How to be streetwise on E-bay.

[JDarvall]

Got any tips for me on using E-bay,,,,cause I'm a complete novice at it.

Still haven't bought anything. Bidded a few times.

Anything serious to worry about ?
How do you know if something you've bidded on has reached a reserve or not ? or don't they tell you. you know, I don't want to bid higher than necessary..

How often are you ripped off ?

Thanks .

[Ivan in Oz]

Aprio,
I'm not big into it but can give you a few tips that I do.

Open an account ONLY for eBay and have little or no money in it. Only Transfer money into it immediatly befory you pay for a won item.

I always contact the seller with a question, generally postage as I get refistered Post for Better items.

ONLY pay into an account, NOT Western Union or the like,
ELSE COD as you pick it up.

Check out their feedback.
Be careful if the item they are selling is VERY :eek: :eek:
different to what the feedback items are.
eg, Dumpster Truck Tyres sold where all the feedback is for Paper Doilies and Knitting :confused: :confused: :mad:
Check out where else the sane/similar item is sold.

I'm looking at some Knives and/or Cleavers on ePay, then found and went to www.everten.com.au much better, and good advice.

Don't give out your eBay name

Careful of eBay lookalikes who want to "Confirm" you account details.

[duckman]

Got any tips for me on using E-bay,,,,cause I'm a complete novice at it.

Still haven't bought anything. Bidded a few times.

Anything serious to worry about ?
How do you know if something you've bidded on has reached a reserve or not ? or don't they tell you. you know, I don't want to bid higher than necessary..

How often are you ripped off ?

Thanks .

Always check the sellers feedback. If he or she has a lot of feedback then looking through it is a PITA. Its really only the negative and neutral feedback that is of interest so I use this free website to filter just the negative and neutral feedback.
http://www.toolhaus.org/cgi-bin/negs

All you have to do is copy and paste the seller's eBay ID and then wait.

If an item has a reserve price, then that will be indicated in their ad. From memory, a message appears near the current price until the reserve has been met.

Wait until the last few seconds before bidding. If you don't then you'll get into a bidding war with others which drives the price up. That's great if you're a seller, no good if you're a bidder.

I do this by "sniping" my bid. That means I use a web based service to bid on my behalf. By default, bids are place 6 seconds before the auction ends. Apart from keeping the price down, it means that you don't have to be in front of your computer when the auction ends in fact your computer doesn't even have to be running and nor do you have to be online. Very handy when auctions end 1) while you're at work 2) during the wee small hours of the morning.

The Auction Sniper I use is here...
http://www.auctionsniper.com/

Your first 3 snipes are free. After that you pay a small percentage of the winning bid. If a snipe goes in, but you don't win the item, you don't pay the sniper. If you decide to use it, I'd appreciate you putting me down, biggles1024 as the referrer. If you do, I get 3 free snipes.

I've been ripped off once. It was a DVD of Apocalypse Now. About $21.00 all up. Realistically, there is no comeback.

I've also bought some fairly expensive items however one, an atic ladder I picked up from the manufacturer, the second, a treadmill was delivered by the seller who runs a retail outlet and the third was a pair of nail guns to replace my old ones. That purchase totalled around $550.00 in round figures, the seller had a really low feedback rating, 6 from memory, but the other items he'd sold plus his emailed communication to me and others gave me the confidence to bid and I'm extremely happy with my purchase.

HTH,

Mark.

[Sir Stinkalot]

Here are my ebay rules:

1. Know the price of the item new. It is often the case that things sell much higher than retail. The cheap $30 M10 turning tools spring to mind often selling for over $50 .... used :eek:

2. Set your limits to what you think is good value, not what other bidders think.

3. Check feedback of the seller .... the best guide that ebay offers.

4. Only spend as much as you are happy to loose. It is never nice to have a sale go bad but if you have limits that you are prepaired to loose it can be ok. If the item is a high price see if you can either pickup or do cash on delivery through Australia Post.

5. If you miss an item too bad it will come up again one day.

6. Never place and even bid. $1.01 beats $1.00 every day.

7. Place you bid near the end of the auction to prevent interest in the auction.

8. Enter your maximum price. Ebay will automatically up your bid by the minimum increment until the auction is over. If somebody bids over your maximum price you miss out .... but after all it is more than you were willing to pay.

