EBAY: BLOCKED USER LIST 54 54

[mattn792]

6 hours ago, RockMyAmadeus said:

I've said this before, but there is an argument to be made for NOT setting a "bottom price" threshold on Buy It Now items. First, it's easy to do when you're listing a couple items; not so easy when listing a couple hundred. Ok, FWP for sure...but the other reason is this: if you reject lowball offers, you'll never know that that person was interested in your item in the first place...and you never know when you just might be able to negotiate that buyer up to where you need to be. 

If your low price threshold on a $200 item is $125, and someone makes a $120 offer...you might have considered that price, but you'll ever know such an offer was ever made. At the very least, you'll know there's someone who is interested.

Something to consider.

On the flip side, using your $125 floor example - if the guy gets auto-rejected at $120 and doesn’t subsequently place a higher offer, would having the opportunity to try and negotiate even be worth it?  Would he even respond to, say, a $165 counter?  With the floor price in place, less potential hassles in my view (unless of course you get my favorite message - “hey bro, what’s the least you’d take for this book?” And...block).

Certainly an argument to be made on both sides, ultimately it comes down to time vs. opportunity.

[Mapleleafvann]

9 hours ago, DeadOne said:

eBayer flotowncomics won an auction of mine just moments ago and immediately sent a cancellation request. I inquired as to why they would wish to cancel and received this response:

"book went over market leading me to believe there might be some shill bidding involved"

An atrocious message on all fronts---blocked.

[RockMyAmadeus]

5 hours ago, mattn792 said:

On the flip side, using your $125 floor example - if the guy gets auto-rejected at $120 and doesn’t subsequently place a higher offer, would having the opportunity to try and negotiate even be worth it?  Would he even respond to, say, a $165 counter?  With the floor price in place, less potential hassles in my view (unless of course you get my favorite message - “hey bro, what’s the least you’d take for this book?” And...block).

Certainly an argument to be made on both sides, ultimately it comes down to time vs. opportunity.

But the argument doesn't work, because both sides aren't equal parties. The seller is trying to sell. Their job is to persuade someone to buy what they have to sell. The buyer has the luxury of choosing any number of sellers or items to have an interest in. The seller does not have the luxury of designating a buyer. 

In other words: the buyer who is interested in the item knows the seller is out there, with the item to sell. The seller, however, has no idea that there's an interested buyer, even if that interest is only a little. You don't know what you don't know, and the opportunity to try to negotiate does have value, even if indirectly. Whether the buyer would respond to a $165 counter or not is, in this case, irrelevant: the value is in knowing that there's someone out there with interest who MIGHT be persuadable. I've sold books after literally years of the buying peck peck pecking at it, seeing what I would sell for. I knew they were out there, and I would occasionally reach out to them and let them know a book was relisted...and, eventually, it resulted in a sale. With auto-reject...I never know they exist.

And...unless I'm mistaken, as eBay keeps tweaking their system...offers that come in are (or used to be) reflected in a listing. That signaled to other potential buyers that there was other interest in the item, even if the one making the offer made a silly lowball. But auto-rejects never show up on the page, so no other bidders would know someone else was interested. 

This may no longer be the case; if not, it's no longer relevant.

[RockMyAmadeus]

14 hours ago, DeadOne said:

eBayer flotowncomics won an auction of mine just moments ago and immediately sent a cancellation request. I inquired as to why they would wish to cancel and received this response:

"book went over market leading me to believe there might be some shill bidding involved"

Not that I believe "flotowncomics", but this is an unfortunate side-effect of the "this sold for more than I wanted to pay...it must have been shill bid!" accusations which have popped up with distressing regularity on social media, including here. People are accusing "shill bidding!!!" even when there's not a stitch of evidence to suggest it, and calling things "shill bid" just because someone else bid them up (which is not shill bidding in and of itself) to a price they didn't like. Worse, many of them think that's what shill bidding is: being bid up to a price they don't like.

Sorry this happened to you. Thanks for the heads up.

[HOTFLIPS]

Here is another one to add, he is more than a deadbeat / loser. He is just a lowlife.

vegas959

Bought something from me back in June, He was going back and forth with me saying the product was damaged. So the usual thing is to file a claim and send pictures, He file a claim but never sent pictures. After the 30 day return policy, he decided to send the items back. (It was 10 Blind Ghostbuster figure boxes). Today, I get the box and ebay automatically refunded him. He sent back a broken light bulb, rusty hinges and old screws. This was a hassle with ebay, I was on the phone for 2 hours, but eBay wound up reversing the decision and awarded me back the money, but this lowlife still got away with it. He simply will find a way to buy something, file a claim and asked to return it, send it back and Ebay sees that the item was returned (tracking number) and awards the buyer. 

