A cautionary tale about buying on Ebay from Japan

[DownUnder]

Some of us have moved way beyond all this. We no longer buy anything from Ebay above a certain low value - mine is AUD $50.

Why pay top dollar for cameras, lenses et al that are sold without any guarantee? And zilch support from Ebay if you end up with a turkey?

Ebay's sad decline in recent years is entirely self-inflicted. In the GODs there were all sorts of fine cameras being offered for sale. Now it's mostly Reject Shop tat from housewives who haunt the charity stores, buy for 50 cents and try for $20 on the item.

In his earlier post Peter G wrote he buys only from Ebay sellers with 98% or more. I go only for the top end - 100% of nothing.

I don't know about you all, but to me life is too short for this kind of aggravation with Ebay sellers.

 

[DownUnder]

Duplicate post (see #23) - I was (again) too quick on the trigger with the enter key.

I will now go away and think of something to repost in this space...

 

[DownUnder]

How do you say caveat emptor in Japanese?

買主の責任

 

[Miles.]

One common tactic I have seen is to feign ignorance or simply not list defects.
They do the same strategy domestically as well.

You can uncover this by going through their other listings if they have any.

So, for example the listing, for a lens you'd consider to buy says "lenses unchecked - look fine to me - but I am not an expert!" or something similar. Or maybe just "unchecked, not an expert" - any variation of this theme that you can think of.
Then when you browse the sellers listings another listing suddenly mentions "the lenses move smoothly and are free of mold and cloudiness except for a few pieces of dust". Huh! Suddenly they know about lenses!

Sadly I have been told that the various auction houses (Yahoo, eBay, Mercari) let this fly and it will be hard to get a return despite the sellers intent being very clearly to deceive here. Thus - check their other listings thoroughly as well and assume that anything not mentioned implies that there might be something wrong.

This is doubly frustrating because there are sellers out there who legit do not know, and I have taken that gamble on accordingly priced items a couple of times in the past and won. But of course you will not "win" against someone who is out to deceive from the word "go". Now I am much, much more wary

This is a very good tip.

Often times when I see the phrase “zero haze,” or any similar comment in a vintage lens description, I am often dubious and so will check their other listings. If they list every other vintage lens as also having “zero haze” I just move on. Only disappointment to be found down that road.

 

[maddoc]

Sure, that one was "Nisshin Camera" in Akihabara.

Not knowing about this shop I ordered an Artist&Artisan neck strap just the day before from Nisshin Camera. It arrived yesterday, one day after I ordered it, here in Nagoya. Extremely well packed. Since it was a new item, I maybe was just lucky.

I gave up on buying any used lens or camera from any shop here in Japan or Yahoo Auctions, where returns are very difficult. The last purchase from Yahoo! was an Ultron 35/1.7 LTM, described by the seller as having a little amount of haze that could easily be cleaned up. After the lens had arrived, I figured out that the "haze" was more than "little" and I sent it to Cosina in Nagano prefecture for cleaning/repair. They inspected the lens, and told me that it is not haze but element separation and that there are no more spare parts available. The Yahoo! seller refused to acknowledge it and I was left with this paper-weight lens. Last year I sold it on Mercari, exactly describing the lens problem and that spare parts are not available. This way I was able to recover some of my loss.

 

[sooner]

I've mostly had great luck buying on ebay from Japan, but I find it frustrating to read the descriptions that list a camera as being excellent A+ or whatever only to read in the description that it has haze or fungus. I mean, at least they admitted to the defect, but imho you can't describe a lens with fungus as excellent. It just means taking more time to peruse the listings.

 

[DownUnder]

Its been a while since I posted here, but I just wanted to share two episodes of " Exc+5" and "near mint" camera purchases from Ebay in Japan.
1) Contax T. Surely looking in good condition. First two rolls - light leak! Costly repair in Norway, back in action.
2) Contax TVS, Exc+5. Just outside the return period - flex cable problem. Not repairable, no return. I now have 28-35mm Contax TVS.
I will not claim that the sellers knew, but I can just urge to shoot a few rolls (not just one) within the return period (which is short).
(as well: Earlier I got a GF670W that was also purchased there...that had the battery drain issue)

The unforturtante side insight is that quite a few Contax cameras seem to come to the end of their life span, which hurts a bit as a long-time (hard core) Contax owner...

