I’m sure I’m not alone as a shopper on EBay but over the past few years things have really started going down hill. It once was a place where one could go for bargains on parts, rolling stock, track and accessories, even hard to find discontinued items. But of late I’ve noticed a new group of sellers actually “rip off artist” now listing items for sale. Either listing items claiming them to be long discontinued or hard to get at a high price which are actually still available or sticking it to you on shipping. I recently won and auction for some tie strips from a seller “the_train_hunter” at a little higher than the price at the manufacturers e store and received them with no problem but then the same seller listed the same tie strips and I won the bid at less then half the e store price but somehow they misteriously got lost in the mail, I had to petition eBay to get a refund and then mysteriously the same seller listed two more boxes of the same tie strips for $40 over the mfg’s e store price sound a bit fishy to me. I also found another seller listing a Ozark Miniatures Coffee Pot and 4 Mugs for sale proclaiming it as “Vintage” for $9.00 this item is still for sale from Ozark for $2.85. Then there are the sellers who want to charge you 2 times the cost for shipping and item, one example of many is I was looking at a Bachmann 1:20.3 2 bay hopper listed by two different sellers both in California, one was charging $38.95 for shipping the other $18.95 same item same distance. My point here is if you shop on eBay be sure to do your research first, know what the prices are for the items you are interested in and get acquainted with shipping costs before you buy, there are still bargains out there but as always “Let the buyer beware” and many times you can get a better deal from a brick and mortar hobby shop.
There is a lot of this on Ebay, not just in trains - its everywhere. I suspect they are targeting people who won’t bother to look around, and are betting on someone just paying whatever to get it. I always shop around, I check shipping and also feedback rating. Its the only way to avoid getting ripped off. To me the biggest rip off now is “Buy it Now” sellers, Ebay was originally an auction site, today its overrun with Ebay stores selling items at fixed BIN pricing that can be often way more than the MSRP let alone from any online vendor. Factor in overpriced shipping and these store sites are mostly useless. so yeah, double check prices and shipping and shop the item around. So far nothing I want is worth the price some of those yo-yos are charging.
Coincidently, I’ve had a couple of issues lately with the same Ebay seller that Joe alludes to above, Manny “The Train Hunter” from Southern California. A couple of months ago, I bid on his USA Trains Southern Pacific Bay Window Caboose. I was real confident that I’d win it with the highest bid. I ended up losing it by 2 bucks by a “sniper” with about 6 or 7 seconds left in the auction. Then “The Train Hunter” offered up a LGB Coke wood-sided reefer on Ebay. Again, I had the high bid (more than 10 bucks ahead of the other bids). It got down to the very end with a few seconds left and again I was hit by a “sniper” who won it by 2 or 3 bucks. Then a week later on Ebay, “The Train Hunter” put up the exact same Coke car in the same condition (new) with the same minimum bid, same pictures and postage amount and the whole deal. I decided to bid on the car again and I thought I had it in the bag. Nope! Lost again by a “sniper” with a few seconds to spare at the very end of the auction.
Seems like there’s a trend here. I understand that you win some and you lose some. But I’ll go out on a limb here and say that I strongly believe that either “The Train Hunter” bid and won the Coke car himself or had a friend “win” it, then he re-listed it on Ebay. I suspect that he felt he wasn’t making enough money on the car with my high bid, so he “won” the auction himself and re-listed the car so he could make more money on it later. And he did just that! So Bidder/Buyer beware.
Is this a valid accusation? Do other Ebay sellers do this? Do the sellers see the high bids? I know this is a serious accusation, but is it libelous to bring up a specific Ebay seller here? If so, I’ll take my complaint off the board. By the way, I didn’t notify Ebay with my suspicions. Comparing notes with others here is one of the main reasons I come here - it’s productive if we can weed out the bad while praising the people who are fair and trustworthy.
By the way, Joe, I also had questions regarding excessive shipping charges on Ebay and was told by another poster that it’s automatically calculated by determining how far the buyer lives from the seller. I wouldn’t be surprised if there are exceptions. Any way to make a buck.
Here’s another interesting thread about Ebay. I stop short of calling them “Evilbay” as I’ve gotten quite a few good deals on Ebay in the past 2-3 years. Here’s a recent thread on other’s experiences with Ebay:
http://www.largescalecentral.com/forums/topic/26530/e-bay-seller-ratings-inflation
I find that it takes patience and persistence when shopping on Ebay. I rarely buy anything other than trains there. I have found that in the last few years prices of used large scale trains, on Ebay, have followed the rising prices of new items. Perhaps it truly is that older large scale stuff is getting harder to find. There certainly is less of it than in the past.
As for the shipping charges, well it pays to pay attention to what a seller is charging for shipping. I’ve seen ridiculous shipping charges where the seller may be trying to make a few more dollars. Then there is the “Free shipping” auctions. Most of the time the item price is jacked up to cover shipping. Here again, close scrutiny is in order. Check out the same item offered by another seller, then compare the two or more offerings.
