Sellers that withhold feedback are a pain. What are they afraid of. As a general rule I like to post feedback when I get the money. Then the buyer knows I got it. I’ve had sellers, due to “volume”, not ship in a timely manner. They claimed they had missed my payment notice from Paypal. I let him slide because I had bought from him before. Posting is just a courtesy.
If you are so afraid of getting bad feedback on an item, don’t sell. If it is a bogus complaint, they are easy to spot. More often then not there is a response to the negative feedback. You can spot a liar on either side most of the time.
I just laugh when a seller waits to post feedback until I do. I do give them the benefit of the doubt though. Sometimes sellers do so much business that they just set aside a certain day to post feedback. If you sell enough at once, there is always that danger. It becomes a pain. Some sellers just have a higher threshold for it than others.
I always post feedback when I recieve payment and after shipping the item. I dont live and die by this ebay account. Once in a while the buyer complains and you take care of it. I had a damaged red caboose boxcar that needed a home and it found one. The funds was refunded and it was not a problem at all. I sometimes use ebay more as a vehicle to find good homes for unwanted rolling stock, the money is secondary in that situation.
Once in a while I will learn through delivery confirmation that the item did indeed arrive but no feed back from the buyer for several weeks. An email usually clears that right up.
I bid on and “won” a Atlas N scale RS when it got here it was a AHM HO scale RS but I Emailed the seller and she refunded my money and told me just to keep the engine…Cox 47
I could care less if a buyer or seller leaves me feedback. It is not a requirement, only a courtesy. I leave feedback regardless, but if I don’t get it in return, oh well. It doesn’t happen all that often, so it really isn’t a concern of mine. The only thing that I care about is getting what I purchased as it was described in the auction, and meeting my own TOS. The rest is gravy.
Over 500 transactions over 7 years or so on eBay and only 2 or three poor. Most of mine in the 5-to-30 range, vintage 1940s through 50’s HO collector. (I can get today’s new stuff from a brick and mortar shop at 20-30% off and he is always there. pays local taxes, volunteers on the rescue squad and employs several other people).
A lot has to do with the character oif the seller. The photos, not descriptions should be your guide. WYSIWYG. Don’t assume anything. When in doubt ask early in the week. If a business venture, expect top performance, they usually have clear policies, too. Items sold by other hobbyists are usually well described to a fault and packed well. General merchandise and inexperienced sellers are the ones to watch. They know little about their items (it shows in the descriptions) and often don’t know how to pack as well. And some good people dont know how to pack, period.
So when in any doubt or when buying from someone for the first time, clearly state that you value your purchase and you can tell them what you expect, to put peanuts or crushed paper, bubble wrap etc. in the inner box, etc. As for innacurate descriptions, always assume the worst and if it is still worth it to you, buy it. Otherwise another will come up soon. Know or learn more about your prospective purchase than the seller! Especially if buying vintage models. Most of the sellers at the lower part of the hobby are pretty honest, check out those ratings, the new system is quite specific and the sellers don’t get to see what the buyers individually indicate!
If something is too good to be true, it usually is and others have already skipped it. (But not always!) eBay is a great resource for learning about items too, and that part is free!
I never have and probably never will sell or order anything on ebay but I read these responses to this post with some interest and I have one question: what is “feedback”?
One of my grandmother’s favorite expressions was “Stepping over a dollar to pick up a dime.” A good percentage of these responses thus far indicate that a whole bunch of you people stepped over a dollar and picked up a dime!!!
If you really want to know what this feedback thing is, here’s a link to eBay’s definition of it: http://pages.ebay.com/help/feedback/feedback.html. Basically this feedback thing is like a ratings system. When someone buys or sells something, the other party then posts a “report” of sorts to let others know what it was like to deal with a person. The higher the positive feedback a person gets, the more piece of mind it offers to others that want to deal with him/her. Now there are limitations to this rating system since you’re only allowed a small number of characters to place a comment for any given transaction, so a very detailed report is not possible (this is usually desired when it comes time to post negative feedback). There is also the chance of getting a negative remark from someone else (purposefully or by mistake). This action alone is no big deal, but there are people out there that won’t deal with anyone who has a negative strike to their name, especially if it’s recent.
As silly as it seems, feedback is a part of eBay and a lot of people take it for granted. I use it to gain an idea of what outcome I can expect from a buyer/seller. It also helps to read others’ comments about people to see if a person’s actions are frequently good or bad.
Not necessarily. You could make this argument for someone who bids on something currently available because they’re drawn in by a low price and then get burned, but for some vintage parts or equipment there is simply no other option.
As it turns out, the seller in my auction is a very nice older woman who is caring for her ill husband and selling off his collection at the same time. She got confused, because she’s not a model railroader, and her husband is too ill to help out. She is very apologetic, and is working on getting the item I won. Sometimes there is a legitimate explanation. Hopefully it will all be resolved soon.
