[Amps] RE: Snipers are the scourge of Ebay]

[David Kirkby]

Tony King wrote:

>
> If you feel you have shill bidders on a particular auction, they 
> should be reported to Ebay.  Personal experience is that they take 
> such reports very seriously and WILL suspend a seller for 
> participating in a shill. Don't hesitate to notice who the bidders 
> are.  Usually the shill bidder will not win the auction but bids the 
> price up for the seller.
>
> 73, Tony W4ZT 

Well your experience has been a lot better than me. Any time i have 
reported things, they take no action. I'm fed up with the number of US 
sellers who sell on www.ebay.co.uk, in UK pounds, giving a location as 
the UK, only to be in the USA. So where you think 5 UK pounds for 
delivery will be spent on next-day, in fact it takes forever as it is 
shipped from the USA. I have reported this before. They acknowledge it 
is against their rules, but do nothing.

I once bought a Sun workstation. After the auction closed, the seller 
added 17.5% VAT which I was a bit annoyed about, since it was not 
stated, but I swallowed that. Someone else pointed out to me he was 
based in the USA, and so should not have charged me VAT. So after some 
argument, he refunded the VAT. The computer took 3 months to arrive, but 
was DOA. We agreed a new price so I would fix the computer, since I was 
not willing to pay the shipping costs back to the USA, when I bought the 
item supposedly from the UK. I gave him negative feedback, which he 
objected to, so when to a 'Square Trader' which cost him $25 or so.

Then, he offers to refund me $40 as a 'gesture of good will' if I agreed 
to get the feedback removed. The Square Trader asked me if I would do 
that!!! Now if that is not a bribe, I don't know what is. Yet the Square 
trader (ebay) asked me if I would do this. I told the guy where to stick 
his $40.

More recently I bought some RAM from a UK seller, but again he was in 
the USA. He communicated badly, not answering emails, and it took ages 
for the ram to arrive by the slowest airmail he could use. So I gave him 
a negative. So what did he do? Just retaliated, and done the same.

Even more recently, I bought a Sun ethernet+SCSI card from someone who 
had pretty poor feedback (96%), but since it was only a fiver, I decided 
to go for it. It did not work. He does not answer my emails. So do I 
give him a negative - no I won't. I will swallow the 5 pounds, rather 
than risk him retaliating. So I have paid for a dead ethernet+SCSI card.

Any if you want to read about my experiences in 1999 when I got ripped 
off and claimed via eBay's insurance, take a look here.

http://groups.google.com/groups?hl=en&lr=&threadm=3837D313.9D3F1BA%40medphys.ucl.ac.uk&rnum=1&prev=/groups%3Fq%3Dkirkby%2Bebay%26hl%3Den%26lr%3D%26selm%3D3837D313.9D3F1BA%2540medphys.ucl.ac.uk%26rnum%3D1

Several months later, I got around 50% of my money back.

I still use eBay. Only today I bid on a 36 GB SCSI disk, but lost that 
one. But I am not too impressed with how eBay deal with complaints.

I think you have to figure that if someone has 98% feedback, it probably 
means 90% are happy, 10% are not, but most of that 10% refuse to give a 
negative, for fear of getting one back. I should have give the seller 
who sold me a combined ethernet and SCSI card negative, but he got away 
with it, since I don't want a second negative feedback myself.

Dr. David Kirkby. (username drkirkby on eBay).