Sick of searches, buying and Ebay scams

[retrowise]

I'm really sick of the increasing scams that are going on. Ebay needs to do somehting about it.

Searching for something even when you set the price always comes up with scam like $1 to $20 etc just to get you to click on it. When you get there, the item is $20 but for $1 you can buy a tooth pick you didn't even search for. It's an extremely time wasting click bait scam imo.

Next is an advice when buying cheap items from overseas. When you buy something, and it comes defective or doesn't come at all, file money back. Don't let seller talk you in to sending you another one, usually they will not. You will wait, claim window will pass and you'll likely receive nothing. Also don't take partial refunds if the item is broken. Don't let it go even if the item was only $1. These sellers are banking on you not being bothered with $1 while they make good money by taking it from you this way. Also make sure you give them negative feedback, some will beg you to retrieve it, don't do it.

Another one is, the seller claims the item is in AU but takes 2 weeks longer to arrive from overseas. No mercy with these, negative rating apply.

Here is a good one, you buy for example a light bulb and receive one that is less than half the size. Photos didn't not show that. Always ask seller questions and keep correspondence as evidence for claim.

Or you buy something, yes usually from overseas again, it works once and than falls apart. Get money back, don't just bin it.

And how about those items you never see in brick and mortar shops. You guessed it, those are made for online sales only because the shops won't touch them. They know you would bring them back.

Factory seconds? Plenty of those, they just don't tell you. To much trouble to send it back if it only has a scratch.

Lastly this applies for used items,. Seller claims untested, used to work, or doesn't know how to test it. Don't buy it, it doesn't work.

I could go on for hours. I'm not big on complaining but I've had enough. I find buying too risky these days, when I do buy, I don't expect anything good so I won't spend much either.

Anyway...just a rant to get of my chest.

You can leave your shopping experiences bellow.....:-)

[davewil1964]

You seem to be buying the wrong things.

To have that much trouble in so little time smacks of you doing your due diligence apres-sale.

[digital*ghost]

Most of your complaints are common, and I get that they are frustrating, but most of them are avoidable, as well. Check the seller's profile to find out where they are registered (if it says China, assume that's where their products are, as well). Recognise that the price of items is often a good indicator of quality (even the ACCC recognises this, and acknowledge that price plays a factor in what can then be deemed a reasonable expection of a product - the more expensive an item is, the more reasonable high expetctations of performance, quality and longevity are). Check feedback comments, as the vast majority of these issues will be reflected in feedback if the seller has sold a decent amount. As for the bait listings, try changing some of your search settings (if on a PC), they're very easy to avoid when variation listings display a large price range and it can't be attributed to quantity variations (those will usually have titles like 1/10/50 etc). 

I agree with the advice about not letting sellers string you along, and recognising the limitations of eBay's MBG timeframes etc, as well. 

The taking-no-prisoners apprach after the fact might feel justified, but better to do as much as you can to avoid these kinds of disappointing transactions. 

I did just want to say one thing, with regards to this one: "Here is a good one, you buy for example a light bulb and receive one that is less than half the size. Photos didn't not show that."

Descriptions are really important, I've personally found that it's very rare even for Chinese sellers not to include dimensions in a description.

This isn't my experience, but I thought it was worth sharing anyway. I saw a neg feedback comment the other day for a seller, where the buyer had purchased some egg cups. The image in the first spoiler was the first photo in the listing.

Spoiler

The buyer left the seller a negative comment because these egg cups were a lot smaller than they were expecting.

The image in the spoiler below was the second image in the gallery of the listing.

Spoiler

It's kind of absurd, as this sort of thing is so common and so avoidable - though I do get a kick out of it when people take it in their stride and get a laugh out of buying dollhouse furniture for $10 and expecting full size stuff rather than do things like blame / neg the seller.

Moral of the story, for sellers - use scale images as the main gallery image if your item is an uncommon size.

Moral of the story for buyers - not as expected doesn't = not as described, and sometimes it pays to look at, and read, everything. 

[countessalmirena]

@retrowise,

As davewil says in breviloquent and to-the-point style, one of the very best ways to avoid problems with purchases on eBay is to do due diligence pre-sale. Unless you're buying from one of the major Australian sellers whose brand is well-known to you, or from a seller from whom you've previously purchased to your absolute satisfaction, you don't know the person or business from whom you propose buying, so it is worthwhile checking out where the seller is registered, as digital*ghost says... and also checking their feedback comments (in particullar, the negatives, by clicking onto the total negative number link over 12 months to make it easier).

Always read descriptions.

Always check all of the photos on a listing.

My personal buying mantra includes - Never buy from a seller abusing the "listing with variations" function.

Never buy electrical/electronic goods from Chinese eBay sellers.

