ePrey - I HATE anonymous bidders!

Paul T.

Paul T.

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I cannot understand why eBay has moved to making all bidders anonymous. I was bidding on a Contax IIa, and 21mm Biogon, which has shot up $400 over the last couple of hours - and all from anonymous bidders.

This new arrangement is supposedly to stop low bidders being hassled with spam and dodgy offers. But ultimately, it means we can't judge whether our fellow bidders are, for example, simply shills. This is far worse than having to ignore the odd bit of spam.

secondly, over recent times I've often emailed bidders to let them know items I've noticed are fakes. THis is now impossible to do. We all know what eBay does if you notify there is a fake up for auction: ignore you and pocket their fees.

In the past I've managed to find a lot of good things on eBay. But my interest in buying has just diminished, big time.

(So, if you have a Contax IIa gathering dust, feel free to email me. My black paint M4 and 35mm Summicron will be appearing on this site over the next few weeks if you fancy a deal...)
 
I really hate it.

It takes a vast amount of information away from you.

They created this stupid problem themselves.

They were so greedy that they didn't want any underbidders to make "off-eBay" deals, so they created the "second chance" offer, to "keep it on eBay".

This proved to be one of the greatest opportunities for scammers ever, so now they force the anonymous bidder nonsense to try and stop it.

I really hope someone comes up and blows them off the map with a better auction site.

Right now, I'm in a losing Paypal dispute. Sent an item overseas, winner claims he didn't get it after only 10 days, is doing chargeback. No delivery confirmation overseas so I'll have to eat it.

The whole thing is getting out of control, and now, of course, the IRS wants their cut. eBay is going to start reporting all your transactions next year.
 
IRS? Yikes!

Another irritation is the way PayPal try and force you to use bank funding, rather than credit card funding. It won't let you use credit card (which provides more consumer protection) as a default, because it cuts into their percentage. So you get a message saying "are you SURE you want to use credit card funding", implying this is less safe, when really they mean "are you SURE you don't want to give us free money?"

eBay was such a brilliant idea. But now they're committed to raising revenues, year by year, making it more and more obvious they're taking advantage of their monopoly...
 
I agree with everything that was said here - unfortunately there is no real alternative to evilBay. For RF gear the classifieds on this site work really well and one can be sure of the quality, but beyond that there is nothing other than eBay. The constant fraud with hi-jacked accounts, the anonymous bidding that opens the door for even more fraud and the inability of eBay to get their business model under control is outrageous. The only good news is that most of these fraudsters are too dumb to make their ads look credible - it's mostly 24 hour auctions and they always use the same text to contact them off-eBay.

I do suspect that eBay will suffer a revenue loss from these measures - I certainly buy less there than I used to - it's just no fun anymore.

Someone tell Stephen Gandy to start an auctionm site🙂
 
I have decided that the Leica CL is my favourite camera - at least it suits me best. So I'm getting rid of the M4, lens, Kiev II, superfluous Nikkor lenses, but want to keep one nice old classic, and the IIa fits the bill best. As long as I don't end up paying a ludicrous price for it!

(and yes, I would hope to liberate a bit of $$ by selling the M4 for a IIa...)
 
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Historically, auctions were run with the buyer as the benificiary. The seller paid the auctioneer. Over the past thirty years auctions have altered so that the seller is the major benificiary of any sale. E-bay is the epitome of where the seller is the only beneficiary of the sale. With an independent auctioneer and onsite examination there can be some guarantees but as e-bay stand now it is no more than pickers/scavengers putting up items in poor condition without any guarantees. Certainly, there are some honest individuals and good items but to wade through the endless junk and misleading descriptions is hardly worth the effort when the same item can be found with equal effort from reputable dealers with a quarantee for relatively comparable price. I have been attending auctions for over 20 years and the rule of thumb was that the hammer price was a wholesale price (aplproximately one third of retail). At ebay one could fairly certain that the final sale price will be retail or close to it, if not higher.
 
evil bay is ridiculous.. I've stopped attending all together. I might use it as a proxy for pricing but that's only if there are relatively few bids on it.
 
Paul -- Not sure I follow your argument. Why exactly do you feel you are at a disadvantage if you just see "Bidder 1," "Bidder 2," etc. instead of those bidders' eBay IDs? And how can knowing their eBay IDs help you to spot shills (unless you've seen a pattern of bidding by the same people in previous auctions conducted by the same seller)? As for your wanting to warn potential bidders about fakes -- couldn't that same capability be used by an unscrupulous bidder to "warn" competing bidders that something was fake, when in fact it was genuine? Great way to weed out the competition!

B2 -- As far as I can see, with the new bidding ID's, you still know how many different bidders are competing against you, since they still are identified separately -- just differently.
 
IRS?

That sounds like the way to kill the goose for everyone. For the low end guy/gal, this has a lot of pain all over it. If you are selling as a store, yes, get the IRS involved. But for folks who sell stuff they have (like garage sales on the internet) I am a bit concerned. But will have to wait and see if it becomes real.

It's a doubt edge sword though. EvilBay has been Very Very good to me, and bad on different transactions. I use it (selling at the moment) for stuff that I would have no way to try and recover some value for items I no longer need. It's a great tool.

I'm not sure Stephen needs the headaches, our Classifieds work well (IMHO) if you price your stuff right.

B2 (;->
 
I know the nickname of many of the "usual" bidders for the specialized RF equipment that I look for, or am interested in price info on. That used to give me some very interesting data for my own records. It has also enabled me to spot bidding by known dealers, especially for rare items.
Besides making it more difficult to detect shill bidding, that data is now hidden. I have been on eBay much less often, and am bidding even less. That saddens me, and also makes it more difficult for me to generate hobby money. I have a very large collection of US postal history and postal cards, and eBay has been a good source of sales in the past. Time will tell if the changes will have an adverse effect on sales.
Yes, I think eBay is misguided in their attempts to "improve" the site. They may well react to slipping revenues by more changes, etc., resulting in the inevitable total decline. Few of us would gain by such a scenario, and many of us would lose a valuable asset for finding difficult items we want for our collections.

Harry
 
OK, let's see. I bought a camera 30 years ago for $250.00. I now sell it on evilbay for $125.00. Where is my profit on which to pay taxes? Now if that camera is valued at $90.00 (by whose standards?) and I sell if for $2000.00. I guess that might be different.

I guess I just don't know enough about tax law.
 
>>ebay, eprey, epray, epay and the stupidest ever: evil boy. Why can't people just say ebay?<<

I've only bought a few items from EBay, but all the transactions have been very good experiences.

Fifteen and twenty years ago, I lived in Europe and found that the Nikon RF gear I was looking for was both cheaper and more available in the United States. I subscribed to express-mail handling of Shutterbug. When it arrived, I would immediately scour all the ads, circle what I was looking for, call the seller at $1 per minute, discuss the condition, etc. Then wait for the next month's magazine.
 
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