Negative Feedback On EBay

Feedback has to be left on a case by case basis. For example, an experienced dealer who intentionally tries to pass a harshly cleaned coin as BU, or a fake coin as genuine, deserves a negative But how do you prove intent? On occasion, even the most experienced dealers let a problem coin slip by, and this is especially true of high volume sellers.

 

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Most sellers on eBay aren't experienced dealers. Heck, they aren't even dealers at all! 2 of those negs were for GSC, who gets brought up on this forum frequently. Perhaps the others truly thought they had BU coins? Idk.

 

That's the point... if you don't know how to grade, don't list a grade at all. Then no one can say you overgraded a coin. In fifteen years of selling on eBay, I never once put a grade on a raw coin, but merely presented good photos. If a coin was cleaned, I stated as such... and have yet to have a single return or negative feedback. It's just a matter of how you play the game.

 

I disagree strongly.

Here's a situation I'm facing right now. The seller listed a book of Mercury dimes at $24.99 BIN; looked like it had at least 20-30 dimes in it, so I snagged it. He had another listing for quarters at slightly under melt; grabbed those too. A few minutes later, he re-listed the quarters, and they sold immediately (to someone else).

Three days later, he re-listed the dimes, same photos, at $29.99. Again, they sold within minutes.

He specified a really long shipping time (several weeks), for no apparent reason, but whatever. I waited patiently, and after something like three weeks I got the quarters, but no dimes.

A few days later, someone left positive feedback for the $29.99 dimes auction. Apparently they got the dimes.

I emailed him asking if he'd inadvertently listed the dimes twice and sold to the second buyer. He emailed back saying wait a few more days, and if the dimes didn't show up, he'd give me a refund. (At this point, it's been close to a month.)

From my perspective, he apparently had second thoughts about selling the dimes for $25, and decided to sell them for $5 more -- and did not bother to tell me, or to refund my money. He took his sweet time sending the coins that did arrive (BTW, they were taped to a piece of cardboard), and even though I'll eventually get my money back for the dimes, he never has come clean about them.

Now, exactly what should I say in a positive feedback for this seller? At the very most, I think he deserves a neutral feedback for the quarters (lousy communication, snail-paced shipping, and destructive packaging), and a solid negative for the dimes that he lied about and never shipped. What am I missing?

 

Can't disagree with your opinion on that at all! Relates to the ethics thread, huh?

 

And what differentiates a "dealer" from an "experienced dealer"? What makes someone a dealer as opposed to just a seller or dreck peddler?

Does someone with experience who knowingly sells fluffed up junk on ebay make for an experienced dealer? Does some 13 year old kid claiming to be a dealer make it so? What about the guy spends his days buying and flipping on ebay, claiming everything he sells is a “key, “rare”, etc, etc no matter how common or dreckish the coins may actually be? Does simply having an ebay account and primarily selling coins make one a dealer?

I know a number of gentleman who have been in this business since the Beaver was covering June's towels in turtle dirt, yet they have no problem selling overgraded and/or problem junk at full trends pricing. Being as they obviously are “experienced dealers”, does this automatically make them any better or more trustworthy than some guy who found a few coins in his late father’s belongings and throws them on ebay using descriptors he does not understand? How about a seller such as GSC who (IMO) uses their “experience” not to offer value and quality to their customers, but instead uses what appears to be experience and very impressive imaging skills to, in most cases, snag suckers?

My point with this is that I agree with you to some extent; many of these guys selling coins on ebay are not dealers at all, they’re just sellers. When young, I was fortunate enough to have had mentors who taught me (in this and other areas of life) that just because someone is selling something and making money at it, this does not make them professionals. When it comes to coins, on ebay, online, or in person, the guy who has to fluff up his junk, overgrade, hide problems, etc is not a dealer… he is just a seller no matter how much inventory he moves. To be a true dealer, in my most humble opinion, one must not only possess the necessary knowledge and skill, but actually have a backbone. Even the guy who moves only a few handfuls of high quality, hand picked coins per year while offering a valuable service to his clients/customers deserves the title; not these ebay fools.

As for most of the OP’s sellers, they are just that; nothing more and nothing less. The way a few of these people offer their coins makes it clear that their intent is to snare a sucker, just like the one they did. As for the buyer, and as someone mentioned earlier, he looks to be nothing more than a deal seeker unwilling to pay his dues, and just another fine example of how the deal mentality can backfire. The guys who want everything for free are just as bad as the sellers who fluff their junk; as far as I am concerned, they deserve each other.

 

i keep seeing many of the people on cointalk claim that they are getting deals on ebay that are similar to the book of mercury dimes for $24.99 that you mentioned. i have never seen anything that is close to those types of deals on ebay. after i read your post i checked ebay again (i have searched through many listings, many times before on ebay, i gave up on ebay for a while now, there is just nothing that is a bargin on there.) just to be sure that i did not overlook something. again, i searched. there was nothing close to what you described. some of the sellers are listing 10 mercury dimes for $24.99 or similar. there was an empty mercury dime book (no coins) for a similar price. i am starting to think that all of the claims of the so called deals on ebay, never happened. sorry, that is just what i am seeing.

