A Heads Up On Fleabay's Policies

I had a stretch recently with four buyers in a row who attempted to negotiate the purchase price after the auction closed and they got the item. The "stick" of course was the threat that I would get negative feedback for not listing accurately. I simply told them, "Sorry it wasn't what you expected, I take every effort to accurately describe the item, I'll be happy to refund your money," etc. And I meant it. Only one took me up on the offer and that item did have an issue I wasn't aware of (it was a camera body on which the self-timer didn't work and I thought it did). The others, well, I don't know. Anyway, I'm glad I'm almost done selling what I'm going to sell on eBay.
 
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Well Well. After a recent walkabout with a manual camera and an auto-focus system I sadly came to realize that try as I might my eyes and the SLR manual system don't get along too well. The auto-focus had a viewfinder diopter that helped immensely. So I was going to set up an Ebay seller's account. But had reservations when I read that Ebay also wanted a percentage of the shipping/handling fees. It seems that they are pushing the buy it now and free shipping and charging for shipping otherwise. Ouch. Then I thankfully came across this post. Saved me some headaches! Mucho Gracias!

p.s. Anybody sell on I*offer or Amazon?
 
MC JC86 said:
Can I ask if eBay is so bad, what sorts of promises RFF makes me if I were to pay the fee to sell here?
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I'd imagine the answer is pretty much the lyrics from the Cheers theme song.
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Makin' your way in the world today
Takes everything you've got
Taking a break from all your worries
Sure would help a lot
Wouldn't you like to get away?

So are you saying this means RFF will refund me money if i get ripped off or otherwise get involved?

I'm sorry, I just don't think so. It's buyer/seller you're on your own here. This place doesn't even do heatware:

http://www.heatware.com/
 
Brian Puccio said:
Makin' your way in the world today
Takes everything you've got
Taking a break from all your worries
Sure would help a lot
Wouldn't you like to get away?

So are you saying this means RFF will refund me money if i get ripped off or otherwise get involved?

I'm sorry, I just don't think so. It's buyer/seller you're on your own here. This place doesn't even do heatware:

http://www.heatware.com/
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Yeah, my silly point was that people make trading on here sound like the Utopia of personal online trading solutions and make eBay sound like the internet equivalent of Skid Row (or for my fellow Philadelphians, Kensington) I've read negative experiences people have had on here too.. It , apparently, can happen anywhere... It seems even those that complain have had 100's of successful transactions.
 
I buy from eBay every now and then but I never sold anything there. Just don't get the appeal. If I have something to sell, I'll find out how much it's worth and where the target audience is and I post it there for sale at a good price. So far I've always had good luck with this. As a buyer I've occasionally acquired somewhat defective items but each time they were of such a low value that I didn't even bother getting my money back.


My biggest annoyance with internet purchases happened very recently and it wasn't on eBay. I bought a very nice LF lens from the classifieds on photo.net at a very good price of $160. Seller from the US was willing to ship internationally so all was good. I usually don't ask sellers to declare something as a 'gift' or anything so naturally the topic of customs declaration didn't come up. I assumed he would just declare the proper value and since the item wasn't expensive to begin with customs wouldn't be too bad.
Then I go the post office to pick up the package and they tell me I have to pay a fee of...wait for it....wait for it.....$90! I wondered what kind of exorbitant surcharge the customs office slapped on and in my anger I was dead set on cheating the customs office whenever I can from now on. But then I look at the customs declaration and see the declared value....$600! Of course I wrote the seller an angry e-mail and asked him what the hell he was thinking. In his wisdom, the kind seller thought it might be a good idea to declare a higher value for insurance reasons. Well, it obviously wasn't.
The seller was really sorry and asked how he could make it up but I decided to let things be as there was no bad intention behind it.
 
I had a very similar incident
The buyer paid. I sent the iten USPS insured and with delivery confirmation . He claims he never got it and filed a dispute w eBay
eBay froze the payment

A couple days later he was flagged as a suspicious buyer by eBay, which earlier had told me to send the item


Then his account was closed on eBay

I called ( yes there is a real person and a phone number for eBay)

They helped me write it all up, submit the response and ruled in my favor within 24 hours - case closed

Be careful out there , it's the wild west
Steve M. said:
I just had a nightmare experience w/ fleabay and thought I'd post this. It's really interesting.