Edited August 1, 2018 by HOTFLIPS

[mattn792]

@RockMyAmadeus For the record, I can always see auto rejected offers.  It shows up on the seller page under “review all offers”.  I never take the time to reach out, but the option is there.

[ExNihilo]

On 7/26/2018 at 9:27 PM, DeadOne said:

Here's another one for the list, edge_vintage_collectibles

I purchased a ASM #4 (1st Silk) CGC 9.8 from this seller on June 22nd, just a few moments after the movie announcement came out. I paid immediately. The seller marked the book as shipped but didn't upload any tracking information. No big deal, the feedback for this seller was good. The eBay estimated window of arrival between June 29th and July 11th. Again, no big deal the seller was in Canada and I'm in the US so it's bound to take longer.

After not receiving the item on July 11th, I sent the seller the following message on July 12th: "I was wondering if you have any tracking information for this item. I did not see it listed with eBay or PayPal."
The seller responded just hours later with the following:

 

On July 21st, after still not receiving the book, I sent the seller another message: "If you have returned from vacation, and it's not too much trouble, could you please send the tracking information for this purchase from June 22nd. It has yet to arrive."
On July 22nd the seller responded:

On the evening of July 26th (today), after failing to receive any form of tracking as promised, I filed an eBay dispute for "item not yet received" and was refunded fully within an hours time by the seller.

My only conclusion at this point is that the seller had no intention on sending me the book that was purchased (probably because it had become "hot") and for reasons that I will never fathom, decided to hold my money for as long as possible instead of refunding right away and taking his lumps at that time.

I felt like I had no other choice but to leave negative feedback for this transaction.

edge_vintage_collectibles  I feel sad for you.

 

 

Not saying this is the case, or defending the seller, but I had something shipped from Canada recently.  A tracking number was provided, but it did not show up on the Canada Post or USPS sites.  After a week, I reached out to the seller who called Canada Post and was informed that items entering the US were slowed down by US Customs or some such.  The seller had to go down to the Canada Post office, likely to instill in them that the books needed to get sent urgently.  All in all, the books finally arrived.  It's entirely possible you had a similar situation here.  The lack of communication from the seller might have been the true culprit (though, the one month lag certainly seems longer than warranted).

Edited August 2, 2018 by ExNihilo
Excessive use of "some such" :P

[nrad1968]

6 hours ago, RockMyAmadeus said:

But the argument doesn't work, because both sides aren't equal parties. The seller is trying to sell. Their job is to persuade someone to buy what they have to sell. The buyer has the luxury of choosing any number of sellers or items to have an interest in. The seller does not have the luxury of designating a buyer. 

In other words: the buyer who is interested in the item knows the seller is out there, with the item to sell. The seller, however, has no idea that there's an interested buyer, even if that interest is only a little. You don't know what you don't know, and the opportunity to try to negotiate does have value, even if indirectly. Whether the buyer would respond to a $165 counter or not is, in this case, irrelevant: the value is in knowing that there's someone out there with interest who MIGHT be persuadable. I've sold books after literally years of the buying peck peck pecking at it, seeing what I would sell for. I knew they were out there, and I would occasionally reach out to them and let them know a book was relisted...and, eventually, it resulted in a sale. With auto-reject...I never know they exist.

And...unless I'm mistaken, as eBay keeps tweaking their system...offers that come in are (or used to be) reflected in a listing. That signaled to other potential buyers that there was other interest in the item, even if the one making the offer made a silly lowball. But auto-rejects never show up on the page, so no other bidders would know someone else was interested. 

This may no longer be the case; if not, it's no longer relevant.

I see what you are saying but it really doesn't matter because if the $120 offer person was willing to pay substantially more, then surely they would submit another offer, or two or three to get above the limit....otherwise they would never get near a price that could be agreed upon.  In other words, the person that gets an auto-reject at $120 and does not even re-offer at $125 will never negotiate to $150, $165 etc....and the 1% potential sale opportunity where that might occur is simply not worth the time/hassle of negotiating the 99% of cases that it won't occur.  

[nrad1968]

4 hours ago, HOTFLIPS said:

Here is another one to add, he is more than a deadbeat / loser. He is just a lowlife.

vegas959

Bought something from me back in June, He was going back and forth with me saying the product was damaged. So the usual thing is to file a claim and send pictures, He file a claim but never sent pictures. After the 30 day return policy, he decided to send the items back. (It was 10 Blind Ghostbuster figure boxes). Today, I get the box and ebay automatically refunded him. He sent back a broken light bulb, rusty hinges and old screws. This was a hassle with ebay, I was on the phone for 2 hours, but eBay wound up reversing the decision and awarded me back the money, but this lowlife still got away with it. He simply will find a way to buy something, file a claim and asked to return it, send it back and Ebay sees that the item was returned (tracking number) and awards the buyer. 

this is a huge loophole in the system....a buyer did that to me with a signed comic, requested refund and sent back an unsigned version of the same comic...total scammer and eBay did nothing for me despite calling etc!  a buyer can send back an empty package and the seller will usually be screwed in that instance and in any case will have to put a lot of time and headache into it.  