 

http://www.ebay.com/itm/1924-D-Merc...Individual&hash=item2c71e9ea4c#ht_2166wt_1255
http://www.ebay.com/itm/1938-d-merc...S_Individual&hash=item4ac45480e4#ht_64wt_1255
http://www.ebay.com/itm/LOT-of-TEN-..._Individual&hash=item4175844280#ht_140wt_1255
http://www.ebay.com/itm/Intercept-S...Individual&hash=item1c2f8e8efe#ht_1912wt_1255

 

There are certain strategies to finding the better deals. Ending auctions usually have been driven up to their maximum price, so you won't find too many deals there....

 

I'm starting to think coins776 has a personal vendetta against ebay that must be quenched by calling people out on their good deals and stories...because apparently all the people in this thread are making up stories for no reason other than to lie to him. He must be still angry about that 5 bucks...

 

Should have known we couldn't put one past you...

Seriously, are you expecting such buys to jump up and bite you in the rear? Have you yet considered that there may be more to finding such bargains than simply giving ebay a quick scan? I do not know Jeff personally, but I've been here long enough to know that he puts a lot of time into his searching, so if he can pull down a bargain every now and then, good for him. Perhaps if you did the same instead of complaining and making accusations, you're luck might change.

Take this as you will (and feel free to quote my post as many times as you wish).

 

just for the record, i used to search ebay everyway that i could think of until i realized that there are just no bargins to be found. (but you and the others won't realize that.) why should i continue to spend hours at a time searching for what does not exist? if i have never found any such bargins by now, then there is no reason to think that i ever will. nobody can get bargins that don't exist. i have posted some links to ebay auctions to make my points. now why don't you or anybody else on here post some links to the so called ebay deals (that are being offered right now, not in some unprovable past auctions.) that you and the others claim are real. the problem is that most tend to think in the (agree with the general popular opinions) instead of thinking for themselves and reaching logical conclusions that are based on the facts. almost everything that you have said about me is the opposite of the truth.

 

What if someone lists one tomorrow and you just don't know it, because you say "if I can't find one today, then there's no reason to believe I will find one tomorrow?" The thing about finding bargains is that a lot of people are looking for them, so you need to find them at just the right time before someone buys them up.
As for the "unprovable past auction" part, all you need to do is search completed auctions and see people getting low final bids for otherwise good coins. The examples you post really should have no bearing on the "ebay has no bargains" argument, because I could find someone that lists a common Morgan at $1,000,000 dollars and say the same thing. People can put whatever price they want on items they sell.

There are no "facts" to your argument, because people constantly post about winning coins for cheaper than they could get elsewhere. Or maybe the thousands of members on here that get deals on ebay because they take the time to look are wrong, and you, seemingly the only one who claims that there is absolutely no point to ebay (despite you yourself buying coins from there) is the only one who is correct in this.

You have also obviously forgotten a little thing called "cherrypicking", where people can purchase coins at their normal price, but know that the coin is actually a variety that they can sell as a profit. I have seen it done before, it will continue to be done, because believe it or not, not all coins on ebay are junk or trash.

 

luck has nothing to do with it. if deals do not exist, then they can't be found. it is just that simple. if people on here want to continue to imagine things that are not true, then that is their choice. you don't seem t mind making all types of false accusations about me, and then you say that i am the one makiing the accusations. where did you get the idea that i have only done quick searches on ebay? oh, thats right, you just made it up, like so many of the other things that you have said about me.

 

the things that you just said are not the truth. you refuse to use any logic on this topic. defend ebay as much as you want, spend as much money on ebay as you want and continue to belive things that are false, that is your choice. by the way, everything that i have seen on ebay i can buy somewhere else for a lower price and better quality and service. if someone were to search ebay for the next 30 years, i still don't think that they would find any real bargins.

 

And please let me know what parts of my post "are not the truth", and please provide concrete and logical explanations as to why they are not true. HINT: no linking overpriced coins to try and prove me wrong, because as I said, that has no bearing on the existence of coins on ebay.

Still waiting on you to report back with the 1941 proof set for under $175...any luck finding it yet?

 

Hey, how's this for a bargain? Someone won this nice ASE for $.99+$2 shipping. I highly doubt you can find it for a lower price elsewhere...
http://www.ebay.com/itm/1986-AMERIC...D&orig_cvip=true&rt=nc&_trksid=p2047675.l2557

 

"what if" thinking. that is the same type of thinking that keeps so many people playing the lottery and losing everytime. that is the same type of thinking that keeps buyers running back to ebay, it is about greed. they fix their greedy, beady eyes on an ebay item and they must have it at any price. nothing is ever enough for them. i mean really, what coin (collector) really needs 1,000 1957 washington quarters in low grades for their coin collection? they just buy them because they can.

 

Edit: Not really worth my time.