stupid ebay buyers

[punqsux]

last week i sold true crime on ebay, and i just got this e-mail:

Hello, the gamecube game, "True Crimes; Streets Of LA" arrived today
Saturday, and when I put it in my machine it said," ERROR DISC CAN NOT BE
READ". You stated that the game played flawlessly. Can you email back soon
so we can remedy this problem. ie:money back or send me one that works. I
will give positive feedback when this is resolved.

now the disc did show surface scratches, which had me worried when i bought the game, so i popped it in my cube, and it booted up perfectly and started a game with no problemi didnt get in depth with the game but i checked the options and everything was loading fine so i put it on ebay.

i sent them a reply saying if they returned the game in the exact condition i sent it to them and it didnt work on my system, id refund it, but im positive this game works!! i hope i dont end up getting screwed here...

[Ledhed]

Ebay = The Sucks.

I don't think I'm ever going back again.

[jimbodan]

If you can afford the possible negative feedback, and you know it works, I'd tell them to go F themselves. Either their gamecube really sucks, or they are trying to switch games with you.

[suko_32]

I'll stop when something like this happens, for now, I'll coutinue to earn money and buy stuff.

Ledhed, wanna talk about your bad experience? I'm bored and maybe your story can help me to watch out for certain things

[punqsux]

Ebay = The Sucks.

I don't think I'm ever going back again.

most of the time buyers are honest, its bad sellers you have to watch for. but being a seller i can say i do my best to please all buyers (questions, pics, ect) and have a ton of good feedback selling games. but this one i cant figure out, theres 2 things i can see here:

1) the persons cube sucks and the game is fine
2) they fucked up their copy of the game, and are going to ship me back a broken copy

neither way neither of those adds up to a refund for them, but we'll see what actully happens

[Ledhed]

Ledhed, wanna talk about your bad experience? I'm bored and maybe your story can help me to watch out for certain things

Out of the 6 times I've won something on Ebay, 4 of them almost went bad due to ridiculous, lying sellers. I've never sold on Ebay, and don't plan to. I just hear too many horror stories these days. Maybe I'm just paranoid.

[LV-426RS]

I'm not quite sure why this makes the person a stupid ebay buyer. He purchased a product that is not working correctly. Give him the benefit of the doubt, perhaps his GC is a little more sensitive than yours. When/if you get the game back and it has been switched, then you can call them stupid.

[punqsux]

I'm not quite sure why this makes the person a stupid ebay buyer. He purchased a product that is not working correctly. Give him the benefit of the doubt, perhaps his GC is a little more sensitive than yours. When/if you get the game back and it has been switched, then you can call them stupid.

the word stupid wasnt ment to mean the buyer had a lower intellect rather to show my emotion toward the whole situation.

even if they did switch the game, it wouldnt make the stupid, just dishonest.

[suko_32]

I always think PS2 is the most sensitive system I've ever owned

[coolsteel]

Smells like BS to me, odds are they got a finger print on it putting it in the system, nothing rubbing alcohol and a soft cloth couldn't handle. But rather then do that instead emailing the seller saying faulty game was the first thing to come to mind.

[LV-426RS]

I'm not quite sure why this makes the person a stupid ebay buyer. He purchased a product that is not working correctly. Give him the benefit of the doubt, perhaps his GC is a little more sensitive than yours. When/if you get the game back and it has been switched, then you can call them stupid.

the word stupid wasnt ment to mean the buyer had a lower intellect rather to show my emotion toward the whole situation.

even if they did switch the game, it wouldnt make the stupid, just dishonest.

I understood what you meant by the word stupid, and IMO dishonest=stupid.

This situation could be compared to me buying a DVD and it not working in my player but works fine in someone else's. Through no fault of my own I now have a useless DVD. I would not consider myself wrong for not wanting the DVD.

Of course if he returns the game and it's not the same copy all of the above is null. But give him a chance. If it's switched tell him your just sending the game back with no refund.

[judyjudyjudy]

I actually had a similar problem selling a used Metroid Prime, but the buyer didn't demand a refund or anything. He just mentioned that he got a disc read error when he ran it. I tested the game like you did (just went through options, did a little past intro), and I was pretty sure it was fine since it hardly had any scratches (unlike my own copy, which had plenty of light ones, but the whole game ran fine). I simply told him that, if he could, test it on someone else's Gamecube. I told him I'd try my best to help him technically, and to keep in touch with me about the problem. If that didn't work, then we'd try to work something out. The next time I hear from him is him leaving me positive feedback saying everything works fine. So my situation ended up okay.

[fwacce]

Let him know that you'll exchange for the same title only.

If he then sends it back for an exchange, then you'll have to do it... if you're an honest seller.

[fireball343]

Let him know that you'll exchange for the same title only.

If he then sends it back for an exchange, then you'll have to do it... if you're an honest seller.

but if he screws you send back no refund, like everyone else says

[Indiana]

I would not doubt that their Gamecube is about to suffer the dreaded DRE error. The question is does their cube have problems with other games? Once my cube started getting the DRE the frequency of it increased pretty quickly.

You are correct they may end up mailing you a fucked up copy they owned before and try to stick you with it. That is the reason to just sell the crap to Gamestop, Gamerush, Gamecrazy, or EB. No hassles once they buy it the deal is done.

