Something Fishy on eBay?

[Eric C]

Try buying used clubs at www.globalgolf.com instead.  

EBay is so rife with scams and shady people anymore I'm surprised it's still in business.

[boogielicious]

15 hours ago, Eric C said:

Try buying used clubs at www.globalgolf.com instead.  

EBay is so rife with scams and shady people anymore I'm surprised it's still in business.

FWIW, I have used eBay a lot and other than a slow shipment once in a while, I have had no problems at all. I have bought and sold golf and cycling equipment, clothing, etc. I'm sorry your experience hasn't been the same.

[colin007]

17 hours ago, Double Mocha Man said:

Last week I won a bid on a Lacoste golf shirt (think crocodile) and nobody else bid.  $85 shirt for 8 bucks.  After I won the seller cancelled the sale.  Fishy as hell.  Contacted the seller and he said he lost the shirt.  BS!  Had to wait a week but I posted a really negative review for him.

Is this allowed???

[Eric C]

1 hour ago, boogielicious said:

FWIW, I have used eBay a lot and other than a slow shipment once in a while, I have had no problems at all. I have bought and sold golf and cycling equipment, clothing, etc. I'm sorry your experience hasn't been the same.

I didn't have a bad experience, I haven't used eBay in probably 15 years.  I understand that there is a market for buying and selling collectibles and used items at auction, but 88% of postings are "Buy it Now", and 81% of what's available for sale is new. 

eBay is where sellers go to flip crap they bought cheaper elsewhere.

[boogielicious]

2 minutes ago, Eric C said:

I didn't have a bad experience, I haven't used eBay in probably 15 years.  I understand that there is a market for buying and selling collectibles and used items at auction, but 88% of postings are "Buy it Now", and 81% of what's available for sale is new. 

eBay is where sellers go to flip crap they bought cheaper elsewhere.

That is not my experience at all with regards to golf equipment.

[Double Mocha Man]

3 hours ago, colin007 said:

Is this allowed???

It was my word against his word. EBay is not going to put together a team and visit this guy's house to see if the shirt is actually still there.

[FLOG4]

Right before coming here I bought a camera off eBay. I got an email from a Trendy Tech Media...and I liked what I saw and was going to buy it. Basically a gopro but much cheaper and I'm sure not as good...but at 80% off.....so I go to eBay and there it is...29.95 delivered. The other had it for 69.99...So bam I bought....What I like about eBay is everybody has their rating....right there in front of you. I bought a camera from an outfit with 200,000 transactions and 100% positive feedback....More so than any other method of transactions....You know your sellers reputation...If you are buying from somebody with hardly any transaction history....guess what?   

[golfer2b2000]

4 hours ago, colin007 said:

Is this allowed???

Probably not, but its so easy to justify that merchandise gets misplaced. Some of these sellers do thousands and thousands of transactions. And EBAY does not want to lose these customers because they are their bread and butter.

 But let you win one bid, and don't send the money in, or basically decline winning the bid, and you wont ever have to worry about bidding again.LOL

[billchao]

5 minutes ago, golfer2b2000 said:

Probably not, but its so easy to justify that merchandise gets misplaced. Some of these sellers do thousands and thousands of transactions. And EBAY does not want to lose these customers because they are their bread and butter.

 But let you win one bid, and don't send the money in, or basically decline winning the bid, and you wont ever have to worry about bidding again.LOL

Not sure what you mean. Their policies are very buyer friendly. Too much so IMO.

[golfer2b2000]

19 minutes ago, billchao said:

Not sure what you mean. Their policies are very buyer friendly. Too much so IMO.

What I mean is this...If you bid on an item, and you are the high bidder, you are suppose to purchase the item from the seller. If you do not do so, EBAY can, and will put you on a blacklist where you are not able to bid on items in the future. This will probably not happen on the first occurance, but if it occurs numerous times, they mpst certainly will.

[billchao]

11 minutes ago, golfer2b2000 said:

What I mean is this...If you bid on an item, and you are the high bidder, you are suppose to purchase the item from the seller. If you do not do so, EBAY can, and will put you on a blacklist where you are not able to bid on items in the future. This will probably not happen on the first occurance, but if it occurs numerous times, they mpst certainly will.

As they should because that person who won placed a fraudulent bid.

That doesn't change the fact that eBay's policies are very buyer friendly and you seem to infer otherwise.

[golfer2b2000]

40 minutes ago, billchao said:

As they should because that person who won placed a fraudulent bid.

