Got my first unauthorized charge-back as a seller with paypal

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pbj:
Overreactions abound.

Dragonman73:
Yeah your gonna need to chill out

RandyT:
Ebay is one of those things where you had better be handy if you want to use it. Sellers misrepresent condition a LOT. Unless it's unfixable junk, I rarely file a claim against a seller. I usually get very good deals, and expect to have to do some handy work. But, I DO make good use of their feedback system if an item is grossly misrepresented.

Case in point: I just received a knife sharpener for a friend who just started as a meat cutter at the local grocery store. He asked me to find him a sharpener like the one I had been using for him in my kitchen, and I did. It was a very good price, and included priority shipping. The seller had ~41000 transactions, and a 99.8% positive rating. It played out not well. First, the package arrived very quickly, but $13 postage due because there was no postage on the package at all. Told the PO to return to sender, and it was sent out again quickly. When it arrived the second time, I unpacked it and found that the unit was obviously dropped onto a hard floor from countertop height onto the foot recess, causing a large part of the bottom to be broken out and broke a part of the inside, which was rattling around. Every part of the unit was shown in the photographs EXCEPT the section which was broken, and the seller described the condition as "It is Used Condition showing some light normal use."

Because the price was so low after his shipping costs, and because I was able to verify that the unit was functional, I just got out the screwdriver and gorilla glue and went at it. I did, however, leave a neutral feedback, and noted the issues as accurately as possible in the limited space.

I almost never return items. A fixable item in the hand, at a very low price, is always better than nothing. The rest of the time, Paypal is usually very good. And when they aren't, I'll chalk it up to a "gambling" loss at the "ebay casino", and factor it against the times I've done better than most would imagine possible. But I still make sure to leave an honest, negative feedback.

Sellers and buyers alike are often guilty of bad behavior, and in my experience, the number of positive feedbacks provides minimal insurance that you won't get the pointy end of the stick. If more people used, and were honest in the feedback they leave, it would be a lot easier. But that gets manipulated as well, so it's not a great indicator.

Buyers and sellers alike should treat ebay as a casino. You can't win if you don't play, but if you don't have the stomach for losses, you probably shouldn't put your money on the table.

yotsuya:
lol

dkersten:
I just gambled in the eBay casino... I finally decided on what whole house audio controller I wanted to use, a Russound MCA-88x. These things are like $3500 just for the unit, and you still need speakers, control pads, and of course to have wires in place in the walls. They go for around $1800 on eBay usually, but I saw one that was pulled from a working system for around $1200. It was missing the connectors for the speakers, but I found those on eBay for like $23. So I pulled the trigger. Controller pads, of which I need 6 total, are going for $130-170 on eBay ($200-$500 new), and so far I purchased 2, one of the bigger 2 gang units, and one of the single gang. I also sprung for the tuner for this system, which is ridiculously expensive for a damned FM tuner, but my personal use of my in-wall system has always been 90% radio (morning talk show I like that is not available in a stream). I also needed 8 more channels of amplification for the system, and I found a 12 channel Elan amp that was also a pull from a working system for super cheap ($179, usually stuff like this is in the $400-600 range).

So it will all get in early next week, and I will hook it all up and see if I made a bad gamble. If it works, I just got into a system that has one of the best API's for connecting to home automation controllers for 30-40% of the cost of new and equivalent in price to an entry level system with marginal API support. If not, I return it.

The description clearly said it works. If all it had said was "it powers up", I would have passed and sprung for the additional $400-600 for an overstock from a dealer. "powers up" is way too vague and doesn't give me an out if it powers up but doesn't work. Either way, without a certified installer, I don't get warranty anyway, and the extra $2-4k to buy through a dealer and have it installed is not worth a year of warranty to me.

To me, this is the best part about eBay... the chance to save big money on something you are going to buy either way, but with better protection than if you just buy it on craigslist or through a forum. Like Randy said, it is a gamble, but it isn't nearly as big a gamble as just about any other way to buy used crap.

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