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I've both bought and sold on eBay since about 1999. I'm a bit of a hoarder/completionist, so every 3 or 4 years I'll do a massive cull and dump things on eBay and not always necessarily boardgames/miniatures.

Never had any issues until this go-around when suddenly people don't pay and it seems very specific to our hobby. The video game folks and some other hobbies tend to pay within minutes of the auction end. I'm amazed at not only the number of unpaid item cases that I've had to open (thank you for automating this eBay), but when a case does get open and the buyer finally pays, the number of "I was on vacation or I was away or why didn't you e-mail me before opening a case or how dare you or all of the above" e-mails is astounding.

It's like suddenly the person who bid on the item 5 seconds before it ended forgot that most people aren't huddling around the family computer on a 14.4 modem. That smart phone in your pocket is perfectly capable of sending a payment. If you're legitimately away, great, I hope you have a great time, but pay for the item and let me know if you want me to hold it for a couple days. I can do that. I'm not a mind reader and more importantly, it's not my job to chase you for the shiny you wanted to begin with. I'd rather take a couple bucks less from someone who pays quickly. Not so subtle threats about leaving negative feedback aren't going to sway me either. Feedback has become pretty worthless these days and I'm not going to lose sleep over a ding.

So what happened, does it tie back to sellers not being able to leave negative feedback anymore? But that was years ago. Or is it that an unpaid case used to take 7 days to open and people got accustomed to buying and then waiting? Or is it simply that most of the reasonable people have left.

I'm not sure how you over-looked having a run of bad luck, but that's the explanation for you.

My gf sold something for me recently and warned that she would get masses of questions. I've sold masses of figures and bits and books and barely had a question beyond the cost of combined postage. This time I was selling was a box of magic cards, it was all in the description with details for pick up, I couldn't imagine a question worth asking. Yet she got lots of questions, most were asking something already answered in the three line description. I really wonder if the IQ of eBay users has decreased in the last five years. Before firing off a question, read the auction again. If this is how it always is, I can see eBay being too tedious to bother with as a seller.

I've never had issues with eBay, as both buyer and seller.
Also never received questions, and most purchases I've made had good images and descriptions.

Probably just a string of bad luck.

I am regularly asked questions that are already answered in my auction texts ("When can I expect the item to be shipped" being the most common). It's annoying as Hell but, with eBay being so slanted towards buyers now, you have to go over the top to be polite and not point out that they'd know, had they actually read the auction (the first line of my auction says to read the whole thing, as most questions are answered in the auction text).
Non-paying bidders are another problem. I seem to have about 3 or 4 a year (just had one on a $160 item!). I always report them and add them to my blocked list, but it sucks that their feedback can't be dinged for it.

As for those of you who are concerned about negatives; call eBay if you unfairly receive one. Twice, I've had negatives left over things that were the BUYERS fault. Both times I called eBay (NOT EMAIL) and explained the issue. After looking into it, the references were removed BOTH times.

Eric

Oh yeah, I chalk it up to just bad luck, but I'm kinda scratching my head how I've had more issues in the past couple months than the previous 15 years combined. I've still never had an issue as a buyer. At least nothing worth remembering.

Interesting. I actually just sold 22 items on Ebay from Friday-Sunday. All but two have paid so far, and those two unpaid were auctions that ended yesterday. About 15 of the listings were miniatures, so not a bad run there!

I don't get many questions, either. I get more messages from Ebay talking about stuff like 3x Ebay Bucks, account statements, etc.

As eBay has steadily moved from its roots it seems buyers are unaware of the function of the auction format.
Myself and brother in law have had 80% recent auctions, starting at really low ball bids, with the question 'will you sell this item to me for x i really want it'.

This is despite us both clearly stating that we will not offer items on a buy it now basis.

On the flip side we have both had buyers offering us extra cash when they win auctions with low low bids!

I've had several issues with eBay, never as a seller, but always as a buyer.

It seems like a disproportionate number of sellers are trying to hide something and just hope you won't notice or ask about it. It's like the wild west out there, with no rules, no law, and if you get screwed over, it's your own fault for not drawing first.

I vastly prefer the more informal swap forums these days.

 MagickalMemories wrote:
I am regularly asked questions that are already answered in my auction texts ("When can I expect the item to be shipped" being the most common). It's annoying as Hell but, with eBay being so slanted towards buyers now, you have to go over the top to be polite and not point out that they'd know, had they actually read the auction (the first line of my auction says to read the whole thing, as most questions are answered in the auction text).

It's one of those weird human things. Nothing like putting on a presentation for a half million dollars of equipment for a company, and at the end get a question about the basic capabilities that were clearly explained ten minutes previously, and even had a nice powerpoint slide to go with it.

And then five minutes later, have another person on the customer's team ask the exact same question.

