Tools-EBay-What's your experience?

[Jerry Olexa]

Well today was the big day of my EBay learning experience!! i decided to walk away from final bidding as fuel cost and time outweighed what became minimal savings. Turned out, the final bid plus my expenses exceeded a local source of a floor model by $50. The bidding was interesting. All the major action was in the last 3 minutes when the price went upward quickly and in the last 20 secs, a non bidder (to that point) carried the day and got the jointer. It was new and ended about $100 under retail. I learned a lot and will now form a "watch list" and occassionally play the game. Using your good advice and with a little risk, good tool values can be found!! I have to learn how to do the timing on those last 20 seconds. THANKS to all. Good experience!!

[Henry Cavanaugh]

Nothing but good things to say about paypal. Many times i say to myself do these people know they can buy this item for less retail new.

[Randy Meijer]

.....4. NEVER buy from a seller with less than 5 to 10 feedbacks. There are people who make a business of scamming EBay people. They create a new ID and get a couple of positive feedbacks, maybe even giving the feedback themselves with an alternate ID. Let other people find out if a new seller is legit or not.

7. I only buy with PayPal now because it provides me some additional protection and it doesn't cost me anything.

I buy a fair amount of stuff on eBay and have gotten "snagged" once or twice by folks with low fedback counts. As a general rule, I no longer deal with anyone who has less than 25 feedbacks. Look carefully at negative feedbacks..... any jerk can post an undeserved feedback; but if you see a pattern of similar comments, run!!

In the two cases where I had problems, PP got me a 100% refund on one item and a 50% refund on the other. Some folks don't like PP; but I have never had a problem with them.

Overall, I enjoy buying on eBay and have found a bunch of very good deals; but as in anything, you have be careful as there are some who would take advantage. Randy

[Sam Chambers]

Well done, Jerry!

[Richard Blaine]

Many good experiences and a couple of burns. Both times it was on shipping damage. The seller would not handle the claim, and the carrier said that the insurance was between them and the seller. They said he paid for it. Well yeah he did, but with my money.

And some people just have no clue on how to pack an item so that it doesn't break.

[skip coyne]

paypal good for the buyer , bad for the seller . in any dispute paypal mostly sides with the buyer . that plus ever increasing fees from a service that promised to be "free forever"when it was rolled out .

google has a new payment service but ebay isnt allowing it (off ocurse they do own paypal )

[Voytek Jarnot]

In the two cases where I had problems, PP got me a 100% refund on one item and a 50% refund on the other. Some folks don't like PP; but I have never had a problem with them.

Wouldn't your credit card issuer have gotten you 100% both times?

[Jesse Cloud]

Sounds like you have the beast figured out Jerry. On Paypal, I like it just because you get closure quickly. As a seller, I hate to have to wait until a check or money order comes in before shipping. As a buyer, I'm bummed that I have to wait for my check to clear before I get my new toy...

Something you might try if you are watching a particular kind of item. You can save a search and have it run automatically. Ebay will email you with results daily. This saves you from having to look every day.

Another great thing about EBay is the increadible variety of stuff they have. My wife loves a ceramic soup tureen we have had for a while, but we broke the ceramic ladle for it. I went on to EBay hoping to find another tureen like it, but there was someone selling the ladle! I guess they broke their tureen.... Go figure.

[John Bailey]

I've bought tools, musical instruments, stereo equipment and outfitted a 40 yr. old sailboat, all with E-bay. I've been burned only one time. The Parks Planer I have was said to be in good shape, but the gear box was completely rusted and froze. It was complete and original, and will make a excellent planer when I'm done rebuilding, but certainly was not as avertised.

I always look at the number of transactions and the feedback. If the seller has less than 99% feedback, I read the negatives and in most cases pass, especially if the number of transactions are low. One seller had a very low rating. I read the feedback and the negative feedback was from the same person, obviously disturbed, under different names. I decided to buy anyway, bought a vintage guitar, and am very happy with it.

John

[tim mathis]

i had 2 problems with pay pal . i have not sold since. any one who wants can check out
www.paypalsucks.com i found it too late.

[Scott Vigder]

I found a Metabo 12" CMS for $275 less than any competition on or off eBay, and I would definetly buy from the seller again. It came packaged properly (for an 85lb unit), arrived on-time, and was a painless transaction.

[John Weber]

As far as PayPal is concerned, it's awesome and makes buying and selling on ebay easy and safe. PayPal customer service is better then most and I've never had a problem they didn't take care. I try and only bid on auctions that take PayPal, time and money spent on obtaining a money order often is not worth the hassle.

