The EBay thread.
Buying? selling? Tell the Dwellars all about it here.
Sent by thought transference
I'm selling this:
http://pages.ebay.com/link/?nav=item.view&alt=web&id=201353638486
I find I get all hung up on the value and search incessantly for the top price that "my item" could fetch. And then come down with a bump when I see that its twin sells for feck-all. So I pick a starting price with a pin.
Sent by thought transference
You have a good eye when it comes to collecting things.
I'm lucky if I get 99p for anything I sell!
That a cool looking bell. And it's some sort of love token.
Brings Anita Ward's Ring My Bell song to mind.
I like the photos. The bell looks all rustic and old, and having it sitting on the old weathered wood shelf with the stucco looking wall as a background is the perfect setting.
When I was taking pictures of my blu-ray player, I had a difficult time finding a nice, clutter free location to do the shots. I didn't realize just how much crap we have in the house until I tried to get a picture with no crap in it.
My expired listing for the blu-ray player. I tried to make it sound really good without sounding like I was too full of bullshit. But I did say "audiophile delight" in the title. That's some USDA Grade A bullshit right there.
I buy stuff I like, keep it for a while and sell it when I'm fed up with it. I've seen an identical bell listed on a Russian site for around £250, but I doubt I'll get that much. I have another bell of a similar age to list. Should I do it now, or wait until this one has sold?
And yes, Glatt, finding the right background makes a difference. I don't always bother to do it, but that bench is just outside the kitchen door so if it's not raining it's an easy choice.
...
I find I get all hung up on the value and search incessantly for the top price that "my item" could fetch. ...
This.
It's tedious and exhausting:mad:
I'm trying to do that less ... It all started when I Ebayed stuff for my mum. Part of the symptoms of her Parkinson's (with hindsight I see this) was a sort of paranoia of losing her good selling name on Ebay (and fixating on the Perfect Description, honing it for days, nay weeks, and picking the Perfect Time for an auction to end ...) so I was urged to do lots of research on her behalf ... It's a habit I'm trying to divest myself of.
At the end of the day, as with any auction, it depends who is "in the room" at the time.
My dad had a sort of "good luck to 'em" attitude to people picking up lucky bargains and my mum did too, when she was well. I try to think "Well, if it goes for a song and someone can sell it the next day for a fortune, they got lucky." Better than footling about wasting time trying to find EXACTLY the right combination of words to draw in the perfect buyers and never getting rid of anything!
I have another bell of a similar age to list. Should I do it now, or wait until this one has sold?
You should do it now and link the auctions to each other, because anyone interested in the first one might also be interested in the second one.
You could click on the HTML tab while writing the entry, and you'd put something like
<a href="http://www.ebay.com/itm/201353638486">See the listing for my similar bell</a>
OK. I'm always afraid that I'm setting myself up to compete with myself for the one buyer with the money and desire to buy the item ... If that one buyer were me I'd probably decide to buy neither bell if I wanted them both and they were both available at the same time. I'm ornery like that :)
I also think about myself and what I would want to see as a buyer when I'm writing my listing. What else can you go on?
I know what the listings I hate look like. And I try to avoid looking like them, but maybe they are effective and I should copy them?
Listed
bell no 2 and cross referred them to each other.
I've considered listing everything at $1.00, and letting the market work.
My favorite way to buy is to look at the history of a type of item, so I know what it should go for, and then look for a Buy It Now that's at that price or a little lower, and then just buying the damn thing.
My least favorite way is to bid on something where there are 7 days left to the auction. Who wants to wait 7 days for a sale? And then another week for the shipment?
It also annoys me when the going price for an object is, let's say $20, and the market is flooded with people trying to get $30 and there are no bids, so you have to wait for the sane person to list one at the proper price.
There are a number of bells which keep getting relisted at around the USD 130 mark, which makes me think that that's not the price. I like to set an auction of around a week so that people get a chance to see it. I suspect that not everyone is online 24/7 like what I am.
As an EBay virgin, I'm having difficulty comparing EBay with Craigslist, which I have used several times as a buyer, not a seller. What say you?
I was on a huge gem stones kick for a while. I gave them as gifts. eBay has 800 carat emeralds (extremely poor quality but pretty) for under $20.00. :-)
I just posted another one. I re-taught myself some basic HTML to post better and more pictures.
I would use that camera all the time, if I could easily get film for it.
You can order film online very easily and send it out for processing with pre-paid mailers.
Here's another auction I just posted.
I still have a Speedlight SB-15. It's been the filler flash and backup to the more powerful Vivitar 292 on my F2A as well as the primary flash on my FTN when I was working two cameras. The SB-15 is a really nice unit.
I was a little sad putting this stuff up for auction. It's a bunch of really nice equipment. Too bad film is such a hassle and expense. But putting it up for auction was the first time I touched it in a decade.
And
here's one last one for today. My FIL's 35mm camera. It's nice, but not worth much now. Maybe the flash will generate some interest.
I'm monopolizing this thread. Sorry.
I have a question.
I sent the blu-ray player with tracking, but no signature required.
It was delivered on Friday afternoon. The buyer sent me a message this evening claiming he didn't get it.
What happens in this situation? Will ebay make me give the money back?
That, I don't know. I've never been the one taking care of shipping and everything that happens after the listing.
The buyer can't seek restitution from the carrier you chose and employed. The buyer can only seek restitution from you (unless it was covered by the eBay protection plan).
Besides, the buyer needs that money so he can order pizzas to eat while watching movies on his new Blu-ray player that he didn't have to sign for.
I've bought tons of stuff on eBay and never had to sign for any of it. Are you supposed to require a signature?
For any purpose, including eBay sales, it depends on the value of the item, the ability of the carrier to prove (without getting a signature) that they not only delivered it; but, to the right address and how much you can afford to lose for the sake of not inconveniencing yourself; or, your customers with that requirement.
In this kind of situation, buyers can use what sellers call "feedback extortion" to make you act quickly, before you can even contact the carrier and coordinate with eBay, to give a refund or else they'll leave negative feedback and ruin your eBay rating. EBay rules prohibit sellers from leaving negative feedback on buyers so that's no deterrent. Once they leave negative feedback, the onus is on you to prove that they actually got the item in order to get that negative feedback expunged.
Hopefully this buyer isn't corrupt, demanding, or suspicious of you and will give you time to investigate and it will all work out. You may want to start requiring signatures on higher dollar value items so you don't have to sacrifice them to save your ratings and fight with carriers for restitution.
Buyer was apparently out of town for the holiday weekend. On Sunday, he checked the tracking of the package to see when it would arrive, and saw it was left at his door Friday afternoon. He called his son, who went over there, and there was no package. The Post Office delivered it 5 days faster than they said they would.
I care about my 100% feedback, but I'm not sure I care to the tune of $280.
I wonder what the right thing to do is? I held up my end of the transaction, but the buyer has every right to be unhappy. Should I offer to split the loss with him? Give him a full refund, even though I didn't do anything wrong? Take the money and run?
That sux. Damn I dislike some people.
I'd say the really, really, proper thing would be to give the dude his money back, IF you think he's being straight with you.
But, like you, I'm not sure about $280 worth of proper. Offer to go halfsies, if he gets too shitty about it, tell him to take a hike and talk to his neighbors.
You do have reasonable proof it was delivered, after all.
I'm out about $60 on shipping and eBay fees, plus a $250 player. So I'd be eating $310 to give him a full refund. $60 of that is real money.
I think he's being honest, btw.
I'm going to offer to go halfsies on our actual losses, which would mean sending him about $120.
If there is an official method/direction of eBay problem resolution, you should go that route, I would expect?
Like, did he go through the
resolution center to say what happened, or did he just contact you directly? He could very well accept money from you and then open a problem against you...
I'm out about $60 on shipping and eBay fees, plus a $250 player. So I'd be eating $310 to give him a full refund. $60 of that is real money.
I think he's being honest, btw.
I'm going to offer to go halfsies on our actual losses, which would mean sending him about $120.
That's reasonable. If he's on the up & up he should go for that.
Like, did he go through the resolution center to say what happened, or did he just contact you directly? He could very well accept money from you and then open a problem against you...
Very good points. My brief poking around leads me to believe it would be a slam dunk win for me with eBay. I have proof it was delivered.
But I need to research this more.
And according to
this page at eBay, I win. I have proof it was delivered. So any money I give him is because I'm a nice guy.
And crunching the numbers:
Auction total was for $280.77 (which includes shipping)
Paypal took $8.44 and sent me a payment for $272.33
Ebay will take 10% and after I pay I'll have $244.25
Shipping was $31.77 so we're down to $212.48
If I go halfsies with him, he'll get back $106.24 of his $280.77
And I'll get $106.24 for my troubles.
Hopefully a neighbor took it in for him so it wouldn't get stolen and it will still turn up.
If he gives me negative feedback, I'll still have 96.9% positive feedback.
I've seen eBay listings containing seller statements saying that they are not responsible for lost shipments; but, will follow up with the carrier as best they can.
This provides for a good rebuttal in the event of negative feedback. The seller can state that the buyer knew the policy and made the purchase anyway so there's no foul.
