VGCollect Forum
General and Gaming => Off Topic => Topic started by: bikingjahuty on February 18, 2019, 05:09:37 pm
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I'm currently in the middle of an incredibly frustrating ordeal with a seller on ebay which might possibly rival my current worst experience on the site, but I was wondering if anyone else had any ebay horror stories they'd like to share.
At the moment though, here is mine. Around 2012 I found several Atari Jaguar games at a local Goodwill. I thought about keeping them, but even back then the Jag was fairly expensive and not many of its games appealed to me so I decided to sell what I found to fund later game purchases of games I actually wanted. There were 3 or 4 games, and someone bought two of them. Mind you, before I posted them I was sure to accurately describe their condition and everything and I was 100% confident of the condition they were in prior to shipping them to this buyer. The buyer gets his items and says that the condition was wildly inaccurate and is demanding a huge refund or else he will give me negative feedback. I told him I'd like him to return them and he says he won't do that. I go back and forth with the guy and realize he is trying to take an extra chunk off the price he paid and nothing more. I pretty much tell him he can suck it, don't give him any sort of additional refund, and he leaves me negative feedback for both items, the one and only time I've ever got negative feedback. However, this is nothing compared to what happened to my girlfriend.
She bought some Pokemon item off ebay years ago and it was literally packaged in a crushed Pop-tart box and the item was very damaged. The seller claimed it wasn't his problem because the post office did all that damage and was unwilling to accommodate her at all. She went to ebay about it and ebay forced a refund, and the seller proceeded to lose his shit. He started sending her overtly threatening letters saying that he was going to come to our house and beat her up if she didn't "fix this." Obviously my girlfriend wasn't going to take that and she contacted ebay again, who then banned this guy from ebay and his 4000+ feedback account. The guy started opening dummy accounts and harassing her for weeks afterwards, and all my girlfriend could do was report them. It got to the point where she was going to file a suit against him for harassment and after she called him out by his name, address, and phone number the guy backed off.
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Just recently I bought an item from Datel's official store on eBay. It was a Wii FreeLoader. I asked before I bought it if it was compatible with the Wii's latest firmware. They assured me it was. 10 minutes after I bought it they changed the item's description to say that it didn't work with the Wii's latest firmware and cut the price in half. I asked to cancel because they pretty much lied to me about it, they refused saying it had already been shipped. So when I got the item, I requested a return. They accepted the return but refused to give me a shipping label. I messaged them, they proceeded to tell me to pay for the label, keep the receipt, send them a copy of it, and when they received the item they would issue a refund. I asked for the address, they never messaged me back. eBay support was no help, so I just said f*&k it and went to my credit card company and had them deal with it.
The other one was when I won an auction for 14 TurboGrafx 16 games for 60 dollars. Rather than honor the purchase, he refunded me and relisted them the next day. I reported him to eBay and he was eventually banned. Surprisingly he wasn't banned at first though, after the same lot I won at auction was delisted and put back up, the winning bid was 310 dollars which I'm assuming he got to keep. He was banned a few days later.
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I once sold an item on ebay (it was years ago and i dont remember what it was) and i was a new seller. the buyer open a claim with ebay saying he never got the item and they gave him a full refund even though im 100% sure he did get the item.
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As a buyer:
I bought a new sealed copy of Blue Lightning for Jaguar years ago. I think it was $10 and $5 shipping.
I received a used scratched copy that was wrapped in a white sheet of paper, shipped first class for $0.70
I bought a copy of Prototype with T-shirt bundle. The seller shipped it in a Fed-Ex bag and the box got smashed. When I shipped it back for the refund, I forgot to get tracking. The seller said they never received it. Lost about $75 on that one.
Bought multiple games over the years that were listed as "New, Sealed" and received opened or resealed games. Lost the return shipping charges on all of those.
Bought a PCB recently that arrived with the corner cracked. The seller shipped it in an undersized box and used duct tape to make the box bigger. Didn't bother trying to return, because it was a hard to come by item.
As a seller:
Sold a new, sealed copy of Chrono Cross about 10 years ago. The buyer said it was opened and sent me back his used gamestop copy covered in stickers.
Same thing happened when I sold a new, sealed copy of Final Doom and Rhapsody back in the day.
It kept me away from Ebay for quite some time. I photograph everything before it gets shipped out these days. It has saved me more than once now.
