Taking a beating on EBAY lately


SD45T-2 said:
Ive been on Ebay since i was 16, I am Now 23.

Ive had issues with sellers,But ive had more problems with Buyer fraud.
I always tell the sellers If theres a issue, Just tell me,all i want is communication,and everytime ive gotten my item. As far as RAilroad items, i support my local dealer, and not some internet giant.

ISSUE BELOW

(1) MTH Penny Premier locomotive $1295.95 Retail
Stated as "USED HAS RUN TIME, OPERATING SCALE HOURS 24

I sell it to a guy back east for $572.77 This locomotive is Sold out At the time and has low time on it. Guy sends me a nasty email saying how im a dishonest piece of &^$# ,and the engine has way more hours then listed,and is broken.

Well in about a Weeks time,of emails.Im freaked about possibly losing $2k.
He slips up,and uses a Racial slur,and That he is a MTH dealer,and he has 3 additional of these engines,and swaped it out. I call paypal,and MTH and the claim,and him disappear, A week later his ebay account is closed.:confused:

(2) Sell Three USA Trains Intermodal Huskystack units to a Guy in Germany,
He pays me, I ship them No issue, well Somewhere in German customs They hold the item for a month. Well it took 3 weeks to get there,and Two weeks into the hold. I get slapped with a Claim. He tells them i jacked him,and never sent the load, I send them a Proof of shipment,and the customs fourm,and justice is served I am out $189,and 3 G scale cars. WTF?

Paypal doesnt give a shit about Sellers, I cant even leave negative feedback for deadbeats.

Well Thankfully the German Customs sent back the Units,because they were unclaimed. "Guy didnt wanna pay the import taxes" How is that my problem or resonceabity?

(3) Sell a BMW M5 steering wheel, Guy tells me its Damaged,and worthless, So i tell him to send me photos never does and opens up a dispute,This is a Car fourm,and $50 isnt worth loosing a Bunch of Business because of some jackhole,so i give him $50 back. Well two weeks ago the same guy makes a commit,about his " m tech wheel,and laugh's how he got it for free making a direct poke at me.

(4) Christmas Last year sell a ATLAS O 3 RAIL SWITCHER Guy says it makes a small noise, Ok fine send it back. Well i get it back sounds fine, I then take it to my AUTHORIZED ATLAS DEALER,to check it out well He gives it the ok,and says this guy is pulling a fast one,well i tell him Ill do what the other ebay guys do, Ill give him $200 back,and keep $49 and to cover my time. Nope not good enough. well I loose again. I even called paypal,and faxed them the letter from my local dealer,and said "ONLY BECAUSE AMEX IS FORCING US, if this was a paypal only choice you would have been fine.
Threw my contacts i found out he had got a GP9 and was short on cash,and made up the noise to get money back for the new Geep.

Ive been using ebay/paypal/forums. As a Side Business since i was 16.
I am thankful i have only had 4 issues,and I have lost 2.

i BET YOUR all saying, Well if this guy SD45T-2 is such a nice guy he wouldnt have a issue, well if there was a real issue, why cant people call me over the phone? Like in the listings? If theres a Issue, then comminucate like a adult, dont sit there and play the helpless,nor try to rip me off. I am connected in a lot more places then you know. :)
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Me too! Except for the 23 part :D (started at 16, I am now.... over 18 but not quite 23 yet)

I've actually had more than a handful of problems over the past few months. I guess I'll make a list :mad:

1. Bought a pair of headphones. Photo showed genuine headphones. Seller (from Maine, not from China which is why I thought he was legit as he also had 100% feedback) sent cheap knockoff. Sent him an email, he refunded, I gave the headphones to my brother, and didn't leave feedback (he doesn't deserve a positive, but also doesn't deserve any less for refunding me in full)

2. Bought two rolls of MBTA tokens. Seller lived in Boston, auction said I could pick up. I emailed asking where he would like to do the exchange, preferably a public place for safety reasons. He sent a rude response saying that he offered pick up not delivery and that his office was in east boston. So, I responded and asked him what the address was. No response, he relisted the item. He got a bid on it so I decided to pay for the auction through paypal and pay for shipping so that he'd get a negative from at least one of the buyers for being a total jackass. (FYI, for local pickups, the best way to pay and be paid is cash because there is no evidence of shipping for the seller to provide to paypal if the buyer decides to screw him.) Well, lucky him, he had TWO sets of tokens. He shipped the tokens to me, and I didn't leave him any feedback. Still contemplating on whether I should give this moron a negative.

3. Bought an Athearn Genesis SD45-2 with ditch lights installed. I was the only bidder and won. I guess the seller didn't like the price because he didn't ship it for THREE weeks. (auction stated that he would ship within 2 days and I would receive it within 5-7) Emails went unanswered, so I filed a dispute. Still no answer so I filed a claim and he finally sent it. I left him a positive feedback for receiving it, but I gave him 1 star for shipping speed, which he deserved.

4. My most recent and most troublesome transaction. I bought an Athearn WSOR Athearn 60th anniversary box car, and a Colorado and Wyoming Ortner hopper. Seller sold 3 items, the box car, and the hopper to me, and the tank car to someone else. Sent an email. No response. Sent another email, no response. Tried to call his phone number, disconnected. Filed a dispute, and he finally responded. He said that he let his wife do the shipping and that it was her fault that there was a mix up. You know what, buddy? I don't care who's fault it is, you're responsible because it's your account and you sold it. (of course I didn't say that to him, I was polite and cordial with my communications)
So, I emailed him again, what is he going to do about it? He then responded that the other guy who received my cars didn't respond to him. I was getting nowhere and filed a claim. He tried to give paypal the delivery confirmation number to prove that it was delivered. I sent paypal a message saying it was not what I won. Both parties can see what each other wrote in the claim and he read my message to paypal. He then refunded my money in full and told me to keep the tank car in exchange for dropping the claim. I dropped the claim, he sent me a nasty message saying that he got scammed out of $2000 for his car and that I can keep the tank car and don't bid on any of his items ever again. Well, its not my fault that you got scammed. I mean, I feel for you and understand your situation, but why not fix your own mistake? Why should I be responsible for your actions?

