Hi, I just thought I'd share something of a close call I had yesterday where I was tempted by a digital camera that came up for buy it now/best offer. At first glance it seemed a pretty good deal (Canon 5D mk II digital camera). Although the listing had a growing number of views and watchers, I held off making an offer or buy it now. I sent a message asking for additional details about whether they'd owned since new, if it was the original shutter, if it had ever been professionally serviced etc but received nothing but stony silence after several hours.
Later while browsing the seller's feedback (as difficult as ebay has made it these days with anonymous ID's and non item-specific feedback), I noticed a number of 'repair' 'fix' and 'parts' related sellers and after scrolling through their feedback pages noticed this seller's ID with several parts they'd purchased for this particular model of camera (including lcd screen and internal circuitry). Well that turned me off then and there as the item wasn't being sold as 'refurbished' and the listing made no indication of repairs (in retrospect 'Fully functional' is about as close to a red flag as it gets):-
Canon 5D Mark II
Beautiful cosmetic condition
Fully functional
LOW, LOW shutter actuations at 1770
Includes original clean strap
Original Canon brand battery included
SanDisk Extreme 16gb UDMA7
120MB/s also included
The absolute deal breaker though was when I clicked on a third party seller ID in the seller's 'feedback left for others' section and found the following comment from the current seller to the previous owner (item only identified on the other party's feedback page courtesy of another of ebay's totally unhelpful "site improvements")...
| As described, prompt delivery | Buyer: a***r ( 8492 | During past 6 months | |
| Cannon 5D Mark II (Water Damage - Not Working) | AU $134.00 |
While I don't have any issues with items being repaired for resale, I just think some mention of having opened an item up and tinkered with its insides should really be hinted at (at the very least listing as 'seller refurbished' )- particularly for expensive electronic items. In this case the camera could've been dropped over the side of a tinny for all I know which I seriously doubt would appeal to many buyers looking at parting with close to a grand. As it was the buy it now price listed was up in the upper middle price range ($900) and I guessed a buyer would soon jump at it because the description did tend to suggest the camera was in close to new condition and looked in good shape in the pictures - sure enough it ended after just a few hours for buy it now.
*I should note the seller's feedback shows they have dealt in the past with mostly unrelated items (non-tech based), with only a few camera related items over recent months from what I could see, so it's unlikely they had several of the same model camera.
As a side note I MUCH prefer ebay back in the days of old when you could be a bit pro-active to do your own checking up on items in the feedback history without all the extra levels of anonymity ebay has in place these days (which for me has drastically reduced any confidence I previously had in ebay -plus not being able to do your own research into bidder activity etc - no wonder auctions appear to be being dwarfed by buy it now/best offer.)
In this case it was a fair bit of mucking around trying to track down any references to the seller / item -skimming over page after page of third party feedback (made even more difficult -thank you ebay- with the replacement of specific dates with 'past month' 'past 6 months' 'over a year' etc. Ultimately glad I went to the extra bother this time though all things considered.
My advice to other buyers when spending a fair bit of cash on a used tech item like this, would be to always confirm if the seller is the original owner, what kind of use the item has had and if it has ever had any repairs/servicing. And if they don't respond to your queries, don't just assume because it looks like a good deal that it necessarily is and snap it up because it's had 19 views in the past hour and you think you might miss out (another of those little 'site improvements' I find irritating - clearly intended to encourage rash purchase decisions).
Anyway, hope this might be in some way useful to anyone else shopping around for digital cameras or other tech related items.
And for the lucky buyer… who knows, maybe they'll receive a bonus hairdryer with their purchase : (
PS. Odd, today the item isn't showing up in a completed items search (yesterday it showed as 'sold' (green price). The page is still there (found it in my browser history), just can't find it in any ebay searches - even when searching completed items from the seller's items for sale page. Weird.
