I've just experienced another way in which unscrupulous sellers try to scam the unwary coin or bullion buyer on eBay. Like many here, I troll the eBay listings periodically looking for junk silver that might end up selling at auction below melt. I have a pretty good success rate at this and have never had a problem with any seller until this week when I bid on a won the following auction: 1918-1944 7 pc Mercury Dime Legend Set Circulated P D S (330588743165) My winning bid was $16.05 + $4.00 shipping. While the shipping was a tad on the high side, I was satisfied that the total cost of $20.05 came in below melt for 7 Mercury dimes......or so I thought. The next thing I know, I receive an invoice from the seller - sunshinestatenumismatics - and he has revised the invoice - tacking on another $3.23 to the bill - effectively changing the price of my winning bid AFTER close of auction. Needless to say, I was not amused, I quickly contacted the seller and advised him that it was against the rules to use the invoice revision tool to pad the bill with unauthorized charges. That tool is only supposed to be used to fix problems with shipping charges or for combining invoices - NOT to add to the seller's profit because he didn't like the winning bid price! The seller subsequently sent me a new invoice - deleting the unauthorized surcharge. However, he was not very happy about having been caught with his hand in the cookie jar and he subsequently berated me for stealing "the shirt off of his back," (3 bucks is apparently going to break this guy....), and griped bitterly about me citing eBay rules to him! He then tried to justify his dishonesty by citing his listing description, wherein he had inserted the following illegal language: WARNING: Auctions that do not meet face value AFTER ebay fees for clad coins and paper money, or Metallic Intrinsic Value (Silver, Gold, Copper, Nickel) for precious metal coins, including all coins listed per auction, will be considered NOT SOLD. No exceptions. If you plan on purchasing, please bid realistically and accordingly. Coinflation.com provides up to date values to go by. Thanks and good luck bidding! If you read these terms carefully, what he is trying to do is to run a standard auction as if it were a RESERVE AUCTION without actually paying eBay a fee for a reserve auction. Not only does this violate eBay's fee avoidance policy, but it also is a dishonest attempt to deprive bidders who win his junk silver auctions at below melt of the right to take delivery on the merchandise they won. The bottom line is that if he doesn't get the price he wants - he'll either cancel your winning bid or he'll pad your bill! Pretty slippery guy.... Anyway, after a couple of email exchanges with this gangster, he agreed to send the coins and to only bill me for what I was supposed to be billed, but he is still disgruntled that his little scam didn't work and sees himself as the victim of me compelling him to abide by the rules! Go figure..... The most flummoxing part of this is that this guy had 265 positive feedbacks and no negs in his history, so I can only assume that he had been getting away with this scam for some time now - no doubt cancelling auction after auction that did not provide him with the profit level he thought he deserved. Without question, I should NEG this guy for this, but since he quickly rescinded the charge and shipped the coins I told him I would not NEG him if he completes the transaction with no further shenanigans. Nonetheless, I wanted to warn the community about this dishonest tactic he is using. No doubt, there are others who try to use clever statements in their listing description to circumvent eBay's auction rules - so it pays to read the entire listing closely and then make up your own mind if you want to deal with someone who operates in this manner. So - a word to the wise - CHECK YOUR INVOICES - especially if you win junk silver at below melt value - because some dishonest sellers will try to add unauthorized charges to them to steal your deal.
wow...I don't think ebay would appreciate his tactics. That account might not last long if he keeps that up. Thanks for the warning!