Bottom line for buying on Ebay is to be a smart shopper. And as I mentioned in the beginning, patience and persistence will pay off.
Out of curiosity, I’m part cat, and not being an eBay user, I went playing in Google. Found interesting things.
I don’t know if is my basic nature from even before birth or because of something else, but I can’t stand the uncertainty of auctions, I want to go buy it and be done.
Some samples;
3 Men Are Charged With Fraud In 1,100 Art Auctions on EBay - The …
www.nytimes.com/.../3-men-are-charged-with-fraud-in-1100-art-auctions-on-ebay.ht…
Mar 9, 2001 - Shill bidding, or bidding on one’s own auction, is forbidden by eBay rules and is generally illegal in the traditional auction world. Each count of …
A fake eBay bidder in County Durham must pay £5,000 - BBC News
Jul 5, 2010 - An eBay seller who bid on his own items to increase their price must pay nearly £5000 … Barrett, 39, of Stanley, County Durham, was arrested after a … The court was told how the case, involving so-called “shill bidding”, was …
How To Identify Shill Bidding Techniques And Avoid Them
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Updated May 12, 2016
Auction sniping, the practice of bidding in the very last moments of an auction, isn’t the controversial issue it was in the early days of eBay, but it’s still a topic of debate. Some say it’s cheating, but eBay does not forbid sniping or the use of sniping sites.
Since eBay’s auctions end at a specific time, it’s possible (and, in fact, common) for buyers to wait until seconds before the auction closes to put in their final high bid.
https://www.thebalance.com/what-buyers-should-know-about-ebay-sniping-services-1140550
Years ago someone directed me to an Ebay Auction for a Heartland Liberty Belle locomotive. The current bid on this “rare” item was over $1200. At the time, Heartland still had them in stock, and the MSRP was around $400 IIRC. I had a good laugh.
I always tell people to shop around when they want something. If you know the current street price of something, then you know the deals, and you know the rip offs. Its the impulse buys that tend to get folks. They buy something they see without doing any research in what it should cost. And yes, I have not bid on things that I wanted, because of the inflated shipping costs.
Its not just online. Vendors at shows, and brick and mortar stores will have deals and overpriced items too.
I buy and sell on ebay and I wonder why most sellers do not allow returns. I always allow returns, why sell it if you will not support /guarantee your item!!!
I look at shipping and feed back. Anyone can have bad feedback, but lots of bad feedback triggers a do not deal with this seller alert for me.
On another note, I like the older LGB stock as it seems to have more flexible plastic, bends before it breaks and the newer plastic is harder but breaks before bending.
Plus the older stock costs less than half the newer stock whether at shows or online…
Was going to bid on a USA Trains UP coal car till I see he wanted $50.00 shipping!
When you could ship it for about $10.
Don
Don & Craig Hofsheier said:
Was going to bid on a USA Trains UP coal car till I see he wanted $50.00 shipping!
When you could ship it for about $10.
Don
Not that one coal car is going to cost $50, but Ive actually been surprised how much shipping has gone up in the last year or so. I just sent a half dozen switches across the country. UPS quoted me $38, and USPS was over $50. The days of $5 and $10 boxes are rapidly coming to a close.
I don’t buy much on ebay but I do occasionally. When I first started shopping there I was still on dial up and quickly got frustrated losing out in the last minute because I couldn’t respond quickly. I started using a sniper service and use it to this day. I set my maximum bid an forget it. If I get out bid early on I get a notification if I want to increase my bid. Win or lose I get a notification. Since I set my maximum bid ahead of time I don’t get caught up in bidding wars. I don’t always win but I do way more often than I did before. Is this cheating, I don’t think so but your opinion may vary, to me it’s just convenient and I don’t need to watching the auction at times I’d rather be doing something else.
If the seller was buying his own stuff or having a friend bid for him wouldn’t he still need to pay the ebay fees anyway which would just add to his own cost.
I agree with Bob - my wife sells on eBay and the shipping is getting ridiculous. And eBay is getting harder for sellers also. More rules and harder to win cases against buyers who don’t pay or give a bad review because they have buyers remorse. I still buy some train stuff (HO and F) on eBay as there is no “good” hobby stores where I live now. And a note on the same item listing serially - some sellers may have multiples of items they want to put up for bid, but it they put all up at once, the bidding will stay low. Putting them up one at a time “creates demand” and the bidding will go a bit higher. I deal with MR. Kramer a lot and always get good service and the price is what I’m willing to pay. Most of his are buy it now and his shipping is always reasonable for the size and weight of the package.
Someday I’ll get the layout started if SWMBO ever stops adding to the honey do list. At least she has agreed to the right-of-way allocation!