[slidecage]

i sold a sega cd front loader on ebay a few years back think it was 98 or 99 this is when the front loaders was going for major cash i sold a gensis , 32x and front loading sega cd for 190 bucks in 1999 i tested all this stuff before i sold it since i got it off someone in a big box of stuff (what included that and a saturn and around 20 games for 60 bucks, thats right just selling those 3 parts neted me a 130 profit and i still had the saturn and 20 games most of them sucked and was worthless

back to the point the system worked when i packed it went over to UPS to ship it and those idoits flipped it around like it was a pancake well when the person got it they said the system is broke and i was like great.

nice thing is it alll ended out great they sent the system to sega to get it fixxed and we split the cost to fix it (they only demanded 20 bucks)

now onto games when i sell games I put in my selling NO REFUNDS cause its too easy for people to pick up broken copies of games or burn the games so i never refund a penny on any games i sell if they come up broken i say take it up with the post office cause i usually put between 50-100 per item i ship

out of 295 sells and 12 complants of games not working when i told them this they never took the game to the post office and what is even more funny one person wrote me and say screw you im not taking a burned copy of the game to the post office i was just trying to rip u off

i reported them to ebay and they got banned

[Cornfedwb]

now onto games when i sell games I put in my selling NO REFUNDS cause its too easy for people to pick up broken copies of games or burn the games so i never refund a penny on any games i sell if they come up broken i say take it up with the post office cause i usually put between 50-100 per item i ship

If you make a claim on shipper's insurance, they require a copy of the bill of sale to prove the amount of money spent. Simply putting $100 insurance on a $20 game will not make you a profit. In fact it probably constitutes fraud.

[punqsux]

if they try a switch, i doubt it would work, i remember the condition the disc was in before i shipped it.

i did tell them it might be their system and i told them to see if it worked on another one.

something similar to this happened to me here on cag but the person was much easier to talk to about it. i sent him a game and he said 1 mode in the game didnt work, so i told him to send it back and ill give him my copy from my collection, he sent it back and i put it in and it worked fine in my system, the disc he sent back was even in better condition than the one in my collection lol

[bignick]

Im gonna agree with punq on this. I dont think he would send out a fault game. They are trying to switch, or their cube is wacked.

[LV-426RS]

I don't think punq would send out faulty products either, I'm saying the guy could have a more sensetive GC.

[thatstoobad]

i sold a sealed game recently to someone's mom, and when she got it she'd tried to tell me that the game didn't work and she wanted a refund. a day or so later, i get an email saying that her son's playstation crapped out. i was just surprised that she didn't try to blame my game for that, too.

[YoshiFan1]

When people try to switch their broken copy of something for a new copy I have heard one trick the seller can use to tell if the buyer is lying.

The seller tells the buyer that if they send the item back, they are going to check to make sure it is the same item sent because the seller tells the buyer they put a "mark" on all of their items (using something like an invisible ink pen and then the mark can only be seen with a black light) so they know that it was their item sent.

What happens is that even if the seller didn't really mark the item, if they tell the buyer they mark their items, it sometimes scares the buyer into not trying to ripoff the seller.

I would only try this if the buyer demands to send back the game though.

[punqsux]

ok i just thought i would update this.

i got the disc back but with a weird oval-ish scratch going around it?

so i played it and sure enough it freezes every time.

i e-mailed him and told him that was not the condition i sent it to him in and asked what he wanted to do. he said he wanted all $18 back

i told him no because the disc was not in the condition shipped and i did offer insurance on the auction (because he says those scratches were there when he got it)

that was a few days ago...no reply yet.

[PrinceNeil]

GameCubes will start to not read some discs as they get older. Just recently, my GC wouldn't read Kirby's Air Ride and the disc is in clean condition and I even compressed air the GC. There is 1 scuff-scratch that is running along-wise the edge and I think that's the reason my GC will not read it. So, I went to my sister's house and I tried it on my niece's brand new GC and it worked just fine...so I switched it w/ her brother's Kirby, which is in worse condition but works fine on my GC.

[Trakan]

I'm betting he switched his shitty copy of the game with yours.

[Trakan]

I'd also check his past auctions won/lost/sold to see if anything weird shows up if you didn't already. Kinda like Trust did that one time :D

[emceelokey]

When you are weary of wether or not your game will work when you send it out always say that you are selling it "AS IS". You can sell a car that you know is going to crap out within a day or 2 after selling it to someone but as long as he signs a contract and in the contract it says "selling as is" it makes it their problem to deal with and you don't have any responsibility.

As for your case, I would say refund the final price for the auction but that's it. Neither of you can prove each side of your stories. Never say "guranteed to work" or anything like that in your auctions. That will hold you responsible for anything if it does not work. Mention the condition and if you want you can say you tested it out on YOUR system and it SHOULD work. This way the person buying it is more cautious and not just some guy looking for a cheap game.

[Rig]

If you know that it's not in the same condition, I wouldn't give him a dime. That is, of course, if you can spare the most certain negative feedback.

[Ilovephysics]

dont know if it was said already, but my first thought was that the punchline was that the person owned an Xbox or PS2 and tried to put the dic in one of those machines.. hehe