BTW, If a seller's rating is below 99.7%, I read the negative and neutral feedbacks. If the seller hasn't successfully rebutted them and done so in a professional tone, I don't buy from that person.
YMMV and perhaps it would be a good subject for a Cellar poll: What percentage of eBay seller positive feedback is your threshold before becoming wary of buying? 100%, 99.9, 99.8, 99.7, 99.6, 99.5, 99, 98, 97, 96, 95, 90, 85, 80, 75, I throw caution to the wind.
The pawn shop is 99.3%. That is a good rating for a pawn shop, because pawn shop items do often have issues that could not be found. A first-hand seller knows everything that's wrong with an item, but a second-hand seller can often only know that it switches on and all the controls are not stuck. Alan is a good packer of items and manages everything very efficiently. I'm sure that's about the best possible in his situation.
The tweaker was running a 98 for a while, he had to learn a few things about how to pack and how to manage the operation. He's actually at 99.2 right now.
Since you like crunching numbers, what's the dollar value of your feedback?
Let's say it's going to cut your returns by 5%. (That seems high, but let's run with it.) Are you planning on selling $2000 worth of items in the next 12 months?
I think that feedback is an imperfect measure of how trustworthy a seller is. The only time I had someone flatly try to scam me they had great feedback.
I would play it by the books. If a week after the official ebay resolution comes down you still have trouble sleeping, donate the $106 to a local charity.
Well, I'm doing a bunch of selling now in large part because my FIL died last Fall and we inherited a lot of his stuff. Our house got extremely cluttered in a short period of time, and we've figured out what stuff we'll be incorporating into our lives, and what stuff is just extra. Some of that extra stuff is worth a lot, and I want to work up to unloading it on eBay.
With that expensive stuff, I'll be much more careful about insuring and requiring signatures, and even building a crate out of plywood and maybe even looking in to expanding foam packing systems.
I expect that if I prepare the packaging before I actually list the auction, photograph it, and explain what the careful shipping will entail, any negative feedback about a missing item won't hurt me much.
For big and heavy stuff, you should really try craigslist first. If no one's interested, you haven't lost anything but time and can post it on eBay. But if you can get someone local who can just come pick it up, it will be way easier for you, and there won't be any fees taken out.
Craigslist isn't really a thing here in the UK
Sent by thought transference
Why, because you guys are too smart to set yourself up for murder or robbery or combinations thereof? Seriously craigslist isn't safe, unless you are meeting in a neutral location and you're willing to stab some one in
the face if need be.
I wonder if it's because people are less willing to travel? Car travel is much more expensive here, what with tax, compulsory insurance, higher petrol prices, limited free parking and Congestion Charges.
If you live in London you'd have to be getting something free to make it worth getting in your car.
Why, because you guys are too smart to set yourself up for murder or robbery or combinations thereof? Seriously craigslist isn't safe, unless you are meeting in a neutral location and you're willing to stab some one in
the face if need be.
Craigslist personals aren't safe, sure. That's weirdos trolling for sex. But selling low-dollar used shit? I mean, if someone wants to rob me, why don't they just rob anyone in a random store parking lot? Would be a lot faster than exchanging three emails and then driving out to my house specifically. Why don't they just pick a house and knock on the door? That person's just as likely to be home and victimizable.
I mean yeah, don't drive out to a backwoods warehouse location at night with your grandmother's diamond ring. But if a guy gives me his home address in the suburbs to sell me a table for under $100 during normal daylight hours? That's safer than eating at Taco Bell.
Taco Bell. Funny. My last Craigslist exchange took place at Denny's, it was for under $100, and it was during normal daylight hours.
eta: I bought a string trimmer. And no, that's not what the kids are calling it these days.
That's safer than eating at Taco Bell.
NEVER go to their home, and for damn sure
NEVER bring them to yours. ALWAYS meet in public places, preferably under video surveillance. Whether from Craig's List, or the classifieds, makes no difference. Nuts is nuts, after all.
I've bought a few things off CL, and since I was meeting a complete stranger, I went armed. Of course, I go most places armed. Because people.
NEVER go to their home, and for damn sure NEVER bring them to yours.
But it makes it so much easier to dispose of the body.
And don't meet them to buy a vintage car off them because they may be tryin' to thieve ya and when it all goes awry they'll murder you, even if they have 'little or no criminal history."
http://abcnews.go.com/US/bodies-vehicle-found-georgia-case-missing-craigslist-car/story?id=28526184Glatt, I would ask him to make a police report and send you a copy before I refunded anything. But then I probably wouldn't refund anything.
So the first bell (which was the second one I listed, but for a shorter "auction" time) just sold for £11.70. I thought that it had some interesting features, notably the original (as far as I could tell) clapper ("It still has a clapper consisting of an iron ring fastened to the bell with a leather strap. I was told when I bought the bell that this type of clapper was found in the bells used for express post horses. If fresh horses were needed at the next posting station the bell was allowed to ring out, but if it was night and no new horses required, a strap was passed through the rings in the clappers preventing the bells from sounding").
The Russian dealer who has one listed for around £250 may have to wait a while to get that amount, as may the sellers of various other similar bells on Ebay at around £35 to £85 ... These are the ones that keep getting re-listed.
Was that the one with the love inscription? Cause I thought that was neat.
Somebody finally bid on one of my cameras. I thought the Mamiya would get a lot of attention, but it's the Nikon that got a bid. And nobody cares about the Minolta. It's been viewed a handful of times, and I bet that was you guys.
yeh, probably. I took a look at them. Emailed my niece about the Mamiya as she's a photo buff.
Was that the one with the love inscription? Cause I thought that was neat ...
No, Glatt - you've still got time to bid on that one for your sweetheart ;)
Emailed my niece about the Mamiya as she's a photo buff.
Thanks. If I were keeping it for myself, I'd replace the seals with
one of these kits.
But instead of chasing film, I'm staying with digital. I just bought a new digital camera with some of my earnings on eBay. It's basically the camera I've had for the last 8 years or so except instead of a 12x zoom, it's a ridiculous 60x zoom, and it's 2.5x the resolution with better noise reduction.
So I can go to a baseball game and take pictures of the faces of the people on the other side of the stadium.
Or move to Boston and steal signals. ;)
Gosh them's some gold-ass warches.
Thanks.
I just bought a new digital camera with some of my earnings on eBay. It's a ridiculous 60x zoom, and it's 2.5x the resolution with better noise reduction.
So I can go to a baseball game and take pictures of the faces of the people on the other side of the stadium.
You're welcome.
Nice! You could also take close up pics of birds ... My brother has a similar camera. He gets some fantastic shots.
Buyer was apparently out of town for the holiday weekend. On Sunday, he checked the tracking of the package to see when it would arrive, and saw it was left at his door Friday afternoon. He called his son, who went over there, and there was no package. The Post Office delivered it 5 days faster than they said they would.
I care about my 100% feedback, but I'm not sure I care to the tune of $280.
I wonder what the right thing to do is? I held up my end of the transaction, but the buyer has every right to be unhappy. Should I offer to split the loss with him? Give him a full refund, even though I didn't do anything wrong? Take the money and run?
Woo hoo!
Buyer just got back into town yesterday (Dude, you should not order expensive shit from eBay if you don't plan to be home for a week) and I received this message and positive feedback from him today.
The package was indeed delivered by USPS on May 22nd, but was moved from the front porch and placed inside our back gate by the delivery person on Saturday. Hence all of the looking in and around the front porch by the family members did not produce the goods!
He found the package!
All my positive and professional communications with him paid off and I got good feedback. :jig:
Great news, Glatt!
My second bell, the older one with the romantic inscription just sold for £73. I'm happy. I still think the other one had the really interesting feature of the original (AFAIK) clapper made with perishable materials, which would have appealed to a couple of collectors, or so I thought.
I'm mulling over what to sell next. We have a "table-top" sale (like an indoor car-boot sale) coming up here next weekend, so I don't want to EBay stuff that might go quicker/better here ...
Sent by thought transference
My new camera came today. Good thing too, because this seller required a signature and I was here to provide it.
It's the Panasonic DMC-FZ70.
I like it. It has a ridiculous zoom. Insane, really.
Both pictures are shot from the exact same spot on the couch.
Zoomed out.
[ATTACH]51828[/ATTACH]
Zoomed in.
[ATTACH]51829[/ATTACH]
I "cheated" a little by cropping the zoomed in picture a bit, but you if you can cheat, you may as well.
Just tell me you had pants on when you took that pic.
Also: The chair by the window? That chair looks comfy. As. A. Mother's. Womb.
Pants? Yes. Well, shorts anyway.
Chair by the window? Bought that 23 years ago. It was the first major purchase my wife and I made together, before we were married even. It's freaking awesome. One of those Scandinavian leather jobs. It was nice being DINKs while it lasted.
Yup. Sold to the lady with the pink hair - I'm moving in with you Glatt, pants or not.
Just tell your lovely wife I'm the new au pair.
So that nice Mamiya C220 I was selling sat there all week with absolutely no bids. There were like 20 people watching it, but no bids. I simply didn't get it. I know I priced it fairly.
Then 90 seconds before the auction was going to end, it got its first bid. Then another bid, then a final bid. Price was driven up by $5 over my starting price.