Shill bidding never follows thru with processing the payment, the item simply gets withdrawn by the seller immediately after the auction. On Facebook we’ve been watching a listing for a particular Kit Car on Ebay. This particular car was sold at Jackson Barrett for a ridiculous amount of money, now the new owner realizes that he spend twice what the cars real value is (IOWs typical day at JB) Its now been on Ebay 3 times now, the seller posts it starting at a low point then along with legitimate bids it then the bid gets pushed up by a couple bidders with ZERO feedback until its at a point that no legitimate bidder is willing to pay, the time ends, and lo and behold a couple months later there it is again, and the same thing happens all over again. It’s because the seller wants X $ for it and instead of simply saying I have X $ reserve, or listing it at X $, which BTW NO ONE will ever pay, so they keep trying to game the system to squeeze out the highest possible bid until they get a live one. This is IMO common practice with many sellers on Ebay.
I don’t believe, and never have, that ebay conducts auctions. I don’t believe 90% of real-live auctions are actually real auctions.
The prices (“bids” what a joke) are manipulated, online or in person, by a host of dishonest means.
Me, I decide on the price I want to pay, and if I get it, fine, if I don’t, f**k them.
Short story (this is a good one)…I bid to my limit on three paintings at an estate auction house here in Denver…miraculously, somehow, the bids went higher and higher, way past what I wanted to pay. End of story? No. I called them the next morning and said, “You know those three paintings that sold for $1975? Well, just in case, you know, just on the off-chance, maybe, hmmmmmmm, the bidders don’t come through, well, my bid of $1100 is still good as far as I’m concerned and I could come by this afternoon with cash. The auction’s over though, so I’m not paying a buyer’s premium of course. You understand that of course. Give me a call if you think you can make that work.”
Took the greedy bstrds under an hour to call back, maybe 45 minutes, and that was just face-saving on their part.
Don & Craig Hofsheier said:
Was going to bid on a USA Trains UP coal car till I see he wanted $50.00 shipping!
When you could ship it for about $10.
Don
I just click to ask the seller a question and say “$50 shipping seems excessive. Do you have a cheaper/slower alternative to 02814?” Then they quote me a much lower price (like $10). Now, I am at an advantage as everyone else believes the total cost to be much higher. Other times after I’ve won an auction, I’ll shoot a message to the seller “I’m in no hurry to get this, can you send cheapest/slowest method possible?”.
Dan Gilchrist said:
Don & Craig Hofsheier said:
Was going to bid on a USA Trains UP coal car till I see he wanted $50.00 shipping!
When you could ship it for about $10.
Don
I just click to ask the seller a question and say “$50 shipping seems excessive. Do you have a cheaper/slower alternative to 02814?”
I tried that last week with a seller, to no avail. It was near the auction deadline, I asked him if he’d lower the $40.00 shipping cost and he’d have a deal on a reefer. He said he’d get right back to me but never did, instead re-listing the car on Ebay the next day. Some of these cars are fairly rare and ARE getting harder to find, so with train cars you’ve really wanted for quite awhile, it’s really frustrating to get shot by a sniper at the end or have some shady crap going on behind the scenes that’s out of your control.
Some of whats going on RE: Shipping is that Ebay does not regulate the total shipping costs. So some sellers feel its their right to tack on “handling charges” for the privilege of having them prepare your item for shipping by putting it in a box, and waiting until the UPS guy shows up to pick it up.
The trouble is that while I am will to accept some handling charges, some of these guys charge 2 or 3 times the actual shipping charge. Its purely gouging to increase their profit margin because they CAN, Ebay doesn’t say anything. So ALWAYS check their shipping charge before bidding, if they don’t list it, ask them whats shipping to zip _____. They are supposed to list it. If they wont give you a total prior to close of bidding, skip.
Dbl post
…all of the above…exactly why I quit eBay years aog. Too much fraud and little to no support from eBay. Not to mention potential identity theft from PayPal…
Got along with out them before they came into existence, get along with out them now…
I’ve been buying and selling on eBay for almost 20 years now and honestly, I love it. I see it as a big online worldwide flea market, some vendors are honest and fair and some are not so. In my opinion, eBay is not responsible for what these folks are doing. In fact the design of the site is such that the members are put in the position of policing it through the feedback and reporting systems. Every item has a report Item link to click that can be used to report issues like “seller is using other accounts to inflate price”. BTW eBay does monitor bids coming from the same IP address range as the seller and investigates them.
Anyway, I will continue to enjoy using eBay, sniping auctions with justsnipe.com and using the $15 off $75 coupons codes eBay has doling out lately.
I also buy through the Trainz auction site. When I reported to the Trainz auction site that I had not received my purchase, nothing happened. When I reported it to PayPal, that item was express shipped to my door, along with another item I had purchased from the same vendor months before. No, it wasn’t Trainz.com, it was some other vendor on the site. The other item, I had thought I had received it, and just simply misplaced it. So it was a surprise to get that in an express mail envelope.
So some vendors are real attentive when their ratings are at risk. You just have to speak up.