[01TheDude]

6 hours ago, RockMyAmadeus said:

21 hours ago, DeadOne said:

eBayer flotowncomics won an auction of mine just moments ago and immediately sent a cancellation request. I inquired as to why they would wish to cancel and received this response:

"book went over market leading me to believe there might be some shill bidding involved"

Not that I believe "flotowncomics", but this is an unfortunate side-effect of the "this sold for more than I wanted to pay...it must have been shill bid!" accusations which have popped up with distressing regularity on social media, including here. People are accusing "shill bidding!!!" even when there's not a stitch of evidence to suggest it, and calling things "shill bid" just because someone else bid them up (which is not shill bidding in and of itself) to a price they didn't like. Worse, many of them think that's what shill bidding is: being bid up to a price they don't like.

Sorry this happened to you. Thanks for the heads up.

If you take a close look at the timing of the bids and who is making them, they will show you that the only one bidding the item up was the winning bidder and was done 9 minutes AFTER the second place bidder had made their final single bid. I stand by my assertion that this was not shilling as the buyer claims but thrill bidding and/or buyers remorse. See my post above as I think I outline it pretty well. 

[RockMyAmadeus]

2 hours ago, nrad1968 said:

I see what you are saying but it really doesn't matter because if the $120 offer person was willing to pay substantially more, then surely they would submit another offer, or two or three to get above the limit....otherwise they would never get near a price that could be agreed upon.  In other words, the person that gets an auto-reject at $120 and does not even re-offer at $125 will never negotiate to $150, $165 etc....and the 1% potential sale opportunity where that might occur is simply not worth the time/hassle of negotiating the 99% of cases that it won't occur.  

These are all assumptions that experience has proven to be untrue, with percentages that are entirely pulled from thin air. Circumstances change all the time; the value of items go up and down all the time. What was a "lowball" offer 6 months ago may be quite a fair offer today, and vice versa. You don't know what motivates an individual buyer, any more than you know what motivates an individual seller. Cutting off the opportunity to save a tiny fraction of time here and there is worth reconsidering for many.

That said, however, if you can see who made an offer that was auto-rejected, then there's the opportunity, depending on how motivated one is as a seller, to reach a potential interested party. It's far more of a hassle at that point, and could get the careless into hot water with eBay, but at least the opportunity is available.

It's a perspective that many sellers don't consider. Even if it won't work for them, personally, it's nice to be aware of it.

[ExNihilo]

6 hours ago, HOTFLIPS said:

Here is another one to add, he is more than a deadbeat / loser. He is just a lowlife.

vegas959

Bought something from me back in June, He was going back and forth with me saying the product was damaged. So the usual thing is to file a claim and send pictures, He file a claim but never sent pictures. After the 30 day return policy, he decided to send the items back. (It was 10 Blind Ghostbuster figure boxes). Today, I get the box and ebay automatically refunded him. He sent back a broken light bulb, rusty hinges and old screws. This was a hassle with ebay, I was on the phone for 2 hours, but eBay wound up reversing the decision and awarded me back the money, but this lowlife still got away with it. He simply will find a way to buy something, file a claim and asked to return it, send it back and Ebay sees that the item was returned (tracking number) and awards the buyer. 

That blows.  Thanks for the tip.

On a side note, I really wish eBay made the Blocked User list more accessible.  I shouldn't have to dive so deep into my settings just to get to it.

[01TheDude]

10 hours ago, ExNihilo said:

That blows.  Thanks for the tip.

On a side note, I really wish eBay made the Blocked User list more accessible.  I shouldn't have to dive so deep into my settings just to get to it.

I agree that eBay makes the navigation difficult sometimes

I save links for all the various tasks like this to give me fast access. Here are some for example - just set up a folder for your ebay tasks in your browser.

Blocked

http://offer.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?BidderBlockLogin

Activity log

http://offer.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?BuyerRequirementsActivityLog

Member ID lookup

http://pages.ebay.com/services/forum/feedback-login.html

Bid cancellation

http://offer.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?CancelBidShow

[Mapleleafvann]

2 minutes ago, 01TheDude said:

I save links for all the various tasks like this to give me fast access. Here are some for example - just set up a folder for your ebay tasks in your browser.

Great post with a terrific time saving idea---thanks for sharing!

[Dick Pontoon]

And if you’re not on your usual browser with bookmarks, you can go through Google. Type in “block ebay bidder” and you’re one click away, no need to navigate.

