How long is long enough on e8ay?

[sf]

OK, so I completed my last E8ay transaction last week. Never doing it again for any reason.

Paid for on Wednesday night. Received a message on thursday thanking me for payment and a little note saying that he would mail it that day and send me a shipping confirmation that evening. No confirmation yet. No returns to my emails requesting confirmation or a heads up of any kind. Not a word. Been nearly a week now. How long should I wait before reversing the charge? I have sent 4 emails of "SO, just send me a head's up when you can" type stuff. . . no reply.

My bank, thankfully, agreed to reverse the charge upon my request. I have not reversed it yet, but on my word, it will be done. I just don't want to do it prematurely - because, I really am NOT a jerk. I just demand good business practices. And I make use of whatever is available to me to settle things.

 

[Poptart]

EBay is a big mess of a garage sale. Treat it as such = happiness.

 

[Frank Granovski]

If you can reverse it, then by all means reverse it. Obviously, you're dealing with a yo-yo. 😡

 

[Poptart]

You bought a yo-yo?

 

[JohnR]

Hi, you can request the seller's contact information and give them a call:

http://pages.ebay.com.au/help/tp/questions/member-phone.html

If that fails the eBay complaint procedure can be started ten days after the auction:

http://pages.ebay.com.au/help/tp/inr-snad-process.html

HTH 🙂

 

[sf]

Thanks John.

Thanks John.

Thanks, John. I just did that, and am apparently waiting for an email that contains the contact information. I had no idea that was possible.

But, if this doesn't work out, I will certainly just reverse the payment, but I'll wait till next week - just to give this guy a full week's shipping time, assuming that he actually mailed it that day and just hates communicating. I will call him on Thursday, which seems reasonable. Sooner than later, but not too soon. 1 week after purchasing seems about right considering the initial email from him.

He seems like a decent seller, seems sincere and I have heard of his skills here on RFF, so I won't get nasty unless I have very good reason to.

 

[sf]

Reverse it. Now.

right. . . .


well, I don't have anything to lose, seeing as I AM closing my account on that miserable site, but . . . I don't want to do anything rash and end up being the jerk here. I'll wait for a bit, call him, see how that goes, and pull the trigger if necessary.

Norway is cool.

 

[sf]

LOL 😀
So is Seattle. I remember reading a quote by one of the founders of SubPop. When asked what it was that made Seattle the heart of Grunge he answered "Too many uptight Scandinavians"...

About eBay: I've adapted a "F*ck you" policy when it comes to buying and selling. This means I've reversed charges numerous times. Sometimes the seller pops up again with some lame excuse for not answering my emails. Honestly, I couldn't care less. I usually pay within minutes of winning an auction, and in exchange I want them to follow up. If they say they're gonna email me a tracking number, then I expect to get one. If I don't get it, well, then it's plan B: "F*ck you!" 😎

I like your style. I play hardball too. I called the bank to verify my ability to reverse the charge (without the OK from eprey or paypalsy), so that I would have a little ammo if necessary. If the camera or communication from this seller does not arrive by Friday, then it's curtains and the money comes home, whether or not the camera arrives later on. That will have been 1 solid week. I said next week before, but Friday is late enough.

 

[RML]

Check your spam box (or whatever it's called). I've found on occassions mails back that I thought I hadn't received. Also check whether you're checking the right email account. Yes, that too happened to me. 😛

 

[sf]

Check your spam box (or whatever it's called). I've found on occassions mails back that I thought I hadn't received. Also check whether you're checking the right email account. Yes, that too happened to me. 😛

Oh, I've checked everything. I have no junk mail filters, and my spam box is regularly checked - thoroughly. And, the seller is on my contacts list so they should show up in my email inbox. And, after 4 emails, and 2 through the auction site's email service, you'd think the message would get through (mine or theirs). My business email is off limits to such transactions - I did check it, though.

The seller just gets a call from a very gruff George (me) on Thursday. Some people tell me I sound like Michael Clark Duncan on the phone. Especially in the morning.

 

[Rick Waldroup]

I guess I have been extremely lucky on ebay. My wife sells stuff all the time (antiques and camera equipment). I have bought numerous camera items, some of them very expensive, and have only had one problem that I can remember. I bought a large format lens from a guy in San Antonio and he had a fire. After about a month of not hearing from the guy and sending many emails, his wife emailed me and told me they had lost their house and he was in the hospital. I believed her and told her not to worry about the money (it was about 250.00). Then about 6 months later, I checked my paypal account and the money was there. So you never know. Once I bid on a Mamiya 7II outfit, the guy's reserve was not met and I emailed him and made him an offer. This was many years ago before I had a paypal account. I then talked to him on the phone and sent a cashiers check for 1800.00 to him. My wife thought I was crazy because he could have simply kept the check if he wanted to seeing as how I was doing this outside of ebay. He sent the camera kit with no problem. Most of the cameras I own now I purchased through ebay. My wife sells a lot of camera eqipment with no problem so I guess we have been real lucky. I have no problems with ebay at all.

