Comments Addressed
by acdickson
AC was pleased to see some comments on his last post, so he thought he better address them as two of them offer a chance to spin his web of eBay musings a little wider.
First off, Honey, a fellow urban honker, has a nasty situation with a seller that I'm saddened to say I've heard too many times before. In short, a keyboard (musical, not computer) purchased for a decent price, arrives broken. Consulting a fellow gearhead confirms that there was no way it could have been damaged in transit. The seller who had answered her question "is anything broken?" responded no, then fell back on his AS IS policy as stated in the auction description for protection. Honey already left good feedback after getting the keyboard and having it turn on okay. She was overcharged on shipping and might not have gotten this crook to purchase the insurance she paid extra for. She also suspects some fishy bidding on the item.
Did I say crook? Yes I did. Assuming he sent this thing broken, which it sounds like he did, what the gentleman committed was mail fraud. Saying something is not broken when it is, especially in writing, is against the law. At least I think it is. This guy is a crook and one of the bad apples that ruins eBay for all.
As for insurance, if you still have the box the keyboard came in, you should be able to tell if he paid for the insurance. There will be a green or blue sticker on it with a insurance #. If it's not there, he didn't pay for it. If it is, you can try and get the post office to cover the costs of the item (no easy feat, but possible with time and patience), but it sounds like it wasn't the post office's fault. It was the crooked seller.
So what to do? I'm sure you've already emailed him several times, but in your next one, I would tell him that you have consulted a repairman specializing in this particular model who will sign a statement swearing to have inspected it and conclusively proving it was broken before shipping. Then, explain that saying something is AS IS is all fine and well but since you have written proof (in the form of email) that AS IS was in this case nothing wrong, he has lied about the condition and in your estimation broken the law. Explain that you would be happy to return the keyboard for a full refund, or accept $100 back to repair the machine. If he will not do this, you will contact eBay, his local police, and file a complaint against him with the Post Office. If he specializes in music instruments it also might not hurt mention you're a touring musician and prolific blogger who will make sure your circle of friends will not buy from him.
(Note: AC doesn't actually buy that many things and hasn't had to go after a naughty seller. If anyone out there has and has a better suggestion, especially on what agencies to contact, please comment with your advice. Going to eBay Live and explaining the situation in a chat with a eBay representative might also be a good option, as they can likely advise you who to contact.)
Perhaps he'll make good on this. I wouldn't be surprised if he offers $50 back. But he may call your bluff. If this happens, you either go after him as you said you would which won't be fun and will take time, but may eventually get him to make good on this exchange. Or you chalk it up to one of those karma things. It'll come around on him one way or another, and perhaps that extra $100 spent will allow you to write some extra nice music.
If you had not left feedback yet, you might be in a better position, but you may not be. If the seller is semi legit and honestly thinks the thing worked and just doesn't want to make good on it, leaving bad feedback or threatening to will get results. But if this is a truly crooked seller, he likely has more than one selling account and will simply move on when this account gets shut down for too many bad feedbacks. How to tell? Hundreds if not thousands of feedbacks? The former. Dozens? The latter.
Lastly, you mentioned some potentially fishy bidding. There are eBay users who set up second and third accounts to bid up their own items. This is called shill bidding and is illegal, but very hard to monitor. You can, however, check the bid history of a seller's items over the last 2 months (check their feedback, click the link to the item number of something they've sold, then click on the bid history). Do you see the same users almost winning on big ticket items that the same person normally wouldn't want? That's not conclusive evidence, but enough to imply you think he's up to no good. If so, that might be another part of your argument for a quick refund.
Hope that helps!
Now, on to the second comment. "Daddy Fool" was kind enough to leave the quickly yanked auction description on Vincent Gallo's sperm. A careful reading reveals that it's most likely the work of an aspiring comedian. (Although you never know, Vincent Gallo is the man who refused any magazine interviews about his film Buffalo 66 unless he was given the cover, and requested the podium at the Republican National Convention after billboards of himself receiving oral sex were taken down in LA. The man has cajones). There is certainly a coffee table book and most likely a new category of art in these types of postings. An auction like this probably needs to get a good couple thousand hits before eBay catches wind of it to yank it. That's a lot of eyeballs.
