Auction deceptions + borderline (or actual) Fraud

[MameFan]

Please note: If you chose to reply with your own story(ies), please do NOT provide ANY specific information that can identify a current or closed auction and/or member of an auction site... General information only.


I'm writing this to just warn others that it seems the amount of deception or borderline or outright fraud (as well as pure incompentence) is ever increasing on auction sites (one in particular, obiously).

In the last 12 months, I've been on the buying end of numerous items, both for an active collection of memorbilia related to a particular arcade game, as well as arcade items as well.  In addition, a friend across the state has just started getting into the reto gaming scene and has also already begun to experience the same problems.

And let it be known that I am a long time (5+ year) seller on that auction site, selling over 2000 items in that time from old handheld LED games to pong systems to Atari/Coleco/Intellivision/Nintendo fixed-up, cleaned inside and out and repaired home consoles and cartridges, as well as extra parts from computer upgrades. Garnishing me over 1300 ALL positive feedbacks (about 900 score due to duplicate buyers), plus 1 stupid 13-year old retalitory negative because he didn't way to pay $10 for a Pentium 90 CPU he won "cuz his parents bought him a 150 for his birthday").  So I know about good customer service/being totally honest in descriptions/pictures, etc..

Here have been my (worst) horrible experiences (just the surface of annoyances of course)
1) "New, never used for home or commercial use over/under coin door" : Arrived with rust everywhere, flaking paint and missing parts. Seller's response "I'm being picky--never said it wasn't used in a shop, and did I expect the sink in the background to have been included as well? ".  He lied in his negative feedback followup as well I left for him.

2) "Untested in machine, but complete and rolls well trackball".   Arrived, huge gouges in the rollers, bearings frozen (rolls well scratching OVER the surface of the non-movable shaft), misisng 1 optical wheel and had a broken sensor (misisng optics..PC board only).   No response from seller

3) "Game board and 10 daughter cards plus cage".  Arrived in box with NO packing (save for a sheet of newspaper, not even crumped wrapped around the cage, up tight against the box), dent in the cage, and 4 of the 10 duaghter cards rolling around inside the cage, and an Eprom chip broken in half (from a board falling on it).  I asked for him to cover HALF (first all, but asked if he would consider half) of the the $25 it would cost for Bob Roberts to burn me a new eprom chip.  His response: Send it back and I'll refund your purchase price ($100) , nothing of initial or return shipping fees. No credit towards it "cuz he normally sells them for twice as much and I got too good of a deal".)

4) "Untested but pulled from known working machine PCB's".  Arrived packed only in newspaper wrap with edges tight against box (luckily unbroken). Only ONE of the 3 worked. One no video, only solid beep, and another tons of bad  random pixels (bad ram chips soldered to board likely, not worth reparing).  Response: "Untested, sorry"

5) "Clean lot of 20 coin mechs. Appear to all be 25 cents".   Received: 4x were 25 cents, one was broken (visible), 2x were 5 cent ones, 6x were labeled .900 token but had been "bent" to accept 25 cents, other 8 were .900 token.   Seller: "I said 'appear to be 25 cents', not "are guarenteed to be 25 cents', and how can I tell?"   Funny, size they take were on ALL of them! And 2 minutes with a quarter would tell if they are quarters or not!


6) (Friends): Won a DK JR bezel from power seller, paid via PayPal day auction ended. "Power Seller" shipped item TWO weeks after auction closed (no response to email in the meantime until after he shipped it).  Arrived 5 days later.. .Was for "DK" not "DK JR". Seller responded after a week later, stated sending new one and money to return original one.   7 days later, friend sent email again and found out the replacement isn't going out til 3 more days (10 days after seller replied about). Excuse:"am buying a house".   Funny thing is

[AlanS17]

Apparently the fraud is not just limited to auctions. My brother bought an MK PCB from some guy online and had similar problems. And this item was supposed to be in good workign condition!

But the seller "accidentally" sent (and charged) him 2 games instead of one. And to top it off, the game he really wanted was busted. He's been having a hard time getting ahold of the seller to return it, but needless to say, he's no happy camper...

[tom61]

4 and 5 the sellers were OK, but not quality.

"Untested pulled from working machines" means "buy at own risk", they probably were pulled from working machines, however that was probably 10+ years ago. The only trouble I have with this is the lack of packing.

"And 2 minutes with a quarter would tell if they are quarters or not!" Very few sellers take such time for bulk deals. Bulk deals (5+ items for one price) are to get rid of things, if they wanted to take the time to test each one, they'd sell each one individually.

You sound like you're a great seller, but unforunately not everyone is like you.  When I sell things I test the items and pack them well too.

[MameFan]

Besides the outright deceipt the thing that annoys me the most next is people who dont know how to pack.  I've received several things with barely any packing amazed they arrived and others that have broken.  Ones properly packed with stryo and 2" between all items and side of box have NEVER been broken. And nothing I've shipped ever has been broken either.

People have to realize you have to assume the Samsonite gorilla (doesn't THAT statement expose my age!!    ) will personally drag your package from your city to the buyer's city, and pack accordingly!

Speaking of which, I got two monitor chassis I recieved (which should have been a #7 on the list above for other reasons listed below), but they were shipped in a box and they were placed in the BOTTOM of the box without base packing, and then 5 broken chunks (about 3"x3" each) of hard styro thrown on top to "fill" the box.   What the heck???    Neither looked as good as the picture or description, of course the blown fuses wern't described even though it said something like "pulled from working monitors a few years ago", and the horizontal width coil on one was snapped off hanging by the wire (could have been shipping?) and another had a variable POT on the neck board twisted around and snapped off 2 of the metal leads (not from shipping)


[And dont get me started about trying to sell nowdays on the auction site... Deadbeats GALORE. It started getting bad around December of 2000, and has gotten REALLY bad around March of this year.. I barely even list anymore, hoping for just 1 month of hell in November when sales will pick up, and dump everything I have then rather than try to sell year round.  My friend has been having more and more problems with deadbeat or theiving buyers, forcing him to stop accepting online payments and checks and going back to only money orders.]

[CD_Vision]

Look, I don't know what to say except PROTECT YOURSELF! Read their feedback profiles before you bid, not after you pay. Find their negatives, and what they were for. Don't just trust the item descriptions! Don't buy from low feedback sellers, it's just that simple.

[MameFan]

The thing is, all of these sellers had "good" feedback (e.g. 60+ all positives, or only a small % scattering of negs long ago.. e.g. 1300 feedback with 3 negs 1 to 3 years ago.)

No, I refuse to buy from a person < 10 especially if just registered, or those with more than 1/2 a percent of negs (e.g. 1 out of 200 only), or if they leave reatiltory feedback as well.

I'm not dumb but apparently play one on eBay to these sellers.