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I once sold an item on ebay (it was years ago and i dont remember what it was) and i was a new seller. the buyer open a claim with ebay saying he never got the item and they gave him a full refund even though im 100% sure he did get the item.
That's why you get tracking info. It's proof you sent the item and they got it. Not trying to be a jerk, the same thing happened to me once when I sold an item.
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About 10+ years ago I sold an original red-ringed X-Box 360 Arcade model, which was listed as such (the Arcade doesn’t come with a hard drive), had a full inventory of what was included in the listing (no hard drive), but one of the photos you could see a 360 hard drive deep in the background, so of course the buyer tried to intimidate me into a refund because it “didn’t come with the hard drive”. I stood my ground and offered a refund if they shipped it back. All they did was leave negative feedback for the “misleading” photos. Dude was a real jerk.
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Worst experiences are 3 items that got lost during shipping in 6 years but they where all signed in for insured but it always takes a month to get the insurance money :P
As far as experiences go that might be bad. You have some buyers who want a discount after they received the item and try to complain about everything to get it.
I sold a rayman figure once that was only given to employees pretty rare and expensive. Had a glued foot and some usage very clear pictures. Buyer complained that a tiny piece was broken of on the ear wich was not mentioned in the description in exact detail but very clearly seen in the pictures and describer that the statue had wear and tear and especially the glued foot. Not to mention that there was a specific picture for the ear.
Also a pretty pricy sega game wich was in a used condition even the insert had a white spot in the middle for sticker damage and overall not in the best shape. guy complained that the cart had some sticker residue on the back side and wanted to have some discount mind you that the condition was used and that sticker residue on the back side of the cart not lable could easily been removed.
Both had quite some discussions but they both knew I was right and the left postive feedback in the end. Pretty annoying but pretty small fry stuff to be honest.
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Hmmm... Mine would have to be really not too bad, but I got a really trustworthy looking copy of Harvest Moon DS Cute sealed new(the price was normal range as well for the time, from the US). It looked totally normal when I got it in. I used it for a few months and my save corrupted. Weird, but maybe it was my fault. Then a few more months later it stopped working completely. Finally suspicious enough I checked the serial on the back and found it was bootleg. It was the highest quality bootleg I ever saw. So convincing. T_T Never did get myself a replacement copy. I should one day. It was far too late to try and get a refund.
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Well, I was going to tell a story from the past. But, today I was surprised to find myself in the first ordeal I've had in a while. Received a game in the mail today only to discover that the instruction manual was completely waterlogged into a solid chunk of cardboard. Listed as "good" condition. DM already sent. This is lazy, shoddy, selling on his part. Mention the item's flaws before selling. Do not require the buyer to DM you about any potential issues. That is idiotic and wastes people's time and money. ::)
Think I already shared this story once. A while back, I found a ton of Smash Bros championship "belts" headed for the landfill. Decided to sell them on eBay, and they proved popular. There were many different smooth transactions, except for one guy who ordered three of them. He was an annoying douche. Complained that two of them had condition problems, and took pictures of the near microscopic, imperceptible flaws they had. He just asked for me to send him some "replacement" ones, and for some reason I agreed to it. I sent two more to him. He ended up complaining about one of the two extra I sent again, and had the audacity to ask for yet another one, and for me to send it flat instead of rolled up. Because this guy deserved special treatment, ya know?
Not sure why I put up with this guy, but some people just have no self-awareness when it comes to being a total douche about things. They don't care to take total advantage of anyone who'll put up with it. I was considering just ignoring the guy at that point, and I think he was threatening to file a not as described complaint when I stopped responding to him. Finally I sent another like he asked. He had the nerve to respond by saying he had another complaint - that I "shipped it too perfectly this time". Very funny. Man, that guy was a supreme douche.
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Oh boy...
My worst experience as a seller:
During my first eBay adventure as a seller I sold an X-Men comicbook lot containing around 100+ books with a good number of key issues, as well as variants, all bagged and boarded and in great condition. I honestly forgot for how much it sold, but I do remember it reached three figures. The meat of the situation was that the buyer, after a week of having received the books opened a dispute with PayPal alleging that books were missing. That, of course, wasn't true, so I countered every one of his arguments and, for a moment, it seemed like everything was going my way, until he was told to return the books in order for me to refund. The story, however, didn't end there because, not only did the seller kept the books he said that I didn't include in the package, he sent the remaining books in a box of BBQ wings without ANY padding. And what's worse, the box still smelled. I pretty much received the majority of the books either bent or warped. I appealed this to PayPal, but nothing came of it. I was livid, so I ended up gifting the books to a friend of mine.
