Ebay frustrations

[(-_-)]

Almost a week ago now, I purchased Gun Valkyrie, Otogi, and Dead or Alive beach Volleyball off someone on ebay for 20$. The seller has been a member for a few years and appears to have a good track record. I paid for the games immediately and have been sending him emails every since. I have not been contacted in return once. Maybe I'm just being impatient but I always have problems with ebay. The first time I used ebay I bought Fear Effect 2 and Parasite Eve. I was in another province at the time but I had the game shipped to my home address in Vancouver and got a friend to pick it up. When it arrived I was excited and asked him to describe the quality to me of both games. However, when he was telling me what condition each game was, he only said Fear Effect. I corrected him and said Fear Effect 2. He said no. Just Fear Effect. I emailed the seller back and told her I received the wrong game. She said sorry but it had been busy and she had other people helping her and they mixed up 1 and 2. She said she would send a remailer with the game and I would send Fear Effect back with it. So I waited. And waited. I asked a few weeks later if she shipped it which took a while to reply back to me. She said she did but then stopped replying to my emails a few weeks later and I still haven't gotten anything after a year now. Being my first experience, I dismissed it later when I found a copy of FE2 at an Eb for 2.99 and sold my second copy of FE1.

The Second time isn't really ebay's fault, but more shipping. I bought Dino Crisis 1 and 2 which were both supposed to be in good condition. When I received it, I quickly tore open the package and got stabbed by a piece of cd case. After cleaning up all the blood I shook out the contents of the package. The jewel cases were almost completely shattered.

The third time I used ebay, I bought a incredible Crisis, Kartia, and Sillhouette Mirage all complete and in good condition. When that arrived in the mail Kartia did not have it's manual. When I contacted the Seller again he said sorry but there was a lot of games to mail off and he had someone help him and the manual must have gotten lost in another package. However, he said he would GLADLY give me 5$ off of any other item he had up for auction which, if I remember, consisted mostly of household appliances and children's toys.

The fourth time I flipped out becuase this was a seller located in Canada so I figured it would be easier to deal with and would arrive faster. I bought Timesplitters 1. There was good communication and I told him about my first experience with Fear Effect and just wanted to make sure that this was indeed the first game that I would be receiving. I get the package in the mail, open it, and was now in posession of another copy of Timesplitters 2. I messaged him back, he said he was sorry , and that it was his wife's fault, and he would send me back the right game. Although I had to pay the shipping for the return of the game because they messed up.

So now I'm impatiently waiting for some sort of communication with this seller, waiting for something to go wrong again.

My rant is done. Anyone else have any better/worse experiences with ebay?

[gravitone]

I bought a diamond monstersound mx300 soundcard from ebay france (Im Dutch), and after paying 10 euros for the item, 19 euros shipping, and a 2 week waiting period I openened the parcel, found the diamond box inside in perfect condition. Happy as can be to finally being able to use my retro pc with sound, I opened the box, only to be greeted by a soundblaster 128 pci. It took me months to hunt down this particular soundcard, and the one I got was a P.O.S. thats worth 1 euro tops. I emailed the seller, who claimed he send me the right card. After sending him pictures he ignored me. I started a dispute procedure on paypal, and within hours the seller had escalated that to a claim arguing that I was lying about the item in question. After about a month paypal ended up ruling in my favour. The damage on my part being 8 euros for shipping the item back to the seller.

My first and only bad experience I might add. Having bought quite a few items over the years, I just accepted that I had to run into some bastard sooner or later and moved on. My search for a monstersound mx300 continues until this day.

[BAD PIXEL]

Lack of communication on the seller's part can be very frustrating, especially when you're eagerly awaiting the game. But some sellers just aren't good at communicating. You mention that it's been "almost a week" and you've been emailing him ever since the auction ended - it doesn't sound like you should start panicking yet. He might be annoyed if you've been emailing him constantly, seeing as how it hasn't been a week yet. It might have been a crazy week for him. I've had to wait a couple of weeks sometimes for things to come in. Some sellers don't go to ship the next day, they wait a few days, when they have a few things to mail off at once, etc. Now, it would be nice if there was some communication, but again, some people are just bad at that. I'd give it a few more days, for a total of at least 10 days from the end of the auction, then if you don't receive the item, contact him letting him know that you're concerned and are going to start a complaint if you don't hear back from him.

By the way, I think you win the "Bad Experience on eBay" award with your stab on the shattered jewel case.

[NotBlaine]

I actually had to log into eBay to check it out.