[lonetree]

Here is an eBay seller to watch:  pennyanddimestudios

I picked up a "Death Force #3 - Cover E - Cosplay Exclusive LE 200" for $72 described as NM/M.  The NM/M book arrived with a one inch crease.  I sent the picture to the seller and here was his response.  Needless to say, I will be returning the book:

================================
Hi Brian,

NM/M is a 9.0 - 10.

Defined by CBCS, a 9.0-9.4 can have the following:

It is vibrant with supple pages.
The spine may have a couple of very small stress lines (or more) that break color, as well as a fold or crease in the cover that breaks color.
Minor creasing.
The spine is almost completely flat.
The cover is relatively flat with almost minimal surface wear and the cover inks are generally bright with medium to high reflectivity.
The staples may show some discoloration, but it's not too noticeable on first glance.
The inside pages and covers usually will be off-white/white, but can be cream/off-white with the absence of other defects.

So it is NM condition as defined by this.

Usually I would offer to discount it a bit, but I usually sell these at $100+, and the price of $72 is too close to cost.

However, I would like to offer you something in good faith. So on a future order I will give you 30% off.

Best,
Johnny

 

[bonzai]

Got another one: williamwolf84

Immediately sends me:

"I accidentally hit order button when I was looking at this a few seconds ago. Can you please cancel this order?"

after checking out, and paying for a buy it now listing . He only has 95% feedback and 2 negative feedback from previous sales.

 

[RockMyAmadeus]

9 hours ago, lonetree said:

Here is an eBay seller to watch:  pennyanddimestudios

I picked up a "Death Force #3 - Cover E - Cosplay Exclusive LE 200" for $72 described as NM/M.  The NM/M book arrived with a one inch crease.  I sent the picture to the seller and here was his response.  Needless to say, I will be returning the book:

================================
Hi Brian,

NM/M is a 9.0 - 10.

Defined by CBCS, a 9.0-9.4 can have the following:

It is vibrant with supple pages.
The spine may have a couple of very small stress lines (or more) that break color, as well as a fold or crease in the cover that breaks color.
Minor creasing.
The spine is almost completely flat.
The cover is relatively flat with almost minimal surface wear and the cover inks are generally bright with medium to high reflectivity.
The staples may show some discoloration, but it's not too noticeable on first glance.
The inside pages and covers usually will be off-white/white, but can be cream/off-white with the absence of other defects.

So it is NM condition as defined by this.

Usually I would offer to discount it a bit, but I usually sell these at $100+, and the price of $72 is too close to cost.

However, I would like to offer you something in good faith. So on a future order I will give you 30% off.

Best,
Johnny

 

Rationalized nonsense. Book isn't "NM/M", and that guy doesn't know what he's talking about. "9.0 to 9.4" is NOT "NM/M." His "cost" is not your problem.

Oh, and we're still with the "qualitative" rather than "quantitative" grading "standards", which leaves everything up to interpretation. What does "minor" mean...? What does "almost minimal" mean...? What does "very small" mean...? What does "vibrant" mean...?

CBCS...now, with extra PGX flavor!

 

[Mapleleafvann]

There must be enough buyers out there that will accept this kind of tripe or this character would be hammered with returns and negatives.  I've seen a few of these people out there schlepping books to unsuspecting (read unknowledgeable collectors) buyers....but the ones who really raise red flags to me are the ones that create their own grading methodologies and then justify it after-the-fact.

[RockMyAmadeus]

The real problem...what has always been the real problem...is that the vast, vast majority of comics buyers don't care (nor should they!) about condition the way the condition-sensitive among us do. So, when a seller says "well, gosh, no one else has EVER complained about my grading before!"...they're probably telling the truth. 

When you combine that with the natural disinclination people have to complain, and the natural inclination for a seller to overstate what they have, and you have a situation absolutely perfect for people to send out millions of examples of overgraded junk on an annual basis.

Two things that would have saved me a bucketload of frustration from 1998-2010:

1. Knowledge of pressing. So many damaged books could have been fixed had I just had a press. Lots of unnecessary returns...including some that I let "get away" (a beautiful Batman #92, a TMNT #3 Variant, etc.)...that pressing would have fixed, or even just improved to be what the seller claimed it was in the first place.

2. Keeping firmly in the forefront of my mind at all times that "NM" does not mean "9.8" 

I readily admit that there were some....not all, not most, not even a plurality....but there were some sellers who I held to a higher standard than was warranted. There have been people who have accused me of outright fraud...of getting "partial refunds and then crowing about it" on the eBay comic board...but that was never the case. I was acting in good faith the whole time...I just had unrealistic expectations. 

But mostly, just knowing about pressing would have solved maybe 75-90% of the problems I encountered in those years.

And, of course, this doesn't mean IN THE SLIGHTEST that there were not, and are not, massive quantities of sellers out there who overgrade on a regular, consistent basis. There are, and the large majority of the problem sellers I encountered fell into that.