VERY FRUSTRATING EBAY EXPERIENCE FOR THE PAST FEW WEEKS!

[JC48573]

For the love of god, what is it with sellers these days? It's like they can't even do their jobs right. Is this supposed to be some kind of freaking joke?

1. Acceptable items listed as Very Good. On my 3rd purchase of Legend of Legaia and I spent the past few weeks making returns. They even defended that their copies are listed correctly.

2. Bought a Dreamcast, one of the controllers don't even work. The battery is dead.

3. Seller took his time to ship the order, but ends up shipping the wrong game to me.

4. Took seller 3 days later to finally ship the item even though he stated in his description that he usually ships the next day. I had to email him before he shipped the item on that day.

5. Sellers don't even bother answering questions after the auction has ended. Those that do make offensive comments.

I just want to get back to gaming and collecting.....why am I being bullied by these sellers?

[Fragems]

If you ever have any problems with buyer simply open a case with eBay or contact their customer support directly. They are very protective of their buyers. If you open a case against a seller and they don't respond/cooperate eBay will usually force the refund and in many cases let you keep the item .

Seller protection is almost none existent unless the buyer comes right out and threatens them . That is part of the reason I will no longer be selling there after next week.

Also come August a lot of the sellers will be leaving or simply will lower the quality of their services since stuff like refunds, returns, neutral feedback, cases being opened even if they are resolved peacefully or were opened on accident, items lost or delayed by USPS, and some other really stupid shit will now have a major effect on their account.

[BRIK]

I just want to get back to gaming and collecting.....why am I being bullied by these sellers?

If you can, search for games in the wild. 80% of my collecting comes from op-shops, who usually don't have as much stock but when they do, it's super cheap. After that comes pawn stores, who are generally more expensive but good deals are to be found. With those, you can even return the items if they're faulty but another way is swap meets and garage sales. You won't be able to get a refund on those items but good deals are always there to be had, and at least you can inspect the item before you buy it.
For me, searching for the games out there is nearly as fun as playing them. Too much bullshit and price inflation goes along with places like eBay.

[darsparx]

Right now I've got to agree with what's been said here. Especially with brik on finding stuff in the wild. Some places may not have that great of games but when you do find one it's great, plus I would rather deal with the users on this site than ebay anyday with the quality I've received in both transactions(I'll probably add another one to the great success after mjmjr's mystery box comes in soon)

[Sload Soap]

2. Bought a Dreamcast, one of the controllers don't even work. The battery is dead.

Do you mean the VMU's battery?

[J T]

I haven't shopped on eBay for years, in part because I hate crap like this.

[marurun]

2. Bought a Dreamcast, one of the controllers don't even work. The battery is dead.

Do you mean the VMU's battery?

The Dreamcast has an internal battery that keeps the time for the system clock. Mine's been dead a while. Doesn't keep you from playing games, but is annoying as crap. You have to be OK with soldering to replace it.

[nightrnr]

I don't know, I still like the occasional ebay purchase. It's like a giant bazzar and you never know quite what you will find, for good or bad.

1. Price often determines condition. If there is no actual picture, assume average at best. Maybe it's an acquired sense, but I can almost always tell what kind of shape a game is going to be in just by the actual description (not the condition rating) and asking price (although, I do shop BIN's most often; I save my bids for the nicer, well pictured auctions).
IGNORE the "Item Condition" line! (or at least bump it down a grad. "Condition" is often subjective and human tendency makes a lot of people exaggerate slightly.
If you are concerned about specifics and there aren't described, you are going to have to bug the seller about it.
Otherwise, you know how to get a pristine item if desired. It'll cost you though .

2. Bad controllers are definitely unfortunate, I do understand the annoyance there. But if you got a good enough deal on the system, I'd chalk it up to an even deal. Otherwise, it's a valid complaint that the seller should fix if it wasn't in description.
I once had a seller send me an extra Neo Geo gamepad, just because "HE" thought that one of the included ones felt "wonky" (even though it played beautifully)
Dead battery should be expected for 10+ year systems though.

3. A little patience is required unless you are paying for expedited shipping.Time is money and unless we're talking over a week to ship out, you gotta let them know if you're in a big hurry for it (or by buying that extra service). Otherwise, it's hit and miss and you get what you pay for.
Shipping the wrong item is completely unacceptable though. I don't understand why that happens.

4. He probably does try to ship the very next day (usually). Life does happen on his end though, and 3 days isn't all that extreme. 4 days... maybe

5. I've had better luck with sellers answering questions, even after the auctions end. To be fair, ?'s should be asked during the auction. It's nice of sellers to accommodate, but they have absolutely no obligation to do so. Some are just better businesspersons than others.

I'm not necessarily trying to defend ebay sellers that drop the ball or stretch the truth (or even outright lie). But I think some of the things that irk you are just part of the resell world, and even moreso when separated by shipping.

[Exhuminator]

I buy and sell on eBay fairly often. When it comes to buying games, I have some very simple rules that result in auctions I'm always happy with:

1. If I don't see photos of the actual game in the auction, I don't buy it.

2. The seller must have a high amount of positive feedback as a seller. Bother to read what other people say about this seller in their feedback profile.

3. Know where the seller is selling the item from. (For example, I live in the USA so I always make sure the seller is selling the item from the USA.)

Those three simple rules have ended up with eBay auctions I'm very happy with for the past few years.

[Sload Soap]

2. Bought a Dreamcast, one of the controllers don't even work. The battery is dead.

Do you mean the VMU's battery?

The Dreamcast has an internal battery that keeps the time for the system clock. Mine's been dead a while. Doesn't keep you from playing games, but is annoying as crap. You have to be OK with soldering to replace it.

Oh, that. Mines been dead since 2001.