shrugs Posted April 1, 2004 Report Share Posted April 1, 2004 We have shipped 33 box sets and 654 CDs Mom & I visually inspect and test play each disc before shipping. How long does it take to test play 33 box sets and 654 cd's? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Brad Posted April 1, 2004 Report Share Posted April 1, 2004 Weizen, what I was trying to say is that someone with 95% I dismiss out of hand. I wouldn't deal with them. If somebody's at 99.5% and above, no risk. However, if it's around 99% and into the 98s%, I get a little leery. Usually, I'll take a closer look at their feedback and if they're generally clean for 6 months, I'll bid on their stuff. While all this may not matter to some people, my resources are not unlimited and I don't want to lose money needlessly. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jim R Posted April 1, 2004 Report Share Posted April 1, 2004 I've only participated (and only as a buyer) sporadically at eBay over the last 5 years, but I've been getting a sense that corruption is on the increase. I've never had much faith in eBay's ability to "police" itself (which is a separate issue from the feedback system working reasonably well, which I think it does). BTW, I agree with Brad regarding the percentages and the level of trust I'm willing to employ. Especially for prolific sellers, anything below a 99 spells danger, IMO. A 95 may sound like a reasonably high number, but you've got to be either inept or crooked to earn a 95. Anyway, I have a question and a comment. Earlier in this thread it was suggested that one should "be careful" about breaking eBay rules, whether explicit or implicit. While I agree that people should take the high road, follow the rules, and use good judgement regarding feedback if they want to be active there and keep a good reputation, I'm not sure I understand how things currently work vis a vis rules violations, reporting people, etc, and whether it's realistic to expect results if you report trouble. I guess I had the impression that eBay had gotten WAY too big to handle the everyday, relatively nickel & dime stuff (and yes, I would consider the $92 box set discussed here in that category, relative to some big ticket items I've followed in the past). If a person clearly violates eBay policy (in a situation where it can be proven) these days- especially if the item is fairly inexpensive, are they really at risk of getting into trouble with eBay? It was also mentioned above that sellers can and do switch identities when things go bad. Well, I'll take that a step further... I'm confident that there are more and more sellers who have no intention of "making a good name" for themselves in the first place. Sellers that are baiting people, and deleting their identities quite casually after yanking their bogus items or ending their auctions early (in the case of "real" items). In the past year, I've contacted two different sellers regardiing their items- both of which were expensive guitars ($5K to $10K items). In one case (a rare guitar that I believe the seller actually had in his possession), the seller ended the auction early and tried to start a bidding war via e-mail. I still don't think eBay ever should have allowed sellers to end auctions any time, at their own discretion. The other day, I saw an expensive guitar listed, which looked fishy (long story, but I recognized it, and the description didn't match the photos). After a couple of e-mails, it became clear to me that some guy had taken photos and descriptions from a couple of different online vintage guitar dealers' sites which I recognized, and was actually trying to pretend he had them for sale. This fool actually e-mailed me after he had pulled the item from eBay, and in his broken english attempted to get me to send him $5K for the two instruments (whose real value is about $15K). Bizarre stuff, and I'll bet it goes on all the time now. Is anybody policing that? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
kulu se mama Posted April 1, 2004 Report Share Posted April 1, 2004 i have a real problem with ebay's feedback system. i have 1630 feedbacks (1629 positive and 1 negative). although i have left over 2000 feedbacks. the 1 negative was retalitory. this guy sent me a cd that was advertised as mint, but the cd's had scratches, and the booklet was mangled. i emailed him 3 times. over 3 days. when i got no response, i left negative feedback. he left me a negative within 30 minutes. ebay could correct this very easily. buyers should only be able to comment on the shipping and the condition of the item. sellers should only be able to comment on the payment. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
connoisseur series500 Posted April 1, 2004 Report Share Posted April 1, 2004 We have shipped 33 box sets and 654 CDs Mom & I visually inspect and test play each disc before shipping. How long does it take to test play 33 box sets and 654 cd's? Good question. Obviously, Mom did not listen to all the cds. Everyone knows that if she had listened to them, you guys wouldn't be selling them. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
connoisseur series500 Posted April 1, 2004 Report Share Posted April 1, 2004 i have a real problem with ebay's feedback system. i have 1630 feedbacks (1629 positive and 1 negative). although i have left over 2000 feedbacks. the 1 negative was retalitory. this guy sent me a cd that was advertised as mint, but the cd's had scratches, and the booklet was mangled. i emailed him 3 times. over 3 days. when i got no response, i left negative feedback. he left me a negative within 30 minutes. ebay could correct this very easily. buyers should only be able to comment on the shipping and the condition of the item. sellers should only be able to comment on the payment. I don't have any negative feedbacks, but I had to threaten someone in order not to receive a retaliatory negative. He didn't send the merchandise even though I had paid for it. I slammed him, and he threatened to return the favor. I told him that I'd be filing a police report with the cop next door (who is a friend) if he would follow through on his threat. In the end, he kept my $10 and I didn't receive the negative feedback. I also never received the item. Ebay's feedback system is definitely not perfect. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Brad Posted April 1, 2004 Report Share Posted April 1, 2004 I've obviously been very lucky because I've never experienced the antics that you guys have experienced. I've been stiffed a couple of times but not on big ticket items. Which brings me to my next point. I think ebay is great for things like cds and items that aren't too expensive. If someone stiffs me for $30, I won't be happy (to say the least) but I can get over it. However, I'm not sure someone I don't know or an item I haven't seen when we get into the thousands. I'm just not comfortable with that. