On Monday 04 February 2002 05:35 am, you wrote:
> I actually remember the day when eBay was a safe happy community of savy
> traders who know what the word "RARE" ment and didn't bid against their
> own items to drive the price up. I also remember when I would do a
> search on the Words Sunbeam Alpine and nothing would come up!
Oh, come on, guys. You didn't realize that RARE means "RARE to me (the
seller) because I've never seen one before." In the early days, I bought
some RARE things too, and then after a while I saw the same thing come up
a couple more times. Head-slap for me. But after watching and buying for
three years I see how well RARE can work, with some lucky contestants
paying $26.00 for a single Tiger ad that I bought the next week for $2.95.
I've seen some amazing pi**ing contests.
> Anymore, eBay has become a corrupt market full of scam artists and cons.
Well, maybe more like "a good place for scam artists... ...and a bad place
for the naive."
As one person's dissenting opinion, here are some facts about my
experiences:
started: November, 1998
feedback: 581 positives, 370 unique, 1 negative
stiffs: 7, 6 lost in the mail (2 sets of 3 from the same seller), 1
death
lost payments: a handful
I've had a couple annoying losses because of the mail or its handling.
Given that I'm way up in relative nowhere and everything is delivered
by unionized government workers I figure I'm doing pretty good.
Americans seem to think they are the only ones in the world, and mailing
to non-Americans is like mailing to Aunt Bessie in the next county.
Europeans are quite happy to ship before payment is received, and
can pack things for delivery to the moon.
The British need to be reminded to put their return address on the
*front* of the package or it may be mailed back to them.
Australians are just like Canadians, without block heaters.
Canadians love American dollars.
I don't buy consumer or pop-culture items.
Rootes Group collectors are friendly people.
Some of them have a lot of money to spend.
Most new sellers really haven't thought things through.
Really early on I realized that the disconnected nature of the transaction
(I've only ever met 1 seller, and that's because they were here in
Edmonton) means that I have to do a little work to maximize my return by
minimizing my losses. And sellers are people that probably haven't used
the Internet for 8 years like I have. So I have a system of e-mail folders
to track auction messages through AmBuying - Bought - Received/Stiffed, a
stock reply e-mail with instructions to ward off typical foul-ups, and a
routine for checking on things and handling them. I don't assume someone
else will look out for my best interests.
I've also had some great surprises, like the Rootes Group Sales and
Service Sign (the big metal one) that showed up one day, totally
unnanounced, from a seller that appreciated our transaction so much "I
saw this at a show and thought you'd like it." ACCKKK! Or the extra stuff
with the item I bought ("found these while I was going through some other
things").
> I'll never sell on eBay again and I'll only bid on Sunbeam parts that
I sold a half-dozen things no sweat. I made a selling system to parallel
my buying system and treat the transactions the same way. The only reason
I don't sell more is that I have nothing to sell (yet) and what I do have
isn't worth the hassle of handling shipping.
So there you go, one other schmuck's experience. BTW, if you would like
pictures of a particular Rootes Group item, let me know, I may have one or
a couple. :)
--
= J e r o m e Y u z y k | jerome@supernet.ab.ca
= Sunbeam Alpine Series II #9118636 | www.bss.ab.ca/sunbeam
|