any1 been having a lot of trouble with eBay sellers lately?

[Mad_Hatter]

Maybe I just hit bad luck or something, but I think I am done with eBay. I wish I had good local stores. But all I have at my area is pretty much franchise places, so that pretty much means no buying retro gaming stuff locally.

Anyway on eBay...

One was for this cellphone. It was suppose to be brand new. I returned it because the screen was popping out, it came with a generic battery and charger. I have still yet to receive my refund on this. The seller said it might take a while with the return shipping label. I had to escalate to eBay because after so many replies, the seller just now decided to check in with the post office.

Second, was another cellphone. The seller said it was like new, no scratches at all. But when i got it, thing was dirty. And it had some protective screens all over it (kind of like Zagg invisible shield) that just concealed the scratches. after i removed them, there were a bunch of scratches and scuffs. I got the refund.

third, is when I bought 2 sega saturn controllers. When I get the package, the seller said: "if you only got one, I can send you another one". I'm still waiting on the other one.

fourth was for a new kindle paperwhite cover. it was suppose to be new. but when I got it, I got a big slip saying "this is refurbished, not new. item will be different than the official cover.... I didn't bother for a refund because I got it 50% off what Amazon was charging, and this was a gift for my little brother. I told him they it may be fake, used, or refurbished and that I can return it for him. but he said he is fine with.

sorry for the rant... I had to get this off my chest. These purchases were all within two weeks. Yea you get refunds, but paying to ship back adds up. And it is annoying when sellers get tricky.

anyone else have trouble lately?

I think I am just going to avoid it unless the seller provides plenty of photos of the actual items. If not, Just going to start using Amazon and Estarland (thanks for suggesting this Noise).

[Hobie-wan]

I had a couple of poorly packed items and some diecast car lots that weren't exactly what the seller's self taken picture indicated last fall. The misrepresented I ended up getting refunds and keeping the stuff and the poorly packed I sent back. I was worried about ebay flagging my account or something as I was suddenly having to make all these cases for problems, but eventually things went back to normal again.

I became more vigilant about real pictures or asking questions about how things would be shipped. Had some boxed cart games that sellers would have just tossed in a bubble pack if I hadn't asked beforehand. Those would have likely gotten crushed or dinged on the way to me otherwise. If I send the seller a question and they don't answer, I just don't buy even if it is tempting. I might miss a great deal, but I save myself frustration too.

[BoneSnapDeez]

I generally only use eBay for the stores/vendors. Accounts with hundreds/thousands of items and positive feedback in the thousands. I'm mostly done with regular folks, as I've run into too many sketchballs.

You can run into the same issues on Amazon so be cautious.

Most of my games these days are purchased online due to the lack of gaming stores here. For pre-owned stuff I prefer Game of Japan and eStarland. Everything is in near-pristine condition, which is worth the higher prices in my opinion.

Also you can find great deals on forums (like this one and others).

[Retrogamer0001]

I used to use EBay constantly to buy games, but the Global Shipping Program killed it for me up here in Canada. That being said, I only had one or two bad experiences out of almost 350 transactions, so I consider myself lucky. Like Hobie already mentioned, asking for current pics and properly shipping items is huge. JJgames is a great store that offers free shipping on every item and usually has more than a few gems available.

[Mad_Hatter]

Well I have just been selling stuff lately on eBay and just wanted to share this.

These last 5 items I sold where bought by people with the first names:

Chris
Chris
Christine
Christina
Crissy

That's some coincidence lol.

[Aramonde]

I've never heard of eStarland before, i'll have to check it out.

[jvalentine98]

When I bought PSOne games on ebay, this was my policy:

*Must have pictures of the actual item
*Must have a clean disc

Never take someone's word that disc is in "Good shape." If they are not more specific, I would mail them and ask if there are any scratches, fingerprints or smudges on the disc. If so, I moved on to find a better one.

On Amazon, where I buy most of my blu rays and dvds, I never buy a used item that just says "In good shape." "Good Shape" can mean most anything.

[laurenhiya21]

I've only used Ebay a few times while I was in the States, and luckily I haven't had any bad experiences (so far). Mind, I was really cautious about buying stuff, and I made sure that the seller had a lot of positive feedback and that there were proper pictures of the games.

Now that I'm back in Canada though, it would be dumb to use it... The shipping for 90% of the stuff on there is ridiculous ><; I know it's probably because most of it is coming from the States, but it's still pretty annoying. (it's hard enough to get retro games here without paying an arm and a leg...)

[alexis524]

I've been selling off a bunch of stuff over the past 2 months (about 40-50 completed transactions) and haven't run into any trouble. I make it a point to take a photo of the item the day I am listing the item, and also make it a habit to describe any flaws or imperfections because I would want to know. Cracked case? surface scratches? original artwork? manual? stains? rips? etc, etc.

I have however, recently, had to send a Nyko Wii U controller back since it didn't hold a charge. Even though the seller stated any return shipping is my at my cost, I asked that they refund me the shipping cost too, which they reluctantly agreed to, but hey, test your stuff before you send it out. I always tend to look at feedback before buying from ebay sellers to get a feel for their service, reliability, or any associated drama that they have been involved in.

[Konacha]

Only a few honestly,

A few months ago I brought a PSP 3000 White off eBay. When I got it the system didn't work and no matter what I did I couldn't get the PSP to turn on so I contacted him to get a refund or at least a replacement. I waited almost a week with no reply and got eBay involved then waited until the last minute on eBay to close out the case when they replied to me. I asked for a replacement and asked where I could send it too, I didn't hear anything again for another week when they said would need to have me return it before I could replace it. After I returned it I never heard back from them nor did I get my money or anything. After contacting them and never hearing back I finally got tired of waiting (this was going on for more than a month from what I remember and it was getting close to eBay to closing the case) and got eBay to give me my money back and wrote my first negative feedback. After I gave the feedback, he contacted me on my personal e-mail account to try and sell me the system still so I forward it to eBay and deleted it.



I also had someone recently from a store that sells Disney Resort items (like bedsheets and items like that) had never shipped the item and didn't have a record of the item shipped. At least he was nice and gave me not only my money back but an extra 10 dollars for my troubles. One last one was a guy who sold me a PS2 Slim but it was broken when I got it. Was nice enough to at least give me my money back after I shipped it to him.

Overall, I don't really have a problem with eBay. I typically don't sell things on eBay. Due to that I don't have horror stories or problems with it. The only problem I had was that I shipped two items one day and mixed up the shipping labels. So one of the items was 2 dollars short, the guy who got the item was really mad due to that. I understand, I would have been mad too if that was me. I gave him an extra 2 dollars as a "I'm sorry I screwed up".