Don't people have better things to do in their lives than sit around watching auctions so they can try to snipe?
Similar thing with my Nikon. It went days before its first bid. Then it dicked around at $75-80 until a few minutes before the end when it shot up to $150.
People really like the auction experience.
But I've got 3 boxes packed and ready to go for shipment tomorrow. Signature required for delivery. Live and learn.
There are auto-sniper sites or software thingies nowadays that'll do the sniping for you. It's taken all the fun and sport out of watching my items sell, I tell you! :(
Sent by thought transference
Yup. Sold to the lady with the pink hair - I'm moving in with you Glatt, pants or not.
Just tell your lovely wife I'm the new au pair.
Was it the hairy knees that got to you? ;)
Sent by thought transference
... Don't people have better things to do in their lives than sit around watching auctions so they can try to snipe? ...
When I see something on eBay that I'd like for my own use, I know that I may be bidding against others who bid on it:
for their own use
to resell and make a profit
to bid it up for the seller
just to win the bid and default on the payment
Any or all of whom may try to nickel and dime me to death with minimum bid increases ad nauseam.
I decide how much I'm willing to pay, enter that as my maximum bid, and let the eBay system automatically increase my bid by minimum required increments up to my maximum. This addresses the first of the aforementioned categories of competition and can happen early or late in the bidding. It's an automated response that depends on when the others bid.
If I know that I can be online when bidding closes, I prepare my maximum bid a minute before closing and wait until the last 5 seconds to confirm my bid. That addresses the other three categories of competition. I don't give them time to try to nickel and dime me into going higher causing me to lose the item only to see it relisted by the same person; or, someone else who got it to resell it. Either they already have a higher maximum bid entered or they don't and they don't like to go that route.
I've gotten some great buys this way squeaking my bid in just past those of the scavengers who are only buying for resale. It also eliminates bidders working with a seller and internet deadbeats trolling for a win. I was once offered what eBay calls a "Second Chance." It's the seller offering you a chance to buy an item for your last bid after the winning bidder defaults on payment. You don't know if the deadbeat was independent or working with the seller to jack your bid up. I've eliminated that.
If it turns out that someone else had already entered a maximum bid higher than mine, it doesn't matter. I wasn't going to pay any more for the item anyway and it probably went to someone who just wanted it more than me for their own use.
I decide how much I'm willing to pay, enter that as my maximum bid, and let the eBay system automatically increase my bid by minimum required increments up to my maximum.
♪ ♫This is how we do it.♪ ♫
That is
exactly how Popdigr and I do it. Easy peasy.
These are my two
latest listings.
Those cups are very cool. :thumb:
Are you charging enough postage for the cups?
They look like they'd be quite heavy.
They weigh 396g.
Sent by thought transference
I'm slowly working on selling an old German army helmet that my Grandfather let me have after I saw it hanging on a nail in his attic. I first saw it when I was maybe around 10 and I was enthralled with it. A real World War 2 German army helmet! I had asked him about it then, and he didn't know how it had gotten in his attic, or what the story was. That was maybe in 1977-78 or so. Then, in 1985, I was helping him clean junk out of his attic and I asked him about it again. He said I could have it, but didn't know why I would want such a ghoulish item.
So I took it and occasionally would wear it (in my room,) but it mostly stayed in my old trunk.
So recently I've been looking for stuff that is small and valuable and has no real sentimental value to sell on eBay. I remembered this helmet, and pulled it out of the trunk for the first time in about a decade or so.
The leather liner, which was brittle but complete in the 80's is now partially fallen apart, and about a third of it is missing. I must have thrown a piece away when I was wearing it one time. I started to try to research the helmet because I know nothing about them, and I discovered that lots of countries used this style of helmet, and they go for between $30 and $1000 on eBay. After a fair amount of internet reading, I have figured out that it isn't a WW2 helmet. It's a WWI helmet, and it looks like it's German, but it doesn't have a manufacturer's stamp. I'd say it's a size 66 M17 WWI German helmet.
And my mom is in town right now, so I was talking to her about it, and the timeline for it being a WWI helmet makes sense. My great grandfather hated the Germans. So much, that he didn't want my grandfather, who was of recent German descent, to marry his daughter. So they waited for the old guy to die before they got married. So this helmet was my great grandfather's trophy against the Germans he hated. It's a symbol of family dysfunction as well as being a ghoulish trophy taken off a dead soldier in some trench somewhere.
So it's got bad juju. And I think it's good for me to get it out of the house. So now I just want to try to figure out what it's worth so I can hold an appropriate auction. It's all completely original, so I think that works in my favor. It still has a fair amount of paint, with tiny rust specks poking through all over the place and a nice patina. It has the steel liner band and a partial leather liner, which is kinda amazing considering it's almost 100 years old. I wish I knew more about its wartime history, because that seems to jack the price up. But it was brought into the family shortly after WWI. In the 20's or 30's.
IMHO any story that engages with the buyer is a good one, even if you cannot trace it right back to a particular German bonce.
Sent by thought transference
...as well as being a ghoulish trophy taken off a dead soldier in some trench somewhere.
Coulda been picked up off the ground...Just sayin'. Takes some of the 'ghoulish' off it.
Also, the word 'trophy' is often misused in circumstances like these . Some see a trophy as a celebratory item. To others the item is simply a reminder, a spur to memory. Not a souvenir, or keepsake, but a reminder of a significant event in one's life.
The helmet doesn't necessarily have to possess the negative connotations you've ascribed to it, is what I'm trying to say.
Fascinating ... can we see a pic?
Maybe there was a big explosion and a disembodied head with a nice looking helmet on it just plopped down into someone's lap. As long as they gave the head a decent burial, would it be so wrong to keep the helmet? The head didn't need it anymore.
Yeah, I don't know the war history and "ghoulish" is just all about the perspective.
Mostly, I'm thinking of it in these terms so that I realize I don't have any feeling of attachment to it. I loved my grandfather, and I have a lot of his old tools and THOSE really mean something to me. I'd never sell them. I think of him every time I use them. But this thing doesn't connect me to him at all. It's more about my great grandfather, and he didn't even fight in the war, so it's just some thing he collected after the fact. And since nobody alive today ever met him, I have no feelings for him. He sounds like a bit of a jerk though, if he didn't like my grandfather simply for having German parents.
Here are some pictures. The remaining leather liner is very brittle, so I didn't turn the helmet right side up for any of these, because the remaining liner would probably break off and fall out.
Here's the inside.
[ATTACH]51998[/ATTACH]
And this is a detail that shows the metal liner band, meaning it's at least a M17 date wise. And the chin strap hardware looks like hardware that I've only seen in pictures of German helmets. There should be a maker's stamp here, but I can't see one. Either it's really faint, or it's non-existent. If it's non-existant, I think that means it's an Austro-Hungarian helmet, but they have different chin strap hardware in every picture I've seen, so I think it's German.
[ATTACH]51999[/ATTACH]
This detail shot shows "66" stamped in the liner head band. That's the size in cm, and is a little on the large side, but was fairly common.
[ATTACH]52000[/ATTACH]
And here's a side shot. That "frankenstein" lug on the side only appeared on WWI helmets, so this is definitely a WWI M17 or later helmet. Probably German.
[ATTACH]52001[/ATTACH]
This one, on eBay, is almost identical. It just sold for $232 here in the US market. It has no trace of liner, and mine has a little bit of leather liner left. But mine is missing one liner pin, and the visor has a slight bend to it.
Here's a strange thing. The buyer of Bell 1 which sold second for the bigger sum said he wished he'd known about Bell 2 because he'd have bid on it. I did put mutual linkies up like Toad said, and he can't have just put in a maximum bid and then left it because it sat at £27 for the longest time and that wasn't his bid .... I wish he'd known about Bell 2, too. :/
Sent by thought transference
Maybe he's just a ding-a-ling.
But why should I buy your helmet for $99, when I can buy one just like it from that other guy for $898 + nine times the bragging rights at cocktail parties? :haha:
Ebay actually told me that I should offer it for $75. I know they know best, but I couldn't bring myself to go that low for a starting bid.
I gotta stop watching my auctions.
Zero bids on this, but 20 people watching it.
I expect nobody will bid until the final day and then it will shoot up rapidly. Should get around $215 or so for it.
29 people watching it, and I just got my opening bid this morning.
29 watchers! that's got to be good, right?
You're as bad as me, Glatt!
Sent by thought transference
I would think that's good
Hole in the ground, about 50 ft. deep, you get water from it; but, that's not important now. Glatt's helmet has a bid of US $124.59 with a little over 16 hrs. to go.
$130.50. I thought it would get about $220. I probably timed it wrong with the holiday, or maybe I just don't understand the market or the desirability of my item as well as I thought I did.
Still, $130 is $130. Can't complain.
Recently my reading comprehension is all shot to shit.
Limey can attest - I read on a menu in Arran "a bucket of fries" as "a bucket of frogs".
So you can forgive me for thinking you wrote "or maybe I just don't understand the market or the disability of my item".
But as you say, $130 is $130. I wouldn't sneeze at it. Well done.
Ugh.
So I'm at work. And we have a case that I've been told I can "trash" all the old physical exhibits from. I have about a week to get rid of the materials before the space has to be emptied.