Brand name items listed on eBay could be

• genuine
• parallel import/grey import
• stolen
• fake

The fake ones look extraordinarily convincing. (Bear in mind that China doesn't respect IP of international companies.) Check whether the seller is an authorised dealer/reseller for the brand. If you need a warranty, consider lack of local enforceability of a warranty for parallel imports as well as cost of shipping back to overseas seller.

These are pre-emptive things - before you buy. You focused on remedial or restitutive aspects of a bad purchase.

You said "Ebay needs to do somehting [sic] about it." eBay won't. eBay China is subject to the expectations of the Chinese marketplace (for example, Chinese sellers don't pay any fees), the Chinese regulations (I've already mentioned the fact that the Chinese government's approach to IP is very different to ours), and Chinese behaviours. eBay China continues to operate only because it complies with those three factors.

You said "time wasting click bait scam imo". Yes, it is. eBay.com.au can't take down those listings listed on eBay.cn - they can request it from eBay.cn but eBay.cn's likelihood of acting on a complaint is so close to zero that you might as well write down that nought and be done with it. If they're listed on eBay.com.au, the listings may be taken down but there are so many that you'll be spending the rest of every moment of your waking life reporting each one...

You said "... claim window will pass". Never let that happen. Keeping an eye on timeframes and deadlines is a must if you want to rely on eBay Money Back Guarantee, or PayPal's Buyer Protection. One way is to enter a reminder into your phone calendar for at least 48 hours before the end date. Never leave a claim until the last moment if there's a problem.

You said "don't take partial refunds if the item is broken" - and I agree, if the item is broken beyond repair, or it would cost more than the item's worth to repair, a partial refund is not appropriate.

You said "the seller claims the item is in AU but takes 2 weeks longer to arrive from overseas [...] negative rating apply". Avoid this from happening in the first place by checking where the seller is registered and reading the negative comments in their feedback. Chances are very high that you will spot the signs to avoid buying from such a seller in the first place.

[countessalmirena]

You also said "... receive one that is less than half the size." As digital*ghost has shown, you need to be on the ball with checking the description and photos, and if there are no dimensions listed and no information in the listing to tell you that the size is not the size that a reasonable person looking at such an item would expect, that would (in my opinion) be grounds for considering it significantly not as described.

You said, "it works once and then falls apart." Be careful with this sort of thing. If it arrived and was fit for purpose, that's not the same as an item arriving and not working upon arrival. digital*ghost has also talked about "reasonable expectation". If one buys a very cheap item for a few dollars, and it falls apart after a week, it might not be a reasonable expectation for it to last if the average price of such items is a lot higher. This is related to the difference between eBay's MBG and a warranty. eBay's MBG states that "The eBay Money Back Guarantee is not a product warranty, and does not replace your Australian Consumer Law rights." If you're buying from an Australian business, there are consumer guarantees under Australian consumer legislation, and if the manufacturer or seller provides you with a warranty,, that warranty is also enforceable. If you buy from an overseas seller, you may not (probably won't) have an enforceable warranty.

You said, "Factory seconds? Plenty of those, they just don't tell you." It is required by law that an Australian seller state when they are selling seconds. You have a right to a refund unless

• the store or seller told you about the problelm or fault
• the problem or fault is something you should have noticed when examining the item
• the problem or fault was indicated in the photos or the item description in the listing.

Just be sure to check all of the photos and the description before buying...

[retrowise]

I've been selling and buying on Ebay since it started so it's not like I don't know Ebay inside out. You guys seem to think I don't look at the photos or read description etc. That's not the case. What I am saying is that sellers are getting more cunning and desperate and no matter how careful you are, you can still can end up with garbage.

Here is an example. Some time ego bought RCA plugs. I specially bought the most expensive ones. Well what do you know, I received them, they looked like the expensive ones but were made out of die cast, not brass. Seller had good reviews etc but the item was worthless garbage I had to throw away. Couldn't even make a claim because they were actually RCA plugs. Just a waste of my time.

Also bought some not so cheap LED light bulbs. Worked for one month. So this is my point. It doesn't matter if you spend big because chances are you end up with cheap junk anyway. But it never used to be like that. I used to spend good money and got items worth the money. Not now. I suppose some settle for low quality items at high prices but not me. I'm not saying that everything is junk/ No, one can still buy good things but trying to avoid the junk is getting harder and harder. These days if I need a quality item, I go to the shop. Cost me more but I save hell of a lot in the long run.

My basic observation over time is that things are simply getting worse, that's all.

[digital*ghost]

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@retrowise wrote:

My basic observation over time is that things are simply getting worse, that's all.

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But you also asked us to post our experiences, and while I didn't techically post my buying experiences, I did post my (largely observational) experience, which is all I got on these issues as I've either not experienced them directly, or I work around them. I haven't noticed a decline in quality (of products or service) myself, but I'm guessing we likely purchase fairly different products so maybe that's a contributing factor as well. 

