E-bay rip-offs.........

STEFANOS4784

I only joined e-bay a cpl of months ago and probably should have done more research but it stries me as strange how there are so many counterfeit items and wrongly listed items, i blame my-self for some, like ordering stuff from Hong Kong for about the 5th of the price of what the things should be :oops: but today i received to continental gp tyres which were listed as the 'S' version but are not and they cost me 50 quid, any-hoo what're every-ones worst e-bay rip-offs, or am i the only mug :roll:

OffTheBackAdam

There is a complaint process, if you've got mis-described goods, then you're entitled to a refund and if they're from a trader, they're still subject to the various trading standards and sale of goods acts.
It maybe a mistake by the vendor, first step is to contact them. If you get no response, then start an eBay complaint.
If you've used Paypal, you've an extra layer of protection. It costs us sellers enough to use it!
There are many vendors selling counterfeit goods, but several manufacturers of the ilk of YSL have successfully taken eBay to court.

downfader

Guitars and musical instruments seem to be the worst affected, followed by flash and computer memory.

One of the scams involved taking SD cards and putting on a new label with a higher value or a different firm's name.

Sadly ebay seem quite unconcerned with all this practise and despite many people I know who are experts in Gibson, Fender, computer gear or whatever - who are ACTIVELY trying to alert ebay, they seem only interested in the money. Many people have been left out of pocket.

I myself now refuse to use ebay.

idaviesmoore

downfader wrote:

I myself now refuse to use ebay.

It was only ever going to end up this way IMHO. There's so much counterfeit stuff out there (usually funding drug/protection/child trafficking scams) that I won't use it either.

Even if feedback is 100% I've heard nasty stories. Of course, there are many, many legitamate vendors out there but EBAY has gotten too big for itself to handle (or even care) about unscrupulous people.

peanut

every sale ebay get listing and sale fees and now that they force sellers to use paypal they also get a fat paypal fee too.
Ebay will never prevent fraudsters and scammers because they would lose too much money with lost fees.
They win either way :evil:

STEFANOS4784

Complaints procedure blah blah blah, i don't have the time/energy to send back a 15 quid pair of jeans, i'm far to busy on reading cycling forums

idaviesmoore

STEFANOS4784 wrote:

Complaints procedure blah blah blah, i don't have the time/energy to send back a 15 quid pair of jeans, i'm far to busy on reading cycling forums

You'll wear the ar$e out of your jeans that way

meagain

Like every buying experiemce, surely? As in caveat emptor. I've never had a "bad" experience - except from a BUYER who slagged me off (unjustifiedly so IMHO) without even telling me that he thought a problem. I returned his money AND just let him keep the item, but the highly negative feedback remained against my account!

rogsmer

anyone seen the guy whos selling a thermal jacket not only signed by tyler farrar but worn by steven cozza's dog? i wonder why no-ones bid on that
and even worse garmin stickers starting bid 3.99 +4.99 postage!

alfablue

I have had generally good experience with eBay (about 120 trades), I realise that I have been lucky.

As a buyer my only real problem was when I bought a memory card from Hong Kong - it was genuine but they shipped one half the capacity by mistake. They agreed to replace it or refund it, which is fine, but I had to send the original back at my expense (which cost about £5) and they refused to refund the postage. Fine, I thought, I used PayPal, so I'm protected - no, the protection excludes postage. What was worse, this seller had set the postage high so the sale price appeared lower (I think £19 for postage), this has been a common approach and if all goes well you just pay the same, but of course I discovered the problem when issues occur. It is against eBay rules to set excessive postage and I now report all such listings that I see, and won't buy from such sellers.

As a seller I have only had good experiences, I realise this can be more risky (in terms of feedback) as you can't really control who buys, so far so good though. I always list with as much detail as possible, list all faults, and post things out same day whenever possible.

graeme_s-2

My girlfriend bought me some second hand Oakley M Frames on ebay for my birthday. As soon as I opened them and laid hands on them I knew they were fake. I left it a day or so until I'd gotten my hands on an authentic pair and compared, and they were definitely fake. My girlfriend had paid £45 for them from a guy who said he just wasn't using them anymore.

