Ted: I concur 100% regarding eBay. I can think of one vintage bike parts seller in particular that should have been tried and convicted of something by now, that falls into the category you mention.... Like it or not, a lot of the vintage stuff we cherish crosses eBay on a regular basis. It's arguably the best wordwide 24/7 marketplace for items that are in any way out of the mainstream. Unfortunately, it has a (fairly small) number of sharks too. Greg "close to eBay burnout, so I know whatcha mean" Parker Dexter, Michigan Date: Mon, 20 Sep 2004 10:53:27 -0700 (PDT) From: "Ted E. Baer" <wickedsky@sbcglobal.net> To: Classicrendezvous@bikelist.org Subject: Re: [CR]Feedback 98%+ on ebay
Donald Gillies <gillies@cs.ubc.ca> wrote:
<The feedback mechanism is actually designed to maximize ebay's profits. IT HAS NOTHING TO DO WITH CREATING HONEST TRANSACTIONS.>
Yes and No. What the feedback system does do is provide the buyer with a pretty good idea of who to buy from and who to stay away from.
Have you noticed that there are certain sellers who have a ton of negative feedback where in "the customer did not receive the item?" These same sellers are quick to use the follow-up excuse: "The item got lost in the mail." Scroll down and read all of their other negs and sure enough, the response is "Not my fault, he didn't pay insurance, item lost in the mail." Sorry, I do not buy that. I have shipped probably a 1,000 items worldwide and only 1 was lost in the mail. And it was my fault because I mis-spelled the buyer's street address.
<NUMBER OF DAYS BEFORE BUYER FEEDBACK WAS LEFT is probably a much higher statistical predicter of seller responsibility and chance of a successful transaction than the actual feedback rating.>
Most people do not dash off to their computers and enter feedback immediately after receiving an item. Sometimes a month will go by before I get a positive from someone. People are busy and have things to do. Checking on eBay feedback that needs to be left is not always a high priority.
CR should start it's own separate eBay "blog?" That way those of us who want to focus on vintage bike discussion can read the CR list without hitting the delete key so often.
And those who want to discuss eBay problems with buyers, sellers, PayPal, shipping amounts, etc, can all chime in on the "blog."
Ted Baer "burnt out on eBay" in Palo Alto, CA
> You can easily get negative feedbacks on ebay, if
> _you_ choose to
> purchase from someone with a low feedback rating. I
> have two negative
> feedbacks. In both cases, I got screwed and entered
> (negative,
> neutral) feedback. The other side went postal and
> retaliated both times.
>
> One seller misleadingly described a $10 campy
> braze-on shifters to
> make them seem like clamp-ons and wanted $9 to
> return them, and
> another domestic seller cashed a $130 check and
> rested a month before
> shipping a camera lens.
>
> After these two events I probably had a 70% feedback
> rating because I
> made the stupid mistake of giving feedback before
> the other side had
> entered their feedback rating, allowing them to
> retaliate.
>
> The feedback mechanism is actually designed to
> maximize ebay's
> profits. IT HAS NOTHING TO DO WITH CREATING HONEST
> TRANSACTIONS. For
> example, the NUMBER OF DAYS BEFORE BUYER FEEDBACK
> WAS LEFT is probably
> a much higher statistical predicter of seller
> responsibility and
> chance of a successful transaction than the actual
> feedback rating.
>
> If seller feedback is < 100% I try to decide if the
> guy has
> successfully executed the last 20 transactions, and
> check for no bad
> feedbacks on the most recent page (e.g. no recent
> death in family or
> whatnot). If these two checks pass then they are
> probably o.k. Also,
> I always pay by check to get an address and keep an
> email conversation
> going - every ~5 days - about the transaction (check
> shipped, etc.) so
> that I know whats going on with the seller.
>
> - Don Gillies
> San Diego, CA
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