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Bad Seller on E-Bay!!!

B

bettablue

Veteran Member
Joined
Feb 21, 2011
Messages
1,647
Location
Eugene, OR
I really hate when an E-Bay seller tries to blame either E-Bay, or PayPal for their own incompitence! I ordered a battery for my newly installed AST Six-Pack Plus card almost a month ago. I paid for the batteries, (Actually, 5 for $1.00) It's not like this is going to break me, but it could if the value of the item were much higher, or ruined because of the lecth of time that's passed... So I messaged the seller; "Some Kind of Battery" or SKB, through E-Bay. SKB responded that they had the wrong address on file.

So I went and did some checking on both E-Bay and PayPal. I could find no address of mine that was missing a postal code, or space number. So OK, I accept SKB's apology and ask them to reship the item.

SKB's response was that they would be happy to send the item again, but only if I pay for the shipping again. That left a sour taste to say the least. So I replied to them with my findings, and asked if it were possible that they simply missed the space number in the original order, to which I get another response from them stating that if I don't want the item, let them know and they'll restock it, but if I choose to not take it, there will be a $2.00 restocking fee. :shock: So in other words, not only would I not get the damned battery, but they were going to charge me an additional $1.00 to put it back on a shelf, plus keep my original shipping charges? Let's see; keep my original purchase price, plus postage/shipping AND charge me more?!?!?! Oh, Hell no!!! The original total was only $5.00, but still... Sounds like someone trying a get rich scheme.

Needless to say, I lost it! I am so glad I wasn't dealing with this idiot in person. I probably would have gotten my sorry wheelchair driving a _ _ thrown in jail! Instead, I contacted PayPal and E-Bay and reported their actions, forwarded all of our correspondences and got E-Bay to refund my purchase price of $1.00 and the shipping cost of $4.00. PayPal is blocking all of their activity against my account. PayPal advised me that it could take a couple of weeks. But in the meantime, I still don't have the battery for my AST Six-Pack Plus. So I ordered another set from a different company, RL Sales. They're charging a bit more for the batteries, but they have a great feedback rating and a long history, so I feel a little safer. And this time, estimated shipping will only take one or two days from Arizona to Las Vegas.

I have only been dealing with PayPal and E-Bay for a relatively short time, certainly less than a year, and this is a first for me. Does this kind of crap happen often with sellers??? The other thing I am impressed with though is the way the folks at PayPal handled the situation. Evidently there has been a lot of problems with this company. They haven't been selling very long, but they have racked up a lot of complaints in a very short time.
 
the only bad experience I've had was when somebody once stole two items from my actual post box. The two missing items were from different sellers and they were sendt about the same time, so I really can't think of any other reason.

Other than that, some issues I have had is that I do have received some items which has not been up to par with the described quality. Most of the time it hasn't been a problem, but you should be aware that a lot of sellers don't really read through (or care about) the requirements for the different quality options. The most common thing is that items in only "fair" or "good" condition are sold as either "very good", "excellent", or "like new". I've usually not made any big deal about it, unless the item is of insuficcient quality to be used for what I bought it for.

Generally most sellers are ok, but it's always a good idea to check the feedback before buying.
 
The AST SixPak Plus uses a standard CR2032 right? You can get these from just about any radio shack or drug store, so why go to E-Bay for it?

That being said, I am glad you got it sorted out, or at least on it's way to being sorted out. The only bad experience I had on E-bay was a long time ago, I purchased a $25 SCSI card that never arrived. The seller was able to produce proof of delivery so I was SOL, and advised to take it up with the post office, suffice to say that it was a very bad experience with them and when I eventually gave up about 2 months later I was out the $25 and about 24 hours of time wasted trying to get the post master to call me back (at one point I was leaving him about 3 messages every day).

So I limit myself to buying things from people that have a 98+ feedback rating, and if they have less than 100 feedbacks then I make a point of reading the negative ones.
 
bettablue said:
I probably would have gotten my sorry wheelchair driving a _ _ thrown in jail! Instead, I contacted PayPal and E-Bay
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::tck tck tck:: 200. I'll take an S. ::There are 2 S':: I'd like to solve the puzzle please. Glad you were able to get it resolved the right way though, let us know how it goes. Hopefully it'll be an easy wash.

