Mine was last summer when I bought a used Kato Union Pacific AC4400. In the listing the seller said the engine was in like brand new condition and only had about two hours run time on it, but when it came in, I sat it on the tracks, turned the power on and it just sat there buzzing. So, I wrote the guy and told him I wanted to return the engine for a full refund and he said fine, send it back and he’d refund my money. Like I said, that was last summer and I’m still waiting for my refund…
I turned the guy into ebay and left him negative feedback, but about a week later he closed his ebay account. Up until then, he had sold about 200 items and had a perfect 100% feedback rating. Go figure.
pretty much its been rather decent but once i was looking for a ns covered hopper on ebay i found the guy said it was brand new norfolksouthern covered hoopper he shoed pics and everything when it fianly came in it was just the decals not the car when he promised the car
“Good condition” only “slightly used” p2k E7A, E7B, Alco PA1. Blurry picture. Asked about the condition of detail parts. “Some detail parts are in a little plastic bag, one loco is loose from its chassis” he wrote back. Fine. Ends at $85.00 if I remember correctly (my max bid was $90). Upon arrival it appears none of the lift rings are there, no horns, about 1/4 of the handrails, several axel (axle?) bearings missing. The chassis-story appears to be the E7a where the entire motor is disassembled, all wiring undone. After asking a refund, seller says he never met buyers who are so fussy about those tiny little details! Left appropraite feedback. The blurry pic shouldve warned me.
I almost bought a woodland scenics miniscene for four times what is was selling for at the LHS. Some guy beat me out at the last second. Come to think about it, maybe it was my best experience. It took me a while to get the hang of it, but now I get a few things there you can’t get elsewhere.
When it arrived, one side had been melted. The photos were carefully taken not to show the other side.
I put it on the track & the connecting rods fell off the fireman’s side. I fixed that & then ran it again & the driver’s side connecting rods fell off.
I contacted the seller, who advised me I must have done this to the loco. I pressed the point & she threatened me with an AVO.
I looked up the nearly perfect record & found two other buyers who were threatened with AVO’s after receiving faulty model trains. She mostly sold baby clothes. I dropped the whole thing & let her get away with it, as it wasn’t worth the risk.
From over 200 ebay purchases, I have only come accross one really bad one. Any other problems were easily sorted by a little communication.
So far I’ve been pretty luck. The one time I did get burnt was I won an auction for two Walthers commuter coachs. The seller was one of those drop-off your stuff and they’ll charge you a fee to list the thing for you. I paid and didn’t hear from them for two weeks. I called the phone # they had listed and the employee told me that my items had been accidently sent to the wrong person and they would ship it out as soon as they were returned. I figured at that point I had zero chance of getting those but I still waited. A month later, I emailed and this time they said they hadn’t gotten them back and would send me a refund. Two weeks later, no refund so I emailed again. This time the email I got back said that the business had been sold and the new owners weren’t honoring any of the previous owners mistakes. By that point the first owners ebay account had been closed. All in all it only cost me $40 so I wasn’t out too much money.
Other than that I’ve had over 100 model railroad related transactions over ebay go off without a hitch.
bidded on and older steam engine, the picture was angled as you looked down on it, looked like a very nice older riviossa, was only two pictures but were good quality. well this was i got in the end, and i know that was not in the picture- and it didn’t run to boot. So from being from Canada it was pointless to try to get anything out of it so it is now part of my scrap yard along with a couple other ebay purchases
bought an athearn ac4400 in sp colors, the price was right, the photo was not the best photo however i have seen worse… got the loco and it had missing…one side frame, horn front hand rails, all detail parts and it had dirt on it and the metal parts were rusty… the “LADY” seller said that the loco was in mint condition and that i didnot know what i was talking about, i sent her a photo of the loco, she said it looked ok,i sent a photo of a good looking loco { i have 17 of these locos ) and she said it looked the same… i sent a list of all the parts missing and the parts numbers then sent a link to the web site to see the parts… she then said i must have lost all the parts because they were glued on when she sent them, very strange because i had an email from her saying that this loco didnot have these things, horns etc… so after approx a dozen emails ( i had kept copies ) she still said that the loco was in good condition and that it was ok… i then gave her a bad report ( notice i did not ru***his ) and listed the things missing… i got an email straight away saying what a xxxx i was etc etc etc… she was no longer a “LADY”… she replied on her listing that i refused to listen to HER… i sent her a copy of every email / message that we had exchanged and she sent me back a very rude email… i sent it to ebay but never heard enything back from them… the seller had a second hand / junk shop and sold lots of differnt types of things… now i look at the sellers history and check to see what they have sold… this gives me some idea that they are modellers or sellers of rubbish…thanks peter
I’ve got limited experience, but so far, so good. I suppose the “worst” thing was forgetting my own advice, and not sticking to my ceiling in the heat of battle. Only a couple of dollars over, though, and I really wanted that old Milwaukee F7 dummy B unit. All my purchases have been shipped as promised, and arrived in good condition.
I laughed a lot when the description of one item claimed the seller would not ship anything to France.
While I am not defending anyone, why would you buy a train from a baby clothes shop? That is like buying a refrigerator from a used car dealer. Come on guys, a little common sense would go a very long way here.Generally, non train people aren’t going to know a thing about the train or what parts are there or not. I think you have to take some responsibility for your own actions in not being a prudent buyer. There is almost nothing on ebay that doesn’t show up more than once so show a little patience instead of jumping at the first thing that comes along.
I both buy and sell on ebay, I have never had a bad experiance (yet!)
There is only one hobby shop within 100 mi. so ebay is my LHS
That being said, I will sometimes sell things for a friend that are not related to trains,
I do not know if that taints my credibility as a modelrailroad seller, but what the heck?
Ebay is just a huge online yard sale anyway!
David
I’ve always had good experiences on eBay. A majority of people I hear from have had good experiences as well. The couple bad ones I’ve personally heard about, once you get into the ‘real’ story, were the result of the buyer pushing past the limits of common sense to chase down a perceived bargain. They simply fell into a bad situation that they should never have gotten themselves into if they had stayed disciplined.
There are some bad sellers out there, but I think they are also pretty easy to stay away from if you do your homework, pay attention to the obvious indicators, and stay disciplined.
I have had a couple of items that never arrived, but the sellers have always made good on a refund or a duplicate. One seller [who gave me a refund] reported that all four packages he shipped that day disappeared. One time I recieved someone else’s package and he got mine. Took awhile to get straightened out, but the seller took care of the return expense.
A while back I bid on a ConCor SD24 “custom painted” for Southern Railway. When I got the loco several days later it looked like it had been painted by a five year old.
The other candidate was advertised as an HO 0-8-0 which I won the bidding on and when it came it had shrunk to N scale. I just gave it to a fellow model railroader who was into N scale.
Most of my other E-Bay experiences have been satisfactory as those two episodes forced me to be very careful when bidding on anything not New In the Box.
P.S. I never have figured out why some items recieve bids two or three times the amount they can be purchased for at the LHS or at an online hobby shop.
