That must have been a real trick getting those MTL couplers installed without ever opening the box. Maybe that's why they're asking 142.xx. And 18.00 shipping :cute:. As they would say on ESPN, "Come On Man!"
Do you ever "Block" buyers? I was poking around E Bay today. If there is something I want, I check the sellers feedback. I especiall look at the negatives to see if they are justified or something from a "whiner". If I see "slow ship", "Item never arrived", or especially "Doesn't answer E Mails". I will usually avoid the seller. Other stuff, I usually let slide. I found a couple of feedbacks on a seller that were pretty outrageous. Made me think I don't want to sell to the buyer that left the feedback, so I blocked him. Not that there is much chance he would bid on my items, but it's not worth the potential for trouble. Do others block "Whiney" buyers, or buyers that leave unreasonable feedback?
So I sold a couple of locomotives a week or two ago. Buyer didn't pay. Buyer has wierd buying patterns. Size 9 dresses. Golf clubs. Turbocharger mounts. Dozens of transactions a day, hundreds a month. Google turns up reports that it's some company that buys stuff, and then ships it overseas with the proper customs paperwork. They have a lot of problems with reporting items as not arriving when tracking says they signed for them, or shipping the item overseas, where someone decides they don't like it or claim it's broken, and demands a refund. A few sellers got burned badly. They have good feedback. I think it's because they report problems after feedback has been left. A week later, after I had submitted the nonpaying bidder report, he paid, and then spammed me with 20 automated messages on how to ship to him. I refunded the money, and told them that I can't deal with them. I called eBay, explained what was up, and they refunded my final value fee. I relisted the locos. Guess who just purchased them? Yep. Same company, different user name. Same enormous number of transactions. Same reports of problems with that user name as well. I already submitted the transaction cancellation. Of course they haven't replied. It took them over a week to pay last time, I suspect they'll take longer. Meanwhile, my locos are tied up and not up for sale. hboy:
I've blocked potential buyers before just based on the questions they have asked me. Recently I had a series of questions that had confrontational, condescending undertones on an item I had listed (not in the model railroad category) so I decided to block them. I just had the feeling that they would never be satisfied with the item if they won it. I don't have the time or desire to deal with problem buyers like that.
There is a buyer with many ID's in Southern California, maybe the Long Beach area. They buy items for people in Japan and send the items to them. Sounds like the same company or at least the same business plan. Found them. They are called Shop Airlines Ltd.. Their web site is all Japanese. They bought some N Scale stuff from me a few years ago. Luckily no problems. The funny thing is, I would have sold and shipped directly to the end buyer in Japan. Hard to block these people that have many ID's.
I had a guy that bought 5 cars from me (2 IM WSDOT grain car, MTL WSDOT Grain car, FVM 40ft MILW ribside boxcar, & Atlas NP Intl standard caboose with MTL couplers) about a year ago. He asked me before he bid if I combine shipping, which it clearly stated in my post that I did. So he bid on I think 6 or 7 cars and won 5 of them. I received payment so I boxed them up, put a USPS tracking ### on them, and shipped them. About a week later I got an e mail saying item has not been receievd, which when I tracked it, it had not. I replied to the buyer that it was enroute. A couple days later the item arrived, according to USPS website. About 3-4 days after that I got another email saying the guy was totally unhappy as all he received was an empty box? WHAT? He opened a dispute case with paypal/ebay and trashed me on feedback. Paypal froze the amount of $$$ for the transaction, which was about $85. After a couple emails back and forth with Ebay, they removed the $$$ from my paypal acct. I disputed the issue with Ebay/paypal stating that items were indeed boxed and shipped and heard NOTHING back from them. I sure hope the jackhole enjoys his free cars. He is on my permanent block list on Ebay. Now. I only BUY from Ebay. The seller protection is a joke!
If anyone ever gripes (unreasonably) about something they've bought from me I cheerfully refund their money and then block them from ever bidding on my stuff again. I've also preemptively blocked people who I could just tell were going to be a pain in the posterior (based on their inane questions). Sellers don't have a lot of anti-idiot tools left anymore, but the block-bidder option is still a darned good one. -Mark
When I was actively selling, a group of us pooled information on bums, and exchanged user names of who we had blocked.
I also have been coned out of money on the bay (This was by a seller) a couple of years back by a person selling 8 Hopper cars, claimed that the cars were received by my PO, however the PO had no paper work that showed the arival and no package for me in the sysyem. I went round and round with the jirk and finally gave up on trying to get my money back or the cars.
On my issue, yes there was a tracking number. As stated earlier, the buyer said the package arrived but the box was empty. I know for a fact I packaged the 5 cars into the box. I call hogwash on the fact that the box arrived empty.
I've received empty packages from sellers, but in those couple of instances the packaging was really poor and it was very obvious that it had opened up during transit (and with the contents winding up god knows where). IIRC, the sellers in question did provide refunds. -Mark
The instance for mine, the cars were packed in a USPS flat rate box and then I also used packaging tape on several edges to seal the box. If it came apart during shipping, someone would have had to deliberately open the box. The buyer told me that the box was sealed and nothing was inside the box other than crinkled up newpapers. I personally think it was an Ebay scam for someone to get their items and not pay for them. I have heard of tings like that happening before.
That's why I like the flat-rate boxes that we used to ship the special run cars. You can pack it pretty good and wrap clear tape all the way around it. Of course that is only good if fraud is not involved.
Yeah, sounds like a scam to me. That person would definitely earn an honored place in my blocked bidder list. -Mark
Let's see, a bunch of old Bachmann, Life Like and (best of all) Highspeed engines and rolling stock (granted, there is a Kato '12 wheel drive' loco and a Concor U50 if that's your thing), but if you have a starting bid of $4000 and a buy it now of $4500, can't you take AT LEAST ONE picture that isn't blurry? And the pictures are only of the rolling stock. http://www.ebay.com/itm/HUGE-COLLEC...739179?pt=Model_RR_Trains&hash=item19db05496b
Highspeed and Bachmann? Good grief. Delusions of grandeur. Twenty dollars worth of what is basically junk. Sucker hunting season is open, no license required.