There are 70 large document boxes, and each box contains about 5 of these things. Of different types. It's the entire freaking collection.
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So now I need to decide if I want to just trash this stuff as instructed, or if I want to try to get it all home somehow and sell it all off on E-Bay. I don't have room in my house to store 70 boxes easily. They take up a lot of space.
So the pros are that this item I have pictured above sells for around $30-$50 each on eBay. And there are a LOT of them. I could make maybe $3,000-$10,000 selling them all.
The cons are that I need a freaking truck to get them all home. And I would need a place to store them, and it would take, I dunno, an hour to sell each one, once I got a rhythm going. That includes posting the item on eBay, packing it up, shipping it, and then tracking it. So I'd be filling our house with tons of crap and it would take me hundreds and hundreds of hours of work to get rid of all of the stuff.
I'd probably make around $20-$30/hr doing all this.
Is it worth it?
How do you walk away from a potential $10,000? But it's a huge hassle and a ton of work.
Oh, and did I mention there are thousands of these little figurines in blister packs? They go for a buck or two on eBay.
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Ugh!
So what I did was I pulled together a small collection for my son. I figure he would enjoy some.
Do you have to sell them individually?
What address shall I have the truck sent to?
donate them to a thrift store that knows what it's doing
Whose name and extension shall my driver ask for at the desk?
You didn't already throw them out, did you? Give 'em to UT, he's already got the eBay thing down solid.
You didn't already throw them out, did you? Give 'em to UT, he's already got the eBay thing down solid.
this if he can get them. I'd offer to help move them but I can't right now
Rent a van. Rent a storage cube. Hire Tony. Profit.
Maybe a Uhaul 10 footer and pawn shop Steve, and probably pawn shop storage, but basically yeah. As I said to glatt in p.m., it's weird how there isn't a market for this, but it requires all that stuff to come together. You almost need a failing pawn shop to do it all.
A 10 footer is exactly the size you need.
Reminds me of that old Seinfeld episode where they "borrow" a mail truck to drive empties to Michigan to get the 10 cent deposit on them. They paid no deposit, so it was all profit! Hilarity ensued.
And you can't discount the labor involved in selling this stuff. It's not like it's a pile of cash sitting there. It's a big chore sitting there.
You probably can't sell this stuff in big lots because the people buying it don't want to spend that much in one purchase. I think you need bundle it to keep each auction under $60 or so.
I'm sure Steve would know how to handle it, if he wants to take this on.
And you can't discount the labor involved in selling this stuff.
True, but the Pawn shop has the mechanism in place.
You could prolly unload the whole lot at a fair-sized hobby shop.
I think UT and I have a plan.
It will happen and pics will prove it
It turns out those Nissan "sprinter van" style cargo vans can now be rented and I think that is very cool
It turns out those Nissan "sprinter van" style cargo vans can now be rented and I think that is very cool
Yeah, my buddy has a couple of those, he says they drive very nicely.
It's turning out that this could be a really huge benefit for pawn shop Steve. I think he's planning to no longer be at the shop and this could really help him out for a while.
Bad news this morning.
The attorney who told me to trash the stuff has gotten cold feet. The client had paid to buy all this stuff, so he is now going to write a letter to the client to ask what to do with it.
I had found a couple boxes of legal files in with the merchandise and had to relay that information to him, and that opened a can of worms.
Everything is now on hold and up in the air. :(
good job you didn't trash it already then.....
... Too late. Its all gone! WhooosH!!!!
Tried a separate thread, no results, gonna give it one more shot.
We got the entire Harry Potter collection for Christmas. On Blu-Ray.
Not one machine in our house will run a Blu-Ray disc; even the player built into our tv reminded us every time we stuck a disc in 'Blu-Ray is not supported'. We both suck at video games and so the newest gaming machine (only one, I think) in the house is a PS2. The DVD player we bought when the one built into the tv crapped out will not recognize a Blu-Ray disc; we tried with a disc that we got in a DVD comes with the Blu-Ray set. The Harry Potter set is still in its shrinkwrap, but for some reason Amazon has refused to accept it as a trade-in.
The thing is we really, really want this collection, but on DVD. If anyone's willing to swap, great! If anyone's willing to swap but would like something else thrown in from our side to sweeten the deal, we can talk. Hell, if anyone will give me a decent price on a full DVD set (used is FINE if the discs all work!!!) we can attempt to buy, though trading is our first choice since we're a fixed-income household (the reason we never bought the DVD set ourselves).
I'm putting this post on email notify, and I try to check my email at least 3 times a week.
Not one machine in our house will run a Blu-Ray disc; even the player built into our tv reminded us every time we stuck a disc in 'Blu-Ray is not supported'.
You
do realize BluRay is a completely different kind of technology, and will not play in anything that is not expressly designed to play BluRay discs? Requires a different operating system, and a different laser/reader thingy, as compared to a standard old dvd.
BluRay players are cheaper and cheaper these days.
You do realize BluRay is a completely different kind of technology, and will not play in anything that is not expressly designed to play BluRay discs? Requires a different operating system, and a different laser/reader thingy, as compared to a standard old dvd.
yes, she does. Her point was she doesn't have one. any iirc from the previous thread, has no interest in getting one.
Grav, part of the problem is in fact the differing tech and cross-incompatibility.
Giving it a quick casual Google search shows me that even a not-quite-bottom-of-the-line Blu-Ray player goes for at least 10% of my ENTIRE monthly (fixed) income, and that's before the nearly 50% of my monthly income that goes straight to rent and utilities. And there's no guarantee it would be compatible with any of our other machines, including the only TV we own (the one with the dead built-in DVD player). My sweetie is also on a fixed income not much larger than mine and is by nature so non-materialistic that gift shopping for him is now "And what website would you like a gift card for this time?" because there's not much physical stuff he wants.
Getting a new DVD player was easy and under $50. Getting it hooked up and functioning took two and a half hours, three technicians' opinions, and a set of photos from a demonstration by the one of those three techs who actually understood what I was asking. If the built-in player in the TV was not Blu-Ray compatible, it's possible none of the wiring in that particular TV is.
PS3 was suggested on the other thread but appears to be even more expensive than a dedicated Blu-Ray player, and with my hands getting arthritic and my sweetie's increasing difficulty coping with things like on-the-spot decision making, concentration, and his own response to frustration, video games are pretty well right out so it's not like a PS3 would get used for its original purpose. And so I shall continue to hope that someday someone gets the set on DVD but wanted it on Blu-Ray and remembers me sniveling about the formats!
I'm not a contributing member on ANY other forum anywhere any more. I don't use Ebay because of PayPal--I tried to do my Christmas shopping using that combo as I had for several years, but a few years back I tried to log in on PP only to get an email stating that until I sent them a scan of my driver's license, ORIGINAL Social Security card, AND a utility bill with my name and addy on it, I could not transfer funds from my PP-verified decade-old bank account (only one I've had since 2004, still ticking along just fine) into my online PP account. They did NOT offer any guarantee of who would see or have access to the information they demanded, and so I left my PP account sitting with like $2 in it. There aren't many online retailers I trust, particularly when it comes to electronics that I understand poorly at best. So my Internet footprint is pretty tiny--Hell, my Twitter account is basically to keep updated on musicians' tour schedules and only has 2 non-famous people on it out of like 13 I follow total. My options for swapping out this set are pretty limited. I'm actually contemplating checking with the local pawnshop...if I can find a day when I won't ask the owner's wife if her brother is still in jail for identity theft and credit fraud because that could get...awkward.
Maybe you could create a gofundme page to buy yourselves the regular set, noting that the original set will be donated to your local children's hospital or similar?
I will keep the "crowdfunding" option in mind!
As for donation, I'm not sure there's a children's hospital in this state. My county has one and only one hospital, and as far as I know the college city up the road 50 miles or so has two to serve its entire county.
At this point I'm sorely tempted to ask at the next gem club meeting if any of the fossils even know what Blu-Ray is (I'd guess...knowing our fossils...maybe a third) or whether any of the youngers have a player.
The worst part is this was a Christmas gift from my sweetie's mother, who knows he loves HP (she bought him several of the hardbacks over the years too) but forgot we're fixed-income technological troglodytes. They went almost 20 years without even speaking, so complaining to her about a gift seems like just a bad idea, ya know?
We're also already looking at major electronics replacement costs this year.
My desktop tower (which was a gift) was refurbished when I got it, and that'll be 4 years ago in July. It's still working well, but I doubt when I finally have zero functionality in XP that it'll take well to updating the OS. Apparently desktop tower CPUs are almost extinct in the wild, so I may have to try to find a laptop that will run a terabyte external drive!
My terabyte external drive, where my writings and an archive of over 150,000 digital photos are stored, is like 6 years old now. I need to buy a new one and have the local shop clone over all the info, because my machine probably wouldn't like having 2 huge externals plugged in, considering if I forget and leave the current external hooked up, my tower (which has an 80-gig hard drive) locks up very early in the startup process. This requires a power-strip hard restart, so I try very hard to avoid it. Regardless, my external hard drive is getting quite old. It was $160 when I bought it to replace the $120 one that broke down like a month after I bought that. I'm hoping prices are WAY down.
