Never Use Honk Kong again.

[issatree]

Hi to you all,
Approx. 12 Months ago I bought an unused 2002 HP Compaq iPAQ PDA h3850 Pocket pc.
The reason for not being used, I think, was the I Phones appeared.
Anyway, I was after a Battery for this PDA. Found these People in Hong Kong, sounded good, sent all the right numbers, back comes a Battery, no where near the right one or the numbers or the size.
My Friend who was doing this for me, is sick & tired of Ebay, Pay Pal & the rest of it.
Certainly don't live up to their name that's for sure.
So, I've done my Money, & when I finish this I am going to give Ebay & Pay Pal a piece of my mind. Probably fall on deaf ears.
So DON'T BUY FROM ANY HONG KONG STORES, unless you really know what they are about.
I still don't have my Battery, but I do have an unused New Battery going Cheap.

[Wongo]

Sorry to hear about your misfortune. That is the beauty of online shopping I guess.

[damian]

Same here. I paid more on a mobile phone battery because it was supposed to be genuine nokia. Fake and faulty. Paypal/ebay were worse than useless. I paid money to return it to sender and only after I'd posted it back did they all start asking about parcel tracking. So I did my money and the return post.

Ebay are essentially useless on buyer protection and apparently worse if your a seller and things go south. That's why many people have turned away, to gumtree here, craigslist in the us, trademe in nz and alibaba in china.

I have a bunch of things to move in 2013. Some will go on ebay for the auction format, but a lot will go on gumtree. It seems about as effective at finding buyers depending on the item.

It's not a hk disease. There are dodgy sellers and buyers on ebay all over, and it's hard to tell where stuff is coming from. I've had a lot of great experiences buying online over the last 20 years, and a few duds, but I've saved more than I've lost. You need to be careful and just accept the occasional disaster, aggravating though it is.

[Bushmiller]

It can be a bit of a lottery. Some elctronic items can be sus. Items from any significant distance, even in Australia, should be carefully evaluated. I know it is no consolation when a purchase goes bad, but possibly you do have to look at it overall as damian said. I have in the last week received from HK a set of jeweller's loupe's for less than $10 delivered and a large gennou hammer that is hand made for $60. Well pleased with both.

I have been "caught" on ebay but it was normally my fault. "Caveat emptor!"

Regards
Paul

[Durdge39]

There will always be a few flies in the soup as it were. Unfortunate about the lost money, but at least the vast majority of the people are honest. As most say though, you get what you pay for.

Interesting note though, Gumtree is owned by eBay as well. The conglomerate spreads...

[Sir Stinkalot]

Interesting note though, Gumtree is owned by eBay as well. The conglomerate spreads...

There has been a big swing in the past few years. Ebay appears to be trying to go upmarket by pushing out the garage sale type sellers and directing them towards Gumtree. Ebay is pushing more heavily a store based system similar to Amazon where it is focused towards power sellers with a stronger emphasis on buy it now format over the traditional auction.

Gumtree seems to be the place to go now for the second hand, garage sale type items, but now with a buy it now price. I have certainly made more purchases through Gumtree recently than Ebay and the trading post like pricing makes it easier as there is no hanging around for an auction to end. A quick email to confirm or negotiate the price and then it is in the car for a pickup.

The next interesting thing would be to see how long until Gumtree starts to charge for standard listings. They have made it free so far to aid in the transition over from Ebay however it will not be long until they start to charge listing fees.

Of course this has nothing to do with Issatrees battery issue :q

[Ilya]

Sorry to hear about the problems. I had two unlucky ebay purchases last year - one not as described item, and one item that didn't arrive at all. I raised disputes in both cases and PayPal resolved both cases in my favour.

[Grumpy John]

Not meaning to hijack this thread but SWMBO scored a 3 wheel pusher for the upcoming 1st. grandchild from here. (http://au.ziilch.com/categories/anything-else)

[issatree]

Hi Grumpy John,
On finding the pusher on Zilch, did your Lady log in & all that, & did you consider it quite safe.
Yes, It seems Promising, being able to find items.
Thanks for the hint.