Ah, that's what I meant to actually add for a productive side of the comment, no I don't consider that to be common on ebay. In the several purchases I've made but being a buyer since 99 or so I've only had two odd deals but never a complete flop.
 
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I have ordered bulk 2032 and a few other types from Chinese sellers on ebay for next to nothing and never had a problem recieving them. If you use ebay a lot you will find the occassional seller who doesn't like to ship anything if the winning bid was too low, paypal will fix that for you.
 
MikeS said:
5 for a buck at the dollar stores here.
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Ditto. NOT something I'd even consider ordering online -- even price gouged at the shack by the time you tack on shipping it'll still be cheaper.
 
I was thinking of adding dumb buyer to this post too, but decided against it...

Funny that you should say that lutiana. I'm still recouping from some health related issues, so my wife volunteered to get the batteries for me. She went to sevral Radio Shack stores and they all told her they had never head of that battery. So I called several others, yes, they do sell these, but only online. Dumb, but OK. So next, I tried a couple of electronics supply stores and pretty much got the cold shoulder, "No, we don't carry anything that old" That's when I decided to go eith E-Bay.

Now normallly I have had the same experiences with quality, and the like, but I have never been treated like that. Even thinking about it makes my blood pressure raise a point or two. One nice thing though... It looks like E-Bay pulled all of this sellers stuff. There isn't even a reference to them any more. Cool.

lutiana said:
The AST SixPak Plus uses a standard CR2032 right? You can get these from just about any radio shack or drug store, so why go to E-Bay for it?

That being said, I am glad you got it sorted out, or at least on it's way to being sorted out. The only bad experience I had on E-bay was a long time ago, I purchased a $25 SCSI card that never arrived. The seller was able to produce proof of delivery so I was SOL, and advised to take it up with the post office, suffice to say that it was a very bad experience with them and when I eventually gave up about 2 months later I was out the $25 and about 24 hours of time wasted trying to get the post master to call me back (at one point I was leaving him about 3 messages every day).

So I limit myself to buying things from people that have a 98+ feedback rating, and if they have less than 100 feedbacks then I make a point of reading the negative ones.
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barythrin said:
::tck tck tck:: 200. I'll take an S. ::There are 2 S':: I'd like to solve the puzzle please. Glad you were able to get it resolved the right way though, let us know how it goes. Hopefully it'll be an easy wash.

Ah, that's what I meant to actually add for a productive side of the comment, no I don't consider that to be common on ebay. In the several purchases I've made but being a buyer since 99 or so I've only had two odd deals but never a complete flop.
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Lol! That was a good response.

I ended up buying another set of batteries for $1.09 including shipping, from another company. They have already shipped them. And since they're an Southern Cali, I'll probably have them either tomorrow or Monday. Either way, once I do find a local seler, I'll make sure to frequent them.

One thing about Radio Shack, is that they don't carry a lot of things they used to. When they sold out of Tandy, everything went to hell. Even their computer manufacturing was completely abolished. Now they're getting rid of all of their small parts bins. I guess places like Lowes, and Home Depot have taken over a lot of those smalls as we used to call them.

Radio Shack just isn't the place it used to be. That's for sure.
 
I don't see how Radioshack could tell you they've never heard of such a battery. I purchased one from there a week ago!

Glad you got that fiasco over with. The only time I ever got ripped of on Ebay is when I bought an AT&T PC6300. The seller must've wanted to keep the Half height MFM hard drive out of it. When I got it, the front pate of the hard drive was taped to the front of the computer from the inside, and a 3.5in 40mb IDE drive was inside instead. I emailed the seller, showing him the description which stated that it had an MFM hard drive in it. He eventually sent me a Seagate drive.
 
Here's the thing, don't tell them what you need it for. This just confuses the hell out of the guy behind the counter and they will only hear the bits that help them dismiss it. Instead just say you are looking for a 3V flat (coin?) cell battery number 2032. It'll be with the hearing aide batteries and chances are you will need to sift through them yourself.

I bought a battery for my AST card there not too long ago, and I was mistaken it is not a 2032 you are looking for but a 2325.

bettablue said:
I was thinking of adding dumb buyer to this post too, but decided against it...

Funny that you should say that lutiana. I'm still recouping from some health related issues, so my wife volunteered to get the batteries for me. She went to sevral Radio Shack stores and they all told her they had never head of that battery. So I called several others, yes, they do sell these, but only online. Dumb, but OK. So next, I tried a couple of electronics supply stores and pretty much got the cold shoulder, "No, we don't carry anything that old" That's when I decided to go eith E-Bay.