She contacted him and politely told him that as they appeared to be a replica rather than authentic she'd like to return them for a refund. No reply at all for a few days.

She then instigated the complaints procedure with both eBay and Paypal, and within an hour had an email from him telling her to send them back and he'd refund the purchase price. This worked and she got her money back.

She chipped in and I bought a pair of M Frames from the Oakley shop in the Mcarthur Glenn Designer Outlet in York, so it had a happy ending

bigflangesmallsprocket

I've complained to Ebay about false descriptions twice. Both times were with regard to grossly exaggerated claims about the value of the bike, and one of those included false description of actual items sold, which was plainly obvious on from the pics IF you knew what you were looking for. The first reply was basically a polite f-off, stating they weren't responsible for item descriptions or policing, as they did not employ moderators to check accuracy of descriptions. I had to email twice to get that reply. The second time I made a complaint they claimed that they had contacted the seller and he had agreed to change the description...which he didn't.

Basically Ebay don't give a toss except where they may be legally liable. I use Ebay, but I always research what I'm buying, and though not a bike expert, I know enough to figure out if someones taking the p1ss. I'm sure there are folks out there who trust ebay to look after their interests, and get shafted bigtime by shady sellers, and then get no support.

always_tyred

bigflangesmallsprocket wrote:

Basically Ebay don't give a toss except where they may be legally liable. I use Ebay, but I always research what I'm buying, and though not a bike expert, I know enough to figure out if someones taking the p1ss. I'm sure there are folks out there who trust ebay to look after their interests, and get shafted bigtime by shady sellers, and then get no support.

If Ebay "gave a toss" you would have to pay for them to "give a toss" and Ebay would become what is known as a "shop". You are protected when using Ebay to the same extent as at a car boot sale, or a local market.

There are a plethora of cautions (most of which are common sense) relating to the items on sale and Ebay are providing an opportunity for you to purchase 2nd hand items from around the world without getting off the sofa or having to go to a field at 7am on a Sunday morning.

The fact that you can get your money back at all is remarkable to be honest. Its completely unrealistic to purchase, on the basis of at most some photos, items from someone you have never met and not incur some risk. As responsible adults, why should we expect this when the same items are on sale new from "shops" with a higher level or protection.

Cake/eat it.

OffTheBackAdam

alfablue wrote:

I
What was worse, this seller had set the postage high so the sale price appeared lower (I think £19 for postage), this has been a common approach and if all goes well you just pay the same, but of course I discovered the problem when issues occur. It is against eBay rules to set excessive postage and I now report all such listings that I see, and won't buy from such sellers.

It's a way of trying to get around eBay's somewhat expensive selling fees. You pay a % of the sale price, so you decide how much you actually want to sell the item for, how much P&P will cost, then transfer some of your wished for price onto the P&P rate.
With Paypal, they charge you a fixed price + a % of the whole amount, sale price & P&P.
Ultimately, if you think you'll save money by using eBay, then it's worthwhile. The caveat is that a bargain may not be quite what it's made out to be!
It's always worth having a read through the feedback comments and looking for any signs of mutual withdrawl of feedback.
To get a seller chucked off eBay, they have to be horrendous, something like 10% of trades within a 3 month period resulting in -ve feedback.
Life's almost worse for sellers, we can no longer leave anything but +ve feedback, even if a buyer is a non-payer.
Interestingly, you can't even leave a negative comment on a postive feedback (The only way now of alerting other sellers that the buyer may not pay)

MoonCircuit

If they are not 'significantly as described' you can get you money back by law.

alfablue

MoonCircuit wrote:

If they are not 'significantly as described' you can get you money back by law.

