Are fruitcakes running rampant on eBay lately? Selling, buying, listing, feedback, etc...

[biking_tiger]

"Different" is how you find a publisher, even for short stories in the small press.

[Darth_Raichu]

"Different" is how you find a publisher, even for short stories in the small press.

One small typo ruined the whole story for me

[hxckid88]

Figured I'd post this here. Out of all my lairs I sold sound the holidays I have gotten no returns or no neg feedback.... Kind of. I want into this thinking I'd get 5 just by probability.

Well I got one return request. By a 1 feedback new ebayer. He was very difficult. Was after my deadline for returns but I still told him if he returned a new unopened item ID issue a refund. Never replied to 5 messages I sent.

He opens a snad case. I get mad. I'm like dude just and item back I'll give a refund. No need to lie. He never responds. ( I didn't actually word like this) I kept it professional.

He takes forever never communicates with me or eBay.

Last week eBay closes case in my favor siting buyer never provided eBay nor me with any updates. I'm like OK. Yay. PayPal hold released.

Then yesterday..... A turtle lair arrives on my doorstep.......

Will eBay eat this if he does ever follow up with them or is the dude just out a lair and and money now?

Either way this is a win for the good guys. Us the sellers. In a land full of buyer protections and nothing for us.

Sent from my SAMSUNG-SGH-I747 using Brickpicker mobile app

Edited January 20, 2015 by hxckid88

[biking_tiger]

One small typo ruined the whole story for me

 

Somehow, that's not surprising. And the typo is...?

 

Oh. Yeah. I see what you did just there. Like a Jedi.

Edited January 20, 2015 by biking_tiger

[tonysbricks]

Figured I'd post this here. Out of all my lairs I sold sound the holidays I have gotten no returns or no neg feedback.... Kind of. I want into this thinking I'd get 5 just by probability.

Well I got one return request. By a 1 feedback new ebayer. He was very difficult. Was after my deadline for returns but I still told him if he returned a new unopened item ID issue a refund. Never replied to 5 messages I sent.

He opens a snad case. I get mad. I'm like dude just and item back I'll give a refund. No need to lie. He never responds. ( I didn't actually word like this) I kept it professional.

He takes forever never communicates with me or eBay.

Last week eBay closes case in my favor siting buyer never provided eBay nor me with any updates. I'm like OK. Yay. PayPal hold released.

Then yesterday..... A turtle lair arrives on my doorstep.......

Will eBay eat this if he does ever follow up with them or is the dude just out a lair and and money now?

Either way this is a win for the good guys. Us the sellers. In a land full of buyer protections and nothing for us.

Sent from my SAMSUNG-SGH-I747 using Brickpicker mobile app

 

Check your state laws. Some states allow you to keep unsolicited packages.

 

I don't normally advocate this but some people, like the one you describe, deserve it.

 

Edit: I should mention I had a similar experience and ebay told me to keep it. I was like "you sure?" and they said yes. OK!

Edited January 20, 2015 by tonysbricks

[hxckid88]

One small typo ruined the whole story for me

So are you insinuating that I should not post anymore through commenting on another typo ...

Check your state laws. Some states allow you to keep unsolicited packages.

I don't normally advocate this but some people, like the one you describe, deserve it.

Edit: I should mention I had a similar experience and ebay told me to keep it. I was like "you sure?" and they said yes. OK!

Yeah normally I'd be understanding even if you didn't respond to messages. But opening a bogus snad case makes all bets off.

Sent from my SAMSUNG-SGH-I747 using Brickpicker mobile app

[Darth_Raichu]

So are you insinuating that I should not post anymore through commenting on another typo ...

 

 

Insinuating ? I always told you straight up in regard to typos.....   eventually I had to give up though. :D

[Kenxxx]

OK... just came here to b*tch...

 

So I found a complete set of Series 4 Mixels at my Target a few days ago, looked at ebay and figured I could match the low BIN price, and maybe hit a quick flip and pocket $9 or so. That would help pay for the others I was getting for my kid.  Ran home, laid out all 9, took a quick photo, and listed them.  Not 3 hours later, some other d-bag QFLL had lifted my photo, practically copied my listing word-for-word, and made his own listing undercutting me by about $9. Are you out there p************ks?  You've made a new enemy.