This, being essentially one of my first experiences as a seller, pretty much deterred me from selling on eBay for quite a long time.
And as a buyer:
Two or three years ago I bought a Motoko Kusanagi statue by Union Creative from a Japanese seller. There were at least two US sellers that were selling the same statue, but were asking a lot more for it, so literally importing it seemed far more economic. Also, the added benefit was that the Japanese seller was selling it new. Long story short, it arrived moderately fast, but I was surprised to find that the statue wasn't in the box, and that instead of it the box was filled with paper towels...a whole bunch of them. I was duped, it seemed, so I contacted the seller on the spot. Communicating with this seller was a bit of a struggle, though since he wasn't fluent in English, so I was essentially writing short sentences so that he could understand. Thing is I ended up filing a dispute with eBay and lost, even with proper evidence. Then went to PayPal and, again, after a lengthy dispute, lost. Even after all of this, I kept going back and forth with the seller through DMs, but it went nowhere. Fast forward a month or so after all of this took place, and the seller contacts me to explain that, since he has a store, the box I was sent was for display purposes and that the statue that was supposed to be inside was tucked in another box for safekeeping. He kept saying how he felt "shame" and was extremely apologetic, which I understood. After going back and forth on what to do, we pretty much came to an agreement, and he ended up sending me the statue and refunding me 35% of what I paid, which was a surprise to me because we had talked about a refund, but not for that much. I've come across a lot of honest sellers in my time using eBay, but never one like this one.
I've had other bad experiences, which are the usual many have had before, like stuff I buy being poorly packaged, receiving the opposite of what I paid for, terrible customer service, sellers that think one must ask the condition of an item before buying, etc. But this two I would say are the most...memorable, for lack of a better word.
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So far I never bought or sold anything from Ebay, I don't trust anyone on Ebay's site. I could have complained about but didn't what a seller on amazon sold me a $120USD 500 gig model PlayStation 3, that was still working but completely caked in sticky brown dirt, it was for sure in some kind of trash or dumpster possibly or trashed home, but It worked but after a while I got it's laser replaced, and then it would no longer real PS1 games as games but instead as a data disc
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Datel experience
What a bunch of jerks.
The other one was when I won an auction for 14 TurboGrafx 16 games for 60 dollars. Rather than honor the purchase, he refunded me and relisted them the next day. I reported him to eBay and he was eventually banned. Surprisingly he wasn't banned at first though, after the same lot I won at auction was delisted and put back up, the winning bid was 310 dollars which I'm assuming he got to keep. He was banned a few days later.
This has happened to me on various occasions. The one that comes to mind is an auction I had won for an Assassin's Creed collection lot for PS3 that had, if memory serves, six of the games. The thing is the auction didn't net as much as the seller thought it would and ended up cancelling because I kept "raising my own bid", which according to him, "that's a glitch". Suffice to say I left the dunderhead a negative and got the games somewhere else.
Worst experiences are 3 items that got lost during shipping in 6 years but they where all signed in for insured but it always takes a month to get the insurance money :P
I bought three games from an European seller, and after waiting for them for nearly a month, they got jacked from my mailbox almost in front of the mailman. Long story short, the mailman parked in front of my house, left the package in the mailbox, then came someone and lifted the package while passing by my house...while the mailman was driving off. Now, I am surmising all this, because when I went outside to get the package, the neighbor told me he saw someone taking something out of the mailbox. And while we were having this conversation there was this person walking away quite suspiciously seemingly holding something against their chest with their arms crossed. I remember pointing to this individual and essentially yelling at my neighbor asking if that was the person that took the package given the suspicious behavior. Everything went by so fast, that by the time I came to and decided to just run to this person and see, it had disappeared. Then, a week or so later, I was in the kitchen and heard someone opening my mailbox, looked through the window and saw this dyke (apologies for the term) going by. I remember jutting my face through the window and yelling, "I caught you, bitch!" as she passed by. She didn't look, but did hasten her stride. Suffice to say, my mailbox sports a lock ever since this incident. First time ever I got a package stolen, too.