I haven't left feedback for that one either. I don't think he deserves two positives, but since he refunded me in full and let me keep the tank car, I'm not sure what to leave him.
 
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Taking a beating? I don't think so.

I,ve been buying thru ebay for years and I learned quickly "You gotta know when to hold"em and know when to fold"em". I have collected or let me rephrase that I have ammassed a collection of o scale 2 and 3 rail that is worth in todays market no less than $50 to $60 thouasand dollars and I guesstamate I have nor more than $8 to $10 thousand in it. Like last week I bought a $60 gondola mint with junk load for $8 then two days later I bought a new $70 bridge for .99 + $10 shipping and the funny thing is I don't even have a layout. I've been packing them away for retirement so when one building gets filled up I just build another one. I have 4 16x20 climate controlled buildings with 9 ft ceilings at the moment with three packed tight and the fourth a little over half. I'm a 43 year old business owner so I figure if I retire when I'm 53 I should have a decent layout done by the time I'M 63. If somebody is taking a beating it aint me.
 
Well, some people don't have local hobby stores which may compel them to bid higher.

My LHS is the largest train store in the world (they carry all scales from G to N and they carry ALL items on the current Lionel catalog) My LHS is Charles RO Supply and they're actually the retail storefront of the manufacturer USA TRAINS.
 
diburning said:
Well, some people don't have local hobby stores which may compel them to bid higher.
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But, why would they bid higher than they could pay an online retailer such as modeltrainstuff.com ?

My guess is either they get caught up in the excitement of an auction or have misidentified the piece and think it's something it isn't. (Or, maybe I'm the one that has misidentified it. :) )
 
Janry said:
But, why would they bid higher than they could pay an online retailer such as modeltrainstuff.com ?

My guess is either they get caught up in the excitement of an auction or have misidentified the piece and think it's something it isn't. (Or, maybe I'm the one that has misidentified it. :) )
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Most people that are in the Hobby of Model Railroading don't know about the online stores, because they only bid for their stuff on EBay. Even more strange there's a lot of people that only buy from hobby shops because they DON'T have a computer. It seems like the older generation is computer shy.
The reason I know this; I have a lot of visitors everyday in the winter & most of them that are on computers don't know about the on-line hobby stores.
I tell them that's the only place I buy my supplies other than WM & Dollar Tree. Then they ask where I buy my trains & supplies & I give them the address. Most people are close to a hobby shop, so they don't ever buy on-line.
 
I buy almost everything on Ebay. With local tax at almost 10% that covers the shipping. In addition the local shops do not discount or never put things on sale.
I have over 550 transactions and going strong. Never had a problem. I have purchases from England, USA, France, Germany and Italy. Most from the USA.
I have had to send a few engines back to Bachmann or Bli for warranty But no problem. They were covered under full warranty.
I have over 300 engines and i figure i have saved over $5,000.00 off retail using ebay and the internet.
Ebay gives me 2% bonus bucks on every purchase and my credit card 3% even thru PayPal.
I might be retired but know how to use a computer and the internet.

Bob
 
ebay is one of the only place's i can find roco minitanks at a some what resonable price. but i hate bidding on something like 3 days out than getting out bided at the last min happen to me today on a up/genset:(
 
I have yet to see a deal on Ebay that is as good as the deals you can find from merchants like Caboose, Trainland and I have been noticing quite a bit lately that Brian at Overland is having some pretty good deals on Athearn, Walthers and some other brands he has been selling. Plus, I dont need a sold out product enough to risk wasting my time on Fleapay.
 
ChevelleSSguy said:
I have yet to see a deal on Ebay that is as good as the deals you can find from merchants like Caboose, Trainland and I have been noticing quite a bit lately that Brian at Overland is having some pretty good deals on Athearn, Walthers and some other brands he has been selling. Plus, I dont need a sold out product enough to risk wasting my time on Fleapay.
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I don't buy anything on e-Bay that's currently available in the LHS. You're right, I can always do better elsewhere. OTOH, for out of production items, and especially for brass, e-Bay is tough to beat. Sure, there are the usual dimwits and people who are much too proud of their stuff, and even the occasional crook, but you get the same thing at any swap meet :D
 
if i can buy it online at mbk or wigwag type guys i will
ebay is good for stuff from the first run or 2 or 3 years ago
 
I bid on anything and everything that I like on ebay. I will bid up to the price that I am willing to pay and no more. If the item is available at caboose hobbies or the LHS, I will usually bid up to that price with shipping. If I get outbid, I can always get it elsewhere.

Ebay is good for hard to find items, and built up kits. I like buying cheap half-assed kit cars that are easy to fix.
 
SDJeff said:
Yeah, they use a thing called a ebay "sniper" service / software.

http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&...fai=CCoLYTPW9TJ_pEJSEygTy85DyDAAAAKoEBU_Q6B3P

The program will wait til the last few seconds and then come in with the minimum above the highest price.
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I bid manually, and 20 seconds is way too early. The sniping software (which I don't use) will bid as high as the member tells it to. The minimum over the highest price isn't the actual sniper's bid, unless that's his max. It's the ebay proxy bid place by Ebay for the high bidder.
 
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