The other issue is that - just speaking for myself - I'm not necessarily responding to your thread in order to criticise, or even speak directly to, you, or your buying habits - as I mentioned, yours are common complaints, and the advice given here by other posters tend to be the best methods for prevention. This is exactly the kind of thread that perpetually rears its head when someone else arrives at boards with any one of those complaints and / or searches for information on how to deal with (or avoid) an issue, so a full pallete of info, some dealing with the before, and some dealing with the after, can't hurt. 

In other words, I know I posted for the same reasons you did, to help inform anyone who reads the thread.

[countessalmirena]

I hear what you're saying.

(I didn't mean to imply that you didn't know eBay, etc. Sometimes long-time users may not be aware of some of the bad seller tricks, etc.)

There's no doubt that some items are best bought in person, or - if bought online - from a shop in Australia that also has a physical presence.

As an example, I recently wanted some more Eneloop rechargeable batteries. I particularly wanted the Panasonic smart charger as well, and it wasn't in stock from my local stores such as Jaycar, camera shops, etc. (Normally I would have driven over to a local shop and bought them.) I could have got this from a shop in South Melbourne (40-50 minutes to drive there), but as it wasn't an "I must have this today" sort of item, I did some price comparisons and found a store in NSW which had both the AAA pro Eneloop batteries AND the smart charger in stock, at a very good price even considering the postage cost. (I checked on the Panasonic website to be sure that Ryda was an authorised dealer - all was good.)

That sort of online buying doesn't entail the same sort of risk as buying from an overseas eBay seller.

You make an interesting point about its being harder to avoid the junk. The proliferation of Chinese sellers on eBay has undoubtedly contributed to that.

The RCA plugs you mention... Did the description state their composition? I suppose I'd have been looking throughout the description to be sure that they were brass or nickel or something of that sort... maybe silver-plated or gold-plated as well...? (Was it just the shell that was diecast?) I'm sorry that you had that bad experience - and as you say, some good reviews don't always tell the tale. Some people give positive feedback and great comments when the item is clearly rubbish, because consumers can often be fooled by the outward appearance of an item, or simply because they're not experts (and of course we cannot be experts at everything!). Almost Anything Audio is one particular place from whom I will order with complete confidence; there are other sellers with similar knowledge and expertise and helpfulness.

[springyzone]

I agree with you that there are some scams out there now that weren't there in the early days. The one you mentioned where you try to look up an item and it is showing as $1 in the listings but when, very surprised at the low price, you click in to check further, you find a totally unrelated small item is $1 and your item is actually $14  or whatever, really annoyed me no end the first time I came across it.

But.. I still see all of these as better than the main scam back in the early days. That was a simple scam-seller writes an ad, shows a pic, sells it, the buyer pays, seller keeps the money and never posts the item nor replies to any messages after that. then if you give neg feedback says it must be 'lost in the post'.

Or if you were lucky, buy on ebay, seller might send 2-3 weeks down the track when it suited them, leaving me feeling very disgruntled.

Buying on ebay always felt a bit like playing some sort of roulette. Much better now.

The main thing I dislike on ebay these days is when you do a search, the aussie  based items are not necessarily the first listed, the way they would have been in the old days, which always made it easy to avoid international sellers if you had a mind to.

I would like to see the default setting (in Aust) as Aust items first, all others after that. And for other countries, I guess their own items first.

Because I think the flood of Chinese stuff on ebay is the main turn off. You can use settings to filter out a certain amount of it, but it is very annoying as each new search, you have to reset.

These days I rarely have any of your troubles on ebay. Like you, I've been around a while but these days, I almost exclusively buy from Australian sellers. I haven't been let down by most Australian sellers in years (apart from one pick up item that was not as described, which i did not buy).

Also, pick your categories. There are plenty of things that are just not worth buying on ebay, too much potential for grief.

As you said, if an overseas buyer tries to fob you off, insist on money back, carry through with claims and leave factual feedback.

With regards to sizes, make sure you don't just judge on photos. I have seen quite a few people give feedback where they say something like 'smaller than I thought' when the size was listed. One memorable one that made me laugh for days gave the seller a negative, stating some double sided tape was really narrow, not even 1cm wide, when it was actually advertised as 3mm tape.

But better to avoid problems in the first place if you can.

 I find my most reliable categories (buying from Aust) have been things like spices & also some second hand children's clothing, as long as you read the ads carefully. Some excellent bargains there.

On the other hand, some of the overseas items with Tupperware in the title (such as their labels) are blatant forgeries.

[collect247]

Just stop buying from China period as you get what you deserve pay for.

You can whinge all you like as at the end of the day it's your choice and if you choose the wrong one then bad luck as places like that are untouchable.

In the past everything that I purchased from those TV adds that only sell online did break and I learn't my lesson and haven't bought anything since.

It's all carp and you only get fooled once don't you?