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The worst experience I had on ebay was when a seller tried to extort extra money out of me on a purchase. I then reported them to Safe Harbor, and Ebay had determined (somehow) to ban both the seller's account and my account. This was in 2004 I believe and my ebay account was banned for a few years. I managed to get it back eventually and had my feedback from back then restored as well.
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As a buyer, I've (surprisingly) never had an issue. If I did, I can't recall it. Either I've been really lucky, or I've been dealing with trusted sellers? I don't know. I use amazon more then eBay.
As as seller, however...
The first experience came from my first time selling. I had a game listed, and within minutes, I was receiving messages from someone asking whether or not I'd go down in price. He promised me "good feedback" if I did. I didn't go down in price, but he bought the game anyway. Days later, he wants to return it because the case was "broken." It wasn't broken. I made damn sure that the game was secure, like others here can attest to when I ship. The issue? I didn't have a photo of the case, so eBay took the buyer's side. I got the game and a broken case back. My guess is he wanted to keep the case for himself since the game was on the rarer side. It wasn't bad, per se, but it was annoying. The lengths folks will go to, I tell ya.
The second experience was odd. I bought a Saturn game, and in it, there were some advertisements for other games. One of those ads was for Night Trap. This was when LRG was starting to build hype for their re-release of Night Trap. So, I figured what the hell. Maybe this would get some attention? It did. Someone wanted it for $25 dollars. I was surprised. Since it was paper, I shipped it in an bubble envelope. After the buyer purchased it, they were pissed because it "arrived damage" and "they had to wait in line at the post office to get it" and "their time was precious." I made a snide remark about how he should be counting his lucky stars about waiting at the post office while those dealing with Hurricane Harvey were dealing with things far worse (this experience was during the peak of Harvey). He didn't like that, obvi. It's fun to troll a DB. I eventually refunded him after a few more back and forths. My guess is that he was another neck beard trying to pull a fast one. $25 isn't a lot, so it was no loss anyways.
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I haven’t had much bother as a buyer. The couple times I had, eBay would refund me or the seller would kick me back a little money for the misleading condition description.
As a seller though it sucked so bad I didn’t bother after the first time.
I sold Harvest Moon for Nintendo Switch on eBay and was like ‘hey thanks for your payment, I’ll put it in the post tomorrow’ and the guy replies something like ‘good and I want it special delivery bubble wrapped for that postage’. My auction clearly had it as standard second class postage. I did charge a couple pound because I wasn’t sure how much it would be. If they didn’t like it they could have factored it in to bid less. It was all very bullshit.
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(OFF TOPIC REPLY) (about stolen packages read)
Partially I think the reason for some people losing their packages is because of various crime organizations or cyber criminals who are local to just about everyone in the United States and drive around and hack people and track some peoples delivery information. and steal your package at the right time.
I hate these scumbags, but I think that most of them are local hackers in your area who are using your WIFI and computers to gain access to your shipping information.
And, Without the correct security on your devices, they can even be hacked as long as you have them plugged into a power plug.
if someone is stealing your packages then tell the police so maybe the good hackers can find out who is doing all the crime.
Sometimes law enforcement has the tools needed to track local hackers or package thieves.
All a hacker or hackers need to do is look at your browsers history and a park a vehicle, either in front of your home with a cell phone, or laptop, or down the block from your place. and then log onto your own personal internet. you could also try a surveillance system for your home or yard also.
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I haven't had much bad luck on eBay (knock on wood). I'd say the "worst" eBay experience I had was when I came across a guy selling CD-I lots. He had a bunch of package deals that included a CD-I system and some games (the two animated Zelda ones and a burn of the rare one among others). I bought a bundle and everything he listed arrived BUT he used the box the CD-I came in as the shipping package instead of packing it into another box. >:(
I haven't sold on eBay in forever and a day. Too many scammers on there now who'll pull a fast one. I'll still buy occasionally. I picked up a 4K Blu-Ray off there recently that I couldn't source in stores for some reason. At the time I got it cheaper than if I had went to the store to get it but this past weekend I saw that they had marked it down to $20. :P
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As a buyer - The worst with buying have all been because of the USPS and Fedex guys mostly. My old mail man for 3 years was essentially the package Jesus. He was a demi god immortal. Beyond flawless. So nice and careful with his craft. The best :D. But the sunday driver for amazon prime and the new mail man... not so much. More the leave a 500 dollar xbox one x on a porch in the ghetto without ringing the bell type. I fixed the new mail man by having a sit down talk with him by the fire with smores. I offered him propositions of sorts. He was a gracious person.
