Advice on seller

montsie

I am looking to buy an expensive item on ebay and have been given a second chance offer on something I bid on but didn't win.

The guy has 425 feedback, 2 negs and 1 neut over 12 months, detailed seller ratings between 4.5 and 5 stars giving him 98.1%.

Do we reckon I'd be ok to buy from him...too scared to trust my own judgement now after having to file a claim for nearly £400 on a scam item.

Obviously you can never tell but I was hoping a few of you wouldn't mind giving an opinion.
Thanking you!!

Pembroke

Hi, as I said in another thread the reason for second chance offers is that if a person auctions an item they can only sell one item at a time and are not allowed by Ebay to do multiple listings for the same thing. If the item was a Buy it Now they would just list that they had more than one for sale. So a second chance offer of itself just means that the seller has chosen to use the auction format to sell his item rather than BIN, for all you know he may have 100's of the same item and you will see multiple auctions over the coming weeks.

As he has multiple copies of the same item then the only thing you need to consider is if you accept the second chance offer, which should be at the maximum amount you bid on the item or whether you should hang on in the hope that he auctions the second copy again and you bid on it and get it cheaper than your current bid.

Crowqueen

With that feedback I'm not sure I would have bid in the first place but you are under no obligation to accept an SCO now and I would personally walk away, especially if the feedback has appeared or deteriorated since I bid. Even taking into account what Pembroke is saying, I still would regard being outbid on that item a lucky escape tbh.

montsie

Crowqueen wrote: »

With that feedback I'm not sure I would have bid in the first place .....I still would regard being outbid on that item a lucky escape tbh.

Am I being a little bit dense? with 425 feedback do the 3 not so hot feedback scores make it a big issue? Or is it the 98%?
To me I would have thought that was ok feedback but maybe I'm being naive.
I'm pretty sure he doesn't have two items to sell as it's not the kind of thing you would have 2 of and the old listing says Reserve not met with no winning bidder despite my having been outbid.
Does this seem a bit dodgy?

soolin

montsie wrote: »

Am I being a little bit dense? with 425 feedback do the 3 not so hot feedback scores make it a big issue? Or is it the 98%?
To me I would have thought that was ok feedback but maybe I'm being naive.
I'm pretty sure he doesn't have two items to sell as it's not the kind of thing you would have 2 of and the old listing says Reserve not met with no winning bidder despite my having been outbid.
Does this seem a bit dodgy?

The feedback percentage is poor and coupled with at least one category of stars at 4.5 would probably put me off also.

montsie

soolin wrote: »

The feedback percentage is poor and coupled with at least one category of stars at 4.5 would probably put me off also.

Being dense then. I assumed 3 stars and a 70 odd % would be a warning. I didn't consider that 2% off of 100 with a 0.5 star reduction would be something to worry about. Thanks for the advice. I told you I obviously have too much trust in people.

soolin

montsie wrote: »

Being dense then. I assumed 3 stars and a 70 odd % would be a warning. I didn't consider that 2% off of 100 with a 0.5 star reduction would be something to worry about. Thanks for the advice. I told you I obviously have too much trust in people.

We each have our comfort levels and if someone does look borderline it does pay to read some of the comments. Stars though need to be checked as well. Most sellers average around 4.8, I'd buy without much problem from someone with 4.7 stars but would seriously consider anything lower than that.

montsie

soolin wrote: »

We each have our comfort levels and if someone does look borderline it does pay to read some of the comments. Stars though need to be checked as well. Most sellers average around 4.8, I'd buy without much problem from someone with 4.7 stars but would seriously consider anything lower than that.

I am really confused, I can't see a point system on the stars. How does this seem to you? The negatives were that one person said it arrived late, he said there was a delay in the postal system. One person said faulty item and the neutral was due to a self-addmited lack of knowledge from the buyer.



thanks for the help, I'm just not trusting myself on anything right now.

the_lunatic_is_in_my_head

I don't think the feedback percentage is that important, the comments on the poor feedback plus the responses are what should be considered.

4.5 is pretty poor for stars, anything under 4.6 is considered as under performing by eBay but if it's a small seller who has picked up a few lows for P&P for example and the others stars are fine you might be safe.

If you feel the seller isn't doing something right you don't have to accept but your bid may not be far off the reserve and the winner may not have accepted the offer to buy at under the reserve. Without seeing the listing and the seller it's hard to comment but if the seller was out to sell goods they didn't have I personally don't think they'd bother with a reserve when listing.

soolin

The worrying thing in that set of stats is the very low star for item as descibed. That indicates a real issue with the items sold by that seller, the low stars for communication might also indicate they are slow to respond if a buyer has a problem.

I would probably not trust a great deal of money to a seller like that unless I was absolutely sure the item I was buying could not easily be misdescribed. I would also consider the costs of sending it back fully tracked and insured if I had a problem.

montsie

soolin wrote: »

The worrying thing in that set of stats is the very low star for item as descibed. That indicates a real issue with the items sold by that seller, the low stars for communication might also indicate they are slow to respond if a buyer has a problem.

I would probably not trust a great deal of money to a seller like that unless I was absolutely sure the item I was buying could not easily be misdescribed. I would also consider the costs of sending it back fully tracked and insured if I had a problem.

Hmmm....I did think the same thing but was wondering if 4.5 stars were really awful. I sometimes award 4 stars for things if it wasn't excellent. For example with comms, it's difficult to star it if you have had no communication from the seller at all especially when some sellers send you an email to let you know the item has been despatched etc and others send nothing and you don't get the item for over a week.
Difficult call, especially in terms of the lower rating for item as described. Most of his listings are private but it seems like he's sold quite a bit of freeware on discs........ maybe that should set alarm bells ringing, but then he's sold a few phones also.

Thanks for all the advice, it's comforting to have the support.