What did I buy and now finding out.

Hello Trainboard Members !

First I want to give a big shout out to Charlie for doing such a great job taking care of Trainboard,
big thanks to Charlie.
The reason for my post....From 2009 to 2013 I bought ALOT of N Scale items on X-xay as well new items in stores or from manufacturers. now that I am liquidating because the Lay-Out Dream is not going to come to fruition, I am selling the N Scale items on the well known on line sight we have a love hate relationship with. Yes, you know the name. To sell an item, I have to visually inspect with hi power magnifying glass, test run, take pictures, list, answer communications, package carefully, drive to P.O. leave feedback, and then hope and pray that everything arrives in fine order after losing on shipping. Never did I realize it would come to this...LOL ! Now that this process is in action, I have come to realize that many, many items I bought and accepted back then, even left + feedback for, were not represented correctly. My fault. I have so many Invoices for items that were represented as new that after now... very, very careful examination are indeed not new. With the naked eye, one might think an item was new, but after looking at wheels with a Micro Lens, I find 65% of everything I bought that was listed as new... was indeed run, maybe lightly run, but still run. It is all my fault for not going to the same length to examine an item when receiving it. Now, realizing this now as I am now selling it. Now that I am selling it, I am finding out 3 to 6 years later that I might have allowed myself to be dooped, again my fault for not inspecting the item with extreme scrutiny, I was just so happy to get what I had desired. At this point it doesn't matter, it's too late, and the reason for my post is for me, it not to matter. I now know to make it a priority to inspect with extreme detail, when selling an item, too late for the buying part, that isn't ever going to happen again, whew, thank goodness. With this post I am not looking for a fight, or to be beat down, I am just letting you know how I feel today after listing items for 30 days. I already feel shame, please don't make it worse....LOL !

 

Don't feel bad. This month I bought three items that were "NEW" only to received used and in one case broken items.
Two sellers were apologetic - one item went back at their expense - one gave a partial refund - I'm now happy with teh transaction - one won't respond.

I guess that's about normal - be careful out there.

 

I bought a "new" BLI E-6 B unit that was SUPPOSED to be powered. When I received it, I nticed that there were no gears on the bottom - it was a dummy. But, the BOX said "powered" and the number on the unit was one that BLI never put on its dummies (I talked to them). So, SOMEBODY actually took a powered B unit out of the box, took the shell off the "guts" and switched those for dummy guts, then put the now-powerless B unit back in the box for a powered unit. The seller claimed that he was selling "old stock" for a friend with a hobby shop that was going out of business. MAYBE. Hard to tell WHO was the culprit, the seller, the hobby shop owner, or maybe an unscrupulous customer of the hobby shop that did a "return" that was a fraud. But, SOMEBODY committed fraud. I did get a partial refund (because it was paired with a powered A-unit that was also supposed to be "new"), but it cost me substantially more than the refund to get a truly powered B unit, elsewhere. So, essentially I bought a dummy B unit with a redundant number for $43.

Things like that make me wonder if even those items we see pictures of in clear shrink-wrap, supposedly applied at the factory and trapping the "factory air" inside for posterity, are actually RE-shrink-wrapped by some unscrupulous Internet seller. THAT scam would be even harder to detect if you wanted to preserve the value of the item by not unwrapping it until you are ready to run it.

SOO, my two cents is that NOTHING can be considered "new" for sure. Even coming from a hobby shop, it may have been returned. And, from some manufacturers, it may be a refurb.

I don't see a solution except to test what you buy WHEN you buy it. I insist on doing that at LHSs and showes, and I do it as soon as I receive it from mail-order. At least eBay has their money-back guarantee that we can use when something that was advertised as "new" can be proven to not be new.

 

Lots of reasons why I shop on TB's Swapmeet. I feel pretty confident a TB member isnt gonna screw me over...they would never hear the end of it. Plus I am sure admin and the owner ( Charlie) wouldnt take to kindly to it either. JMO

 

Don't get me started on the over-used, and down right deceptive use, of the word "NEW!". A 6, 10, or 15 year old item is not "New" by any stretch of the imagination. If you can't prove you are the original owner, and that the item has never been run, then the item should not be advertised as "New".