That doesn't change the fact that eBay's policies are very buyer friendly and you seem to infer otherwise.

I do not call it buyer friendly when you purchase an item from EBAY, and you receive it and it is not what you ordered. This is not EBAY's fault, but because they are the service, thats who I will go to. These massive sales centers do not just use EBAY. They have other stores, and if the item sells from another store before they can get it sent to you, they normally send you a replacement, which is usually not what you want.

 So Lets say a person bids on an item, and he has an emergency as to where he can't purchase the item. Is that fraudelent too???

[boogielicious]

10 minutes ago, golfer2b2000 said:

I do not call it buyer friendly when you purchase an item from EBAY, and you receive it and it is not what you ordered. This is not EBAY's fault, but because they are the service, thats who I will go to. These massive sales centers do not just use EBAY. They have other stores, and if the item sells from another store before they can get it sent to you, they normally send you a replacement, which is usually not what you want.

 So Lets say a person bids on an item, and he has an emergency as to where he can't purchase the item. Is that fraudelent too???

There are workarounds for both these situations. It can depend on the buyer and seller too. But in general, it has worked well for me. I have returned items that did not match the photos. I have had a shipment that got to the buyer in an empty box. I refunded the buyer and got a refund from the delivery service. eBay was very helpful in both situations. 

Bottom line is you have to be a smart consumer with any on-line sales. You should know who you are buying from and who you are selling to. eBay provides that information right in the profiles. You should read the descriptions and view the photos carefully. You can read the negative feedback too, just like Amazon reviews.

Now I'm kind of sounding like a shill for eBay. I'm not. I like going to shops to see the stuff in person more. But eBay has been better than Craig's List for me or other local buying options. And sometimes good deals can only be found through on-line services. As for selling, try bringing your irons to Golf Galaxy and see what they offer. (hint, way less than you can get on eBay). Same with buying. 

[golfer2b2000]

14 minutes ago, boogielicious said:

There are workarounds for both these situations. It can depend on the buyer and seller too. But in general, it has worked well for me. I have returned items that did not match the photos. I have had a shipment that got to the buyer in an empty box. I refunded the buyer and got a refund from the delivery service. eBay was very helpful in both situations. 

Bottom line is you have to be a smart consumer with any on-line sales. You should know who you are buying from and who you are selling to. eBay provides that information right in the profiles. You should read the descriptions and view the photos carefully. You can read the negative feedback too, just like Amazon reviews.

Now I'm kind of sounding like a shill for eBay. I'm not. I like going to shops to see the stuff in person more. But eBay has been better than Craig's List for me or other local buying options. And sometimes good deals can only be found through on-line services. As for selling, try bringing your irons to Golf Galaxy and see what they offer. (hint, way less than you can get on eBay). Same with buying. 

I use to use EBAY years ago, when it first came out. I even sold a few items. Never had a problem. The only real issue I had was last year when the item I won the bid on was no longer available. I was offered a replacement which I totally declined. It's upsetting to win an item that you wanted only to discover that the merchant has allready sold it out of one of his other outlets. I don't feel that is right either.

 But my issue is like I stated in the first part of this thread. Granted, you have basically two different types of people bidding on an item. In this case lets say a golf club and lets say its average going price is 200 dollars. You get a lot of people that start out bidding like 10 dollars, 20 dollars and so forth. These people are hoping to get something like this for next to nothing, and that rarely happens. If the merchant has 150 dollars invested he can't sell it for less than that and make a profit. So if the bid maxes out at 100 dollars, the merchant has lost 50 bucks. He can't stay in business doing this, so he has a third party that will keep uping the bid in hopes that the other bidder keeps advancing his bid. In this case to get him to bid at least 150 or more so the merchant makes money. If the third party wins the bid because no one bids more that the 150, the merchant pays him a small perchantage, and the merchant will hope to sell it to someone else. It's basically like a reserve bid for which I havent seen many times at all on EBAY anymore. They may have even done away with them...

 I liked the reserve bid, because I could decide even before I made a bid, if I was willing to pay at least the reserve price...

[billchao]

1 hour ago, golfer2b2000 said:

I do not call it buyer friendly when you purchase an item from EBAY, and you receive it and it is not what you ordered.

Were you able to return it and get a refund? I bet you did. How is that not buyer-friendly?

The flip side of that coin would be if you got stuck paying for an item you didn't want.

1 hour ago, golfer2b2000 said:

So Lets say a person bids on an item, and he has an emergency as to where he can't purchase the item. Is that fraudelent too???