Now normallly I have had the same experiences with quality, and the like, but I have never been treated like that. Even thinking about it makes my blood pressure raise a point or two. One nice thing though... It looks like E-Bay pulled all of this sellers stuff. There isn't even a reference to them any more. Cool.
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lutiana said:
I bought a battery for my AST card there not too long ago, and I was mistaken it is not a 2032 you are looking for but a 2325.
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Geez, I can't believe there's so much ado about a common coin battery. I find these at my local supermarket all the time. :) :)
 
Stone said:
Geez, I can't believe there's so much ado about a common coin battery. I find these at my local supermarket all the time. :) :)
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It just shows that the "local neighborhood" is different in different parts of the world. Things that I find easily here might not be available in your neighborhood, and so on.
 
Unknown_K said:
I have ordered bulk 2032 and a few other types from Chinese sellers on ebay for next to nothing and never had a problem recieving them. If you use ebay a lot you will find the occassional seller who doesn't like to ship anything if the winning bid was too low, paypal will fix that for you.
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i have never had much problem with Chinese sellers either. the only thing that sucks is it seems to take about a minimum of 3weeks for stuff to arrive. i think i have also run into people that did not want to ship stuff because they would have lost money if they did. bought a game for 0.99 with free shipping and needless to say it never showed up and the guy had no problem giving me a refund even though he said he shipped it.
 
FWIW, I've been on ebay since 1998, and have > 1000 purchases from there over the years. I've been screwed twice, for less than $30 total.

What you experienced is more the exception than the rule. Most sellers are upstanding folks - ebay forces them to be, as they'll revoke the seller's account for next to nothing these days. If anything, it's the buyers that screw the sellers more these days...

FWIW, there's only a few places that I can find 2032 cells locally, too - and they run closer to $4 a pop. I usually get them online as well, just because most of the Chinese sellers will sell them to you cheaply and include free shipping to boot! Though, of course, you have to wait a few weeks for them to arrive via slow-boat... :)
 
I don't typically do ebay anything, the only 2 things I've ordered there have arrived. I'm currently waiting for a PCI-e GbE adapter, it should be here sometime this week.

As for CR2032 batteries, they are like $4 each here, so I normally pull them from old Pentium 4s and such as they usually work for what I need them for, have yet to have one die on me.
 
In the local supermarkets they have CR2032 coin batteries available at the checkout.. other types too, but I haven't checked if there are any 2325 there. The 2032 is certainly easy to find here. Maybe this is a temporary phenomenon and I should stock up a bit.

-Tor
 
I have been buying on ebay for more than 12 years and have had a couple of problems with sellers but it amounts to less than 1% of the transactions. That said, I am in the process of filing a claim through ebay for a Mac SE I purchased In December. I won the item for $2.50 and paid the invoice total as soon as the auction closed. The seller refused to send the computer to my APO/FPO address even though the listing showed shipping was by USPS. He insisted it would cost nearly $100 to mail the computer to me. I showed the seller it would cost less than $30 to send a 40 LB package the size of a box for a Mac SE according to the USPS web site Postage calculator. Then the seller said he only ships to continental US addresses so I gave him my family's address in Delaware to ship the Mac. The Mac has never been delivered and now the seller won't respond to emails or contact attempts through the ebay system. I think he decided he could get more for the Mac if he could get me to cancel the purchase so he could re-list it. The Mac has a processor upgrade card installed according to the pictures and I think the seller now thinks he should have gotten more money for the Mac than my winning bid.
 
Yeah, the 2032 is as common as nickels in Vegas, but so far I haven't found a single 2325. The battery that was in my AST card was a BR 2325, and I know the same battery can be found as # CR2325, but damn, there just doesn't seem to be anyone in Vegas who carries them. Now just out of curiosity, will a 2032 work with the AST Six-Pack Plus? Are the polarities the same? Because to be honest, I really don't see much of a difference. They are both 3v lithium cells, and about the same size. So if the 2032 is just slightly smaller, and that's the only difference, then I'll grab one today to test it.

I have to crack the computer open again to install an expansion bay slot guide for the full length AST card any way, so if the battery works, I can be up and running this afternoon during the game.
 
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