Ebay??

[Panda]

Does anyone of you out there buys things through ebay or whatever auction website?
Is it advisable to do that?
Please share your experience with us.

[chiunlin]

Does anyone of you out there buys things through ebay or whatever auction website?
Is it advisable to do that?
Please share your experience with us.
Absolute support from me! Though there are frauds and misleading items on sale in ebay. Normally, if you are careful enough, you should be able to avoid that. Besides, if eBay is of no good, why has it been on for so long?

[Panda]

[/quote]
Absolute support from me! [/quote]

I am not going to give my comment on this until I receive the laptop I bought from one of the seller in ebay. I bought it for rather cheap price. I waited for nearly a week already. The seller gave me plenty of reasons for the delay of shipping. He said that the bank need to verify my payment before he could receive my payment. Well, actually, I paid through Paypal which act as a middle man so that I consumer won't get cheat.
Well, hopefully I could get my laptop in a few days time.

[chiunlin]

I am not going to give my comment on this until I receive the laptop I bought from one of the seller in ebay. I bought it for rather cheap price. I waited for nearly a week already. The seller gave me plenty of reasons for the delay of shipping. He said that the bank need to verify my payment before he could receive my payment. Well, actually, I paid through Paypal which act as a middle man so that I consumer won't get cheat.
Well, hopefully I could get my laptop in a few days time.
Hehe, buying from the actual company is definitely better in this sense. My observation is that buying computers from ebay is more prone to frauds and you are more likely to pay more in the end. The same, of course, cannot be said for books.

[dinna_g]

panda,
i agree with chiulin. if you want to buy something really expensive, it is advisable that you buy from the manufacturer or a retailer or someone licensed to sell that produce.

sorry, i dont mean to scare you but this is a true story (fyi, i have issues with ebay). a friend of mine bought a ps2 from ebay and the seller never send the ps2 to him. so what he did was, he called his credit card company and told them that his credit card was stolen and his credit card took the sales as a fraud (okay, he wasn't supposed to lie but his trying to save his own $$$).

anyway, if the seller gave you excuses, one thing you can do is contact paypal and asked them if they paid the seller, if they havent and you're skeptical with the honesty of the company, just don't pay them and get bad rating. if the payment has been made, you should tell the seller that you've contacted paypal and what not and that there shouldn't be a problem with the payment issue.

good luck!

p/s: i actually bought a dvd player that didn't work through ebay! i stopped purchasing anything from ebay right after that incident...

[chenchow]

I guess if you are using credit card, you can be exempted from paying, if there is any fraud. For instance, if the seller never sends to you that stuff, you can contact the credit card company, and the credit card company would investigate for a while, put the account/company that deducts your money on blacklist and gives back your money.

I believe that most credit card has this 30 days or 60 days guarantee.

[luke]

I have bought things as cheap as $7 (bamboo flute) and as expensive as $270 (iPod) thru eBay and so far I have never been cheated ...

of course luck does play a role when dealing with e-commerce but the most important thing is our appraisal and judgment ... before I bid for anything at eBay, I will make 3 quick check:

(1) the seller's feedbacks (the higher the better -- avoid less than 5)
(2) the item's description; whether it is detailed enough; availability of a snapshot
(3) paypal

also, I find it's worth it to spend 15-30 minutes searching Google for reviews/details of item I want to buy ...

[jiinjoo]

Why you so lucky - so far I've only been cheated on E-bay, either by overpriced items or the seller never gets back to me :( And the ratings show no correlation. I rather buy from pasar malam...

[chiunlin]

Do some homework before bidding. You should survey the market like going to the product's website or make a search at google to get a sense of the market price of the item.
Besides, set yourself a maximum bid before you start to bid for an item. It is easy for you to go over your target when you want that item too much.

[ElansarGelmir]

I dunno about EBay, but i'm currently placing a bid on a book which costs USD 30 if i buy it from my bookstore (secondhand) for about USD 2.70, and currently, no one else bids for it... i hope that they seller will still sell the book though the price is low.

Panda, my friends bought computers from the manufacturers (Dell, mainly), and they got a USD 150 printer for USD 30... there's lots of benefits buying from retailers or manufacturers...

[chiunlin]

I dunno about EBay, but i'm currently placing a bid on a book which costs USD 30 if i buy it from my bookstore (secondhand) for about USD 2.70, and currently, no one else bids for it... i hope that they seller will still sell the book though the price is low.
Is there a reserve price on this book?
Anyway, remember to check it back at the last minute(i really mean the last minute) as most bidders who are serious about the thing bid only at the last few seconds so that they get the item. Hence, elansar, perhaps you should put a maximum bidding price(not too high) and let ebay bid for you automatically but it's always good to check back at the last moment to make sure that you are the winner(Just keep on refreshing the browser until the bid won message appears).