[PurpleSnurple]

^Hah! I hate those lazy a**holes. I usually report them to eBay for stealing my listing photo and text, though I doubt it ever produces any results.

 

On a side note, series 4 isn't out yet right? How'd you find them at Target?

Edited January 21, 2015 by PurpleSnurple

[Kenxxx]

They're here and there... most people are reporting finding them at Target.  Just depends on the store.

[sroster]

OK... just came here to b*tch...

 

So I found a complete set of Series 4 Mixels at my Target a few days ago, looked at ebay and figured I could match the low BIN price, and maybe hit a quick flip and pocket $9 or so. That would help pay for the others I was getting for my kid.  Ran home, laid out all 9, took a quick photo, and listed them.  Not 3 hours later, some other d-bag QFLL had lifted my photo, practically copied my listing word-for-word, and made his own listing undercutting me by about $9. Are you out there p************ks?  You've made a new enemy.

 

So you were going to make $9 and he undercut you $9.  Sounds like the joke is on him, he will do everything for nothing.

[Kenxxx]

Well, all I got was the 5% redcard off.  Maybe he was slicker with gift cards... or maybe he stole them.  He's already proven he has no problem stealing things.

[justapilgrim]

The Meijer crowd scared me out of Mixels at under $1 each they can undercut everyone for as long as they care to. I just sold the last of my series 2 sets and my series 3 is now loooong term hold. Did series 4 sneak in? Who knows, I dont care to find out

I had to mail out a replacement $50 set to someone last week pretty sure I dropped it off at satellite fed ex place and they never scanned it sonic looked like just at my house. He didn't leave feedback

Sent from my SAMSUNG-SM-N910A using Brickpicker mobile app

[Alpinemaps]

The Meijer crowd scared me out of Mixels at under $1 each they can undercut everyone for as long as they care to. I just sold the last of my series 2 sets and my series 3 is now loooong term hold. Did series 4 sneak in? Who knows, I dont care to find out

I had to mail out a replacement $50 set to someone last week pretty sure I dropped it off at satellite fed ex place and they never scanned it sonic looked like just at my house. He didn't leave feedback

Sent from my SAMSUNG-SM-N910A using Brickpicker mobile app

Series 3 are the only ones I'd recommend staying away from, unless you were part of the Meijer club.

Series 4, I'm. It even bothering with the QFLL. kudos to anyone that pulled it off, but I didn't want to do that. I didn't want the eBay fruit cakes to be mad when they find them in a few more days at retail.

[jdmpartz]

OK... just came here to b*tch...

 

So I found a complete set of Series 4 Mixels at my Target a few days ago, looked at ebay and figured I could match the low BIN price, and maybe hit a quick flip and pocket $9 or so. That would help pay for the others I was getting for my kid.  Ran home, laid out all 9, took a quick photo, and listed them.  Not 3 hours later, some other d-bag QFLL had lifted my photo, practically copied my listing word-for-word, and made his own listing undercutting me by about $9. Are you out there p************ks?  You've made a new enemy.

 

Pretty easy fix to that..

 

Just write your seller ID on a small piece of paper, and toss it in the picture. Prevents 99.9% of other sellers snagging the picture.

 

No lazy ass is going to use Photoshop to adjust it.

[newbie77]

Series 3 are the only ones I'd recommend staying away from, unless you were part of the Meijer club.

Series 4, I'm. It even bothering with the QFLL. kudos to anyone that pulled it off, but I didn't want to do that. I didn't want the eBay fruit cakes to be mad when they find them in a few more days at retail.

i am surprised to see that series 1(11,797) and series 2 (17,879) ranked pretty high at amazon. so they are moving.

looks like series 3 (33,631) is going albeit very slow mover at $52.

 

price hasn't been that bad considering the meijer's clearance price of $4/set (for the whole 9). 