Had a problem twice, once when I first started an a person said it had cv trucks, It didn’t so I left a negative which was wrong because I should have negosiated, last one was more recently, bought a Horseshoe Meadows kit, very oop, it said compleat with instructions, missing an insignifigant casting but also instructions, emailed seller and they said it had gotten out of box but would mail it, never came so we negotiated a settlement so all were happy, still need the instructions though but the trasaction makes me wonder if the plans were ever there as they were not in the photo and the discription read like the box cover ? But on the plus side just bought 10 mdc oldtime tank cars and 9 had cv fox trucks !!!, paid a little over 90 shipped, they were well put together which was a bonus as the trucks were worth more than what I paid.
I just watched as a ‘‘novice’’ bidder paid $12more for a used SD40 than a new one would cost!! and it wasn’t even something special!! just a standard Athearn SD…[sigh][wow]
Not too long before I watched this unfold…I won the bidding on 2 Athearn SD’s…one powered, and a dummy …NIB…for $40 [incl. s& h].
Makes you wonder if they did any price comparisons or got caught in ‘‘auction fever’’.
Oh well…[#oops]…maybe they shoulda done a bit more research into MSRP and online store prices.
I love Ebay. There is not any better place to look for and find out of production items then Ebay. Ebay gets a bad rap sometimes but people seem to forget that its not Ebay that is ripping you off, its a person using Ebay. These people are everywhere in life, not just on Ebay so you just need to watch out for them and avoid them.
Sheesh, what a silly thread. I’ve bought and sold hundreds of train items on eBay with only one or two small hiccups that were quickly negotiated between buyer and seller.
When I had a e-bay account I had great success except for one misunderstanding about a payment.Simply put I sent a USPS money order…Dealer said he did not receive said money order.I had the Postal Service to run down on the money order…Results.Money order was cash by seller…Sent a copy of both sides of money order by e-mail to the seller…Seller apologized and sent a extra car for my troubles.
A on going war story is E-bay fraud letters advising me to upgrade my account or my account could be suspended…My account was closed in May 2006 by my request…
Everybody gets those, whether they’ve ever had an eBay account or not. It’s a general “phishing” scheme. I get them from banks where I’ve never had an account, insurance companies I’ve never heard of, etc., etc. They are not really from eBay, you realize, don’t you?
Yup…I know E-Bay would never request updating a CLOSED account.
I get the same phishing e letters as you do to include banks I never heard of requesting verification.Of course “my” good old Pay Pal account is in dispute or needs upgrading…Sap suckers don’t even know I never had a Pay Pal account…Phishing away and no bites here.I don’t even open those letters!
My buying and selling experiences have all been positive so far. I did have a box come that was was not padded well and the model box was literally accordianed by compression. The model was undamaged - a testament to the packaging from the model company.
When I sell and I haven’t for over a year, I always truthfully list any flaws or issues that might exist so everything is known up front.
As for negative feedback, I wouldn’t let the threat of retaliatory feed back keep me from posting it if it was deserved. In the case of the models shown as built arriving in kit form, that is something future buyers should know about. Its a dis-service for others to not be aware that the person failed to package the items carefully as to avoid damage. If the shipper gave you negative feed back - simply state the facts in the rebuttal and let people judge for them selves. Say, items were not packed safetly and were broken in shipping. Left negative feed back to this effect and the seller retaliated with negative feed back. etc etc
You’re reffering to my case. I would and should have left that seller the deserved negative feedback. You, my girlfriend and I can agree on that. The only problem that would cause me is that there are times when I enter some auctions that the seller may state that they don’t accept any bids from anyone with negative feedback. I know that they say this in order to deter potential dead beats so that way they don’t win an auction and not pay. I am one of those sellers that puts the same disclosure on my auctions and even though I’ve probably lost a few potential buyers that have contacted me for permission to bid on an auction of mine, I stick to my guns and deny anyone with negative feedback to bid. So when I see that on another seller’s listing, I assume they are going to stick to their guns as well, and so I don’t want to risk getting negative feedback. This incident was a while back, so in the big picture it doesn’t matter, I guess.
From personal experience, I also can testify to NOT doing deals outside of eBay. I bought a car on eBay; it arrived 2 days later, nicely packaged, great transaction. The seller then contacted me and asked if I had a need for any more cars. Being in a club that recently lost the member who owned most of the cars, I did. I was told I would be getting 76 “high class Atlas and Walthers Gold Line modern cars, with metal wheels and Kadees”. I paid and got a box full of Athearn blue box, Bachmann, and LGB cars, most of which had plastic wheels, roofwalks, and missing or broken parts. Certainly not high class or modern. I contacted the seller to try and negotiate a settlement, and he promised to send 20 more cars. They still haven’t shown up, even though he still sends emails promising that he sent them. When I disputed the transaction, Paypal told me they cannot issue a refund based on the quality of the goods received, but did refund a portion of the payment because the seller failed to ship items as promised. The Paypal folks told me to NEVER do a transaction outside of ebay, if someone offers you a deal like this, have the seller set up a private auction so only you can bid on it. That way, if there is an issue, they can refund you your entire payment, because there is a written description of what you are bidding on, and you can prove you didn’t get what you paid for. I could have goten the entire amount refunded instead of 10%.
BTW, this seller disappeared from ebay as soon as the dispute opened.