 

[JoshRoot]

Never doing it again for any reason.

Whatever.

Ebay works fine for me. Out of probably 200 transactions, I have only had problems with 2 of them. I wish I could say I had that percentage in any other venue for buying/selling camera gear.

been nearly a week now

You are freaking out over a week? Where does the seller live? What shipping method is he using? UPS/fedex ground takes at least 5 business days to get something across the country. And that's if they don't eff it up. UPS screws me WAY more than ebay sellers ever do. USPS parcel post takes even longer. You paid last Wednesday huh? Well don’t count Sat or Sun as “days” in your tally, even a USPS priority package might not be at your door today if sent on Friday. Unless the seller promised to mail 1 or 2 day, you really don’t have any reason to complain.

Calm down. Wait another week and see what happens. I know everyone on photography forums apparently have all the time in the world to do nothing but buy and sell gear. But the rest of the world have jobs, lives and families that get in the way. All it takes is a few days of bad traffic to keep someone from getting to the post office on time. Then your package is that many days late.

 

[JoeFriday]

while it's very frustrating to be a good buyer (paying immediately after the auction ends, providing good communication, etc) most of the sellers I've dealt with recently have been very uncommunicative, and frequently don't back up their promises to provide tracking numbers.. but they've all followed through.. perhaps not as quickly as I'd like, but we all know how time seems to go very differently for buyers versus sellers.. much like the difference between "a minute" depending on which side of the bathroom door you're standing

I'd say it's too soon to threaten to cancel payment

 

[derevaun]

Email silence is frustrating, but it could be that the seller is busy and in denial. IMHO a reasonable time for sending payment is ten days, so maybe that's not unreasonable for a seller to act. Or, it could be that the seller has scammed you. How's their feedback?

If you're closing the door on Ebay and don't want the camera, you might as well reverse the charge. But if you do it at this point, there's ironically a fraud case against you. It ain't right but what in commerce is?

 

[zpuskas]

Most sellers on E*ay are good people. There are, of course, jerk. I bout a 39mm filter and wiated 2 weeks for arrival from Connecticut. I e-mailed the seller twice--requesting ship info-- over several days without response. I e-mailed again and advised I would leave negative feedback and I recieved a response almost immediately. The response basicallly told me to @#$*& and this was his job and on and on. Obvoiusly he needed an enema. Well he's on my list now.
Maybe we should start a list of bad sellers?

 

[ch1]

I love eBay!

I'm using it to corner the market in Nikon film SLRs so that the Zeissians have to come to me to get a camera to use with their ZF lenses! 😀

Actually, I had a very nice experienced with a seller this past month. I never got the item (Vivitar clip on light meter). I was patient, we communicated and he ultimately "did the right thing" and reversed my PayPal payment. Gave him positive feedback even though I'm disappointed I never got the light meter 😎

But I'm always glad when photog folk "swear off" of using eBay - fewer buyers means lower priced winning bids for me! 😀

 

[sf]

well, my patience and careful communication has paid off, and the camera is apparently out there somewhere in my little town, heading eventually for my door. The seller let me know that his internet was down all weekend, and he was out of town for part of it, and I believe him. The tracking number checks out.

We'll see how things look!

But, this is, nonetheless, my last transaction on that site. I am now to focus my GAS on the RFF classifieds, exclusively.

 

[Rick Waldroup]

I'm glad everything worked out for you. Sometimes things happen.

 

[Poptart]

EBay is the last outpost of true supply/demand free market capitalism.

 

[Rick Waldroup]

EBay is the last outpost of true supply/demand free market capitalism.

You are so right. It basically shows what the marketplace will bear for certain items, be it high or low in monetary value. I'll give you an example. Like I posted before, my wife sells a lot of stuff on ebay. One day while looking through her ebay closet I came across several things that never sold on previous auctions. I put a lot of that stuff together and started an auction on ebay under the title "A Box of Junk For Sale". And guess what, we had numerous bids and it sold ! What is one man's junk is another man's treasure. There is no accounting for what people will think or do. 😕