eBay negativity?

I'm not sure if there's an option to be automatically notified if a seller lists new coins or specific coins you want. You can follow a seller if you want. When you follow a seller eBay puts them in a list in "your eBay". Then you can just go to your eBay and click on that seller and view their items.

 

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Funny story related to this. I have been hunting a specific coin for around 6 months now. There is an ebay seller that has one listed, and has relisted this coin a minimum of 6x at the same price since I have been watching it. And by watching it, I do not mean using ebay's function, just physically searching for it, and confirming it is the same coin by its serial number (it is NGC graded). The coin is listed at a ridiculous high price with a best offer option. So around 4 months ago, I made a strong offer based off of past sales of this coin in similar condition and a small premium I was willing to pay. The buyer declined. I waited a month, and made another offer with a message stating "this coin has not sold for more than $500 before in any searchable auction history, if you are seriously attempting to sell this coin, please at least make a counter to my offer so that I can see how far apart we are"....I was polite and concise. A day goes by. Offer declined notice is sent. No message. If you are keeping track, I have made 2 offers on this item up to now. Time passes and I am unable to locate another example of this coin at any coin show I attend for months, online auctions, etc. I really want this coin. And this particular one happens to have some positive characteristics about it that fall into the "buy the coin not the slab" category and I am toying with the idea of making one last stronger offer. So a few days ago, I make a third offer, 15% higher than any selling price I can find in this coins history. I get a message saying "you are unable to make an offer on this item because the seller has decided to not accept offers from you" or something along those lines. WHAT?!?! He has not received ANY other offers on the item. Nobody is watching it. I am the only person trying to buy this from him/her. And because I made offers correlated to actual sales prices PLUS a premium, but which fall about 40% below his/her asking price, he blocked me as a problematic buyer. I could not believe it. I have a mid-3-digit, 100% positive rating. I pay within 15 seconds of every won item. PROBLEMATIC BUYER????

So with a little research, I found out a little more on this seller. Apparently they are known as price gouging, sheister salesmen. I guess because I was an educated buyer they knew they would not be able to milk me for almost double the coins true value and didn't want to waste time on my more than fair offers. This is the part of the hobby that takes discipline. As your collection grows, the coins you need get harder to find, less of them in the market, etc. Not allowing oneself to overbid, overpay, etc is crucial. I want that coin. But I can keep searching for another 6 months rather than pay almost $1000 for a $450-$550 coin.

 

tl;dr

 

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One other thing I forgot to say regarding ebay sellers. many times especially with proofs I will ask the seller things like--are there hairlines,etc--things that are difficult to see from a photo. As you get to know certain dealers you can also ask them "their opinion" of a coin. This usually weeds out the wanna be's and the real guys. The dealers I trust always give me their opinion. Others will say--well Ebay doesn't allow the to give a numerical grade,yada yada --I stay away from those. You can also find out how long they have been in the business.

 

Funny story related to this. I have been hunting a specific coin for around 6 months now. There is an ebay seller that has one listed, and has relisted this coin a minimum of 6x at the same price since I have been watching it. And by watching it, I do not mean using ebay's function, just physically searching for it, and confirming it is the same coin by its serial number (it is NGC graded). The coin is listed at a ridiculous high price with a best offer option. So around 4 months ago, I made a strong offer based off of past sales of this coin in similar condition and a small premium I was willing to pay. The buyer declined. I waited a month, and made another offer with a message stating "this coin has not sold for more than $500 before in any searchable auction history, if you are seriously attempting to sell this coin, please at least make a counter to my offer so that I can see how far apart we are"....I was polite and concise. A day goes by. Offer declined notice is sent. No message. If you are keeping track, I have made 2 offers on this item up to now. Time passes and I am unable to locate another example of this coin at any coin show I attend for months, online auctions, etc. I really want this coin. And this particular one happens to have some positive characteristics about it that fall into the "buy the coin not the slab" category and I am toying with the idea of making one last stronger offer. So a few days ago, I make a third offer, 15% higher than any selling price I can find in this coins history. I get a message saying "you are unable to make an offer on this item because the seller has decided to not accept offers from you" or something along those lines. WHAT?!?! He has not received ANY other offers on the item. Nobody is watching it. I am the only person trying to buy this from him/her. And because I made offers correlated to actual sales prices PLUS a premium, but which fall about 40% below his/her asking price, he blocked me as a problematic buyer. I could not believe it. I have a mid-3-digit, 100% positive rating. I pay within 15 seconds of every won item. PROBLEMATIC BUYER????

So with a little research, I found out a little more on this seller. Apparently they are known as price gouging, sheister salesmen. I guess because I was an educated buyer they knew they would not be able to milk me for almost double the coins true value and didn't want to waste time on my more than fair offers. This is the part of the hobby that takes discipline. As your collection grows, the coins you need get harder to find, less of them in the market, etc. Not allowing oneself to overbid, overpay, etc is crucial. I want that coin. But I can keep searching for another 6 months rather than pay almost $1000 for a $450-$550 coin.


Lol--I also got that message from an ebay seller. I was looking at a morgan dollar. They claimed it was an ms66. That particular one with an ms rating of ms66 was about a $2,000 coin--yet this guy was selling it for $250. So I asked him if that was a genuine coin how he could list it that cheap--soon after I got that message that I could no longer bid on his coins--not that I would have wanted to,lol.

 

I block buyers at the first hint of trouble. All day long. If they are problematic before the purchase, I don't want to see what they morph into later.

 

Would you consider my example "problematic"?

