eBay Experience

[Leggy]

I am regular ebay user and have bought one lens of Ebay, without a hitch.
I usually fire off one or two questions to the seller, usually on how well item will be packed or just to see how quick and well they respond etc.
I also look for "nearest first" when searching, otherwise all the overseas sellers seem to appear first.

[Simsya580]

I have bought all of my gear from ebay the dearest was $1600 from Hong Kong that was an $1100 saving from Harvey Norman. In total I have purchased 2 DSLR,s an a580 and a a77 6 lenses 2 battery grips and a flash, I also bought just recently a Sony nex f3 for travel and a heap of accessories for all my cameras. I have no fear whatsoever about using eBay and the only time anything has gone wrong was a couple times things got lost coming out of china but they were replaced without trouble. I currently have 12 items at various stages of delivery. The trick is to never buy from somebody that has less than a 98% positive feedback and less than a 1000 sales also spend the time to read the feedback and find out what sort of service they provide.

[fabian628]

I have bought all of my gear from ebay the dearest was $1600 from Hong Kong that was an $1100 saving from Harvey Norman. In total I have purchased 2 DSLR,s an a580 and a a77 6 lenses 2 battery grips and a flash, I also bought just recently a Sony nex f3 for travel and a heap of accessories for all my cameras. I have no fear whatsoever about using eBay and the only time anything has gone wrong was a couple times things got lost coming out of china but they were replaced without trouble. I currently have 12 items at various stages of delivery. The trick is to never buy from somebody that has less than a 98% positive feedback and less than a 1000 sales also spend the time to read the feedback and find out what sort of service they provide.

I think a general rule of 1000 sales is a little high. A regular ebayer selling things over many years might only aquire 100-200 feedback, buying from people with less than 20-30 is more risky, also looking at how long they have been on ebay.
Larger sellers also may not have specific knowledge about the item, if they sell 100's of items each week, its likely they do not have much camera specific knowledge (and therefore the listing might not be completly accurate). Amateur sellers sometimes will give good description, good communication and better postal rates.
Of course there are always exceptions, but I personally think with 1/2 decent common sense ebay is not as risky as alot of people make it out to be.

[extraball]

been noticing sellers on ebay with 0 feedback, newly registered, offering expensive camera gear, and often starting at .99cents I hope no-one gets stung, but they must, otherwise the scammers wouldn't go to the trouble.

[balwoges]

Sold camera equipment on ebay, no complaints, bought stuff on ebay without problems, always use paypal which I find very good.

[ricktas]

I LOVE E-bay. Sold my boomerang 6 times today!

[Xenedis]

I LOVE E-bay. Sold my boomerang 6 times today!

You must have bought a dodgy boomerang; they're not supposed to come back.

[Papou]

never sold on ebay but have purchased and being stung in the past but not by a hefty sum all i can say is, if you purchase an item and it doesnt arrive within fourteen days get onto the seeler and paypal emediately..
Make the the expiry complaiunt time does not expire on you??..

[nzmacro]

I tend to just stick to who i know and have good dealings with over the years on Ebay. Mine are all off the USA based Ebay. I generally check the history pretty well since lenses and gear can become expensive.

[defektive]

I sold an item to an international buyer last year who claimed not to have received it. eBay froze my PayPal account to the value of the sale and gave me 72 hours to come up with a delivery confirmation signature. I finally obtained the signature (I had sent the item registered post) through Australia post several weeks later, opened a dispute case with eBay and was given my cash back as soon as they received my email showing the recipient's signature. I'm happy to have got my money back but it sure does leave you with a bad taste.

Moral of the story: for valuable items always use a mail service with signature confirmation, tracking and insurance.

[Shane.R]

I LOVE E-bay. Sold my boomerang 6 times today!

You'll be a power seller in no time

And people must understand, that you do not enter EBAY as a seller with 1000+ sales. Power sellers start of just like every other seller.

Speaking of "power sellers". I was sent a wrong car part, well I know it's wrong but I was told that I'm inconsiderate and that the part is correct. I can send it back for a refund minus all the postage to USA.

[Transformer]

I mostly buy low-value items from higher rated sellers. 100's of transactions later ... very few problems. With high ticket items, I have found that the seller rating helps a great deal. Paypal is good insurance.

[mugget]

Not sure if I mentioned this before, but I sold a MacBook Air on eBay a while back. I put a note in there to the effect of "bank transfer preferred" and sure enough the winning bidder did a transfer instead. To be honest I was kind of surprised! But it made me very happy to avoid any PayPal fees. I posted the MacBook out, not a problem.

This was back when I would have had maybe 20-30 feedback as well. But I put a plenty of photos and offered for anyone to come and look before bidding. Which I'm sure helped.

Not everyone is out to scam you, some people are still honest.

[tcdev]

Same as anywhere, be sensible about it and you're unlikely to get stung. We've had a few bad buys (nothing major) but PayPal has come to the party in every case, if it went that far. I've had one seller who refunded no questions asked when I didn't receive my item (and still haven't, to this day). My wife has had a couple of buys where the items weren't as advertised (we're only talking a few dollars here). The seller ignored her complaints and they subsequently didn't contest PalPal's refund either. So she got the items, which admittedly weren't exactly what she believed she was getting, for free in the end.

For that matter, we've had similar issues with online photo print (canvas) services - twice! (We unknowingly ordered from the same company a 2nd time, as they had since changed their name!) So it's not restricted to eBay at all!

On the flip side, our selling has been relatively incident free. Our only complaint really has been COD buyers who don't show up to collect. I mailed one item interstate which didn't arrive in any reasonable time but the buyer was pretty cool about it as I assured him that I'd refund the full amount if he insisted it hadn't arrived. He waited a few days, hassled his internal mail guys again, and turns out it had turned up earlier - so no issues in the end.

[Crysis]

I have got 85 stars next to my name on ebay.
In this time I have had 3 dealings that I had to go to the people running the show.
I got my money back and left bad feedback to the people who sold me the item, but never actually sent it.
This happened one after the other, I had feelings that they were like it but still went through with it.
One one I got an item that was not as it said so I gave them bad feedback, only to get a message from them.
It went a little like this. If we give you another item for nothing will you change your feedback.
I got the item and changed the feedback.
But that was early last year, and here we are now and I have to say all has been really good.
Just make sure you use Paypal on all things and I think you should be okay.

[jjnic]

Bought and sold a few things on ebay over the years. never had a problem. My only issue so far has been with Australia post. Once had a parcel that tracking information said was delivered but was not at my address. Rang Aust post to be told that it had been delivered and signed for . turns out it was delivered to the wrong address and signed for by the occupant. eventally got it a few days later unopened with my name and address clearly on the parcel!. Thank goodness for tracking information!
jj

[Redgum]

Bought and sold a few things on ebay over the years. never had a problem. My only issue so far has been with Australia post. Once had a parcel that tracking information said was delivered but was not at my address. Rang Aust post to be told that it had been delivered and signed for . turns out it was delivered to the wrong address and signed for by the occupant. eventally got it a few days later unopened with my name and address clearly on the parcel!. Thank goodness for tracking information!
jj

This has happened to me three or four times over the years.