Peter, one of my stray thoughts. Go online and get a quote to repair those Contaxes. Where there is a will, there is (sometimes if not always) a way.

With luck you may find a repairer for the light-leaky one in a less expensive country than Norway, who could patch it up. They are, so I'm told, very fine cameras if a tad long in the tooth - like my Contax G1 which just seems to go on and on, lucky me! - and you might be pleasantly surprised to be able to get an affordable repair.

 

[TenEleven]

Not knowing about this shop I ordered an Artist&Artisan neck strap just the day before from Nisshin Camera. It arrived yesterday, one day after I ordered it, here in Nagoya. Extremely well packed. Since it was a new item, I maybe was just lucky.

I gave up on buying any used lens or camera from any shop here in Japan or Yahoo Auctions, where returns are very difficult. The last purchase from Yahoo! was an Ultron 35/1.7 LTM, described by the seller as having a little amount of haze that could easily be cleaned up. After the lens had arrived, I figured out that the "haze" was more than "little" and I sent it to Cosina in Nagano prefecture for cleaning/repair. They inspected the lens, and told me that it is not haze but element separation and that there are no more spare parts available. The Yahoo! seller refused to acknowledge it and I was left with this paper-weight lens. Last year I sold it on Mercari, exactly describing the lens problem and that spare parts are not available. This way I was able to recover some of my loss.

Yeah, frankly I would be shocked if there were problems with a new item. I'm glad your strap is fine, though.

And yeah I tried the same route - I knew it was a "hail mary" but anyway called Cosina up and the lens was so old (Sold in 1999) they had to get some oyaji tanto from somewhere on the line to even understand what I was talking about - that was quite funny and almost made it worth it. However, of course, no repair - no parts. At least unlike Nisshin Camera they were very polite about it and apologized repeatedly despite none of this being their fault.

With Nisshin what confounded me most was not just the refusal to honor their 1 week returns policy but the fact that they condescended to me all the while treating me as if I did not know anything. For example they put the lens on a Sony A7 - when one of my complaints was that the rangefinder coupling was completely off. When I explained this I was told that this has probably(!) no effect on the picture"?

To be clear, a decade of experience of buying used gear here means I know that even "nice" shops will not immediately bowl over and replace your items unless something is very obviously wrong with it. But I expect at least to be given the benefit of doubt and some common courtesy

 

[Peter_S]

The light leak I got fixed in Norway for around USD80. That was OK and saved tax hassle. Indeed a fine camera, I prefer it in some ways over the T3 (no auto override of aperature!). Only the lack of filter attachment is a limitation.
The TVS - I have contacted Alexandr from Awayrepairs.

 

[TenEleven]

The light leak I got fixed in Norway for around USD80. That was OK and saved tax hassle. Indeed a fine camera, I prefer it in some ways over the T3 (no auto override of aperature!). Only the lack of filter attachment is a limitation.
The TVS - I have contacted Alexandr from Awayrepairs.

Sort of off topic - the light leak fixing - assuming the cause is the usual moltoprene degradation is actually quite easy and you could likely have done it yourself.

I like the Contax T - mainly because I don't like taking a gamble on 20-30 year old autofocus technology, and the lens is pretty good for such a small camera. But after trying 3 specimens it seems that at some stage the wind mechanism will get flaky in the same way. The lever moves but no winding action takes place - you can feel this because the wind feels quite strange. Weirdly enough, it seems to only happen with film in unless the camera is in really bad shape.

Since the wind and wind lock is electro-mechanical it's a lot harder for me to "debug" what's going on.

 

[neal3k]

I've had great luck from Japan with cameras in many price ranges. I had a problem with two purchases (I buy quite a few cameras a year) and in both cases, the sellers quickly refunded my payment . I would not hesitate buying from there but only with returns guaranteed, unless it is really cheap. I do think because of language, some of the descriptions are boilerplate with the same conflicting descriptions. Just ask questions and if unsatisfied, just return. I think eBay works well in this area as I'm a buyer and seller.