My sweetie's desktop tower is like 6 or 7 years old and starting to give him trouble. Weirdly, the TEN-YEAR-OLD f*kking printer works just great for him! He bought the computer new and it was more than a month's rent on our apartment. He's also looking to go laptop due to the scarcity online of people selling reliable desktops.
My neighbor's the worst--he's gotta replace a Mac laptop that's older than our acquaintance (I've known him since late 2008 or so) with a warped battery (again) and body case. That will also mean an expensive new OS and security program update. And he HATES everything Microsoft or compatible with a vivid and profanity-riddled passion, so there's no talking him back to a cheap little Dell laptop or some such.
I can't do much for the menfolk, and since I may already be staring down an SSI audit, trying to (illegally--I'm on SSI) save up money would be very poorly timed.
Apparently desktop tower CPUs are almost extinct in the wild, so I may have to try to find a laptop that will run a terabyte external drive!
It look like a flat screen monitor. It is the entire desktop inside that screen. Desktop towers were long ago replaced by what is also called All-In-One. A very functional system goes for as little as $350 - from computer companies with better integrity. Its CD-rom may even be Blu-ray.
All-in-One options suck as if any part breaks, the whole thing needs to be repaired/replaced.
Mom&Popdigr gave $29 for their BluRay player, and it has wi-fi. It hooked up with one wire, ok, two if you count the electrical plug. Took all of thirty seconds.
It was statements like this
If the built-in player in the TV was not Blu-Ray compatible, it's possible none of the wiring in that particular TV is.
that made (and make) me think she does not understand the situation as well as she (or us) might.
And I hereby admit that I may not understand the problem, hell, I'm not even sure there
is a problem, so, I'm out.
Carry on.
I don't understand the problem either, but blu-ray players are $40 with free shipping on ebay.
If you have a 30 year old tv though, hooking it up might be a pain. And the cables may not be included.
Also, you can get a non-flatscreen TV at a pawn shop for less than $40, and PayPal did not ask anyone for a scan of their personal documents.
But none of that is relevant. UT has the right of it when it comes to Snakeadelic, and there is a reason she keeps ignoring his question.
so, the biggest part of the deal is that her TV has a limited number of inputs. Old inputs. I'm guessing from my conversations with her that the tv has the jacks for rca style bayonet plugs, and they're for composite input, not component input. finding a bluray player with composite OUT is the tricky part. sure, bluray players are cheap, but she can't also afford a new display/tv.
hdmi out, no help, component, no help... that's the snag.
Also, you can get a non-flatscreen TV at a pawn shop for less than $40, and PayPal did not ask anyone for a scan of their personal documents.
But none of that is relevant. UT has the right of it when it comes to Snakeadelic, and there is a reason she keeps ignoring his question.
Did UT (presumably Undertoad?) ask a question on my original thread that I lost track of and that I failed to answer? I checked this one and did not see any posts from Undertoad after mine about swapping out the movie set, but several before then discussing an unrelated situation with other users.
I had hoped to be doing a better job of appropriate socializing, but from my seat it looks as if I have missed something
major.
Missing Bruce's PM is totally on me. I am terrible at remembering to check that little corner of the screen for notifications.
If my actions and attitudes are causing discord and conflict, please tell me and I will deactivate my account to avoid future incidents. I did NOT become a member here with the intent of annoying people who have a great deal more experience in many areas and widely differing knowledge bases from my own.
UT has asked you at least twice now in other threads to "Tell us about your SSRI experiences." That's the question being referred to.
Nobody is asking you to leave.
Nobody is asking you to leave.
And I'm pretty sure no one wants you to.;)
I was just curious how/if you've worked through your issues medically. I was on them for nearly two decades myself.
I don't take SSRI drugs. Paxil damn near killed me--it ripped up my guts so badly I lost 12 pounds in 18 days. I called someone for medical help when I realized I'd been asleep on the couch, waking only to take meds and attend body functions, for three days waiting to feel better. Antidepressants do not do well for me because my major psych issue is anxiety, not depression. I know people for whom they have worked very well, and people for whom they are total poison, so I maintain no bias against them for anyone but me.
For the last 18 years, the only drug to successfully help with my anxiety has been Diazepam (generic for Valium). I am also in routine one-on-one therapy with a multiply-licensed counselor, who I am actually seeing tomorrow. The person who prescribes me Valium is a different provider (who I see next on 3-7 to explain my recent increased usage, but who refilled my 'scrip 5 weeks before that appointment on my word that it was needed). I am aware that my access to this drug is becoming a very rare case, and am passionately grateful that the prescriber I've worked with on that for like six or seven years now has taken the time to learn that I am not an abuse risk.
There are days when I become so anxious or situationally depressed that I feel I am a danger to myself when left with unfettered access to certain meds. On those days I hand those meds to someone I trust with my life. I do not ask where they are kept, but they are kept until I declare that I am once again trustworthy. All my providers know this, and I make no secret of it in ordinary conversations because the way to dispel myths about mental health is to speak honestly and openly about mental health.
When my therapist called earlier today with a reminder of my appointment tomorrow, I told her about the "after 9 years on SSI you must now prove you are still disabled" paperwork I recently received from Social Security. She burst out laughing at the thought of me being considered able to work, and asked me to bring the paperwork so she could put her professional opinion in writing. I am a VERY LUCKY person to have such support.
As far as leaving, I felt there was a strong chance that I had made and missed some kind of severe social gaffe (probably multiple times). My life history does NOT include a whole lot of social groups explaining why I was suddenly unwelcome, and so my volunteering to leave if it would be for the benefit of the forum came from those memories.
I have the gem club, you guys, 2 life partners, and about a dozen people I consider family (I am genetically related to exactly 1 of them). That is my social interaction circle. I do not make friends easily. It took me 25 years to find the gem club a/k/a My People, and 3 years lurking (and reading the ENTIRE IotD archive, every single post) to decide to join here. I may be underinformed and a raving jerk sometimes, but I really would like to be told if I cause problems. If I'm not told what I did wrong, I can't teach myself not to do it again!
If you have missed
this thread, you might find it interesting. You fit in better here than you might imagine. :)
I make no secret of it in ordinary conversations because the way to dispel myths about mental health is to speak honestly and openly about mental health.
Agreed. Thanks for sharing.
It's wild how certain families of drugs work differently on different brains. Paxil was my SSRI of choice all that time. It worked really well for what it needed to do to me in my 30s, but by the end of my 40s it was no longer appropriate, and I was probably on it for a few years too long.
As far as leaving, I felt there was a strong chance that I had made and missed some kind of severe social gaffe (probably multiple times). My life history does NOT include a whole lot of social groups explaining why I was suddenly unwelcome, and so my volunteering to leave if it would be for the benefit of the forum came from those memories.
No no, I didn't mean to imply you should leave or had been inappropriate. It's only that sometimes mental health problems involve a denial of mental health problems, and sometimes the brain gets so hooked on a single solution to a problem, that it will go through a surprising amount of irrational gymnastics to reject any other solution. I was suspecting this might apply to both Blu-Ray box sets, and medical treatment. :)
I have a fair amount of experience with various mental health issues in both myself and my extended family, so I am not unsympathetic. We're an Oxcarbazepine and Lithium Orotate family, ourselves.
what CF said -we're bemused by your apparent unwillingness to work with any of the solutions/workaround presented to you, and just wondering if the cause is related to other issues you may be dealing with. Then we'd maybe know better how to help. Many of us have experience with similar things. If no-one cared, no-one would answer :)
As far as leaving, I felt there was a strong chance that I had made and missed some kind of severe social gaffe (probably multiple times).
:biglaugha:lol2::mock: Social gaffe? Here? Not a chance.:rotflol: :comfort::hug:
:biglaugha:lol2::mock: Social gaffe? Here? Not a chance.:rotflol: :comfort::hug:
this too. xoB is not the only one here with limited social skills..... ;) if you made a social gaffe, no-one would notice. Unless you posted spamlinks. Here you're more likely to piss people off with a nerd-gaffe. It's like nerve gas for people with stuffy noses.
just curious, what is a social gaffe? Is there meat in it?
Snakeadelic, straight up. You're doing fine here. Seriously.
Well, there can be meat in a social gaffe...dropping food on a celebrity at a party would be considered a gaffe. I'm pretty sure that's the right spelling; if you take off the 'e' at the end I think it's a giant hook used to pull in particularly large fish on commercial boats. Laughing so hard you spit a bunch of half-chewed meat on someone would also be a social gaffe, so yeah, meat could be a factor. :)
And thank you all for both tolerance and reassurance.
Clod, the big problem with Blu-Ray is cost. I think between the two of us we get about $1500 a month, and my sweetie has a payee and must keep receipts and do monthly budget paperwork. It's worth it because the payee is legally responsible for making sure our rent and utilities are paid on time (the bill goes to them, not us), which is a huge relief since we both have occasional memory problems. We're already looking at replacing 2 computers, plus I need to buy a new external drive and pay the local shop to clone the old one onto it before I lose my several thousand pages of creative writing and a photo archive that's over 150,000 images. The external drive will be cheap; the shop help not so much. My tower, however, was not new 4 years ago when my dad up and gave it to me, and it only has an 80-gig hard drive. The fact that it won't even complete startup with my terabyte external connected leads me to suspect it doesn't have the power to copy that much data over even in small bursts. The terabyte drive is rapidly approaching 60% full, and I have over 2,000 images still on my big camera that I need to add to the burden.
