The vast majority of my ebay experiences have been great. Nearly every seller I have dealt with there has been excellent, some of which I have gone on to do business with again on multiple occasions. I have had sellers cut me deals on shipping, throw in free items, and tip me off to other auctions I might have missed otherwise.
The most satisfying ebay exchanges are when patience and timing come together to make a great deal. Fortunately for me, most of the items that interest me are of no consequence to others, so many of the things I go after see little bidding activity. There are always Items I search for that show up listed with an insanely high BIN, but whenever I find one for a reasonable price I am reminded of that satisfaction every time those same BIN auctions show up for months, or even years, afterwards.
Most of my bad experiences have not been terrible, but more just minor inconveniences. Mostly they have been simple miscommunications that were easily rectified. Right now I am waiting for a response from a Hong Kong seller that sent me a Robin Mask figure instead of the Ashuraman I ordered. I wonder if someone somewhere is right now looking at my Ashuraman and wondering where the hell their Robin ended up, haha!
Two of my worst ebay experiences involved the same seller, known here on LRG as Biffard.The first time I dealt with him, I won three or four of his M.U.S.C.L.E.-related auctions at one time. His first message to me was to complain about how low of an amount each auction had reached, then messaged me again asking if he could keep one of the items because he wanted to keep it even though he was giving up on collecting. He told me a sob story about needing to buy fertility treatments for his wife, and by this time I was just happy to acquiesce, not only because the rest of the deals I got were decent enough, but also because I had already grown weary of the "I put this up for auction but didn't get it enough for it so I am backing out but don't want to just admit that" rhetoric.
I would be VERY surprised if that item stayed in that seller's collection much longer beyond the moment I agreed to accept a refund.
Fast forward about a year later, same seller comes up with an item that I had been searching high and low for over the years. Remembering the poor experience I had with this person before made me reluctant to even approach him again, but it was something so rare I decided to bite the bullet and try to deal with someone dishonest again.
Needless to say, the negotiation process was not dissimilar: I was told that the seller was once again giving up his collection, and even though he desperately needed to purchase fertility treatments for his wife, he would consider trading for specific items.
Ignoring how ridiculous the latter part of that message was ("we really really want a baby....or a custom purple claw"?) I mentioned that this was similar to the last time we had done business in that he and his wife were still trying to start a family. He responded with "wow, you have a good memory," and never mentioned fertility to me again after that.
In the end he abruptly cut off trade discussions and listed it on ebay. I did end up winning the auction. I overpayed a bit and he did make a decent profit in the end, but the price I ended up paying was not that far off from what I would have offered him when I tried to buy it from him in the first place. He could have saved himself a lot of double talk and not wasted so much of my time if he had just been honest about what he wanted for it up front.
The best part of this story is that less than three months after all this, someone mentioned to me that this guy's wife had just given birth. From fertility treatments to live child birth in less than three months is mothereffing PHENOMENAL! Either their doctor was literally a magician, or I was being lied to. I mean, the third party that heard about the child birth could have been lied to instead of me in this one instance, but either way it is the same person being untruthful.
It is also worth mentioning one more thing I noticed between the time the auction closed and I learned that this guy's wife had cut the length of human gestation by two thirds; about a month after that auction ended, he threw a $1000 bid at a SR figure that happened to come up for auction. So much for giving up on collecting and needing money for medical purposes, eh?
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