New eBay experience.... I want it to make me money, so lower your price

In my experience, it has always been like this.

 

Log in or Sign up to hide this ad.

See, this is why I couldn't be a coin dealer, (besides the horror of having to part with coins). If some buyer said something like this to me in person I would not be very pleasant. Its easy for me to say to be the bigger man online, since you have a chance to walk away and cool off. In person? The buyer may not like to hear what I had to say.

 

I had difficult buyers these days - it's almost absurd.

One was a buyer that was whinging about a tough low grade coin which I haven't seen any sold since I last sold for less than 10 dollars. Buyer was still not happy about it despite telling him that it's not a common coin in any condition.

Another was one sold for a mere dollar which was a bunch lot of coins. Claimed that one coin went missing which I immediately sent a replacement. Guess what I got? A negative. That was sold at a loss as well. Wrote a lengthy message and buyer gave a !@#$ revised 'positive' feedback.

This one was the most absurd - had a man complaining about slow mail which I warned in my listing that international mails can take it's time. Bid on a second lot which I wrote back that if he was to complain about slow mail, he is more than welcome to cancel it or have it registered. He cancelled it and gave a negative feedback. He had his partner to bid on that coin lot and then had it shipped somewhere else. Needless to say, she decided to give all crap excuses of why shipping is slow because of where the stamps are located on the envelope (as if she knew of a previous transaction) despite explaining that international mails can be slow regardless of how the stamps are placed on the envelope. Needless to say, that was another negative which I had to write furiously to ebay that this was not acceptable to have a couple ganging up on a seller.

Needless to say, those are the kind of people that I will not deal with again.

 

gx, in the first scenario, I don't see *that* much of a problem. I would simply have told the buyer that you'll gladly accept a return of the coin for a full refund, since the coin is obviously worth much more than the $10 they paid.

Now, onto the broader issue that medora noted... I think the reason why coin collecting gets targeted as "get rich and flip" is due to advertisements. Similar to how there were lots of postage stamp value advertisements in the 70s/80s, coins (mainly in the form of bullion) are being touted constantly as a way to riches. This, coupled with the "real world"-style auction shows and pawn shows, make people think they can make a ton flipping coins.

The funnier thing is a show called Barter Kings. Basically, the premise (if you haven't heard of it) is these two guys own a store that deals solely in barter (even though they will sell items for cash off-site from the store) and use Craigslist to make their trades. Now, this, coupled with CL already being full of crooks and shadiness, has lead everyone to not want to be the "loser" in a transaction. Case in point, I was selling a register for my friend. I asked $350, expecting to get around $200 (my friend wanted $250-$500, but I told him $150-$200 was likely more reasonable). Someone tells me they'll buy it for $350. I show up at their worksite, as requested, and the guy looks at the machine and offers $175. I call my friend and tell him. He tells me $175 isn't enough. I tell him if it doesn't sell, I'm dropping it back at his house, as I don't want to be responsible for the stupid thing anymore. He says do whatever I think is right.

So, I ask the buyer why he didn't just offer $175 to begin with. He says "If I offered $175, you would have just said no. Now since you're here, you're more likely to sell to me." I did sell it, since I was tired of storing the stupid thing for my friend, but if it were mine, I would have honestly thrown it into the dumpster down the street rather than sell to someone who intentionally was being a jerk about the trade. It's one thing if he came to me (I would have gladly taken a lower price, since he showed he wanted it), but I had to find him AND load the stupid thing into my car.

Anyway, the point of all of this is that it could be ALL hobbies are receiving this type of ludicrous "buy to flip" offers. The funniest, to date, was someone offering to buy a $1200 baseball bat from me for $385 on the premise that I paid $450. I told him "You know what? I'm just going to offer it to the three top collectors of that particular player for my purchase price plus expenses (fees and shipping), since I know they will appreciate it rather than try to flip it." He responded with a bevy of expletives and called me an idiot. True to my word, I sold the bat to the #2 collector of the player. He actually offered me $100 more than I asked, but I told him the story and said I wanted to keep my word.

 

Alright, time to do some blocking....

Just got this message from the same guy after he was the winning bidder on a 7 day auction.......


I need to not take ownership of this item. With all the changes that has been going on, I did not even Know that I was bidding on it.

I am sorry But please do not send it.......................


Thank you....................

- zipmaster6

That's the eBay ID.... do as you will with it.

 

Cancel the auction and block him.

 

Is it just me or did flipping get way more popular in coins with the hof?

 

I don't think coin flipping has gotten way more popular, it has just been brought to the front since the HOF came out. I occasionally flip coins, but I have a few dealers I work with and we always try to come to an agreement that we can both live with, and when we can't we just move along and try again next time. Most of the cash I make though goes right back into my collection anyway, so for me flipping is a way to get nicer coins for my sets than I would be able to otherwise.

 

Each of us has to decide if we "collect" or "flip" and act accordingly. I'm not in it for the money, so I guess that makes me a collector.

 

The best I can tell you is welcome to one of the eccentricities of the coin business. While this phenomenon is nothing new, it has only grown worse in recent years, at least from my own experiences, and this is not on ebay but in person. There will always be those who, for whatever reason, be it entitlement, ignorance, or blind desire to profit, will use such tactics no matter the situation. While I personally can respect one's desire to make money, and in some cases even such upfrontness, knocking the item or whining about their profit margins/risks, or playing "dealer" isn't the way to go about it IMO. More often than not (there are, of course, rare exceptions), at least in my experience, such people are best avoided/ignored in the future as they're usually more trouble than they're worth.

 

I have flipped many coins for a quick profit. I don't see anything wrong with taking advantage of this when you see coins that are under graded or undervalued. But at the same time, I'm building a type set which you can see on my registry set banner, and each coin has it's own write up which speaks to all of the issues you hit on. Plus its like others have said, the market probably wouldn't be as vibrant as it is if there wasn't a lot of buying AND selling.

 

I've run into one guy who buys lesser grade coins, cleans up the image and claims he took the photo on an old cellphone when you confront him. Negative feedback only gets you the same. I took it to eBay & they blocked his account.