Our TV is a "what can we afford" from K-Mart that we bought when our old wide-body developed a severe screen discoloration. That had been, we were warned, the LAST wide-body TV our area stores were stocking. The pawnshop does NOT have the ability to test big electronics--not enough space to arrange the store so the outlets would be accessible--and they do not offer any return or guarantee of functionality on anything. Plus, watching Forensic Files or some such and realizing they were profiling the brother of one of the married-couple owners for identity theft and credit fraud has made the notion of keeping a straight face in that place...unlikely.
Maybe once all the ancient computing equipment (my tower is the second-youngest device in the house behind my sweetie's gotta-replace-the-failing-tablet from last year) is dealt with we can look around for Blu-Ray compatible entertainment electronics, but we'll have to get a ride to the next county north to find a store big enough to carry those electronics. Our K-Mart is the only store in town with major electronics, and it is smaller than both of the grocery stores flanking it. Wal-Mart, Target, and Best Buy are all a 50-mile one-way, and neither of us trust our luck with electronics enough to order big ones online.
So maybe eventually we trade the Blu-Ray Potter set, or maybe eventually we buy the DVD version and regift the Blu-Ray, or maybe we eventually switch out the entertainment system for something a little less 2010-style. Only time will tell.
The pawnshop does NOT have the ability to test big electronics--not enough space to arrange the store so the outlets would be accessible
That's a big problem in pawn shops, since extension cords are simply unavailable in this day and age. They simply cannot be bought.
this too. xoB is not the only one here with limited social skills..... ;) if you made a social gaffe, no-one would notice. Unless you posted spamlinks. Here you're more likely to piss people off with a nerd-gaffe. It's like nerve gas for people with stuffy noses.
I don't like spam, canned or electronic :) I try to only post links I've safely taken my browser to see, and I try to run them through TinyURL to avoid driving people even crazier.
As for a nerd-gaffe, if I KNOW that I KNOW my source material, I'll make a definitive statement. If I have uncertainty, I am more likely to ask questions than pretend to know. The less I lie, sneak, and fake it online, the less my brain has to work to remember who knows what. I'm pretty good with a couple of fandoms, pretty good with gems and geology, and REALLY good with zoology, taxonomy, and domestic animals.
And I used to know a guy who, a decade later, still reminisced about the good old days in his Navy boot camp when he could do the tear gas room as required (mask on, then mask off) and then sneak back in unmasked and hang out in the gas for about ten minutes. He said it was the only time his sinuses were ever clear for more than an hour. Probably shouldn't have settled in Seattle, poor guy--it took more than 5 years here at 4200 or so feet above sea level to get the Seattle mildew and mold out of my sweetie's sinuses. He hardly snores at all any more, and when I met him he snored so bad I was the only girl he'd dated in several YEARS who would even try to sleep over.
That's a big problem in pawn shops, since extension cords are simply unavailable in this day and age. They simply cannot be bought.
The owners of the store do not allow people to bring in their own extension cords, citing "the risk of causing another patron to trip and get injured"--I actually heard them tell someone that with my own ears--and their 'store policy' of no tests, no guarantees. All I've ever bought there so far is DVDs, which they leave in the cases because they're right next to the cash register for easy supervision, and my black leather floor-length coat that I wear for armor when I'm out in the woods and such.
The problem's not the availability of extension cords, it's that the owners have a jackass 'tude :( and the town's so small they're the only pawn shop. We're big enough for 4 grocery stores, 2 liquor stores, a number of bars I haven't bothered to count, and the county's biggest hospital, but only 1 pawn shop.
There's another place that CLAIMS to be a pawn shop, but all they have is pawned jewelry and retail-priced guns, ammo, and shooting accessories. They don't accept or sell electronics. This difficulty in buying locally is 1 down side of non-urban living.
As a pawnbroker I can tell you , that shop has two things.
- extension cords to test things they actually want to test
- bullshit lines to quickly turn away people who want to bring in low-profit piece of shit electronic items that nobody actually wants
There are certain really high-value items that have great value if they just power on, and no value if they don't. Corded tools, for example. Are you going to not take a nice $1000 mitre saw because you didn't have a $1.99 extension cord? No, you're going to FIND a way to plug it in, turn it on, and get your profit.
The shop is under no obligation to tell anyone the truth. You should expect many polite lies out of a pawn shop.
Lastly if you have eBay you have the largest pawn shop ever under your fingertips no matter where you live.
Well, I have personal issues with eBay, but I know people with accounts and sometimes if the timing's right I can get them money before something sells, or pay them back later.
I'm 100% sure that at least half of what I've heard the owners say in that place was, in fact, BS intended to keep the store clear of layabouts and wishful thinkers. Also, ever since that thing with the wife's brother, I don't trust them at all and I am not sure I should be trusted not to say anything tacky about it. Here's the Cliff Notes version...
Shop owner's wife hears me & neighbor talking about how excited we were to get to see Queensryche. Wife says her brother (by name) is now part of the band, and since they suddenly had this like 30-year-old stranger on guitar instead of whoever replaced Chris DeGarmo, we think "meh, maybe plausible but she's probably got the band name wrong." Couple years later, I'm up late one night and have Forensic Files or some other true-crime summary series running. They start talking about a case involving identity theft, credit card fraud, and a man (same name pawnshop lady gave as her brother, first and last) involved with "a singer and band very famous in the 1980s metal scene". Then they show a pic of the now-incarcerated suspect and yup, younger-than-the-band guitarist it is. I now have paranoid suspicions about the two times since then that my bank has been forced to reissue all customer credit and debit cards--not because the bank was hacked, but because it's their policy to cancel and reissue all cards if a local business gets hacked.
So between "your brother was ON TV for being an identity thief and purveyor of credit card fraud" and "Jesus you guys lie to your customers a lot", I'm not entirely...confident...in my own verbal filters. Other than my coat, all I bought there on virtually every trip was DVDs, and now we're down to a few that are either impossible to find used and a few that we were sure we already had.
I have bought fun stuff off eBay in the past, and been outbid on a few really awesome things (I wanted that radio-controlled, walking & roaring on command Godzilla toy just to see the cats react). When circumstances allow I'll doubtless find something else there someday that I simply MUST have (like the $13 Invader Zim theme picture disc vinyl).
Maybe someday I'll get brave enough to contact PayPal about what it will take to re-activate my account functionality. The problem I and several of my acquaintances had with their 'infrequent shopper' information demands is that they cut us off completely from adding money to our PP accounts by the only means routinely available--shifting money from our PayPal-verified checking accounts to our PayPal accounts. We could do literally anything else, but we had nothing to sell to earn PayPal money and our friends and families tend to be as broke as we are. I tried logging in 2 years after they demanded the information I did not wish to give them in the form they said they required and although my login info all still worked, my account was still locked to adding money via my checking account, so I guess I might attempt a new account someday. Especially since someone hacked the 16-year-old (not kidding) Hotmail addy attached and I had to let my Hotmail account die because it wouldn't even let me back in.
For the record, the Harry Potter problem has been solved :D. Awesomely!
Should I give this guy negative feedback?
http://www.ebay.com/itm/GEERTOP-1-person-3-season-20D-Ultralight-Backpacking-Tent-For-Camping-Hiking-NOT-/122660975508?hash=item1c8f29f394:g:YbMAAOSwio1ZmuhD
I bought one of his tents because I wanted a very small lightweight tent. It came without poles (which I expected and is a weight saving feature) and it also came without the pictured orange (or any color) rain fly. A tent is essentially worthless without a rain fly. Rain has a habit of falling through screening, like the roof of the inner tent I did get.
Please tell me if it's reasonable to give him negative feedback for being deceptive. I've never given negative feedback before.
I will have the option to return the inner tent at my expense, I'm sure, but I don't see why I should have to pay a penny when he was deceptive. I just want my rain fly.
did you contact him about it? If not, do that first
Yes. Waiting for a response. I am just wondering what the next step is when he tells me to return it. I'd be willing to return it if he sends a prepaid shipping label at his expense.
so if/when he says you need to pay return shipping, tell him that and if he won't then yes, leave negative feedback. Maybe once you have your refund. Or open up a complaint with ebay. Beest did that and it was pretty effective
Why in the world would you order from a seller in Israel, with so much negative and neutral feedback, who is described as drop shipping from sources in the US (including Amazon)?
Do you just like playing Russian Roulette?
It's right in his feedback that others have had to go to eBay, through the resolution procedure, to get restitution from this seller.
Good luck.
...hopefully he'll just ship you the rain fly
hmm... the listing has now been removed....
99.6% is an excellent rating
The listing still appears for me, monster.
UT, I've said somewhere in here before that I don't use sellers below 99.8% without scrutinizing EVERYTHING. If the seller is drop shipping, that 99.6% rating actually belongs to the shippers. The eBay seller could be worthless if anything goes wrong. Middlemen often bail on customers. I hope that's not the case here.