[Thirdshifter]

Always check the cost of shipping and handling. Nowdays the auctioner would put the item price dirt cheap but shiping cost extremely high.

For an example they will sell a $900 laptop for $450, but the shipping will cost $350 even if you live in the same state.

It is their way to pass by the ebay fees. So becareful.

I've paid $7.50 for shipping for a $1.25 item. Well it worked fine considering the item would cost over 20 bucks if baught somewhere else.

[saser_sp]

huhu~~ i'm condsidering to buy something there ....but my age still 17 :oops: ...waaa

i really like star craft brood war ....and USB mp3 player ...
i think i should wait till 11/12/2004 :wink:

[Panda]

Yeah, I got the laptop already and it is very cheap. Thank God. New condition. So, it prove that eBay is a place for buying the stuff you want.
here is the specification of my laptop:
Intel Centrino(M) 1.6 giga hetz.
80 gigabytes hardrive 4200 rpm
DVD+RW/CD+RW (can burn DWD)
15.4'' Wide screen display
64mb ATI radeon 9200. (independant)
SD card reader.
Bluetooth
Wireless Technology
Free mouse
Free casing
Free softwares

And I bought it for only $1319 / RM 5012 plus shipping.

[luke]

SD card reader ... Bluetooth ... whoaaa that's a cool laptop you got there!

I'm looking for USB bluetooth adapter < $10 but no luck .. that thing is around $20-$40 on eBay ... :(

[DecentMerson]

Yeah, I got the laptop already and it is very cheap. Thank God. New condition. So, it prove that eBay is a place for buying the stuff you want.
here is the specification of my laptop:
Intel Centrino(M) 1.6 giga hetz.
80 gigabytes hardrive 4200 rpm
DVD+RW/CD+RW (can burn DWD)
15.4'' Wide screen display
64mb ATI radeon 9200. (independant)
SD card reader.
Bluetooth
Wireless Technology
Free mouse
Free casing
Free softwares

And I bought it for only $1319 / RM 5012 plus shipping.

laptop??? but how come got casing one??? u mean carrying case rite....?

but it is definitely a good deal, very good deal, coz a similar desktop also need about USD 1k.... one more question, wat brand??

[Panda]

[but it is definitely a good deal, very good deal, coz a similar desktop also need about USD 1k.... one more question, wat brand??

yes, I mean carrying case. The brand is HP pavilion zt3170 US series.

Yup this is indeed a good deal. But I have spend a lot of time on speculating it. I waited in front of the computer for many hours to bid for the laptop. Besides, I also spends many days to search for the laptop that I want. Initially I was searching for 1 gb Ram. But it was too hard to get good deal for that laptop. So, in the end I decided to go for the 512 RAM. Well, since I was a new member, there was some problem with my account. I paid through Paypal account, but I was not verified yet. Since the seller cant get my money, I could not get y laptop. Only after he received my payment, he ship the laptop. To be frank, I was very afraid of being cheated. Fortunately, after 10 days of my waiting, I got the laptop already. I am very grateful and happy. Some advice from me, if you want to bu anything from eBay, you must know that it is a gamble. You can either get the good stuff or you will be cheated if you are not careful enough. ;)

[Panda]

Now I am looking for microphone, webcam, printer, and digicam from ebay.

Hehehe...

Hope that I can find a good deal.

Hei, what else can we buy? Does any of you buy any item from ebay before? Please share your experience. Dont be shy! Please educate us with your experience.;)

[luke]

here's a special tip for those staying in Malaysia:

try to bid for items that end after 12AM Pacific Time, which is about 2-3PM Malaysian Time .. because at that time most likely american bidders are already asleep, so you might have a higher chance to win the item .. but beware though, since more and more people outside USA are using eBay, this tip might not work if your bidding rivals are from other parts of the world :P

other tip:

beware of cheap items with expensive S&H (as pointed by Thirdshifter) ... do some math

[chiunlin]

I went to shop for an optical mouse today at ebay and as pointed out by Thirdshifter, they sell the mouse dirt cheap( a lot of 1 cents but the shipping is at least $10 to $12.) In the end, I went to an online store and bought one there. More expensive by $1 but it's brand new instead of refurbished and the will reach me within 5 days instead of 7 to 9 days on ebay.

[digimushu]

I read this online and i was laughing my ass off. its a very good read about how an ebay scammer got owned!

http://www.zug.com/pranks/powerbook/index.html

cheers!