In brief: I sold an item that the buyer said they never received. It was shipped by USPS Priority Mail w/ delivery confirmation and insurance. USPS website said it was delivered on time. I called USPS and they said I could still file an insurance claim. Cool. So I email the buyer and tell them I'll refund their full amount within a few days and wait on the ck from USPS, which usually takes 3 to 4 weeks. Should take care of things, right?

Nope. The buyer then files a claim w/ ebay stating they didn't trust me and they wanted an immediate refund. Woa. Crazy buyer here. OK, after several very frustrating calls to ebay I say to heck w/ it and give them a full refund. Afterwards the buyer leaves negative feedback! Another call to ebay results in their rep telling me that at ebay "we have rules, and we won't remove feedback that is untruthful of unjust". Hmmmm. That's a peculiar policy for feedback. My wife said "yeah, they have rules that make them money", a spot on statement.

I tell 'em, OK, if that's how you are, I'll close my account. Got enough trouble in my life w/o dealing w/ people like this. Get up this morning, end my auctions, pay off my ebay fees, and go to close my account. Can't do it. System tells me that because I just made a payment to them, I have to wait 30 days to close the account. Jeez, they won't even let me close my account now?

I've seen enough of their dog and pony show to last a lifetime. Good place to buy and sell stuff, but if you ever have a problem you can forget about any rational or ethical anything from these guys. I was really mad, but now I think it's hilarious. What ever made me think they would do the right thing? I must be nuts. Ha!
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MC JC86 said:
Brian Puccio said:
Makin' your way in the world today
Takes everything you've got
Taking a break from all your worries
Sure would help a lot
Wouldn't you like to get away?

So are you saying this means RFF will refund me money if i get ripped off or otherwise get involved?

I'm sorry, I just don't think so. It's buyer/seller you're on your own here. This place doesn't even do heatware:

http://www.heatware.com/
Click to expand...
Yeah, my silly point was that people make trading on here sound like the Utopia of personal online trading solutions and make eBay sound like the internet equivalent of Skid Row (or for my fellow Philadelphians, Kensington) I've read negative experiences people have had on here too.. It , apparently, can happen anywhere... It seems even those that complain have had 100's of successful transactions.
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Ah, OK, then you're making the same point I'm making.
 
Jamie123 said:
But then I look at the customs declaration and see the declared value....$600! Of course I wrote the seller an angry e-mail and asked him what the hell he was thinking. In his wisdom, the kind seller thought it might be a good idea to declare a higher value for insurance reasons. Well, it obviously wasn't.
The seller was really sorry and asked how he could make it up but I decided to let things be as there was no bad intention behind it.
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To be honest - I think you're too nice. This happened to me once, on pnet, and I asked the seller, politely, to pay half of the extra fees he incurred me. He paid - it's only reasonable.

As for selling on RFF - I don't think I've ever sold to anybody here without a long posting history.
 
Paul T. said:
To be honest - I think you're too nice. This happened to me once, on pnet, and I asked the seller, politely, to pay half of the extra fees he incurred me. He paid - it's only reasonable.
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I thought about it but decided to let it go. He was very sorry and I'm sure he would've paid but to me it would've felt like I'm bullying him. Had the lens been more expensive from the start I would've asked for a partial refund but the it was dirt cheap and the condition was immaculate so I decided it wouldn't be fair.
 
I have a eBay store, and I sell a few cameras and lenses every week. Selling things on an Internet auction site puts you in the same shoes as regular retailers, in which you have to deal with the buyers as business customers. Those who have worked in retail know that there are always a few customers who are simply nuts, or impossible to please. Those who sell on eBay are bound to come across such people from time to time. It's not pleasant, but it comes with the territory.

As for eBay's fees, they are quite high, but in my case they are hugely less expensive than the overhead of a brick-and-mortar store. When you consider the market eBay makes available to you, and the amount of convenience eBay provides, it's not too bad a deal. I just wish eBay was a little more reasonable with the feedback process. Fortunately for me, I have sold a couple hundred cameras over the last year, and have managed never to get negative feedback.
 
Jamie123 said:
I buy from eBay every now and then but I never sold anything there. Just don't get the appeal. If I have something to sell, I'll find out how much it's worth and where the target audience is and I post it there for sale at a good price. So far I've always had good luck with this.
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If you have a fair price, that's a good way for sure.

Now if you have a canon LTM 50 1.2 and want 660 bucks or more for it

http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=250788100713&ssPageName=STRK:MESINDXX:IT

or any newer CV,

you will probably get more on ebay.

But you never know, I grabbed a 50 1.1 nokton for a good price--under 8 just the other night, but it could have been listed a bit better.
 
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