Did you notice that in the seller's positive feedback there's no item descriptions, only the feedback narrative? Is that something sellers can elect to do?
I dunno.
The item description is
GEERTOP 1-person 3-season 20D Ultralight Backpacking Tent For Camping Hiking NOT
There's the confusion. The word "NOT" means that the entire rest of the description is negated. And it was in all caps! You received, as accurately described, something that was NOT a GEERTOP 1-person 3-season 20D Ultralight Backpacking Tent For Camping Hiking. Judgement for seller.
I did wonder about that "NOT" but when I went back to look again, listing was "removed" Sexo's may be archived? anyhoo, I refound (I think) by searching keywords, and the description here clearly implies to me that the fly is part of the deal.
http://www.ebay.com/itm/GEERTOP-1-person-3-season-20D-Ultralight-Backpacking-Tent-For-Camping-Hiking-NOT-/122660975508?hash=item1c8f29f394:g:YbMAAOSwio1ZmuhDAu contraire monstaire,
The title is:
GEERTOP 1-person 3-season 20D Ultralight Backpacking Tent For Camping Hiking NOT
It says tent. There's nothing about a fly in there.
One of the images includes the instructions for ordering:
[ATTACH]61882[/ATTACH]
The narrative repeats the instructions with an admonishment:
- What you will get is very different when you choose different variation ("Fly", "Fly+Inner tent", "Inner tent"). Please read product description carefully. ...
This was more than enough to make asking questions before buying prudent as to whether it's for only one component of a described system; or, the entire system.
Again, the listing is for a tent and NOT a fly + tent. Glatt's best shot at challenging the description may be in the "3-season" part of it. Is the tent really 3-season without the fly?
hmm thanks, That did not come up for me, but I'm having a whole shitload of crappy computer/interweb issues tonight. Seeing that, I'm inclined to agree. But the original link is still showing as removed for me :/ I give up. I suggest you contact as not happy and if no response, leave negative feedback to the effect of misleading product description....? And maybe see what Ebay mediation has to say about it
sorry
... There's the confusion. The word "NOT" means that the entire rest of the description is negated. ...
I did wonder about that "NOT" ...
This seller has 45,663 items listed (gee, do ya think he might be drop shipping?). I'm sure a few titles and descriptions ended up being hack jobs.
It may be a dead horse to you but certainly not to glatt.
It may be a dead horse to you but certainly not to glatt.
If you read more carefully you would see I've been trying to get back on topic to help glatt, and then you could deduce that the dead horse pertained to the drift blaming him for his situation rather than the predicament. But then what would you have to be snarky about?
so a final attempt, glatt.... I think sexobon is right having seen that descriptive image he posted that didn't come up for me at the link you provided, he could easily claim that the product was as advertised. And the whole "NOT" thing is odd.
That said, it's extremely misleading and the worded description does seem to imply a fly is included rather than being an optional extra, so I think it is worth threatening bringing ebay in if you don't get satisfaction dealing with the seller directly. And definitely leave negative feedback if the seller does not refund with shipping.
If you read more carefully you would see I've been trying to get back on topic to help glatt, and then you could deduce that the dead horse pertained to the drift blaming him for his situation rather than the predicament. But then what would you have to be snarky about?
A picture of beating a dead horse is clearly a shot at sexo, and a pretty piss poor way of getting the thing back on track. Try to put what you're thinking in your post for we clairvoyant deprived.
The whole thing is very misleading. I saw the quote sexobon had pointed out and it was clear to me that the seller had copied and pasted the entire description from elsewhere. There are several other other sellers doing the same thing. I saw the NOT in the title, but assumed that was some indication that the poles were not included.
The item was drop shipped to me. It came directly from Amazon. If you go to Amazon and look up this tent, the whole tent is $100, the inner tent only is $40, and the rain fly only is $70. So this guy made $10 by drop shipping the tent to me for $50. And if I want to make this a whole tent, I can get the fly only from Amazon and thus wind up paying $120 for a $100 tent.
It's not so much the money that bugs me. I think this seller was extremely deceptive. You shouldn't have to read a listing like you a making a deal with Satan, looking for how he is screwing you. I think he deserves my negative feedback for that alone.
On the plus side of all this, I get to try out the tent in my living room now and see if it will work for me, and it only weighs a pound, so return shipping won't be that bad if I decide to let bygones be bygones and pay to ship it back for a refund.
Meanwhile, the seller hasn't responded to me in about 18 hours.
I appreciate everyone's input. I want to be reasonable in my response to this.
... I think this seller was extremely deceptive. You shouldn't have to read a listing like you a making a deal with Satan, looking for how he is screwing you. ...
I've determined for myself that if a seller's rating is below 99.8%, that's precisely what I have to do. Additionally, I:
Determine the seller location versus the item location.
Compare the number of sales to the number of feedbacks.*
Look for feedback on recent purchases of the item I'm interested in.
Read the past 12 months of neutral and negative feedback looking in particular for cases in which buyers had to go to eBay for resolution.
Meanwhile, the seller hasn't responded to me in about 18 hours.
EBay wants you to give the seller several business days to respond.
I appreciate everyone's input. I want to be reasonable in my response to this.
Keep in mind that once the seller cancels a transaction, gives a refund; or, eBay has arbitrated a case, the case is closed and you can no longer leave feedback. *That can skew the seller rating in the seller's favor.
TIP: Since sellers are allowed to change their item descriptions during the course of a listing, it behooves one to take a screenshot of the listing just before making a purchase. It serves as both a memory aid and evidence if a transaction is brought to eBay for arbitration.
FYI: When I find something of interest, that's in new condition, on eBay, I routinely look for it on Amazon and then do a general internet search to see if a listing pops up on the first results page at somewhere like wallmart.com. It's easy to get lulled into the idea that eBay will have the best deal. I've found that to be true only half the time.
If this was the whole tent as advertised, then it would have been the best deal.
Your figures say it would've been half of what others are selling it for and you know that if it sounds too good to be true, it probably isn't.
They're out there waiting for you, thousands of them.
Yeah. Can't argue with you there. But sellers like that, if it was intentional or just ignorance of what he's selling, should be held accountable for their actions.
They can be held accountable; but, you need a strong case to do it. EBay makes their money off sellers, not buyers; so, its definitely caveat emptor. If you have a strong case, eBay will act; though, mostly to protect its own image.
If you leave negative feedback, the seller will be able to leave a response to it. You have to be prepared to be called a dunce for not reading the fine print; or worse, a shyster for trying to get something for nothing (e.g. rain fly with tent that others aren't selling together anywhere near that price point) and trying to take advantage of some poor foreigner just trying to eke out a meager living by providing a shopping convenience to rich Americans.
If you in any way, shape or form can be perceived as having contributed to a misunderstanding (e.g. assumptions on your part - you know what to assume means), leaving neutral feedback and chalking it up to experience may be a better option. The seller can petition eBay to have egregious feedback removed. It's less likely eBay will do that with neutral feedback.
A related situation exists with sellers listing items as NEW in the title; but, USED in the description. They do it as an attention grabber to get people to look at their listing. EBay turns a blind eye to it. There's no quick way to report that kind of abuse (like one would report a post in the Cellar). A prospective buyer has to jump through hoops to report that even though it's a common ploy. In an eBay survey for which I was to rate their overall service on a scale of 1-10, I gave eBay a 5 and commented that it would be the best they'd get until they implemented a one click option to report that seller behavior.
Ebay is like shopping in a second world bazaar. If you haven't done that, you're at a disadvantage.
I am pretty sure I want to return this thing after all. Hopefully it works out.
I set it up in my living room using spring clamps to stretch the floor out and clamp against furniture and stuff.
I knew it was small. That's the whole point. Small and lightweight. But it's probably too small for my 6' 2" height.
If I lie on my stomach, my feet stretch out and my toes tuck down into the corner by the floor.
But if I lie on my back, they push against the screen. In a sleeping bag, they would take up even more space.
And on my back, my face is jammed into the screening.
I can live with this, except if I ever do get a rain fly, the gap between the fly and tent will probably be small enough that I would be pressing against the fly too, and then condensation would get all over my face and feet.
So hopefully I can return it. If not, I am out $50. *shrug*
If not, I am out $50. *shrug*
If not, Glattboy just inherited it!
He can save it for when he's in his 80s and has shrunk a little bit.
Get another tent for people and put [strike]beer[/strike] gear under this one
Get another tent for people and put [strike]beer[/strike] gear under this one
That's normally a great idea. My parents have an old backpacking tent with a broken zipper and the last time I went car camping with them we brought it along with us for gear. Perfect location to stash your folding chairs etc for the night so they don't get covered with dew.
Update:
The seller got back to me over the weekend. We exchanged a few communications, and he requested photos of the item that arrived. I sent them. He agreed to refund my money and sent me a prepaid label to return the item (to Amazon.)
He promises to refund me in full once it arrives. He cautioned that it may take 7 days and to please contact him first before leaving negative feedback.
I dropped the box off in my company's mail room this morning for UPS to pick up later today.
:fingerx:
He's taking advantage of Amazon's liberal return policy to chuck and jive.