This guy should be mad at ebay if anything, not you. Ive had things sell for less than what they are worth all the time on feebay, and Im a toprated powerseller. Its really expected when you list starting at .99 I really think ebay lowers visibility on items sometimes? I would be mad too if I was this guy...but I would never take it out on the buyer. One time when I first started selling my Dog the Bounty Hunter autographed photo sold for like 2.50 I basically told the buyer he was not going to get the auto for 2.50 because ebay had robbed all my visibility. He totally understood and offered me like $100!! But for $3..thats just stupid. I would consider that a fee for a great feedback and future sales. Teach that fool a lesson! neg that sucka
At one point I told this seller that if he has a hard time with the concept of something selling for a price he deems "too low" that he should simply use the reserve auction feature or sell his items as BIN's. I'm sure he did not care for that advice because buyers tend to shy away from those types of listings because there are no bargains to be found and because he, as the seller, would incur listing fees for them. I also told him that I too am a seller on eBay and asked him if he honestly believed he was the only seller who'd ever lost money on an auction? He never answered that question. Instead, the guy acted like he was being uniquely persecuted or something by me for insisting that he honor the ending auction price. It was surreal.... You know, I once sold over $100.00 worth of luxury bedding items on ebay for the grand sum of $0.99 when the auction ended without competitive bidding. Nevertheless, I shipped promptly - gave my buyer positive feedback for a good transaction - and did not rain on her parade with sour grapes about the low price I received. Here's my logic: I took the risk of a loss hoping that a bidding war would yield a good price. No bidding war developed and the lady who won the auction ended up being the sole bidder. Sure I was disappointed, but I did not blame the buyer, who I am sure was elated at the super bargain she had scored. Why should I steal her joy just because I rolled the dice and lost? I figure that if you are going to offer items below market value at auction hoping for a big score in a bidding war, then you must also be perfectly willing to allow a buyer to make a big score by getting the item with a really low bid price. It's only fair.
Two questions - did you read his warning before bidding, and if so, what did you expect that he would want you to pay? I agree that this is a bit deceptive but he was clear as to what he expected to sell for. Since this is deceptive, have you reported it to ebay to protect future bidders of his auctions? I must be missing something here. If you listed something for $2.50 and it sold for that amount, why would you refuse to honor the sale? And how did ebay "rob all your visibility?"
I've been buying and selling on eBay since 1999 and have had some pretty cool things happen through the site over the years. It is a useful tool for sure. With that said, I have seen its steadily decline over the years and it has lost the respect and reputation it once had. Although I currently have a 100% pos rating today, I am less worried about protecting that and leave NEG feedback whenever I need to. I don't care if someone leaves retaliatory feedback as a 98% is pretty common and we all know that if you use the internet enough you will get a weirdo sometimes. We have all done an eBay transaction by now and should know how it works, sheesh and after a year Negs fall off anyway.
I won't fib - I didn't scroll far enough down to see his tricky listing language until I revisited the listing to look it over after he tried to argue with me about padding my bill. I usually read listings quite carefully, but was bidding on a lot of auctions that night and scanning a bit more quickly than I usually do and it bit me this time. I *did* report the violations to eBay. I always do that because I don't like seeing anyone preyed upon by vultures like this. I should also add that I often see people insert all kinds of "conditions" into their listing descriptions that I know are unenforceable and often disregard those for just that reason. However, given this experience, I may have to reconsider that because I really don't need the kind of stress that this guy caused me.
Whether or not this guy gets a NEG from me will depend entirely upon what arrives in the mail. If I receive my order and everything is as described and it arrives in a timely fashion, then I will honor my word to this seller and leave him positive FB. The only reason I dangled the offer of positive FB to this jerk is because I wanted to give him an incentive to ship me my coins and not to mess with me any further. Having said that - I did report his listing violations to eBay and I plan to insert some very non-flattering remarks into the positive FB to help warn others. I do not fear retaliatory FB since eBay no longer allows sellers to leave NEG FB for buyers. I also don't put much stock in giving sellers NEG FB anymore because eBay allows the negative stuff to age-off after a year, so it has limited impact. Yes - you can look up people's old FB on www.toolhaus.org, but many folks have no knowledge of this. My approach is to always hold the other guy's feet to the fire to obey the rules and to report violations to eBay. I also try to educate the other guy about why what they are doing is stupid - immoral - wrong - illegal - etc. in the hopes to appealing to the beter angels of their nature, though I'm not so sure that works very often..... <sigh>
I don't agree with that. The more money the item sells for, the more money ebay receives. So I don't see any incentive for ebay to do this. -LTB
At the very least if you don't NEG feedback him, you should leave the following as 'positive' or neutral feedback: "BUYER BEWARE! READ THE FULL LISTING"
Yeah the dude's just not right with his sleazy style and needs to be stopped. He knows it's wrong and since you reported his butt, I bet he stops it soon. :thumb: Well I hope he stops it soon!! He's trying to sell his silver at a set price and he places it at auction, you can't do that krap. Another ebay idiot, there's a bunch of em and you just gotta side step them foolio's. :thumb:
