Tips for buying on Ebay 4 July 2004 at 4:08PM in Ebay, auctions, car boot & jumble sales 49 replies 13.9K views

angelcake

Some woman left me positive feedback, I received the item but found it was dirty and very smelly! As it was an item for a childs room I thought it should have at least been as nice as the photo showed it was! Anyway I email the person and say this, she says I should send the item back to her and she will give me a refund less the £12 postage I had paid her, I would have had to spend another £12 to send it to her plus the amount in packaging as the item was huge! Anyway I wasn't happy with this and said so, she didn't care etc...In the end all I could do was leave her bad feedback! She retaliated and left feedback underneath my good feedback saying....FEEDBACK RETRACTED!! MAKES FRAUDULENT CLAIMS TO OBTAIN REFUND!! POLICE NOTIFIED I was very annoyed as this wasn't the case! so I left another follow up saying "Shame to get nasty.Comments untrue.Item used,dirty,smelly.can show pics & email" Would you think my follow up was catty, I did think long and hard what to put not to sound as annoyed I was! what would you think if you saw this?

soolin

I think your feedback sounded OK, I liked the 'shame to get nasty' bit, I think that shows you to be a reasonable person.

As for buying dirty things, I gave up buying beannies on ebay last year after I received several batches that stank of cigarette smoke. I complained once to a seller who replied that I was trying to con her into a partial refund and that non smokers like me got on her nerves pretending that we could smell cigarette smoke on everything when she thought they smelt absolutely fine when they left her care.

I am very careful now to ask sellers if the item comes from a smoke free house if i buy anything in fabric or material that can smell.

Soo

angelcake

I know what you mean, I hate that! I forget to list that All items come from a smoke free home!! to me it just seems obvious! but people who do smoke don't say "comes from a home that smokes"
I will have to remember to keep putting that! it is such a pain to keep typing it out!!

loafer_2

If you want to get really mean then add your own conditions when making a payment. (in the little box that pay pal provides.

I use the following

Thanks (username – real details from paypal Etc).

Due to scammers and ignorant eBayers I have been advised to levy some simple terms of payment. If you do not agree to them, please refund my payment in full. I am a very reasonable person; if you are a good serious eBayer they are unlikely to affect anything


The following terms govern this payment and form part of our contract of purchase and payment. By your acceptance of payment and the completion of the contract when you dispatch the item you expressly agree to the following additional terms.

- Please ensure the item is clean and presentable. (This is a non smoking household and it is likely this item could be a gift).
- Please package securely.
- Safe delivery is the responsibility of the seller.
- All return and replacement costs are the responsibility of the seller.
-- Please package the item securely
-- Please use a delivery service you can trust.
-- Delivery is expected within 5 postal days. Feel free to contact me if it’s going to take longer for any reason.
-- If good communications fail to resolve issues, I always recover monies paid on goods not delivered safely, if adequate resolution is not made in a timely manor. I will give 3 days notice of this last resort.
- Lastly, I only leave feedback once it's been left for me.

Like I say, I am a very reasonable person; if you are a good serious eBayer they are unlikely to affect anything.

Kindest regards,

Trigger_2

I have bought and sold items on Ebay, and I agree, you you have to have a limit when bidding as it is very easy to get caught up in the excitement - but as a seasoned bidder I too have picked up a bargain at the last minute.
As a seller, i've sold a few items and the buyers have been happy with the transaction. You can always check the feedback for a person, just to see whether they're reliable or not. Invariably we are all honest people trying to make an honest bob on unwanted items. Honest Guv!!

HairyHatMan

Loafer,

Have you ever seen how the text appears in the email that is sent to the seller? Its very badly laid out and could easily be overlooked by the seller. There is no way you can be sure they read it.

As a seller, I don't have an issue with any of your requirements - in my book they all go without saying. However, if I did notice your conditions, I would take exception to you adding them at that stage of the transaction. If you want to ensure your requirements are met, why not ask the seller before bidding? If they're honest and genuine, they'll have no problem assuring you that they'll accomodate your requests.

If the seller decides not to accept your conditions (after you have bid and won their item), they would have to refund your payment (at their cost if it's not paypal) and submit a non paying bidder dispute with ebay to recoup Final Value Fees from eBay. They would then have to relist the item, again at an additional cost.

I'm surprised you haven't had sellers comment on your Modus Operandi.

soolin

Loafer, as a seller I would take great exception to any mail from a buyer trying to set terms and conditions after winning an item. Could it be that you have posted this tongue in cheek as a 'how not to treat your sellers' and I have misunderstood?

On a few occasions I have received terms and conditions from buyers *after* they have paid I have always treated them like all my other buyers and shipped promptly and securely. However, I have then blocked that buyer and not left any feedback. I have never received anything like this though and if I did I might be tempted to pass it to ebay for their opinion as to whether it it feedback extortion.

Out of interest, what kind of feedback score do you have?

Soo

RACHIE77

I think my buying tip for enay echoes the others - check out where else you can buy it from and for how much... sometimes you may pay a couple of pound extra to but it from a store online/offline but you have more of a reassurance that comes with it as to its condition & guarantee etc.... (not always I know!)

My biggest tip would be that as an ebay buyer you should be prepared to realise that all that glistens is not gold and if it seems to good to be true --- it probably is!! Use your insticts when buying and if you have even the slighest doubt then leave it.... Another item will come along that you can bid on with confidence...

I am too trusting of people and only by visiting forums like this do i see the sorts of rats that are out there waiting to scam you!!

Generally folk are decent but trusts your insticts and of course the feedback score! )

Rachie x

Judgebread

I do not really like this, "I'll leave feedback after you've left mine!", it seems abit childish in my view. I have 5 people at the mo who haven't left me feedback even though I've paid instantly. I can kind of understand that businesses can't always leave feedback straight away, but private seller i feel have no excuse. I really need all the feedback I can get atm, I only have 18, but should easy have 23 by now. Also another thing is the time it takes some items to arrive from private sellers, I probably just me being impatient/picky/high stadards, but when I've sold something and had the money I post it the same day