sire Posted July 4, 2004 Share Posted July 4, 2004 I recently inquired to a seller on Ebay about a set of speakers he was selling. I would like the board members opinions on whether I was out of line or not. I am not a big E-bayer but that seems to be the only place to look for the older style speakers. My inquiry was could the seller give me a rough estimate of shipping cost and with a followup email I asked if the risers were with the speakers as in the pictures they did not appear to be with the speakers. I admit I failed to give my zip code as I was in a hurry but was expecting a range depending on location. His response is below. His response initially fired me up. I am still going through a bad experience on E-bay with a seller refusing to refund my purchase and I have already sent back the product to him. Anyway comments or constructive criticism is welcomed. Mike --------------------------------------------------------------------------- Hello. We never received your location---for the purposes of shipping costs. Additionally, we note that you have little eBay experience. Do you know what 'feedback' is? Did you READ OUR FEEDBACK COMMENTS? Do you think we'd sell these without the risers and not say so?????? We need a response from you or, unfortunately, we are not interested in having you bid on our items! --------------------------------------------------------------------------- Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Bill H. Posted July 4, 2004 Share Posted July 4, 2004 Sire, Just chuck it up to a seller that is either having a bad day, Or who you wouldn't want to deal with. I don't believe You did anything wrong. It is your right to inquire into each sale, to ensure you are receiving all the important infomation you need....... Keep looking, and I am sure you'll find a kind,honest seller for the speakers you are looking for............just my 2 cents........ Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
J.4knee Posted July 4, 2004 Share Posted July 4, 2004 What a jerk! I would not bid on this guys stuff if I were you. I'd probably use his "feedback" to annotate my bad experience with him as well. Post his seller ID let us all know who he/she is Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
hwatkins Posted July 4, 2004 Share Posted July 4, 2004 Ditto on Bill' comments. There are some folks you just don't want to deal with. Being an 'experienced' Ebayer is a cop out answer - All questions are legit from a prospective buyer. I would just leave this one alone and think carefully if I ever dealt with this person. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Yesfan70 Posted July 4, 2004 Share Posted July 4, 2004 I have had some good experiences on Ebay before. There are a few jerks here and there, just like anywhere else. Like the others have said, I would look to someone else. Another sight you might want to check out is http://www.audiogon.com You might have better luck there, since it is specifically for home audio and home theater. They have auctions, for sale and wanted ads too. You could post what you are looking for, and maybe find someoen who is willing to sell. Just like Ebay, check out the seller's feedback and history before bidding/buying. I wouldn't be afraid of asking too many questions either. Hope this helps. Good luck. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
sire Posted July 4, 2004 Author Share Posted July 4, 2004 I did reply to his email of course. Not the one in my mind when I first read his email. I had to fight an emotional response and probably gave it more of my time than it was worth. Below is my reply to his email and his reply to mine. I did weaken a little. I guess I will never be a huge success in this world as I try to live by "treat people like you would like to be treated" For a positve note I am glad he showed his true colors at the start so I do not have to go through another "Ebay experience". My world will not fall apart if I do not find a pair of Fortes right away. Mike --------------------------------------------------------------------------- Mine I am located in Florida. I thought my emails have been courteous. I do not make a living off of Ebay. If I see something that interest me and I can afford it, I will bid on it. As for Ebay experience. I recently purchased a auto radio/cd player off of Ebay. The cd changer was non functional. The seller said he would refund my $$$ after I sent it back to him. His feedback was good. I sent it back to him and have not heard anything since. My mistake for trusting positive feedback information.So far I am out of $320. Paypal could not do anything, Ebay has been silent, I am having to go through my credit card company for a charge back. So if I look at your barely viewable pictures and do not see the risers, what harm is in asking a question? Your attitude sucks! Most people would encourage questions from the buyers so there are no problems later. I read your feedback. Read the previously sellers one also. Did not do any good. But do not worry, I will not ever do business with you. Not that it will do anything but I might forward your "friendly" emails to Ebay. Maybe I will post your friendly email on a few forums also. I can't believe your unprofessional attitude --------------------------------------------------------------------------- His Actually, we ENCOURAGE you to send them to eBay! And, we ENCORUAGE you to post to forums! However, as you apparently haven't read much else of eBay's rules & regulations, there IS one bit of advice they give: Be VERY careful about what you write when it will be read by the public! eBay, as you probably do not know, since you seem to know so little about anything, is NOT a democracy---it IS a business venue. As such, they make 100% of their revenues from sellers, and exactly '0' from buyers. Consequently, they support sellers with various tools---'Blocked Bidder' lists (yes, you're on ours!), 'Contact' information, and so on. It is ridiculous folks like you who give eBay a bad name! You DO NOT know how to READ----and you don't read EVERYTHING in a listing, which you should do without hesitation! And as to your original question about shipping: Do you think that by not sending your zip code you will somehow remain anonymous? Wrong! Do you think 960 eBayers are wrong about us???? Look to yourself----that's where the problem lies! -------------------------------------------------------------------------- Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Malcolm Posted July 4, 2004 Share Posted July 4, 2004 Mike, Don't sweat it. There are a**holes on eBay just like everywhere else. I have bought and sold quite a bit on eBay. Most of the people I have dealt with have been great. But I have had to deal with an a**hole occasionally. It is the eBayer's right to be one if he wants as long as he complies with eBay's rules. As your experience shows, trying to educate one is a complete waste of time, even if done politely. Take your business elsewhere. There will be another set along soon enough. Don't sweat the the refund on the other item, either. You were smart. You paid with a credit card. You can get it charged back. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