A lot of the issues with questions is down to ebay mobile not actually showing the whole listing (or not without a load of hassle)

ebay (or rather their hired programers) are largely to blame for that, combines with the billion or more varieties of smartphone OS none of which are quite compatible with one another

You then add in that ebay is still growing, and while initially it's members tended to be the bright educated folk who could afford computers and were on the cutting edge of actually taking part in online business we now see the whole mass of humanity

and finally people now are far more impatient

(gets all misty eyed, I remember when you ordered stuff from the back of a paper magazine, and it showed up 28 days later, or not at all, and you had no real protection at all if what you got was wrong)

OrlandotheTechnicoloured has some good points. On Saturday I bought three toy dinosaurs from ebay for my Twilight Kin to ride into battle. Got them today. I ordered from an ebay seller a couple of weeks ago a T-Rex (Abysal Monster) from China and got it in less than two weeks. Free shipping to boot.

But this is so true...

"(gets all misty eyed, I remember when you ordered stuff from the back of a paper magazine, and it showed up 28 days later, or not at all, and you had no real protection at all if what you got was wrong) "

Nowadays it's called "Kickstarter".

 OrlandotheTechnicoloured wrote:

(gets all misty eyed, I remember when you ordered stuff from the back of a paper magazine, and it showed up 28 days later, or not at all, and you had no real protection at all if what you got was wrong)

Only 28 days? Try 6-8 weeks for the disappointment that was mail ordering sea monkeys.

I don't buy unless I have the money, and I always pay immediately.

 Midnightdeathblade wrote:
I don't buy unless I have the money, and I always pay immediately.

Ditto. Paypal on hand at all times, too.

Yeah, I've never really had problems as a buyer or seller, apart from the inevitable non-payment from Eastern Europe, which I now block.

However, the questions issue is probably due to the fact that eBay on iPhone and iPad doesn't actually displa the item description - this is something you have to click through to view from the main item page.

I just bid on a couple of used figure cases with custom foam, but the only photo showed the outside of the figure case, closed. I emailed the seller asking for pictures of the foam. Of course, they had already put pictures of the foam on there, but in their custom HTML description under two pages of terms, conditions and standard 'sold as seen' text.

On one hand, I should have clicked throu to the description on my iPad. On the other, I can totally see why eBay wants people to upload their photos to the proper photo section, and why they'd want to make thing s simpler for the user by removing ten pages of useless custom T&Cs from the front page of every bloody item!!

 Mr. Burning wrote:
As eBay has steadily moved from its roots it seems buyers are unaware of the function of the auction format.

Indeed! So much of ebay now seems "buy now"

I don't even check ebay for used miniatures anymore, because so many people want such ridiculous amounts for stuff. I mean, there are so many sellers with the expectation of getting more than it would cost to buy something new, when they have horribly painted models with no bits. And let's not get into, "Pro Painted"

Of course, there are awesome deals to be had -- I think an overwhelmingly large number of these are auctions. The other thing you can sometimes get some great deals on is box sets split up, if you want just some specific model.

Dat pro painted tho

I tend to make use of Buy It Now offers as buyer and seller, because I don't have to put up with pricing shenanigans. I know what it will cost me / earn me, I won't have people mailing me for alternative prices, and there seems to be much faster payments (you're active when you claim the item from BIN, auctions tend to finish at obscure times, delaying payment).

i use the auction style exclusively, just in case a couple of people want to battle for one of my minis...
as Selym pointed out, auctions can end at strange times depending on where the bidder is located...
i send an invoice as soon as the auctions end, but don't sweat it if i have to wait a day or two for payment...
after three days, then i send a message and chase my payment, but that rarely happens...
a couple of days waiting is not a big deal to me, but then, i did grow up in the sea monkey days, so i'm patient...

cheers
jah

I would, as a buyer primarily, ask w.t.f. is up with sellers these days.

I've been browsing Leman Russ tanks and people are selling something that retails from GW for $50, so can easily be obtained new for $40 for $30 + 'shipping'... That's just the tank, none of the additional sprue stuffs, painted to someone else's standards and colors, so will need stripping and repainting, and often with badly put together tracks or bits snapped off.

Sellers seem delusional these days on what they are selling and it's worth. These tanks on the auction side usually go for around $15-20 and no more.

And then we have the 'professional' sellers with their raffle ticket lots and prices just short of GW's price, sometimes more expensive than actually buying new from a discounter...

 MeanGreenStompa wrote:
Sellers seem delusional these days on what they are selling and it's worth.

This has been my experience the past few years as well. I can buy most things cheaper from my FLGS than used (and probably poorly glued and dunked in enamel paint) on eBay.

Oh, the glorious days of 10 years ago, when I could find new sprues for 30% off and free shipping on eBay any day of the week, 50% off if I had some patience.



