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Hey guys, I just wanted to vent for a minute. After recently buying a well painted Land Raider Crusader for $45 + $8 shipping, I waited several days. The item showed up as promised, the box only a little wet from the rain but no worse for wear, when I heard something. Opening up the box it began to rattle. My beautiful Land Raider had been thrown into an REI brown paper bag and into a box. The turrets were destroyed, the sponsons were mangled, parts of the armor were cracked and coming apart. It was rough. Needless to say, after having a really crap day, finding out my wife will have to be on blood thinners the rest of her life due to genetic mutation, all I wanted was to take solace and play a game with my buddy tomorrow using my new Land Raider.

I was furious. I took pictures and responded to the gentleman requesting my shipping charge back. I still want the model and I have repaired it, but the damage had been done. The gentleman has been more than kind and we are in the process of resolving this, but the damage sustained was probably the worst I have had, after having bought/sold several 40k figures.

So tell me, what was your worst eBay transaction?

Got an old OOP FW Shadowsword, number 98 of at least 1500 (so I really wanted this one), and the seller just tossed the pieces in a cardboard box with a bit of bubble wrap at the bottom where it couldn't do anything useful. Since this was the really old brittle resin FW used to use there were obviously broken parts. Thankfully the seller insured the package and the post office didn't question their claim that it was shipping damage and not poor packaging, so I got a refund. But it's just amazing that someone would package a $150 model so carelessly. FFS, spend $1 on some bubble wrap!

Second worst would be an old FW Baneblade that was padded, but stuffed into a flat rate box with the sides of the sponsons literally touching the cardboard on both sides. It arrived with one of the sponson HBs snapped off and a hole in the side of the box where the corner of a sponson had broken through. Surprisingly that was the only damage, though the model went right back on ebay once I realized how badly it had been assembled.

Back when I played nids won an auction on termagants.

They arrived as one of the two sprues needed x 15 , so no heads or the inset with the leg and claw.

Was not a happy camper.

Won "O" scale model train factory building for wargaming terrain and received "HO" scale building. Seller refused to grasp the concept that he made a mistake. Insisted that because he put the physical dimensions of the building in the auction description it was my fault. Ended up eating the loss as I'd already payed more for the shipping than the model, and it wasn't worth return shipping costs to get a refund of the auction price.

Also, there was GHETTO-OPOLY. Won auction just before the holidays, received email saying they oversold and were temporarliy out of stock and they would restock and ship it within 2 weeks. Holidays come and go, and i had forgotten about it. Go to ask what happened and they've closed up shop, and Ebay wouldn't do anything because I waited longer than 30 days.

This is one of those "in hindsight" issues.

Back when I first got into Warhams in 2009, I really wanted a Land Raider. They were going for $40 if I recall. I saw there were 3 auctions up for about $25, new in box - two vanilla and one Crusader. So I said screw it, and I bid on all 3 of them so I would be sure I won at least one, right?

I wound up winning all 3. At the time I wasn't broke, exactly, but a sudden $90 (there was no shipping) was an unpleasant surprise. I pulled it out and wound up with 3 new in box Land Raiders for $90. The Crusader had metal add-on bits.

That story is pretty ironic now since they're like $75 apiece or whatever.

The obvious epilogue to this story is that now in 2014 I still haven't gotten even a single one finished, they're all in various states of primed, modification, etc.

I don't think I've ever had a bad eBay transaction and I've been using eBay for 10 years or so. I'm pretty picky when it comes to what I buy and from who so that might have a lot to do with it.

The most annoying thing that happens is getting sniped on a bid. The worst one I had was probably around 2005 or so and I was bidding on a rare, out of print copy of Bad Religion's Into the Unknown LP. I had put up a crazy high bid (near $300) with a couple of hours to go before the auction ended. I ended up falling asleep unintentionally and I got outbid by like $2 and I was pretty pissed about it.

It ended up for the better though. In 2010 I got that record (plus 14 others) in their 15 LP 30th anniversary box set which was limited to 3000 copies, and it cost me half as much.

I sold a DVD on ebay once. Stupidly, I sold it for less than it cost me to ship it to the buyer

Hey, be nice to shippers for models. You can package them extremely carefully and diligently, and the post office can still mishandle the box and break something.

I recently sold all my eldar and the wraith knight in the box was in 100% assembled condition when I sent it. I wrapped all his various long spindly appendages very carefully and individually, wrapped him as a whole, and he still arrived in like, 5 pieces. I had to refund the dude like, $30. It was irritating, because I pride myself on packaging items well and even included on the auction that seller isn't responsible for damages during shipping.

eBay didn't care. Anyways. Yeah. It sounds like yours was shipped poorly, but there are plenty of us that try and package things professionally and can't help it once it hits the hands of USPS.

As someone who has loaded trucks with boxes in the past, let me offer this piece of advice;

Loaders just don't give a feth. It's 3AM, there's no central heat or air so they're almost always freezing or sweating lakes, they have as many as 600 other boxes to worry about, and. They. Just. Don't. Freaking. Care.

Just FYI

I wouldn't call it worst transaction, but like Ouze, I received more than I bargained for. I drunkenly purchased (dirt cheap, thankfully) 2x boxes of Assault Terminators and 2x boxes of regular terminators.

I am no longer allowed to play on ebay whilst intoxicated.

I've bought pretty much everything I own towards my orks off ebay. And after over 3k points with them, the worst I've ever gotten was a couple of slugga boys who had pairs of choppas instead of Choppa/Slugga. Easy fix, but mildly annoying at the time

I actually put little bonuses in my eBay auctions when I ship then all the time. Granted, it's almost entirely comprised of stuff I just want to get rid of, but it still seems to be a nice surprise for buyers when I do it.

I once snagged a great price for a set of space marine characters. When I tried to pay for them, paypal told me that that the seller's account was not in good standing, so I could not pay.

When I told the seller about this, she informed me that due to an "ebay error" the listing was cancelled. There was no error, and ebay kept prompting me to pay.

The seller than put up an identical listing with the same space marines. When I messaged the seller that she had obviously just relisted an item because she wasn't satisfied with the price, she gave me negative feedback for not paying (lol) and said I was welcome to bid again on the new item.

I won the second auction, for a dollar less than the first. Once again, paypal informed me that I couldn't pay. I messaged her. She said she would "never sell to a competitor and a criminal," and swore at me.

I waited 45 minutes on the phone with ebay customer support, but it was worth it to get that handled.

 cincydooley wrote:
Hey, be nice to shippers for models. You can package them extremely carefully and diligently, and the post office can still mishandle the box and break something.

I recently sold all my eldar and the wraith knight in the box was in 100% assembled condition when I sent it. I wrapped all his various long spindly appendages very carefully and individually, wrapped him as a whole, and he still arrived in like, 5 pieces. I had to refund the dude like, $30. It was irritating, because I pride myself on packaging items well and even included on the auction that seller isn't responsible for damages during shipping.

eBay didn't care. Anyways. Yeah. It sounds like yours was shipped poorly, but there are plenty of us that try and package things professionally and can't help it once it hits the hands of USPS.

Oh absolutely. I sell and buy 40k on eBay, so I absolutely understand. REI brown paper bag is not sufficient packaging XD

I once had some gakker who claimed he didnt recieve an item, even though i knew he did as i contacted the post office, and he had the audacity to say something on the lines of "if you want you can send me another one and i will not give negative feedback" or something similar.
Ebay didnt give a feth and i had to return the money, fortunately it was only about 5 euro.
Still, it pissed me off as i didnt know what to do about it.