On S&H, I usually incorporate a fee in my shipping. It varies, and a couple items I sell I should reduce it to make the item a little more in line with actual shipping. But buyers should always look at total cost, if you don't want to pay don't bid. I try to cover at least PayPal fees and some ebay fees in my handling charge, but I'll also try and ship by other methods when possible if the buyer ask. Most of my items sell at a fraction of the Delta list price, but some people still think they should only pay the actual shipping cost - they are free to shop elsewhere. If people ask and are not rude, I'll often do what I can to help out a little.

I once sold a RAS motor for $125 shipped (I won't do that again), this motor had a wholesale cost of $1700, and list price was well over $2000. When the buyer asked for a reduced shipping fee (shipping was fixed at $75 - as it was a big heavy motor), I said no, but I would be happy to refund his payment and keep the motor myself. I guess saving over $1550 was good enough, he wanted the motor. Anyway, most people are great and understand ebay prices are low and operating cost have to be covered somehow.

Just be careful, get the facts and know what you are buying and who you are buying from. I've been disappointed on a few low priced items, but in general my ebay buying experience is very good, and my selling experience is excellent.

John

[Russ Massery]

While most of the items I bought on E-bay were good experence. I had a Bad experence this summer with them. I was bidding on a planer the was local. I could pick it up myself. Well as fate would have it I was outbid at the very end. No bigg deal. But two days later I got a e-mail. Which looked like it came from Ebay. Saying to reply to this email address this is a second chance offer. I had the seller address alreally because. I had asked about payment and if someone would be there to help my load it on my truck. After emailing him about it he said there was NO second offer and there is no such thing. It was a scam e-mail. I contaced Ebay about it. They they were sorry but there was nothing they could do about it. And had no way of know how the scam artist got my email address. I've decided no to deal with them again. All I can say is there are a lot of good legitmate people selling on Ebay. But there will always be people making bad out of good. It's a real shame. I still browse to see what things are selling for. So all I can say is Buyer beware.......

[Cliff Rohrabacher]

Hmmmm Tell me more about PayPal. I just signed up. Heard both plusses and now, a negative????

Pay pal is almost constantly settling law suits out of court with agreements that forbid the plaintiffs form discussing the matter.


Pay pal acts like a fidicuary but it is not.
With a fidicuary there are both state and federal laws to protect the consumer. Added to that each state has a division that carries out regulation , control, investigation, and enforcement of the fiducaries and thei relationships with the consumers.
With real fisuciaries you are very well protected.

Pay pal and it's ilk are operating under Regulation E. A fed law with not one enforcement body anythere (that I know of). So when you deal with them all you have to protect you is the contract they signed and your ability to mount a litigation to enforce your contract rights. It is a non-arm's length transaction of the worst sort. In short you are dealing with a huge powerful entity that can out gun, out spend, and out litigate you like it was free.

If a bank screws you you have lots ways to bring them to heel and at no cost to the conumer.

Pay pal has recently absconded with a sum less than $50.00 from a seller who I know personally. This is I am told by others, a very common a phenomena. Theny get your money then they don't give bits of it back. Its too small a sum for the individual person to bother suing over and it is plenty so that it seriously enriches Pay Pal by doing it to many thousands of sellers over time.


The Rules regulating banks are very strict and well established, very well refined. Interpreting the UCC and state versions of it has been the central aspect of so many litigations over the years allowing just about every aspect to have a long and well understood track record with well established meanings. The result is that the UCC is not subject to very many screwy interpretations. Added to that each state has a Division of Banking that closely regulates the industries. They usually provide for strict penalties for rule violations.

Regulation E is different. It is un-developed and is, as I said, the wild west of financial rules. The amount of fraud and cheating and just plain sharp dealing possible under Reg E is staggering. An entity operating under Reg E isn't subject to anything like the state regulation a real fiduciary ( like a bank) is because there is nothing in any state (that I know of) that inheres as a rule making and enforcement body.

I will not do business with Pay Pal.

That is just me electing not to take the walk down the dark and dingy street. It may be a short cut that plenty of folks use daily, but it is still the dark and dingy street where plenty of blood gets spilled and I prefer that it not be mine.

So I'll take the long way home.

[J.R. Rutter]

I was browsing around 6-7 months ago, and came across an SCMI T120 shaper with feeder. But it was a "pickup only" for shipping, so I figured there was no way that I could do anything with it. I was curious to see what it looked like, so I went ahead and clicked on it.

Ever get that electric tingling feeling from a mini jolt of adrenaline when you geta surprise? The location was my little town! Half an hour later, the seller was calling me back on the number that I e-mailed him. He was a retired pro woodworker and didn't have room for the big shaper in his garage. Later that day, I was running my hand over the unworn table casting, oogling the 9.9 HP drive system, and writing a check for the "Buy it now" price.

I guess it was just meant to be!