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jazzmoose Posted April 1, 2004 Report Share Posted April 1, 2004 I hate to get legal on this but the basis of your argument is that Hal had promised him to refund his money and that therefore he couldn't have bargained the buyer's money back for the promise not to leave negative feedback. However, any deal or promise to be binding must have consideration. If there's no consideration, it's not enforceable. If Hal had said, I'm not going to refund your money, the buyer would have no recourse. It wasn't part of the original transaction and Hal's offer to refund the money was just a mere promise or offer on his part. For Hal's offer to become binding, the buyer would have to have offered something in return, either positive or negative. To be binding, there must be something flowing both ways. It doesn't look to me like the buyer did. Therefore Hal's initial offer is not enforceable. However, when Hal made his offer with the requirement that the buyer not leave a negative feedback and the buyer agreed, then you have an agreement because there was consideration. Consideration can be both a positive act (e.g. paying money) or surrendering a right that you would otherwise have (e.g. agreeing not to leave feedback). I give up; you win. Sigh... Oops; hang over from the political threads... I give up because you're right; I forgot that the refund offer had nothing to do with the orginal contract. Still, I had to bet on what eBay's decision would be if the 'buyer' chose to report it, it would be that they would at the very least warn Hal. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jazzmantom2004 Posted April 1, 2004 Author Report Share Posted April 1, 2004 We have been selling the collection of CDs for about 10 weeks now. YES, we do test play each CD at the time they are packed. We test the CD to make sure it is recognized by the CD player and then we test about 10 seconds of every track to make sure they play. We have actually canceled half.com paid orders at our loss because we had a few CDs not pass our test. Several of you in this string have bought from us. Speak up if you were happy or not with our packaging, dailly runs to the Post Office and FedEx, communciation through e-mails, etc. I'm proud of the reputation we have built as a seller because mom & I work hard at it. My ethic is simple-"Treat a buyer the way I want to be treated." Period. By the way--He paid $64 for the set. He wanted Global Express Shipping which was $28. Oddly enough, he could have bought it on eBay from a seller in London for the same price with a much lower shipping charge. BUT the London seller put "ALL SALES FINAL" in his listing. Perhaps that's why he bought it from me. I still think I was scammed. Like I said, lesson learned. I'll tell everybody one thing for sure---I didn't expect this to be such a hot topic. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jazzmoose Posted April 1, 2004 Report Share Posted April 1, 2004 JimR, eBay most definitely does NOT police frauds that you describe (cancelling an auction then proceeding with "off ebay" auctions or sales), but I think it would be unfair to expect it of them. After all, once the auction is cancelled, eBay is no longer involved. Now, as to whether or not eBay is doing enough to police the auctions that they ARE involved with, I'd say definitely not. Some categories are absolutely rampant with fraud. The stamps category comes to mind. There have been countless instances where somone has bought a common stamp on eBay, altered it in some way to make it appear to be a rarer variety, and then resold it on eBay. This has happened with used stamps, with cancels that match up perfectly making the posibility of the stamps actually being different copies impossible, yet eBay will say "we have no proof" and do nothing. Frankly, we're lucky to be jazz fans as far as eBay goes; the fraud level's a lot lower. The only problem I've had on eBay with jazz is buying a CD two or three years ago from Brad that led to these silly bulletin boards and the loss of my free time! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jim R Posted April 1, 2004 Report Share Posted April 1, 2004 (edited) JimR, eBay most definitely does NOT police frauds that you describe (cancelling an auction then proceeding with "off ebay" auctions or sales), but I think it would be unfair to expect it of them. After all, once the auction is cancelled, eBay is no longer involved. I don't necessarily disagree, Mark, but my final comment about policing was less about the jerks who end an auction early and then take it off-site (but actually HAVE an item to sell), and more about the latter crook I described. Maybe we can expect them to find ways to prevent that sort of thing (or at least much more difficult to pull off), and ideally maybe even try to go after some of those people. The common theme here, though, is the fact that it's so easy to just end an auction any old time and disappear. I wish they had never provided that option (I could have done without "buy it now" too). I thought eBay was working great before they started making all those changes. ============ BTW, Hal, I may not have bought anything from you, but you still get a big from me in terms of your opinions and attitude about selling. Sorry if I hijacked your topic a bit! Edited April 1, 2004 by Jim R Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
connoisseur series500 Posted April 2, 2004 Report Share Posted April 2, 2004 I'll tell everybody one thing for sure---I didn't expect this to be such a hot topic. It's a hot topic because we've all been scammed or have interesting stories to tell as ebay users. I don't think any of this is any reflection on you or your practices necessarily. I would say that you are doing your due diligence by testing every cd as you have been doing. Quite remarkable. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Brad Posted April 2, 2004 Report Share Posted April 2, 2004 The only problem I've had on eBay with jazz is buying a CD two or three years ago from Brad that led to these silly bulletin boards and the loss of my free time! Guilty as charged and I promise if I have the chance I'll do it again I bought 3 cds from Hal. He was very friendly, got 'em real fast and they were all great. I'd been looking for the Richie Kamuca Quartet on Mode for awhile so thank you Hal Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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