 

i am mostly thinking that although it was on clearance at that price; i doubt people have lot of complete sets at that price. with 200 stores and 4 boxes each store = 1200 boxes of mixels. i think they must have sold 50% before hitting the 0.36 clearance. that brings about 600 boxes = 1800 sets.... that's very minimal. assume that they are all listed @ amazon and a total sale of 20sets/day = 2 months. they would be all gone .. i already think they are all gone..

 

now all we need is this to vanish from TLG website and stores.

[Darth_Raichu]

Pretty easy fix to that..

 

Just write your seller ID on a small piece of paper, and toss it in the picture. Prevents 99.9% of other sellers snagging the picture.

 

No lazy ass is going to use Photoshop to adjust it.

Mine were watermarked, but apparently they were too lazy to notice those too 

[Grynn]

For an older polybag:

 

 

 

"I am so unhappy. I let my little boy of 9yrs pick an item to spend his Christmas money on. I should have read the description better, but I didn't. I can not believe you charged $24 for such a small thing of Legos. This looks like it could have come in a happy meal.

I am really disappointed. I thought this would be much bigger."

 

 

 

Buyer has (279) 100% positive feedback buying and selling, with no apparent Lego history. I offered (against policy) to refund if sent back unopened. We will see what happens. Probably SNAD, right?

 

Just thought I'd wrap up this little story since so many of you (kindly) added advice, outrage, and support for the situation originally:

 

First, let me say there is no way I was going to refund AND let them keep the set. Enabling poor behavior is not something I do.

 

 

After the quoted events took place, I waited a few days with no response, then noticed negative feedback had been left, referencing how tiny the set was and that the price paid was straight-up robbery.

 

So I sent one last kind message, saying if they wanted to work together toward resolution, I was still game - but would appreciate knowing either way so that I could move forward.

Naturally, no reply.

 

So I left a response to the feedback pointing out the buyer admitted not paying attention to the listing prior to purchase, and did not respond to my offer of a refund. Then I reported them for feedback abuse (yeah I know, not strictly in the guidelines, but I believe in "using the system" fairly, not just "doing as I'm told".

 

A day or so later, I get a message from them stating "My little boy came home asking for it. That reminded me to send you a msg. Moments before you responded, he opened it, after making a remark himself about the size of it."

 

Yeah, sure.

 

So I waited another week or so, dealing with some of life's other little misfortunes and wondering if somehow, magically, something would happen due to my filing a report. Nope.

 

Called eBay customer service last Friday to address the situation. The clown I first talked to only wanted to emphasize policy and try to convince me that the negative feedback was the buyer's honest opinion about their experience, and they would therefore not remove it because it was valid. I argued that the remarks had nothing to do with my part in the transaction, they were experiencing buyer's remorse, and having admitted to not paying attention, there was no way I should suffer as a result. He countered that I did my part in responding to the feedback, so others could read my side of it. I explained that many people do not read feedback, but some do care about seeing that "100%", which I had unjustly lost. The conversation was going nowhere, so I asked for a supervisor.

 

It took a while, and they apparently had quite a discussion because the supervisor greeted me tentatively and asked me to verify his summary of the situation, which was basically accurate. I told him that the negative feedback was basically a form of defamation (referencing "robbery") and that, given the fact that I shared over 10% of my $ales with eBay, I didn't understand why they failed to seriously consider giving a little back in the form of protection from ridiculous things like this. Then I asked what exactly I was supposed to do different.

He looked at everything and mentioned being a busy seller in the past as well, "feeling my pain" more or less... then said because I did offer a refund and basically did all I could do to work with the buyer, they would consider making an exception to the policy and perhaps remove the negative feedback. He said I would get an email within 24 hours explaining the final decision, either way. I thanked him sincerely for listening and taking the situation seriously.

 

This afternoon, after hearing nothing since that call, I contacted eBay CS once again, was sent to the "escalation" department, and was asked by someone new, of course, to explain everything again. I mentioned I had already done so twice and was waiting to hear from a supervisor, I hoped there would be notes or something for reference... which, after looking into, he said he thought he had an idea about but it would really help for me to explain it all again. I happened to be volunteering in my son's school library and had to put him off about 30 seconds to check out a couple books, and he took it upon himself to put me on hold (with warning) and research it all himself.