9. If there is a reserve it will indicate near the price that reserve has not yet been reached. If the bidding starts at $1.00 and the reserve is $10 you can put in your maximum bid as $15 and it will stop at $10 until somebody bids against you. It will then increase when people bid against you until it reaches your $15 limit and then it will stop.

There are plenty of people with bad ebay experiences but there are also plenty of people who will rip you off away from ebay as well.

[Grunt]

Know how much the item is worth and don't bid above that. I once sold a DVD that I bought at K-Mart for $14 for $26.

I bid as late as possible. I put in my maximum bid with about 45 seconds to go.

Only buy off of people who have excellent ratings and have bought/sold more than 10 things.

[duckman]

Couple of more things.

Be wary of items that have attracted a number of bids from people who have little or zero feedback ratings and have only joined eBay in the previous month. These are often what's known as "shill bidders" and the practice is contrary to eBay rules, but don't expect eBay to act unless the practice is very blatant.

[echnidna]

I do what Sir Stinky says plus.
I don't deal with anyone with any less than about 30 transaction.
I dont buy if the satisfaction score is less than 95% after taking into account the feedback on them. Read all the comments as some people do whinge for the sake of whinging.

[ozwinner]

I got ripped years ago on Ebay.
I bought off a ( insert boomy echo voice here ) Power Seller........
I was at the time buying gold coins as an investment.
I bought $700 of coins from a Melbourne seller, 30 Kms down the road from me.

Waited, waited, 2 MONTHS, no coins.
I asked the seller what gives, told me he will investigate Via Auspost.
1 more week, nothing.
I had paid by Master Card.
Rang the bank and they cancelled the tranaction.
Seller complained to ebay about non paying bidder.
I complained to Ebay and got banned.

I looked on the Perth Mint site for the coins, as they were coming from there.
They hadnt even started to mint them as yet.:mad:

They banned me??:eek:

Have fun.

Al

[E. maculata]

All of the above is great advice, especially not bidding too early as many others will then check out your "bargain", communication is an essentail, if it's something big$$$ I will find "reasons" to email the seller and get a feel for them from the replies, like email addy, personal greetings salutaions and signed by etc, maybe even phone numbers at times
I have in the past, by following the above rules
Bought a brand (superceeded 2 weeks before he got caught with 10 of them) new off dealer $2000 JVC digital video cam for $738 with Aussie warantee, H Norman were still selling them 4 months later for a greatly "reduced" $1699

Job lot#65 plane #220 + # 110 <$50 (Shh none of these buggas here even saw them, listed in wrong category)

heaps more stuff than this over 150 things between me & rest of family

and my latest was $800 racing BMX bike ridden twice (yep checked out & picked up by a mate of mine who is heavily involved in BMX) in perfect nick for $350 on thursday evening.

Never been ripped, have been misleda few times, but always had satisfactory outcomes even on those minor issues, + the federal police now have a dedicated E-fraud squad up & running.

[echnidna]

...... + the federal police now have a dedicated E-fraud squad up & running.

There you are Al, don't bother with complaints to Ebay in future

[ozwinner]

Dont ya just love the way the internet keeps crap hanging around for so long????
http://feedback.ebay.com.au/ws/eBayI...em=-1&frm=2624

Al

[E. maculata]

Al how come they wiped u? did u threaten bodily damage in an email(I probably would've) cause I've seen much worse still registered & the seller themselves had been "NARUED" since.

[ozwinner]

Al how come they wiped u? did u threaten bodily damage in an email(I probably would've) cause I've seen much worse still registered & the seller themselves had been "NARUED" since.

Nah never threatened anyone, all I did was whinge?
I did notice when I returned just then to get the link, that the Power Seller is no longer registered too.

Owhh yeah, just had another thought, I told Ebay to gof()ckthemselves.
Maybe that was it?

Al :confused:

[E. maculata]

Probably not in your nature too but you could've petitioned them for a reason and a second chance, especially since the 3 negs all were from tthe same w#nka, and generally that is only counted once in your tally.
The wife does really well from it & in your line of business I thought it would be an indespensable outlet & maybe even source of goods.

[ozwinner]

Im still registered with Eeeeebay, but under a different name.

I even registered once under George Costansa, just shows you how easy it is for anyone to register under a bodgy, then get your money.

Al