 

[SWB]

There are a plethora of desirable cameras for sale in Japan because the photographers are still heavy film users so there's a lot of turnaround, and of course many of the cameras were made there and worldwide supply issues probably never affected the home market over the years. Generally the Japanese sellers do try to be accurate in their descriptions, but like any nation they will have their rouges. It's a tired old saying but I've never had a problem buying a camera or lens from Japan, but I look very carefully at the photographs and sometimes even import them into Photoshop so I can change the contrast and maybe see any dents that aren't showing up in the sale picture. And if it's a camera I factor in I need to replace the light seals because a/ these can fail on any old camera, and b/ it's good practice to make the camera your own and know it's got the basics of reliability sorted like seals and a new battery. And usually 'fully tested' doesn't refer to things like seals which can deteriorate rapidly as soon as the camera starts to be used again.

So I'm happy to buy from Japan, they post quickly and the goods are delivered quickly, and the only bad experiences have been from sellers on eBay in other countries (one in particular) where sending what you've bought is something to think about, and descriptions are often 'excellent' with the hidden sub text 'considering it's been in a damp box in a garage for twenty years'. And I wouldn't recommend it all as entertainment but on YouTube people do blog tours of Japanese camera shops and even in the smaller towns and cities there are shops stacked with second hand gear and especially film cameras and lenses so it isn't a 'fake' or over hyped marketplace and prices can be very reasonable because of it.

 

[Retro-Grouch]

There are a plethora of desirable cameras for sale in Japan because the photographers are still heavy film users so there's a lot of turnaround, and of course many of the cameras were made there and worldwide supply issues probably never affected the home market over the years. Generally the Japanese sellers do try to be accurate in their descriptions, but like any nation they will have their rouges. It's a tired old saying but I've never had a problem buying a camera or lens from Japan, but I look very carefully at the photographs and sometimes even import them into Photoshop so I can change the contrast and maybe see any dents that aren't showing up in the sale picture. And if it's a camera I factor in I need to replace the light seals because a/ these can fail on any old camera, and b/ it's good practice to make the camera your own and know it's got the basics of reliability sorted like seals and a new battery. And usually 'fully tested' doesn't refer to things like seals which can deteriorate rapidly as soon as the camera starts to be used again.

So I'm happy to buy from Japan, they post quickly and the goods are delivered quickly, and the only bad experiences have been from sellers on eBay in other countries (one in particular) where sending what you've bought is something to think about, and descriptions are often 'excellent' with the hidden sub text 'considering it's been in a damp box in a garage for twenty years'. And I wouldn't recommend it all as entertainment but on YouTube people do blog tours of Japanese camera shops and even in the smaller towns and cities there are shops stacked with second hand gear and especially film cameras and lenses so it isn't a 'fake' or over hyped marketplace and prices can be very reasonable because of it.

Generally I agree, but it does seem to me that there is a lot more inferior equipment for sale, even if it's described as such. The main problem I see is that there's been some significant drift in what the term "mint" means; now, virtually everything is described as mint, and careful shoppers must peruse the descriptions and photos carefully. As others have stated above, a finder full of fungus is not mint! What seems to be the case, often, is that the cosmetics are mint, but the optics and mechanicals are far from it. Not good if you want to actually use the equipment!
I suppose that, on a site like eBay where the competition for the buyer's attention is fierce, "mint" is a way to get attention and/or pop up on a search. Good stuff is still out there, but more care is now needed when shopping.

 

[Rayt]

I prefer to buy in mint condition but Japanese sellers offer Top Mint which is better than mint. Of course EX+++++++++++++ must be better than EX+.

 

[TenEleven]

I think the most neutral statement one can make is the following:

As @Retrotech68 correctly pointed out there is a lot less good stuff for sale, and a lot more stuff of questionable quality and provenance. Sellers will be sellers - and will try to hock it regardless. This is thus no statement on the nature of the Japanese but just a reflection of the reality we are in. The same is of course true for US/EU sellers etc.

Where Japan comes in is this: Since Japanese camera sellers have had a lot of (deserved) goodwill from "the before times" they can probably get away with this for a bit longer, still.

 

[TenEleven]

Another thing to consider is that most who read this forums are old hands.
Most of you here - you know your stuff, you are not necessarily the target audience for these absurd listings.

Furthermore this does not mean that *all* equipment sold is bad or has to be bad, of course.

