How to contact fellow buyer

[dungogvolts]

I am interested in an item but the seller is new to eBay and does not have any feedback but  he/she has sold 10 lots of this item at a considerable amount of money but does not have any feedback from any buyer as yet.

So question.... how can/do I determine if this is genuine or not? Is there any way I can contact a buyer to ask about their purchase, like is the item OK did it arrive on time? are they happy with it and the service from the seller?

I don't want to go through with the purchase only to find out I might have to make a claim and wait weeks for my money to be returned.

[janeababe]

Geeezeeee you bugga’s are are bleeding this bread maker to it’s limits and beyond aren’t you? Ya rotten heathens! 😂😂😂😂

It’s now landfill. May it RIP! 😑

(might see if I can buy one from a cheap Chinese seller with rotten feedback. I hope he doesn’t post to Australia so I can have a good rant on the boards 😉) 

[gewens]

Hello, everyone. It's very important to keep your discussion relevant to the topic. If you have something else to talk about, please start a new thread. Remember irrelevant posts might be removed. Thanks.

[springyzone]

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@dungogvolts wrote:

I am interested in an item but the seller is new to eBay and does not have any feedback but  he/she has sold 10 lots of this item at a considerable amount of money but does not have any feedback from any buyer as yet.

So question.... how can/do I determine if this is genuine or not? Is there any way I can contact a buyer to ask about their purchase, like is the item OK did it arrive on time? are they happy with it and the service from the seller?

I don't want to go through with the purchase only to find out I might have to make a claim and wait weeks for my money to be returned.

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There are a lot of red flags here. They are

-the seller is new to ebay

-they have suddenly got a lot of brand new, expensive items and not the sort of thing a person would normally have multiples of.

-they have sold quite a few but no one has given feedback

-they only use stock photos, none of their own.

Personally, I wouldn't risk it. You might think there is nothing to worry about and you'll just get a refund from ebay if things go south, but you can't rely on that.  It smacks of scam to me.

I'd question why delivery is taking a month too. Best case scenario that I can see is it may be someone drop shipping but if that is so, then I would question what sort of warranty you would have on the product. It's not as if it is only costing $40 or so, it is close to $400 and even if the ad says it comes with a year's warranty, you can guarantee it would never be honoured.

You can't contact past buyers, it used to be handy when you could but that avenue was cut off years ago. Even if feedback starts to trickle in, what have you really got? Just that the item arrived and looks okay. And maybe worked a couple of times so far.

Give it a big miss, buy from a reputable Australian seller where a warranty will be honoured if need be.

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[countessalmirena · Accepted solution]

@dungogvolts,

The seller is new. Member since: 07-Nov-21 in Australia - and 0 feedback. 🚨

The seller has this item priced at $398. The manufacturer's website shows its partners, including authorised seller on eBay. That seller is NOT the seller at whom you're looking.

See here:

You'll see the eBay logo; click onto that, and you will then see the authorised eBay seller for this brand.

In other words, it is very likely that this is not an authorised reseller. Contact Devanti if you want to be sure. I don't have their phone number, but there is a contact form on their website. Gut feeling, though - this seller is not an authorised reseller. Why would Devanti allow a 0 feedback non-professional-looking eBayer be an authorised reseller for their products?  🚨

The EDD looks too long to me. When you check Kogan (another of the brand's authorised resellers), the same item leaves the warehouse in 1-2 days. Checking Myer, they don't keep these in stock, but rather if the item is ordered from Myer, it's sent from their "Marketplace partner". Looking on Devanti's own site about shipping, they send from their warehouse in Victoria, and delivery time within Victoria is approximately 3-5 working days. (I'm in VIC, within Greater Melbourne, and the EDD is "Estimated between Thu. 3 Mar. and Wed. 9 Mar." as of today. The delivery information in the listing also says "Will usually post within 10 business days of receiving cleared payment." 🚨

It does not gel.

The listing item's specifics are all wrong. The brand name is "Unbranded", the energy rating is 5 stars, etc., etc., whereas in the description, the energy rating is correctly shown as 2 stars, and the brand name is mentioned in the "Package Content" (sic). 🚨

The photos are small and cannot be zoomed for clarity. (The manufacturer's stock photos CAN be zoomed.) 🚨

The price is $398, while the price direct from the manufacturer is $585.99. The eBay and Kogan partner do give a discounted price - just over $500. I could accept that as within an acceptable range, given that the margin on these sorts of item might not be above 25%. Let's say 30% to be extremely generous. That would give the seller a cost price of around $410. The seller would be depending on volume to give a decent return... Yes, I could see the seller able to make a profit by selling the dishwasher at around $500.

But... a seller offering this item at $398 with free shipping? That would not even cover the wholesale price. 🚨

 

Conclusion

It's not a realistic price, and the seller has no reputation whatsoever. There is strong reason to assume the seller is not an authorised reseller for that brand. The delivery timeframe seems out of whack. The listing is amateurish. In short: scam.

I suspect that the buyers will either receive nothing, or they'll receive a similar-looking unbranded version dropshipped from China. Note that the seller was very careful not to include the actual brand name in the title or the item specifics, and may have tripped themselves up slightly by copy-pasting the description in which the brand name is actually referred to.

Advice

Run away! If you want to buy this on eBay, buy from the authorised seller that you can find from the link on the manufacturer's website. I would not actually purchase from that particular seller myself, but at least you would have a real warranty.

[dungogvolts]

Thanks to everyone who replied especially countessalmirena for the very detailed reply. I know the price is very cheap but sometimes people buy in bulk and sell cheap BUT I was never going to purchase when the seller has no feedback or any comments left from buyers.

In reality I was more interested in finding out if there is a way of contacting purchasers as I have been able, and like papermoon.lady also mentioned, to do in the past and was able to get more details about the item I was look at at the time.

[dungogvolts]

Thanks to everyone who replied especially countessalmirena for the very detailed reply. I know the price is very cheap but sometimes people buy in bulk and sell cheap BUT I was never going to purchase when the seller has no feedback or any comments left from buyers.

In reality I was more interested in finding out if there is a way of contacting purchasers as I have been able, and like papermoon.lady also mentioned, to do in the past and was able to get more details about the item I was look at at the time.