Outside of that, I have had amiibos shipped in bubble mailers arriving crushed by careless sellers. And 1 game that didnt work. A few crushed boxes. Sometimes things that stunk of pot. And one stolen camera because fedex left it on my porch and I was at work. I live in the 43rd most crime ridden city in the US. Tons of theft. Most sellers refund me instantly and ebay sides with the buyer on broken things but dtolen stuff is lost forever.
As a seller - Only 1 return knock on wood, he pulled the old swap on me. Really scammed me bad :( I sold him a beautiful NES. Tested, loved and so clean. He took it, and messaged me with a chipped, yellow junk NES saying I shipped him the wrong one. I had no way of proving and ebay instantly sided with him. So now I have a junk scratched yellow dirty NES and lost 70 dollars. But it was a huge learning experience. Now I film the whole packaging proccess to prove and serial numbers so I know I am getting back what I gave. :)
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So I sent my game with the water logged manual back to the seller. Still waiting on that refund. In the mean time, I receive a different copy from another seller for quite a bit more money. Described as "very good" condition this time. The clear plastic case has warping from extreme head damage, like a heat gun or hair dryer was placed against it. Never seen that one before. Also, somehow the barcode underneath the long box plastic case is literally worn off of the artwork, down to the white of the paper. Neither of these flaws were mentioned in description. Guess this one is going back too.
My god. Is that hard to take care of a video game? Is it that hard to look over a collectible item you're selling for $50 and note any of it's potentially flaws? Of course it is, that would hurt the sale.
::)
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What's worse are the sellers that try to pin that on the buyer by saying, "why didn't you ask first before buying?". Like, motherlogger, why in the hell do you think the description box is there for? You're responsible to describe the item you're selling, not expect the buyer to ask you through PMs if the item is damaged or any other minutia related to it. I had my share of these sellers, so nowadays I don't bother with any listing with no description...although I've grown paranoid, so I tend to ask questions before buying, even if the seller adequately describes the item he/she is selling. Whatever helps me avoid unnecessary headaches.
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What's worse are the sellers that try to pin that on the buyer by saying, "why didn't you ask first before buying?". Like, motherlogger, why in the hell do you think the description box is there for? You're responsible to describe the item you're selling, not expect the buyer to ask you through PMs if the item is damaged or any other minutia related to it. I had my share of these sellers, so nowadays I don't bother with any listing with no description...although I've grown paranoid, so I tend to ask questions before buying, even if the seller adequately describes the item he/she is selling. Whatever helps me avoid unnecessary headaches.
I suppose you're right. None of the them can be bothered, so I'm going to have to ask 100 questions before I buy the next one. Is it warped? Is it torn? Is it faded? Is it waterlogged? Is it stained? Is it scratched? Does it smell funky? Etc, etc. Because if any of that is true.... it's not "very good" condition. A lot of them judge that purely on the amount of scratches the disc has, and make their own arbitrary judgements on that. There's no way they're actually gonna test the game first. What, are you crazy? That's the buyer's job apparently.
Imagine if eBay actually required that you state whether or not the game has been tested to work. Most of them would not. They actually do have a guide-line as to what each condition listing should comply with, you can't just judge that using your own standards, but nobody follows it. Very good condition cannot have damage to the case or artwork at all.
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Luckily I haven't had too much trouble on either side of that Ebay fence. I don't sell much on there so I haven't had much in the way of issues. Except not leaving feedback. On the buying side I've been lucky to either get partial refund, full refund, or replacements for lost or damaged items.
I think the worst one was a bait and switch with a board game expansion. I bought Wrath of the Elements for the original Thunderstone card game and it was listed as complete but in played condition. When I got it it was the WotE box but had the Thornwood Siege cards inside. So I contacted the seller and they replied that the auction was for TS but it was in the WotE box. Had I bothered to read it. Problem is I screenshot all Ebay descriptions. I got my money back.