We're talking in relative terms here. For example, sometimes I shrink down my camera holdings and most of the stuff that I sell will be in very nice to nice condition. There will of course also be others just like me who slowly (or not so slowly) trickle out their good gear.

However this again does not change the fact that the ratio of good stuff to bad stuff has skewed a lot in favor of the bad while prices have gone up. This makes it especially difficult for someone starting out not get ripped off. I for one feel sorry for people just starting out

 

[DownUnder]

Generally I agree, but it does seem to me that there is a lot more inferior equipment for sale, even if it's described as such. The main problem I see is that there's been some significant drift in what the term "mint" means; now, virtually everything is described as mint, and careful shoppers must peruse the descriptions and photos carefully. As others have stated above, a finder full of fungus is not mint! What seems to be the case, often, is that the cosmetics are mint, but the optics and mechanicals are far from it. Not good if you want to actually use the equipment!
I suppose that, on a site like eBay where the competition for the buyer's attention is fierce, "mint" is a way to get attention and/or pop up on a search. Good stuff is still out there, but more care is now needed when shopping.

Agree. there is "mint" and there is "minty" - the latter always makes me laugh as it's the taste I like in a classic southern julep...

When one buys on Ebay and the gear does not fit the description of "mint", that is where Ebay provides about the only good protection it ever gives - to the buyer. Which is worth considering. Sellers have almost no protection, except in cases where (as an example) someone who has bought something then has an attack of buyer's remorse, and fabricates a case to get a refund.

The way Ebay treats these cases makes me almost suspect that they use AI to vet and process all their complaints and claims. Which to me is a good indication of what we can expect in the not-too-distant future when most businesses dispose of their human staff and go over to what can best be termed as AS - artificial stupidity.

 

[Leon C]

Agree. there is "mint" and there is "minty" - the latter always makes me laugh as it's the taste I like in a classic southern julep...

When one buys on Ebay and the gear does not fit the description of "mint", that is where Ebay provides about the only good protection it ever gives - to the buyer. Which is worth considering. Sellers have almost no protection, except in cases where (as an example) someone who has bought something then has an attack of buyer's remorse, and fabricates a case to get a refund.

The way Ebay treats these cases makes me almost suspect that they use AI to vet and process all their complaints and claims. Which to me is a good indication of what we can expect in the not-too-distant future when most businesses dispose of their human staff and go over to what can best be termed as AS - artificial stupidity.

Yeah the MBG (Money Back Guarantee) has saved me a couple of times from unscrupulous sellers with erm....imaginative descriptions, and I don't use the 'Picture is part of the description' nonsense, as pictures do and can tell a lie with careful lighting, one of my favs though is 'No obvious marks'....It has or it hasn't, not hard to check.

I buy a lot of 'fixer uppers' from Ebay, camera/lens wise, as it can be fun trying to fix things but you learn a lot about descriptions that way and been pretty lucky up to now, apart from the odd cry baby who I outed in their feedback, they really don't like it when you tell the truth.

And you're right about EB using AI, well I agree, AS, as have you seen the 'AS' descriptions, they are hilarious but they do use it for settling disputes, even my hosting company uses it for email replies, it's a nightmare.

 

[Out to Lunch]

A quick scan of just two Leica M cameras shows the following ratings:

Excellent
Excellent ++++
Almost Mint
Total Near Mint
Near Mint
Near Mint +++
A Mint
Mint
Minty
Top Mint
Top Mint +++++,

and my favorite: almost never used. I suppose eBay could eliminate this word salad by prescribing a rating system.

 

[jc031699]

I've mostly had great luck buying on ebay from Japan, but I find it frustrating to read the descriptions that list a camera as being excellent A+ or whatever only to read in the description that it has haze or fungus. I mean, at least they admitted to the defect, but imho you can't describe a lens with fungus as excellent. It just means taking more time to peruse the listings.

Yes me too. I have had great luck. I've bought some lenses with minor problems that I could fix or ignore, and a Canon IVSB2 in great user condition with a little top plate corrosion. The text descriptions have been extremely accurate and forthright. I simply ignore the boilerplate grading score, and look at the price and the details. They usually even indicate whether described defects are predicted to affect image quality. The packing is pristine and precise. Same is true for KEH, Roberts, Blue Moon. In contrast, this has not been the case for many private sellers located potentially anywhere in the world.