these types of fraud pro bono.
Who the hell would want to buy and empty model box of a non vintage/collectable kit anyway?
The guy was definately trying to capitalise on the sought-after nature of these big 1/48 Tamiya Lancasters. Everytime I see one on E-bay, the mother of all bidding wars commences. They end up going for more than AU$150, usually a lot more.
Well, if someone has a complete kit and it’s in a damaged box it might be worth their while to buy a better box for it, especially if it’s so popular a kit.
I concur with bondoman in using a ‘snipe’ provider for all your purchases. His reasons for doing so are spot-on too. There is a perception out there that it’s ‘cheating’ in some way but that’s just stupid. I’ve been using a sniper site now for about three years, it puts my bid in 5 seconds before the end of the auction but my bid still has to be the highest if it’s going to win.
It’s a good way to avoid getting sucked in to a bidding war (so I suppose some sellers would be unimpressed), one doesn’t have to have the computer on or even be awake when the bid goes off (no more sitting up to 3am!) and the the cost is negligible. You can also cancel the snipe at any time without the hassle of retracting a bid.
'Sway to go.
Michael