 

After a few minutes, he came back and explained in agonizing detail that he was removing the negative feedback for the reasons the supervisor basically mentioned previously.

 

Then I got a couple recent "item not received" defects removed as well, which were due to lag in tracking updates by USPS and had, once again, NOTHING to do with my performance as a seller.

 

He did state that it was much better to call CS when the latter situation happens and a valid tracking number is uploaded so that they can close the case manually and it never shows up as a defect, rather than wait and let the buyer close the case. I found that quite helpful.

 

Yet again, the moral of the story is be patient and persistent and don't give in to stupidity, when you feel the battle is worth fighting.

[Andries]

I have an issue with a seller at the moment.  I bought a box of Lego minifigure series 13 from him because it says delivery in 4-7 days after purchase.  Needless to say more than a week past and he didn't even ship the box.   I contacted him just to hear him say the listing says it is a preorder and would ship late in January.  It did say that when the listing was initially posted more than a month ago so I didnt order then, but now it has a date of delivery.  He offered me a refund which I am still waiting for and he isn't responding to my emails. Because I cant use the online resolution centre to solve this issue, I now have to call ebay from South Africa, which really sucks

[Andries]

Just thought I'd wrap up this little story since so many of you (kindly) added advice, outrage, and support for the situation originally:

 

First, let me say there is no way I was going to refund AND let them keep the set. Enabling poor behavior is not something I do.

 

 

After the quoted events took place, I waited a few days with no response, then noticed negative feedback had been left, referencing how tiny the set was and that the price paid was straight-up robbery.

 

So I sent one last kind message, saying if they wanted to work together toward resolution, I was still game - but would appreciate knowing either way so that I could move forward.

Naturally, no reply.

 

So I left a response to the feedback pointing out the buyer admitted not paying attention to the listing prior to purchase, and did not respond to my offer of a refund. Then I reported them for feedback abuse (yeah I know, not strictly in the guidelines, but I believe in "using the system" fairly, not just "doing as I'm told".

 

A day or so later, I get a message from them stating "My little boy came home asking for it. That reminded me to send you a msg. Moments before you responded, he opened it, after making a remark himself about the size of it."

 

Yeah, sure.

 

So I waited another week or so, dealing with some of life's other little misfortunes and wondering if somehow, magically, something would happen due to my filing a report. Nope.

 

Called eBay customer service last Friday to address the situation. The clown I first talked to only wanted to emphasize policy and try to convince me that the negative feedback was the buyer's honest opinion about their experience, and they would therefore not remove it because it was valid. I argued that the remarks had nothing to do with my part in the transaction, they were experiencing buyer's remorse, and having admitted to not paying attention, there was no way I should suffer as a result. He countered that I did my part in responding to the feedback, so others could read my side of it. I explained that many people do not read feedback, but some do care about seeing that "100%", which I had unjustly lost. The conversation was going nowhere, so I asked for a supervisor.

 

It took a while, and they apparently had quite a discussion because the supervisor greeted me tentatively and asked me to verify his summary of the situation, which was basically accurate. I told him that the negative feedback was basically a form of defamation (referencing "robbery") and that, given the fact that I shared over 10% of my $ales with eBay, I didn't understand why they failed to seriously consider giving a little back in the form of protection from ridiculous things like this. Then I asked what exactly I was supposed to do different.

He looked at everything and mentioned being a busy seller in the past as well, "feeling my pain" more or less... then said because I did offer a refund and basically did all I could do to work with the buyer, they would consider making an exception to the policy and perhaps remove the negative feedback. He said I would get an email within 24 hours explaining the final decision, either way. I thanked him sincerely for listening and taking the situation seriously.

 

This afternoon, after hearing nothing since that call, I contacted eBay CS once again, was sent to the "escalation" department, and was asked by someone new, of course, to explain everything again. I mentioned I had already done so twice and was waiting to hear from a supervisor, I hoped there would be notes or something for reference... which, after looking into, he said he thought he had an idea about but it would really help for me to explain it all again. I happened to be volunteering in my son's school library and had to put him off about 30 seconds to check out a couple books, and he took it upon himself to put me on hold (with warning) and research it all himself.

