That's the best thing I've ever seen. Where can I get one?

Priceless! I just love it that there are people out there daft enough to do that.

Wouldn't you love to borrow that for just one morning's commute to work? Should liven the journey up nicely; "Honest officer - the guy pulled out in front of me without indicating. I'm really sorry I rolled over him..."

eBay Woes

I've always been fairly lucky with eBay.

Listed my old iPhone last Sunday as it was a free listing day. I'd hoped to get £200-£220 so imagine my surprise when bidding closed at £290.

The winning bidder was a chap called 'Number24.' Looked through his feedback and it turns out, although its all positive it reads "fake non-paying buyer" great. All his feedback was also from "gilero"

Gilero was the 2nd highest bidder in my phone and all his feedback was from Number24.

Fishy? I thought so

Complaints etc all logged with eBay and thanks to the seconds chance offer system I sold it to another bidder who'd bid £190 who seems to have bought a lot of Mamas and Papas gear so I'm hoping she's a deserving young parent who couldnt otherwise afford one.

To be fair, I'd rather sell things for less hassle free, than make more money and have hassle

Lianne had some grief yesterday from some twerp who bought a pair of Freyas boots for a fiver, recieved them and then said she wanted her money back because of various faults that didn't exist. We've both said eBay is fine for buying, but selling seems to attract every plum with an internet account and a desire to be awkward.

I'm unhappy with eBay because I faltered and decided not to bid on a Capri earlier this week, then instantly regretted it.

I've heard that said before. What's scary if you're sellin stuff is that because PayPal is based in Belgium, they can withdraw money from your account without permision and refund it to the buyer if they're unhappy

We've both said we won't sell again on eBay, for the sake of as fiver I think Lianne would rather have thrown them away than deal with a twat.

Samfieldhouse, what was eBay's response? They claim to act on obviously suspicious activity, and one person using 2 accounts to falsely boost feedback, and to 'up' the bids should be an easy one to sort out - looks pretty clear in your case.

You will find prats in all walks of life, and eBay is no exception. I have to say, tho', that I've used it a fair amount and the vast, vast majority of people I've dealt with have been perfectly straight-forward to deal with. And every person I've met through actually collecting an item - or them from me - has been genuinely pleasant and interesting folk.

And the couple of problems I have had were sorted quickly and easily by PayPal.

Russell, just protect yourself by taking a number of photos so dishonest claims can be immediately countered. And, if the listing only allows one free photo, do what I do and upload them to 'Photobucket' and then paste the html links into the advert body - instant large-sized, high-res photos in your ad (If you need to know how to do this, please just ask).

(But, there will always be twits. I set up an eBay account for my 8-year old son (***cough***) so he could sell little things like his cards, old toys, etc to boost his pocket money - and for fun. Granddad gave him a bunch of freebee CDs that came with a newspaper - some decent stuff like Bowie, Kravitz, UB40, Genesis - and the ad I made up for my boy opened with - in large print - "Promotional CD in CARD sleeve received with newspaper". This was followed by a scan of the cover which showed "Daily Mail" in large text. A full album for 99p delivered! Feedback? Oh, that was "Didn't know it was a newspaper freebee..." **sigh**)

Ebay's owners are cheeky bastards, and so are Paypal's.

I've just sold old some records on there and the listing fee's were pretty high to begin with (around about £9.00 each) then they add a final value fee of around 10% or more, then finally paypal take their cut. They ended up with over £80.00 in fees just off one album alone.

I sent the items signed for, which brings me to the next set of cheeky bastards - Royal mail. They 'lost' an LP valued at 75 quid. I asked them where it was, as the buyer had complained it hadn't arrived? "Don't know we don't track them" was the reply.

"Then what's the point of paying for recorded delivery then?" I asked. "So you know if it has been delivered or not" was the answer. Brilliant!

Ebay wanted me to provide proof of postage for the item to help them deliberate on the case, which I did, and having seen it they still decided to refund the fella anyway, straight out of my paypal without notification, which in fact came out of my bank account. I then asked them what would happen if everyone claimed they hadn't received an item? Would they instantly refund the money to anyone who claimed non receipt, regardless of proof of postage?

They said words to the effect of "Don't be like that, we considered the case fully" which means "Yes."

The only way to sell on ebay is to sell high value items and send them by insured post for a greater value than they are worth, that way when the con men or incompetents strike, they make you a profit. Low value items you might as well give away.

Yeh but...

You know before you offer anything up for sale what its going to cost up front. The fee's shouldn't be a surprise to anyone. Where else can you get that level of access to people to sell something for a price that's not fixed and can often exceed what you expect.

Ebay is fine for both buying an selling if you do your homework.

As for RoyalMail, I won't hear of the whining about their service which is fantastic. We ran a mail order company when we lived in the UK and relied on RM for 99% of deliveries. It is a fantastic service. You try sending a small packet or letter for less than a quid to an address at the other end of the country without using RM.

The main thing wrong with eBay is that they have no proper competition, so their charges are pretty high. They are making an absolute fortune.

But, let's be honest, it's a pretty good service. Where else would you get such a huge range of hard to find items - and 2CV bits? And also flog things for silly money that you almost threw out?

If you are selling a high value item, then have it sent recorded delivery - ok, it won't tell you where it got lost, but you should at least get your money back from RM.

I do agree tho', Old Nail, that they are too keen to find in favour of the buyer; even the way they won't allow you to leave negative feedback for a buyer is crazy.

And I also agree with six-ooh-too; I think RM are fab. They rarely lose anything, and our local postie will also find nifty places to leave parcels if we are out - the latest being in the footwell of my permanently parked Deux Chevaux...