I'd be curious to know if this was primarily pulled because Gallo's people objected to it (and its racist overtones), or if it came from his camp but violated eBay's ban on selling people and body parts of any nature (that goes for celebrity fingernail clippings as well), not to mention sperm donation bylaws. Anyone?
Posted on November 25, 2005 | Comments (3)
How it doesn't work
by acdickson
Someone put something in the eBay water this week, cause AC got a rash of unsavory eBay communiques. I'll walk you through them.
First I got an email from a customer who got her item two weeks ago that read "I very nicely always take the time to leave good feedback and always wonder why others can't seem to do that." Hmm. One of the tough things about email is that you can't hear tone. I'm going to go with sarcasm on this one, but I can't imagine hearing that sentence said any way in my head that makes me think, funny. It always sounds annoying. You try it. See? Now, AC may be a little slack on leaving feedback, but I eventually leave it. Sometimes a month late. Sue me. It just so happens my time is valuable and I can think of better uses of it then leaving individual feedback every time I get paid. (Imagine me saying paid real slow). So I get a lot of these 'please leave me feedback' emails, and I always do. They're just usually a little more pleasant and with some mention of enjoying their winnings. Which is what I did in this case, but grudgingly.
The next two concern my eBay store which is swelling quite nicely with NASA collectibles and antique postcards for holiday shopping. Now the nifty thing about the store is I can set my prices kind of high, but allow shoppers to make me an offer, a new feature that I quite like.
So I had a nice antique turn-of-the-century postcard of a steamer ship on Lake Sunapee in New Hampshire. I had priced it at $18. Steep? Maybe. But some early steam ship cards reach the $25-50 range in auction. Granted this one didn't get a bid during the 7 day auction at $5, but that's because the old timers and baby boomers who spent summers on the lake weren't shopping on eBay that week (or so my theory goes). Someone out there wants this thing. And that person emailed me an offer. Of $2. Would you go to car lot and offer $1000 for a $9000 used car? I don't think so. Unless you were looking for a black eye from the salesman. Would this person offer me $2 if I was a dealer at a postcard convention? Again, no. But the whole faceless I'm-on-the-other-coast luxury of the Internet makes it all too easy in this case. I ignored that one. Keep reading to find out accepting would have precluded me from even breaking even.
Next up was a nice luggage label from the 1939 San Francisco World's Fair, also known as the Golden Gate Exposition. Mint, with gum still on the back of the label, 60-some-odd years old, ready to stick on your suitcase. A nice piece of graphic design to boot. I had it at $8. They offered $4. But in the message it was explained to me that my shipping price of $2 for first class mail was wrong. "$1.00 for envelope and mail. Item will ship for 37 cents. Total is $5.00." Oh, really? And the next time I'm at the car repair shop I'll tell them I'll pay for the part, but only half the labor charge. This one probably amuses me the most, because all they had to was offer me $3. And you know what? I would have sold the damn thing. Let me point out that nothing I sell ships for 37 cents. Because when you put antique paper collectibles in an envelope (especially when they ship from LA) they arrive damaged and the buyer (who has declined to pay for insurance) gets pissed and wants their money back. So I put them in a plastic sleeve (which costs me money), between cardboard (which I usually get for free and then cut to size) and put them in a nice manila envelope (which costs me money) and go to the post office (which costs money and/or time to get to, depending if I drive or walk and the wait in line) and send it after they have paid me through PayPal (which costs me money). Not to mention that eBay charges me to post the auction and takes their cut. Oh gee, and maybe, just maybe, this thing didn't grow on a tree. Maybe I had to drive to an estate sale where I found and bought this thing, took it home, scanned it, described it, and uploaded it so anyone could add it to their collection. So even though the postage will still be only 60 or 83 cents, I'm not making very much money, that extra buck forty or seventeen is what we in the business call "handling". As in there's the shipping and the handling. So spare the lecture and save it for the Compact Disc merchants who charge priority rates but ships your single CD media or the office supply people who rope you into their auction with a low Buy It Now price but charge $8 to send a single ink toner.
That said, I got a great email from an Australian woman who nearly cleared me out of vintage Apollo era NASA booklet this morning. So it's all good.
Posted on November 21, 2005 | Comments (3)