I receive two books I didn't order from Amazon. I thought it was a screwup but an outside chance they were a gift. Contacted Amazon, but with no packing slip couldn't find out why I got them. No, don't return them, "consider it a gesture of good will from Amazon". I'm sure restocking would cost more than the books.
Update:
The seller got back to me over the weekend. We exchanged a few communications, and he requested photos of the item that arrived. I sent them. He agreed to refund my money and sent me a prepaid label to return the item (to Amazon.)
He promises to refund me in full once it arrives. He cautioned that it may take 7 days and to please contact him first before leaving negative feedback.
I dropped the box off in my company's mail room this morning for UPS to pick up later today.
:fingerx:
:fingerx: :fingerx: :fingerx:
I just got a full refund! The money in in my PayPal account.
I was still able to leave feedback, and based on the great communication with him and his willingness to resolve the issue, I gave him positive feedback.
So how is this worth his while to drop ship from Amazon?
I paid $49.78 to this seller.
Ebay takes 10%, I believe. So $4.98.
The seller is down to $44.80
Paypal takes 2.9% plus 30 cents for the transaction ($1.74)
The seller is down to $43.06
He bought from Amazon for $39.90.
Free shipping if he had PRIME.
He clears $3.16 on the transaction.
$3.16 to post the item and then go to Amazon and enter my information to have it sent to me. He's currently got something like 50,000 items for sale. Are they computer generated? Did he write a script? Does he do anything other than deal with issues like mine?
If he just wrote a program that does all the work, then I can see it being worthwhile to deal with a handful of issues each day and just collect micropayments all day long on sales that the computer generates for him.
Ebay takes 10%, I believe. So $4.98.
Last time I tried to use EBay, they were charging little nickel and dime charges for all sorts of crap to set up each listing. I don't know if they're still doing that, or if the stuff they charged for was actually useful.
There's a 0.30 "insertion listing fee" when you've listened over 50 items, which is retracted if the item sells. This prevents people from just wildly listing every goddamn thing in the universe.
Are they computer generated? Did he write a script?
There are programs for eBayer types that do that.
I want to know if I am missing out on an easy get rich with minimal effort scheme.
He spent maybe 10 minutes dealing with me, and if he has,let's say, 5 transactions a day go sour, that's still less than an hour a day that he's working. If the rest of it is computer generated then that's easy street for him.
UT's 30 cents a listing comment means that he's going to have to identify items that he expects to sell. I bit on this tent because his listing was deceptive. I knew the correct pricing, but maybe a lot of people out there don't know the correct pricing?
Maybe the better way to get rich is to drop ship from China through AliExpress. and Epacket delivery. Their low prices give a greater profit margin, but the delivery time is much slower.
There's a 0.30 "insertion listing fee" when you've listened over 50 items, which is retracted if the item sells. This prevents people from just wildly listing every goddamn thing in the universe.
It's been years since I've eBayed. Sounds like they've settled down. When I tried, there was a whole menu of fees. I don't remember what they were, but some of them seemed like pretty essential items for a listing, like pictures. I eventually gave up, and sold what I was selling on Amazon, where you could input the ISBN or UPC and get a lovely listing page automatically generated if it was something they sold already.
Anybody had luck taking pictures of stuff and posting on FB Marketplace?
I've got space to store a bunch of stuff.
No listings, no bureaucratic hassle, just show up and bring the cash.
Not aware of FB marketplace. Is it public or just friends? Local ones at that.
I want to know if I am missing out on an easy get rich with minimal effort scheme.
He spent maybe 10 minutes dealing with me, and if he has,let's say, 5 transactions a day go sour, that's still less than an hour a day that he's working. If the rest of it is computer generated then that's easy street for him.
You know that money grubbing attitude got you in this mess in the first place.:p:
There are a lot of people who will take a chance on an item coming from Amazon rather than from an individual they don't know, located someplace but they're not sure where, stemming from the feeling Amazon will somehow intercede if things go south.
That's good if the item is sold and shipped by Amazon; or, at least shipped by Amazon. Otherwise, you can have the same situation with items sold and shipped by some individual via Amazon.
Buying something that's sold and shipped by Amazon is like buying from an eBay seller with 99.8% or better positive feedback. Less than these for either one and it's key is to do in-depth research on the seller. That way it's a calculated risk and you don't have to depend on lucking out as glatt did this time (glad he did).
I've ordered items via eBay shipped from Canada, Australia, and India without incident; but, I did my homework.
Isn't FB Marketplace just Craigslist with a different audience? For what it's worth, I still sell stuff on Craigslist all the time--not always because it's too big to ship, often it's little things that I just don't want to bother shipping.
Does Craigslist work? Are there enough local interested in your stuff?
So far I think I've sold everything I ever tried to sell. Sometimes it took a couple weeks to get a bite, and sometimes I had to re-list it at a lower price than I initially was hoping for, but I'd say I have something actively listed maybe 30% of the time. It's not a place to build a thriving business or anything, but it's great for things that don't donate easily like clothes and toys do.
Just two days ago I sold a giant metal wall clock that was 2.5 feet in diameter. We bought it online and discovered only after hanging it how insanely loud the ticking was. The metal made it resonate. Anyway, I decided after a couple months that I just couldn't take it, but it wasn't worth the effort to repack it, and I think I was probably past any return window anyway. So I posted it on Craigslist for 75% what we paid for it, and 9 days later someone texted me with an offer for half. I said sure. Met him in the parking lot of a grocery store I had to go to that day anyway, and now the thing's out of my house and I took less of a financial hit than I would have by just giving it away.
Having pushed that off my plate, I've now posted my daughter's shoulder rest for her violin that she recently outgrew, with pictures swiped from the manufacturer's website. It's only listed at $15, and I'll probably end up taking $5-$10 for it in the end, but the thirty seconds it took to post it are worth it just to see it go to someone who can use it, instead of in the trash.
Edit to add: I've also found my last two duck egg suppliers through Craigslist.
Is craigslist free for sellers?
On an even more extremely-local level, I gave away our backyard trampoline on the neighborhood site nextdoor.com. I didn't want to disassemble it, so I was hoping to get someone who could literally walk it down the street to their own backyard, and I had easily half a dozen requests for it within a couple hours of posting. If it's cheap enough, people will take anything off your hands.
Is craigslist free for sellers?
Free for everyone. No money involved on the website at all. You have to watch a little more closely for scams, but they're pretty obvious--"diamond rings" listed for $100, just show up in this alley at night with the cash, or "I want to buy your thing, but I have to write a check..." As long as you deal in cash and meet in public it's fine.
Oh yeah--I also found a guy to do some in-person research for me a few months back. Posted an ad offering $50 to any student with access to the library I wanted, and the kid was in touch within 3 hours. He had to trust me to Paypal it, of course, but we chatted on the phone for a few minutes to explain what I wanted, and it was obvious we were both normal, non-scammy folks. Craigslist is awesome.
I've only ever used Craigslist to buy things. Been burned a couple times. Not robbed, just over promised and underdelivered.
Worth noting, two other exceptions to the purchases only history. . . My last two jobs were found by me on Craigslist. Including the current gig.
Craigslist *is* awesome.
Not aware of FB marketplace. Is it public or just friends? Local ones at that.
Public, and it also aggregates results from all buy/sell/trade FB boards you're already on. Yes, I'd use it for local, like come pick up and bring cash --a public "garage sale" where I simply warehouse the goods.
Isn't FB Marketplace just Craigslist with a different audience? For what it's worth, I still sell stuff on Craigslist all the time--not always because it's too big to ship, often it's little things that I just don't want to bother shipping.
It's guess its like Craigslist, but its available as a tab on the application I'm already staring at all day.
How does this scammer make money?
http://www.ebay.com/itm/Big-Agnes-Copper-Spur-HV-UL-1-person-NWT-/263243108703?hash=item3d4a83115f:g:dlsAAOSwtptZ0xOE
Seller is selling a $400 brand new tent for a buy-it-now price of $20. Seller joined Ebay a week ago and has 0 feedback. Seller is in China and says estimated shipping will have the tent arriving in December. Clearly a scam.
Ebay has a money back guarantee. If a buyer were to buy this non-existent tent, the buyer has to jump through some hoops when it doesn't arrive, but should get their money back.
So does the seller just close their account, take the $20 payment, and run from Ebay? I guess what I'm asking is if Ebay is being scammed by the seller or is the buyer is being scammed by the seller? I've seen a bunch of these new Chinese accounts selling super cheap high end stuff and have zero feedback, so its common.
Maybe the item is stolen? Or rather, when they get an order for one, they go steal one?
Why don't you contact Big Agnes and ask them about it? You can say that you wanted to know if their warranty will cover the item sold by this seller to get the conversation going. You can even send them a link to the listing. You might learn something. They might learn something too.
https://support.bigagnes.com/hc/en-usI've only ever used Craigslist to buy things. Been burned a couple times. Not robbed, just over promised and underdelivered.
Worth noting, two other exceptions to the purchases only history. . . My last two jobs were found by me on Craigslist. Including the current gig.
Craigslist *is* awesome.
Craigslist is definitely underestimated by a lot of folks. Not everything is gold, but even on Amazon you can get scammed.
Craigslist is definitely underestimated by a lot of folks. Not everything is gold, but even on Amazon you can get scammed.
totally agree with you