Obviously it's up to the seller to report you and cases are evaluated on an individual basis, but that doesn't change the fact that winning an auction and not paying for it is in fact a violation of TOS.

My dog actually ate my homework once in HS; I still got a zero for the assignment.

28 minutes ago, golfer2b2000 said:

It's upsetting to win an item that you wanted only to discover that the merchant has allready sold it out of one of his other outlets. I don't feel that is right either.

Sure it sucks, but that's the whole point of the feedback system. Leave them negative feedback and don't purchase from sellers with too many red flags.

People make mistakes. What do you expect eBay to do, shut down someone's account because they screwed up inventory management?

31 minutes ago, golfer2b2000 said:

But my issue is like I stated in the first part of this thread. Granted, you have basically two different types of people bidding on an item. In this case lets say a golf club and lets say its average going price is 200 dollars. You get a lot of people that start out bidding like 10 dollars, 20 dollars and so forth. These people are hoping to get something like this for next to nothing, and that rarely happens. If the merchant has 150 dollars invested he can't sell it for less than that and make a profit. So if the bid maxes out at 100 dollars, the merchant has lost 50 bucks. He can't stay in business doing this, so he has a third party that will keep uping the bid in hopes that the other bidder keeps advancing his bid. In this case to get him to bid at least 150 or more so the merchant makes money. If the third party wins the bid because no one bids more that the 150, the merchant pays him a small perchantage, and the merchant will hope to sell it to someone else.

Again, you're making a lot of assumptions without much evidence to back it up. What you're suggesting is a direct violation of eBay's policies on the part of both parties.

Nothing you posted in the OP suggests foul play and others have pointed out that the situation you encountered was normal. If you really feel like a seller is scamming, report them.

[sjduffers]

On 3/11/2019 at 11:27 AM, Double Mocha Man said:

Last week I won a bid on a Lacoste golf shirt (think crocodile) and nobody else bid.  $85 shirt for 8 bucks.  After I won the seller cancelled the sale.  Fishy as hell.  Contacted the seller and he said he lost the shirt.  BS!  Had to wait a week but I posted a really negative review for him.

Well, he is not lying, just not saying it right: he did lose his shirt (at that price)! LOL

I have stopped buying anything on Ebay, unless I can't find the item anywhere else. They in fact deleted my account after a number of years of inactivity. I guess I have always been able to find things I wanted elsewhere for a while now...

[golfer2b2000]

32 minutes ago, billchao said:

Were you able to return it and get a refund? I bet you did. How is that not buyer-friendly?

The flip side of that coin would be if you got stuck paying for an item you didn't want.

Obviously it's up to the seller to report you and cases are evaluated on an individual basis, but that doesn't change the fact that winning an auction and not paying for it is in fact a violation of TOS.

My dog actually ate my homework once in HS; I still got a zero for the assignment.

Sure it sucks, but that's the whole point of the feedback system. Leave them negative feedback and don't purchase from sellers with too many red flags.

People make mistakes. What do you expect eBay to do, shut down someone's account because they screwed up inventory management?

Again, you're making a lot of assumptions without much evidence to back it up. What you're suggesting is a direct violation of eBay's policies on the part of both parties.

Nothing you posted in the OP suggests foul play and others have pointed out that the situation you encountered was normal. If you really feel like a seller is scamming, report them.

Yes, they are assumptions, and that is exactly what they are. But if they happen time after time again, there just may be some truth to them. It sounds like you are a firm believer in EBAY, and that's fine. I do not need proof. You dont need to have proof that a neighbors dog bit you. Usually the teeth marks are enough. You would'nt happen to be an attorney would you???☺️

[billchao]

5 minutes ago, golfer2b2000 said:

Yes, they are assumptions, and that is exactly what they are. But if they happen time after time again, there just may be some truth to them.

Or you know, there's some other perfectly reasonable explanation you're not seeing or willing to accept.

7 minutes ago, golfer2b2000 said:

It sounds like you are a firm believer in EBAY, and that's fine.

Not at all. I'm worried every time I sell something I'm going to get screwed over. Their policies are very buyer-friendly.

9 minutes ago, golfer2b2000 said:

I do not need proof.

Okay. Keep doin you, man.

10 minutes ago, golfer2b2000 said:

You dont need to have proof that a neighbors dog bit you.

Not an apt analogy to your OP. At this point you don't even know if you got bit, or if your neighbor has a dog.