Re: [photo-3d] Ebay Honesty

[Brian Reynolds <reynolds@xxxxxxxxx>]

Fred Sole wrote:
>   Recently I purchased 2 items from Ebay auctions. Both these were not
> photo related. But my experience with Ebay convinces me that its a
> medium to avoid.
>   The first item was advertised in "Mint" condition. After a 3 week
> wait for my check to clear, it finally arrived. In filthy condition.
>   Covered in a coating of yellow residue, most likely from smoking and
> the aluminum control knobs oxidized it was hardly mint. (This is a
> piece of audio gear.) After leaving an appropriate negative comment
> on Ebay, the seller responded with an encoded message designed to
> crash my hard drive. It didn't work. :)

I had a similar problem a year or so ago.  I bought a Zeiss Nettar
(6x9 folding camera) described as having some dust in the lens.  It
wound up having serious lens fungus.  The seller replied that the
camera was sold as is despite the inaccurate description.  I left no
feedback because I think leaving negative feedback on ebay simply
leads to abuse of the system.  After this experience and some poorly
thought out policy changes by ebay I vowed never to bid again.

Recently I purchased some stereo cards from George Themelis from
sell-3d that had not sold on ebay (a Full Moon card).  As could be
expected of George they were as described, and he went to some effort
to locate other cards that I would be interested in.  When I saw the
butterfly cards that he put up on ebay recently I broke my vow and bid
on them.  They went for a lot more than my (hopefully reasonable) bid.
He then listed another card that I knew I needed (the textile mill, my
wife is a spinner and a weaver) so I bid and won that auction.  I knew
before I bid that I would be out of town for a business trip when the
auction closed.  I contacted George and he had no problem waiting for
me to return if I won the bid.  He even recommended a stereoscope for
me and included it in the transaction (for an additional fee of
course).

What's my point?  A bunch of years ago when the internet community was
much smaller I had no problem with sending money off to people I had
never met before, but had become acquainted with in the USENET
newsgroups.  I think it's probably the same today.  I think ebay is OK
to use if you already know and trust the seller (and if you bid your
maximum and don't begrudge someone else for being willing to pay
more).  I prefer sell-3d or rec.photo.marketplace.*, but I'll bid on
ebay if that's where I have to go to find the item I'm looking for and
if I know and trust the seller.

As an aside, an interesting thing happened on ebay earlier this year.
Sun Microsystems started listing brand new equipment on ebay.
Although there were reserves on these items, the reserve price was
less than the list price and they let you know what the list price
was.  For a while they were even offering free shipping (a
considerable amount if you're shipping a 19inch monitor across the
country).  This surprised a lot of people (myself included), but makes
sense if you think about what they're trying to do.  Their current
sales force (mostly VARs) is only interested in selling to medium and
large companies (some would say large and very large).  Sun is using
ebay as a way to sell to small companies and individuals.  I'm awfully
tempted to bid on an Ultra5 or Ultra10.  If you can't trust Sun on
ebay who can you trust?

-- 
Brian Reynolds                  | "Dee Dee!  Don't touch that button!"
reynolds@xxxxxxxxx              | "Oooh!"
http://www.panix.com/~reynolds  |    -- Dexter and Dee Dee
NAR# 54438                      |       "Dexter's Laboratory"

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