 

I can understand this. It happens. I don't mind eBay to buy some coins, etc. I've gotten nice ones from there. But I like to go to coin shows because I can usually find a few really nice dealers who actually care that I am there and either buying or selling. Sometimes I find the coins I like and I get to see them. And simply either pass by the dealers who aren't helpful, etc. and still find something. I haven't been to a show yet where I found each and ever dealer to be reminding me that some stores have this issue. Plus some of the dealers I buy from in person at shows have eBay stores, and some who are on CT here and reputable also sell on eBay.

 

Would or did?

 

Maybe some people just have chronic bad luck. I've had thousands of transactions with Ebay since the year they started, and have never had any issues.

 

Either. If possible, could you explain what part of offering 15% OVER the highest ever realized auction price made me problematic? I am really asking you, as I am afraid I am guilty of some minute faux pas I was unaware of.

 

I like eBay. I've bought many coins from the site. I've only had a few problems when buying and almost all were resolved to my satisfaction.

I'm just very careful before bidding. I read everything just to be sure. Check out feedback, etc...I won't shy away from a seller with some neg. feedback if they are a high volume seller, but I will take the time to review all of it because I know there are also "bad" buyers on eBay.

I am concerned that they are not doing enough to curb counterfeits being sold on the site. On a separate note, did you all catch the news about Alibaba this week?

 

If you're stubborn like me, you go against what everyone else says and see for yourself. The proof is in the pudding and I can confidently say some rolls that I've bought were worth it, but some and most were definitely not.

 

Coins must be a big part of Ebay's volume and total items sold, no (not sure how to check, maybe in their 10-k) ?

I would think that since they no longer have the graders checking coins they would do other things to stop fraud and overpriced coins:



Maybe if people in the Forums on Ebay noted a problem with the coin's authenticity or price (if it was selling for more than 100% of recent market values), it could get flagged ?

We're gonna lose -- or are losing -- lots of people are gonna be turned off from coin collecting.

 

I too like EBAY. Though it is helpful to know your coins (to recognize cleaned items and whizzed coins etc). There is a lot of junk on EBAY, but also great deals. Many of the coin images on EBAY are poor, especially when trying to note details (such as the steps on Jeffersons). I sell on EBAY as well as USA CoinBook,

www.usacoinbook.com

The "CoinBook" site has many dealers and knowledgeable sellers. And GREAT images. Generally good deals are on the CoinBook site, though a number of mintages are not available. It has about 7,500 sellers!!
GARY

 

My main issue with Ebay is they don't do anything regarding sniping and shilling. I was recently bidding on some Bertrand New Zealand folders, put in a reasonable bids only to get sniped at the end.

 

Sniping is a fact of life with eBay. It can get you what you want, but sometimes not. Basically, all sniping is (for a lot of people) is bidding the most you are willing to pay and/or the amount just over what you think others will bid on it and having that bid set to go in on the item within seconds prior to the end of auction. On that, you are presuming your snipe bid will be the last one in before the auction ends, that any previous snipe bids will not match or exceed it, and that anybody not bidding by sniping (i.e., incremental bidders or those who have bid early with their 'max' bid or who bid it up to the point where it sat with no other bidders upping it, as in a bidding war) will be unable to see that they have been exceeded and put in another bid.

Sometimes people snipe because they are seeing that the auction is having some action and they don't want to get into a bidding war incrementally with someone, driving up their price. No harm in self protection that way for the buyer.

But in the end, if you have been outdone with a snipe bid, it simply means you didn't bid as much as someone else was willing to pay for the item and you didn't increase your highest bid to account for a possible snipe at around what your 'highest' bid actually was. If their bid was higher than yours at the end, it really doesn't matter (theoretically) if it was put in at the last second or if it was put in within the first minutes of the listing. But if you are upset because you would have put in a higher bid and didn't on the assumption that had you done that you would chance having someone bid you up past your comfort point in which you would prefer having bought the item at, then you maybe should start finding out your max bid and putting that in as your first and/or your final bid, or putting it in as a snipe bid.

What sniping does (and is probably worthwhile for) is to lessen the known interest in the item so that all parties are more or less blind to who might want the item, and to also lessen the amount this particular item is noticed (except by people really wanting it or having another interest in looking at the auction). So secondarily, it lessens bidding wars.

Sniping is generally (IMO) for the buyer than for the seller, but not always. Sometimes two people who are bidding snipe at the end with high bids to ensure they get the item, not thinking that others will do the same. I sold one item that I thought wasn't worth too much --- to someone for 50.00. The auction had run out with no buyers with a 2.00 starting point. After that ended I got a message asking if I would re-run the auction because the guy had wanted to bid on it, but had problems that prevented him doing so in the last couple days. So I did. It ran with him bidding what I saw at 2.00. At the end, it sold to him for 50.00 because someone else had put in a high bid to try to beat him to it and it also was a high bid. Good for me, but bad for the other guy who had it.

 

You hear a lot of complaints about ebay because, generally speaking, ebay is still considered a seller to buyer interactive market. Where in other auction sites its more of a auction house to buyer market. Buyers also have to consider that if they screw around with an auction house, most likely they would get banned and their names may get around to other auction houses. Where as in ebay they don't care much, they are less strict.

Auction houses also have to protect their own name considering they are selling higher priced items. They don't want to lose potential big spenders in the future, so they have to have great customer service.

Case in point, try calling ebay's customer service, and compare that to a large auction house like Heritage or Spink & Son and see the difference.

 

Ice, not only that but the auction houses themselves and the buyers who use them are so savvy and smart that you would be hard-pressed to sell a counterfeit there. And you won't be able to sell a $75 Morgan for $300 (assuming they handle stuff that is inexpensive compared to other coins).

BTW, I could be wrong on this, but would I be correct to say that most of the counterfeits (all of them ?) and overpriced stuff on Ebay is in non-graded, non-slabbed coins ? If it's graded and slabbed and the numbers check out, then it's just a question of getting a good price, which is the buyer's sole responsibility.