How does one do that when the vendor is in China?

marusches

i bought a coffin for £120 and he delivered from nottingham for £30 . cant be bad

redvee

marusches wrote:

i bought a coffin for £120 and he delivered from nottingham for £30 . cant be bad

Does it fit you though :?:

ademort

I also use ebay only buying and not selling. I,ve bought over 200 items in all and been let down,(ripped off)twice.Both transactions were via the bank, so no paypal intervention, and when i contacted ebay about the items i recieved the same reply. Which went something like "we urge buyers and sellers to contact each other and try to resolve the conflict" the only problem was that on contacting these people they never gave a reply,emails or telephone. I eventually left negative feedback on the seller, but the seller then left negative feedback over me. Even though i was the one out of pocket. Yes, ebay could definitely be improved, but as other members have suggested it will cost money. My biggest moan is that my 100% feedback is ruined by two tossers who did not deliver the items. Just for the record both sellers stopped selling with ebay shortly after i left negative feedback. Ademort

alfablue

ademort, that has been the worst thing about eBay, the fear of retaliatory feedback. The rules changed about 6 months ago so that sellers cannot leave negative feedback.

ademort

Hi alphablue
In the last year i,ve hardly used ebay so thanks for the info. It still leaves me with 2 negative feedbacks even though it was me that was out of pocket. Have to admit have had some great bargains over the years.But, as we all know there is never any guarantee.After all, a few weeks ago you could buy Iceland on ebay .
Ademort

alfablue

Yeah, the negatives stinks! I have been very lucky, but I am meticulous about checking out the feedback of sellers, some will be benign like yours, others indicate patterns of bad behaviour. I won't buy from anyone who seems to have problems with communicating. I use http://www.toolhaus.org/ to quickly list all the negs for a vendor, can be very revealing. This one is a bundle of laughs!, as is the feedback he leaves for others!.

alfablue

Oh, I just discovered, number1bikebits (AKA Dave Hinde) is no longer a registered user...has eBay finally kicked him off? Will he reappear with a new ID? :twisted:

ademort

alfablue wrote:

Oh, I just discovered, number1bikebits (AKA Dave Hinde) is no longer a registered user...has eBay finally kicked him off? Will he reappear with a new ID? :twisted:

Having read the links above Dave Hinde comes accross to me as a sort of Del Boy of the ebay cycling community. Does he have a reliant Robin. Bet he didnt get many xmas cards. Ademort

windbreaker

I think EBay is now to be avoided wherever possible. I tend to use gumtree and find the prices cheaper, and I can check the item. EBay is risky but the prices never seem to reflect the risk, and are often far too high for second hand goods. I can now spot the false high feedback ratings, and thought that Pay pal offered good protection. Last time I was ripped off the seller had registered his postal address as France making it uneconomic to send the heavy item to France when I complained to pay pal. Needless to say Pay pal and EBay didn't give a toss :evil: . I tend only to use power sellers, but find customer service is nothing like a shop.

I did however recently buy specialist Loctite for 99p plus postage. It was described as ex MOD and out of date. It was 4 years past use by, and worked fine. The stuff I was using had been 10 years out of date and had worked fine until it ran out. The new cost would have been about £15. I guess this shows there are some bargains, but mostly IMHO there are too many crooks and scams.

fast as fupp

alfablue wrote:

Oh, I just discovered, number1bikebits (AKA Dave Hinde) is no longer a registered user...has eBay finally kicked him off? Will he reappear with a new ID? :twisted:

hes reappeared as 'fastpartsforbikes' so BE WARNED!

alfablue

fast as fupp wrote:

alfablue wrote:

Oh, I just discovered, number1bikebits (AKA Dave Hinde) is no longer a registered user...has eBay finally kicked him off? Will he reappear with a new ID? :twisted:

hes reappeared as 'fastpartsforbikes' so BE WARNED!

Oh no! It was too good to be true! Thanks for the warning!!!!

Wonder if he's turned over a new leaf...let me see

STEFANOS4784

Hi all, i have put an item for sale on the bay and was wondering if anyone with more experience could offer advice, anyhoo i've received bids today from a chap who started off with 0 feedback then about 20 mins later he's up to 4 feedback, all for landline phones, from 2 different sellers, does this sound blatently dodgy or am i being paranoid, cheers

redvee

As a seller you can approve/block bids from sellers if they have a bad history for whatever reason. You do seem to be a little paranoid but also wise to be a little careful.

STEFANOS4784

Doesn't matter, someone else bid and i got 280 quid and was only expecting about 230 so result, cheers anyway

huggy

Is activesportskit bad? Or Mark Anthony? I've heard rumours, wondered if they were true.