E-Bay Horror Week
Published June 05, 2004
I've been on E-Bay for some time. My "About Me" page says I started sometime in 2001, but it's been much longer. I discovered the site in early '98 I believe but probably became serious enough about in '01. I've been on both ends of the deal countless times being a huge video game fanatic. That 3,500 game collection always seems to need one more new addition. Oh, and all those doubles I keep buying need to be sold as well.
Of course, not everything can go smoothly. Sometimes bidders won't pay, I forget to pay (yeah, I did it once), and then other times absolutely EVERYTHING goes wrong. This is the saga of one month of my E-Bay dealings, easily the worst I've ever experienced. I will not use names or ID's since the stories tell themselves just fine without them. Besides, after how some of the deals have went, I very well may get sued for mentioning them.
Idiot seller #1: I've been looking for a cheap baseball game for the PS One. I never liked the Triple Play series so I decide to go for Bases Loaded '96, the first baseball game on the console. I've always enjoyed the series since it's days on the NES all the way through to this final game in the series, this version here on the Playstation system.
So, there is only one listed on E-bay. The opening bid is a meager $.50 and the game is complete with box and instructions. His shipping is on the high side, $4.50, but this is a "long box" Playsation game. These are bulkier and bigger so the cost is OK as far as I'm concerned. He also states that he will never combine shipping and that insurance is required on everything he sells. Ok, fine, he's a jerk as far as the combining shipping is concerned but I'm only buying one game.
The auction ends at the starting bid price of $.50. I pay immediately through Paypal. After a few days, the game arrives....in a plain manila envelope with no additional packing material. It's a miracle it made it to my home unscathed. Even worse, he sends it "Media Mail" which cost him a meager $1.08 (or something close to this). Then, as if it this wasn't bad enough, he never insured it. He requires it, yet he doesn't provide the service.
I E-mail him with all of my concerns. He is quick to reply with something like "all terms in auction are final. i pay people to package, tape, head to the post office and other things." Ok, this guy isn't an English major, but I can live with that. So, I whip up another E-mail demanding my insurance money ($1.05) back since it was uninsured. I also tell him that if he actually pays for people to drop a game into a plain manila envelope without any material, he has a very poor business model. Am I being picky? Sure. Note that for $4.50 he could have went to any US Postal Service location, get free, sturdy, Priority Mail boxes and slapped the game inside of that. It would have come much quicker and would have cost around the stated shipping price in the auction (and this is how I assumed it was coming).
Matt Paprocki is the former reviews editor for Digital Press, a video game website with an appreciation for the retro side of the industry. The deep game collection which spans nearly 30 systems and 2,000 games line his walls for research purposes. Matt strives to bring credibility to video game journalism, and take it in a new direction to aid the industry in becoming respected with all forms entertainment media. He currently freelances for GameArgus.com and MultiPlayerGames.com.
- E-Bay Horror Week
- Published: June 05, 2004
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- Section: Sci/Tech
- Filed Under: Sci/Tech: Internet
- Writer: Matt Paprocki
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Comments on this articleComments
eBay is fertile ground for classic videogamers. 3500 games? And to think we thought we had a big collection with our measly hundreds of games!
The Neo-Geo is still one of my favorite systems to play, even though graphically "better" machines have come along. They owned the 2D fighting market for fun factor.
About the first guy, you bought something from someone who has 70 + negatives? You should have checked that first. Any bad experience you have is your own fault if you don't check feedback.
i have to agree that it's not just the %age of positive feedback that's important.
Think about it this way: if a person has 70 negative feedback, that's about 70 (allow for some where the rater was just being an asshole like the one who gave you negative feedback) different people who've had bad experiences dealing with that person.
Myself, i've had one bad experience and been a bad bidder once. The bad experience, i won a book but then the guy didnt reply at all after my prompt payment, i complained to ebay and then a week later he'd been NARU'd (made Not A Registered User i.e. he got banned on that account). Luckily i only lost about £10 to that.
The time i was a bad buyer was ultimately my fault, but a mate let me down cos he was gonna provide transport for a Jamma cabinet that was being sold in london. I checked with him first, he said yeah he'd go with me to pick it up. So i bid, i won, i was ready to pay...and he turncoated on me and said no, he wouldn't go with me to get it. I was pissed off to say the least, and worse than that, I ended up being without 'net access for a month and a half or so cos i'd just moved in to a uni house and we had to wait that long for ntl to install it. Understandably, i got -ve feedback for that (only time i have though). I gave the seller +ve just for not actually reporting me to ebay.
What makes me laugh now is that they recently changed their terms saying that sellers are not allowed to charge bidders extra for paying via paypal/cheque/any other payment method. Well just try telling them that (or, more appropriately, realise just how few of them have read that email) cos i still see many auctions where the seller says there is an extra charge for using paypal. Far too many to report (i'm not going to do ebay's job for them, altho i may draw their attention to the overall problem)
I was a big ebay user in the early days. I got screwed twice last year, and the frustration is monumental.
I've quit using the place altogether, and there are more than a few concerns that it's turning into Fraud Central.
I'll apoligize Ken! Eventually....
Idiot #4 is no longer an idiot. I got paid for the system last night. Granted it was an E-Check which means it could still bounce, but he has apologized and been great ever since.
As for the first guy, I looked at his rating of around 10,000 and let it go. I'm not sure of the percentage, but it was super high. He was a Powerseller as well.
Without a doubt there are some categories of merchandise that may attract more problems than others, but I really think if you are dealing with a reputable seller with high feedback who allows a secure method of payment via credit card, you have protections.
I have been on eBay for seven years and I have not had more than one bad experience with a seller and it was resolved by charging back the payment.
Sincerely,
Christopher Matthew Spencer, Author
"The eBay Entrepreneur"
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Apologize to the guy Matt!