hwatkins Posted July 4, 2004 Share Posted July 4, 2004 Sire - could you PM me the listing? Maybe one 'experienced' Ebayer to another would be an interesting conversation. As to the seller attitude, there is some truth that Ebay sides with the seller. However, without 'buyers' it turns into a pretty darn poor business opportunity. The seller has a tremedously rigid set of ethics to maintain if they want to be both successful and to have restful night's sleep. Courtesy is not required ethically. There is no requirement for intelligence either. While not a hard and fast rule (I sometimes can only get what I need from some folks), courtesy is generally a requirement to do business with me. I have listened with interest as sellers bemoan someone not willing to bid what their item is worth and heard them rationalize taking the item off at the last minute. It is flat out ethically wrong to do so. If it was an advertised price, it would be illegal. There are many wonderful Ebayers that will change your attitude about doing business this way. Just remember that there is a bit of patience to get restitution sometimes. Learn from the bad experiences and emulate the good. As to do unto others as you would have them do unto you - I recommend that you do not back away from that. In the long term the good experiences of that attitude are so much more frequent than the bad. Diligent addressing restitution (not retribution) may be necessary at times, but who said the world was perfect. Other than that I suggest you find the sellers house and disconnect the internet connectivity, toilet paper their yard, put dead rodents in the outside air intakes on their cars, write something obsene with diesel on their front yard, pour brake fluid on their car hood and steal all their mail for a week. Retribution may not be so bad after all Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
sire Posted July 4, 2004 Author Share Posted July 4, 2004 I would like to thank all the board members for their support. I definitely have moved on will not let this episode take any more of my time or attention. Thank you for the tip on http://www.audiogon.com. I would not take anything from this guy if he was giving it away. I do feel better since I have been able to "share" here. To end this thread I will display the last communciations I had with the "experienced E-bayer" Thank again to everyone. I do see another pair of Fortes on Ebay at the moment. Mike After I cooled off some I was curious what exactly set him off so I responded and asked him. ---------------------------------------------------------------------------His Most folks who ask for shipping totals (especially when the listing indicates 'actual' costs), either have very little eBay experience (which ALWAYS leads to mis-communications and bad comments left for fellow eBayers), or hasn't read the description completely (which ALWAYS leads to misunderstandings and bad comments left for fellow eBayers). In either case, you would be ahead of the game if you simply chalked this up as a valuable lesson learned for your future on eBay (and it IS valuable!), and moved on. As to your 'bad' transaction: Did you know that you can get Phone Numbers, Locations, etc., from eBay just by clicking on the 'contact' info on the auction site?? Did you know that it is VERY easy to have someone arrested and put in jail for Internet Fraud? We've done it three times already and plan on doing it many more times to eliminate the 'crooks' on the internet! We are in our 50's, run a successful brick-and-mortar store, and are successful on eBay and other sites. We have NO tolerance for frauds, thieves, pranksters, or malcontents. And, we do everything legally within our powers to stop them (which is a LOT!). BUT.....the buyer has SOME clearly defined responsibility to be cautious and thoroughly investigate a seller---ALL the tools are right there on eBay and the net. Mis-informed buyers are just as dangerous to the reputations of decent folks as are the frauds. --------------------------------------------------------------------------- Mine Well, I am almost in my 50's and unfortunately was too trusting with my last transaction. The seller had reasonably good communication up to the point when he promised to refund. The item was nonfunctional and was advertised as "new in the box". Shipping back and forth took around 10 days. I gave him a chance to respond which took me out of the 30 day transaction window with paypal. I was too trusting I guess and did not want to file a complaint to make him look bad and give him a chance to follow through on his promise. As i said previously, neither Ebay or Paypal was helpful. Was a very frustrating day yesterday. That was my first purchase of a significant $$$ amount. I always pay promptly when an auction closes. I try to establish communication with the seller immediately. A person's reputation is valuable. If you do not have nothing else, at least you sleep well knowing you always try to do the right thing. I try to live by "treat people as you would like to be treated" I retired from the military after 20 years and did not apply for disabled veteran status. They were highly encouraging it so you can get some benefits with VA hospital, certain job preferences, etc. I probably could have qualified as being around jet aircraft for 20 hears, I had some high frequency hearing loss. I did not apply for it as it did not feel right with me personaly to claim to be a disabled veteran for such a small thing. Just because you can does not always mean you should. Maybe we both were a little short fused there. I saw your posting that stated actual fully insured ground shipping charges. I read the description. That is why I was interested. I just wanted an estimate so I could factor that in to what my top bid was going to be. I did not think that was unreasonable. Good luck with your auction and business. I do not think I would want to have to work with the public on a daily basis. --------------------------------------------------------------------------- His - The experience is over As things have 'cooled down', we would still offer this reasoning behind Not giving a shipping estimate (when provided with a zip code, we don't give 'estimates', we give EXACT costs). Because of their size, and the two Large & Heavy Boxes, shipping to, say, New York City would be about $14. per box, while shipping to Los Angeles would be About $73 per box-------quite a difference!!! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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