Over the past 8 years I've had about 100 transactions (obviously, I don't use it a ton). I've left neutral feedback once, when it took 12 days for a game to arrive and negative feedback once for a non-paying bidder. The negative feedback was in October of 2001 and was probably for a stick of RAM or something.

Suppose I'm lucky.

[nickfil]

I use ebay more and more lately. I've only had a handful of bad experiences similar to what you all are saying.

I find that often with retro games, or at least a seller who doesn't only do games, they are being auctioned off by someone who isn't as knowledgeable as one would expect. So they might pack the wrong thing, or list it incorrectly.

I got a greatest hits version of a game i wanted with no manual once. I e-mailed the guy and he refunded me the cash, told me to keep the game. That is the best case situation.

Sometimes i get games that are just in a shitty condition. Seller used a stock photo so i never actually saw the game. Then i get it and it is kinda jacked up. My deus ex invisible war for xbox has these crazy cup stains on the plastic of the case. Haven't tried cleaning them yet, but i shouldn't have to.

I won a set of ps1 wireless controllers that never came. When i tracked it, it said they were delivered, but i just never got them. I assume they got stolen out of the slot in the door. I can hardly blame the seller, but it sucks.

However, sometimes i order stuff crazy cheap and it comes fine in perfect condition.

You just gotta roll with the uncertainty.

[(-_-)]

Lack of communication on the seller's part can be very frustrating, especially when you're eagerly awaiting the game. But some sellers just aren't good at communicating. You mention that it's been "almost a week" and you've been emailing him ever since the auction ended - it doesn't sound like you should start panicking yet. He might be annoyed if you've been emailing him constantly, seeing as how it hasn't been a week yet. It might have been a crazy week for him. I've had to wait a couple of weeks sometimes for things to come in. Some sellers don't go to ship the next day, they wait a few days, when they have a few things to mail off at once, etc. Now, it would be nice if there was some communication, but again, some people are just bad at that. I'd give it a few more days, for a total of at least 10 days from the end of the auction, then if you don't receive the item, contact him letting him know that you're concerned and are going to start a complaint if you don't hear back from him.

By the way, I think you win the "Bad Experience on eBay" award with your stab on the shattered jewel case.

The packaging was tight enough so that I couldn't hear any rattling, and the cd cases were just enough intact that the shape of the package wasn't disfigured. It was particularly annoying because I don't have a proper replacement for the slim 2 disc cd case that dino crises used. I figured he might be busy but he's also got a lot of other things up for auction which I assume would mean he's on top of things. I also gave in today and now I'm finally going to buy my own xbox instead of trying to bum access to them off my friends, so I really do hope I get those games.

[DaGamingMonkey]

I've had a couple of shipments that took forever to get to me. A few slightly damaged goods, a "Never open game!" that had been opened previously just resealed with scotch tape

Nothign too bad

On the good side I had 2 auctions recently that the seller threw in a bunch of extra stuff I didn't know was in the auction.
Strategy Guides and boxes/manual for a game that when described was cart only.

[Hobie-wan]

Eh, I buy a lot of used CDs on ebay, mostly out of print and non mainstream stuff. Unless its something with a special case I just play on getting a demolished case as it works its way through the postal system. As long as its just case cracks, a broken hinge, or shattered teeth, but the disc and artwork are ok, I can replace the case.

But yeah, a lack of response is annoying, even if everything works out ok in the end. I actually try to stay away from huge sellers (except Jay & Marie, they rock) because getting answers is such a crap shoot once a seller gets big. If they've got 500+ things on ebay at the same time in all sorts of categories, its pretty much a given that they'll take forever to respond and not know about the item if there's a problem.

[manaman]

Well,

I recently had a very positive experience on eBay. I bought an original Sega three-button controller from a seller and it was dead on arrival. I had already left him positive feedback, too because I hadn't actually tried the controller and thought it looked to be in great condition. Well, I e-mailed the seller and told him what the problem was and he said he'd mail me a new one at no cost on my part. I could simply dispose of the dead one.

The seller is sellit-now!, by the way. So, yeah, I was impressed,

manaman

[(-_-)]

Ok, so today was a better day. Got an Xbox with a wired and wireless madcatz controller, a wireless logitech controller, dvd remote, an official gamecube controller, AND secret of mana for Snes today for 45$. Went to Game Deals and found Conker Live and Reloaded for 24$, got home and got my reply from ebay. I was just being impatient. For some reason it hadn't occured to me that bigger sellers would mean longer response time. My logic was bigger seller better communication. Flaw in logic now corrected.