Way too much junk is being labeled "New" when it is nothing of the sort. They arrive with dings and scratches, yellowing or frayed packaging, and obvious dust and wear. If someone wants to indicate that an out-of-production item is in mint condition, then they need to use words such as "mint", "unused", "never run". But labeling a 10 year old item as "New!!!" just makes the listing look suspicious.

 

I think "New" means, new to the buyer!
Not as never used.

 

...and hence why I don't buy from that site. Too much nonsense, most of it by people who'd sell their soul for a freaking dollar.

 

On the Trainboard I've never had any problems over the years. Folks on here are quite honest and I am as well since I view the folks on here as friends. Never want to meet up with someone on here at one of the shows and they have bad feelings about me or me them. Plus honesty is always the best policy. Corny but true

 

I prefer to sell on the classified sections of various forums I am on or in a few Facebook groups. Way less fees, at the most its 3% from paypal, versus, 3% from paypal, then another 10% from ebay, which also charges the fee to the shipping cost. So now you need to inflate your shipping cost to actually cover the shipping cost.

 

Ok? And would you like to go further?

 

Oh ok good deal glad to hear that . It was kind of an open statement; didn't know where it was going.

 

I can assume we are talking Ebay here? I have worked on many locomotives labeled New but from 40 years ago as well, to be opend and frozen and dry rot.
IMHO
Mike

 

No shame needed. We've all had those kinds of things happen, and I bet most of us are guilty of not inspecting everything that comes through the mail slot.

In many ways, it's a numbers game. You figure out of 100 transactions--buying or selling--there are gonna be issues on a few, and others are gonna be such good deals that you can absorb a bad one every once in a while. With the problematic deals it's a matter of coming up with a way to resolve things that is fair. And there's always gonna be that one "human being having a bad day" where nothing you do is good enough.

And I've made mistakes as a seller too...I recall one VERY EARLY on in the eBay's life where I was selling off all of my HO-scale and I had a dummy that I sold as a powered. It certainly wasn't intentional...I had another almost identical loco and had copied and pasted and changed a few things but forgot to change that part. I offered to allow the buyer to completely return it and I would refund the price and shipping both ways, or a partial refund and they keep the loco, or I would consider any other option the buyer wanted to propose. They chose option (b) and everyone was happy.

 

Now this type of thing can concern me, because I have been accumulating N Scale for 40 years, and much of it has yet to leave the original box. When "the time" comes and my estate is left to disperse my collection, I would hope that when my stuff is advertised as "new", even though it is 40 years old, it really is new, and is accepted as such.

 

It is my thought too. Condition of New or Like New or Mint is appropriate if the item has never left the packaging. New is not a dimension of time in this instance, but a description of condition.

 

There is a great bit of debate over this.

Is is shrink wrapped? Does the shrink wrap completely seal the item or just prevent it from easily being opened. And thus, can smoke enter the package freely?

Is the item otherwise is an even lightly smoked-in environment? How about stable humidity? Exposed to sunlight? Extreme heat? Extreme cold? Mothballs? All those are death knells for "new", in my book.

I would only consider items *in a store or originating warehouse* (immediately post manufacturer and/or distrubutor) AND that met the above criteria in a positive manner as NEW. An item that has left a store for only a short period of time, properly stored in an Air-Conditioned and dust-free environment, and otherwise unopened--yet still met the above criteria--would also be acceptable as NEW. My definition of short period of time is probably no greater than 90 days. My definition of unopened would be...whatever you would be allowed to do in the store. So in most cases taken out and inspected, test run for a short time on a loop of track...that's about it.

Unless something is coming from a known store that sell on eBay, I assume it is not NEW regardless of what it says, and I bid accordingly.

AND, I only sell things as NEW if they meet the above standard. I will use the term Like New if it is otherwise in a condition approaching new, but I would never call such an item new.

And yes, there are many stores that would not meet my criteria either.