ebay reliability?

How reliable have your purchases from ebay been? In other words, has anyone gotten screwed by a seller even though they had a high rating? Thanks!

Edit: And do you often get good deals? (I'm thinking about entering the ebay arena. I could use some tips.)

not yet thanfully....

[quote name='guyver2077']not yet thanfully....[/quote]

same here.

Haven't been screwed by sellers but have been screwed by bidders with high ratings. And I've often found decent deals. For example I got Wind Waker and Kotor for under 30 when they were still full price

been pretty lucky lately - but years back i got bruned a bit - its a crap shoot either way

i think the only time i have gotten screwed was on half.com. i ordered this stone col video for like 3-4 bucks and never got it.

I've had few problems with eBay, after a while you kind of get a 6th sense to shady sellers regardless of their rating, just be careful and you should be fine.

The only time I ever had a problem with EBay was with a MP3 Player. The auction said the item was brand new. When I got the MP3 player, it was obvious it had been opened and used (box seal sticker was sliced, headphones were re-wrapped) and it didn't work.

I e-mailed the seller and asked for a refund which at first they didn't want to to since they said the item was brand new. They finally decided to let me return the item but they didn't refund the shipping charges! So I took the $10 loss but I was just happy to get a refund since the seller didn't accept Paypal but accepted credit cards direct.

Now, if an auction doesn't take Paypal, I won't bid because I want the option to do a chargeback through the credit card company if neccessary which I hope I will never have to do.


As for good deals, I find good deals all the time on Ebay, mostly from sellers that put a buy it now too low on an item without knowing it's true value. My best deals have been this:

Konami Guitar Freaks Controller and Guitar Freaks Game - $65 shipped (normally goes for $100+ just for the guitar)

DDR for N64, $7 shipped ($69.99 at Toys N Joys.com)

Keyboard Mania Controller and Game - $85 shipped ($150 plus shipping on Toys N Joys.com)

Para Para Paradise with Controller - $65 shipped (normally around $100 - $150 for the game and controller)


All except the N64 game were buy it nows

NEver had a problem on ebay

I've been burnt twice, both times on Xbox items from sellers with high ratings. I usually do very well when I actually win an auction, though. For as much as I buy and sell, I would say that its pretty much hit and miss. I recommend using auctions that have paypal.

yeah you really do start to get an idea as to who is shady and who is not. I've been burned mostly by idiot non paying bidders. So far I can't say anything bad about buying from people though *knocks on wood* ......

I've, thank Jebus, had good luck on E-Bay.

It's just instinct, from who to buy from.

Trust yourself.

I've only won 2 auctions and they went fine.

Only thing that sucks is that I've lost a lot of auctions right at the end, when I thought I was gonna win it for sure.

i have had probably the best experiences with ebay....

the only time i had a problem was when i ordered this eminem dvd and the guy sent me some really old porn that was called something like emmanuelle...it was obvious that he had his dvds alphabetized and grabbed the wrong one....so i wrote him and told him that i was an old man ordering a dvd for my grandkid and my grandkids saw the porn dvd in the mail and now think im some kind of pervert....so he sent the right one with no problems or questions asked....and i got to keep the porn....though it sucked extremely bad (threw it away)

other then that....i do have a problem (right now) with selling stuff on there and then assholes trying to scam me by telling me that they didnt get it, so ill have to resend them another one

I've only been burned twice, once by a seller with tons of good feedback. I've won several auctions (cheap ass Saturn import games) by the same seller but I emailed the guy asking if they were still valid because he pulled a lot of them about a few hours before they ended. He never responded to several emails so I never sent any money.

The second time was last year when I won an import Jet Set Radio complete for $4 shipped. I should have known something was up when the seller left positive feedback the next day after I emailed him and said I sent payment off. We both lived on the opposite coasts so there was no way it would have reached him that fast. 3 months came and went, and I still had no game, despite sending several emails.

Other than that, I've had nothing but positive experiences on ebay. Just remember to read the item description carefully (especially shipping costs) and you'll be just fine.

I sell a lot on ebay, and do some buying. I have yet to have any problems with buying anything. Selling, approx 5% of my winners end up being non paying buyers. As for customers not saying they received the item, I use the usps website to print the shipping label, it comes with free delivery confirmation via priority mail, shipping cost $3.85, and I charge shipping at $4.85. Ever since I have been using that I haven't had any problems from customers. The stickers that I use for the printing the shipping labels, I get from UPS, as they don't charge for them.

[quote name='ryanbph']I sell a lot on ebay, and do some buying. I have yet to have any problems with buying anything. Selling, approx 5% of my winners end up being non paying buyers. As for customers not saying they received the item, I use the usps website to print the shipping label, it comes with free delivery confirmation via priority mail, shipping cost $3.85, and I charge shipping at $4.85. Ever since I have been using that I haven't had any problems from customers. The stickers that I use for the printing the shipping labels, I get from UPS, as they don't charge for them.[/quote]

Same here. If you use the shipping assistant program you get delivery confirmation for .13 on first class mail. DC really cuts down on the "i didnt receive my item" BS.

I have only bought and never sold on eBay thus far, but the only purchase that I had trouble with involved me not receiving the item. It was hard to tell whether the seller was trying to screw me over (he had over 1000 feedback) or if the shipping method he was using lost the package since I noticed that someone who won an auction for a similar item from the same seller after me had already posted good feedback when I had not received my item yet. So I emailed the guy asking about it, and he just replied saying all was fine and that he would ship another one out. I waited awhile longer and still didn't get anything. What was really strange was that the guy wouldn't give me a tracking number. Maybe he forgot which carrier he sent it out by, and didn't want to admit it to me. Luckily in the end, he was refunded me for my purchase and all was well that ended well I guess, minus me having my item but oh well. It was just weird since like I mentioned above, I couldn't tell if he was trying to scam me or if the shipping carrier had lost the package.

I've only bought once on eBay, and got ripped off once on eBay.

I've been using eBay for years, and have had several problems. While it's usually pretty easy to determine who's a reliable seller and who's not, even people with good feedback can rip you off. I've only had one really bad experience. I sent a seller a money order and never heard from him again. I reported him to eBay (others seemed to have reported him too), and he was banned. I've been very picky about who I deal with ever since.

I've had some other problems. Once someone was selling a sealed copy of a game, he had good feedback and a photo of the item (it wasn't a stock photo). When I got it, it wasn't sealed. I returned it and got my money back.

I was once sent a bootleg game. I returned that too and got my money back.

Outside of checking feedback and reading descriptions carefully, there is one more thing you should keep in mind. Sellers will often over exaggerate the condition of their product. Maybe I'm just picky about condition, but even sellers with their 500+ perfect feedback won't be totally honest.

As for selling on eBay, I don't think it's worth the trouble. Too many deadbeat bidders, eBay takes a nice chunk of money from you, and sometimes your auction could end much lower than the same item normally sells for.

Been using ebay a few years now, gotten some really nice deals and its helped me build my dvd collection. Only had one problem so far, guy sent me the movie A.I without the original case, fullscreen when he advertised widescreen and missing the second disc, but he was cool and took it back.
So I was out whatever amount of cents paypal took out of the refund . Deals are a bit harder to come by these days with so many last, last second snipers but they're there to be had, once you get the hang of ebay its a breeze and worth the effort.