Another thing that's been annoying lately is international shipping, I know the prices have gone up but most people just put up some weird number (12 quid and change) that I assume is eBay's default because it's the same number in so many listings, and it's ridiculously high. I prefer it if sellers who don't want to bother shipping internationally just disable it and not muck about.

Also, asswipes who fish for hits by including all the buzzwords even when they have nothing to do with their auction. There's a horde of idiots on there who put the word "army" in single unit auctions, for example. And the good old "Not Forgeworld".

 MeanGreenStompa wrote:
I would, as a buyer primarily, ask w.t.f. is up with sellers these days.

I've been browsing Leman Russ tanks and people are selling something that retails from GW for $50, so can easily be obtained new for $40 for $30 + 'shipping'... That's just the tank, none of the additional sprue stuffs, painted to someone else's standards and colors, so will need stripping and repainting, and often with badly put together tracks or bits snapped off.

Sellers seem delusional these days on what they are selling and it's worth. These tanks on the auction side usually go for around $15-20 and no more.

And then we have the 'professional' sellers with their raffle ticket lots and prices just short of GW's price, sometimes more expensive than actually buying new from a discounter...

I have been looking at land speeders and I found bargain pricing of £15.00 on one which looked like it had been chucked on a grill and left for a few minutes to get extra melty. I would rather buy direct from GW even.

The delusional sellers seem to be a strong thing nowadays. Why do some people expect someone else to pay full retail price to them instead of buying the item on a discount in pretty much every single online store or many physical FLGS?

"Pro-Painted" is just a warning for you to run away as quickly as possible.

Edit: to be completely fair, I've got a good number of bargains from "buy now" sellers. It happens mostly when the seller doesn't really know the value of what they're selling. In some cases they don't even know what they're selling at all, so the title is incorrect and you may find it by mere chance out there.

 Korinov wrote:
The delusional sellers seem to be a strong thing nowadays. Why do some people expect someone else to pay full retail price to them instead of buying the item on a discount in pretty much every single online store or many physical FLGS?

"Pro-Painted" is just a warning for you to run away as quickly as possible.

Edit: to be completely fair, I've got a good number of bargains from "buy now" sellers. It happens mostly when the seller doesn't really know the value of what they're selling. In some cases they don't even know what they're selling at all, so the title is incorrect and you may find it by mere chance out there.

I've not really seen many issues with the BIN sellers, for the most part I've been able to find a specific item in a condition I want, or a NIB item for a few percentages off RRP. Used items have been more of a sideshow for me. The only issue I can remember is buying a Razorback that looked alright in the images, but turned out to have more than 10 layers of paint on it (I don't even...), and the gun was glued on. Still, at £10 incl. postage, it wasn't too bad.

Just a few recent casual perusals of ebay recently have shown me it's not worth the effort to sort the wheat from the chaff.

Lots of overly-primered, poorly painted minis at retail cost or higher. I'm not one to play with a mini that another man painted, anyhow. I did pick up a few older codecies recently for reading old fluff, but that's all of my ebay-related wargaming purchases for 2015 summed up.

YMMV, IMHO, OMGBBQ, etc.

Trade groups on FB etc seem a much better option these days. I really only use Ebay for bits.

I've had a run on my higher costed gaming items that tend to have the issues. My Sanguinairy Guard army that I've got up has been purchased 3 times and non of them paid and all claimed they didn't purchase it or hit the wrong button.

Outside of that the other 300 items I've sold in the current cull for the last 60 days have been smooth.

 Korinov wrote:
The delusional sellers seem to be a strong thing nowadays. Why do some people expect someone else to pay full retail price to them instead of buying the item on a discount in pretty much every single online store or many physical FLGS?

Many sellers just buy into GW's BS about how much this stuff is worth. Toy soldiers depreciate faster than a new car.

Only issues I get is people not reading.
I make it clear that I won't send outside the UK but regularly have to cancel bids from Italy as no one reads it (size 36 font, first line of text)

More recently one guy has argued with me that because he wants to bid he can, and that he expects me to send it to him.
The fact it's UK only seems to mean little to him.
Infact, after 20 or so abusive messages from the guy he even tried to raise a case as I wouldn't let him bid.

All in all, he got his account frozen, along with its 28% pos. Feed back.


But other than that, all good

An issue ive been having recently with buyers is...Lack of contact. A buyer buys an item I have or wins an auction. I contact them and greet them, tell them thank you for the purchase and tell them I can hold it for a few days without payment and can extend the time if requested. Pretty fair , right?

Well apparently not. Had several buyers not respond after 4-5 msg , giving them warnings even about its been this long, you need to pay/contact me by this time in order to get this item. After about 3-5 days without answer or response , I do a 2nd chance offer. The 2nd buyer pays almost immediately... 1st buyer then pays a few hours after and complains when I tell him the item has been sold to another buyer.

This has happened atleast 4 times in the past 2 months.