 

After a few minutes, he came back and explained in agonizing detail that he was removing the negative feedback for the reasons the supervisor basically mentioned previously.

 

Then I got a couple recent "item not received" defects removed as well, which were due to lag in tracking updates by USPS and had, once again, NOTHING to do with my performance as a seller.

 

He did state that it was much better to call CS when the latter situation happens and a valid tracking number is uploaded so that they can close the case manually and it never shows up as a defect, rather than wait and let the buyer close the case. I found that quite helpful.

 

Yet again, the moral of the story is be patient and persistent and don't give in to stupidity, when you feel the battle is worth fighting.

 

Isn't it weird how it's always a "little boy"?  No one blames little girls for anything

[jerryherb]

So im missing 1-2 figs from a complete/factory sealed series and want to complete them, right? I go on ebay/amazon and look for "New: A brand-new, unused, unopened, undamaged item" and after asking, they assured the condition is in fact brand new.

 

After the purchase is complete I receive ones that have been sliced "opened to verify". WTF? learn how to smoosh or get out of the business of selling NEW minifigs you ******! The explanations I usually get afterwards are "well, we didnt play with them and we consider this transaction complete". Opened is NOT NEW AND SHOULD NOT BE LISTED AS SUCH especially since now there are game/win codes involved.

 

growing tired of the "item not as described" cases...

Edited January 29, 2015 by jerryherb

[minicoopers11]

So im missing 1-2 figs from a complete/factory sealed series and want to complete them, right? I go on ebay/amazon and look for "New: A brand-new, unused, unopened, undamaged item" and after asking, they assured the condition is in fact brand new.

 

After the purchase is complete I receive ones that have been sliced "opened to verify". WTF? learn how to smoosh or get out of the business of selling NEW minifigs you ******! The explanations I usually get afterwards are "well, we didnt play with them and we consider this transaction complete". Opened is NOT NEW AND SHOULD NOT BE LISTED AS SUCH especially since now there are game/win codes involved.

 

growing tired of the "item not as described" cases...

Try Bricklink then. Opened can be new. That would be the difference between "New Complete" and "New Sealed."

[jerryherb]

Try Bricklink then. Opened can be new. That would be the difference between "New Complete" and "New Sealed."

dont agree with you on that one on two points:

 

1) New per ebay is --->> Condition: New: A brand-new, unused, unopened, undamaged item

 

2) if you specifically ask and the seller responds its new/sealed and then its not (but "they didnt play with them") its NOT NEW

[minicoopers11]

dont agree with you on that one on two points:

 

1) New per ebay is --->> Condition: New: A brand-new, unused, unopened, undamaged item

 

2) if you specifically ask and the seller responds its new/sealed and then its not (but "they didnt play with them") its NOT NEW

I'm not talking about eBay. I understand your points. My point is, to avoid frustration, buy somewhere else.

[Andries]

So im missing 1-2 figs from a complete/factory sealed series and want to complete them, right? I go on ebay/amazon and look for "New: A brand-new, unused, unopened, undamaged item" and after asking, they assured the condition is in fact brand new.

 

After the purchase is complete I receive ones that have been sliced "opened to verify". WTF? learn how to smoosh or get out of the business of selling NEW minifigs you ******! The explanations I usually get afterwards are "well, we didnt play with them and we consider this transaction complete". Opened is NOT NEW AND SHOULD NOT BE LISTED AS SUCH especially since now there are game/win codes involved.

 

growing tired of the "item not as described" cases...

 

I myself hate the fact that people are opening the Collectable Minifigures.  I find it ridiculous.  And they do not refund you.  I bought from a German company on Amazon where it stated nowhere that the packets were opened.  When they arrived the series 5 Mobsters case was opened because it had a bent plastic look.  I was pissed as I resell them myself.  Anyway,  the feel method works fine and people really dont need to sell these minifigures opened and resealed.