Thread: Fleabayer finally got me! (semi-scam)

Originally Posted by gospeed.racer

I feel what your saying, but its a choice to purchase it or not, and the price is right there. All business' mark up products. Thats how they stay in business. He gave you what you wanted, and you paid what you agreed to pay. The only wrong doing was the lack of inventory to be sold, he is NOT allowed to sell what he doesnt have available. THAT he could get in trouble for.

Ebay allows 10 business days to ship a non-stocked item, and 30 days to ship a pre-sale item.

Originally Posted by entranced

Just a rant more than anything else. So I've been a member of ebay since march 1999 and bought pretty conservatively (28 positives, 0 negatives to date) and had good success avoiding scammers, etc. I sort of brought this on myself to a degree though ....

So I was looking for a CDRW/DVD slim slot loading drive. I was going to buy one off of Newegg but they were sold out. I signed up for the "notify me" list, but got impatient and went to eBay. A guy there was selling them for about $12 more than the Newegg price but he was in Ohio (I'm in California) so I figured in the (lack of) sales tax and shipping and figured it wouldn't be that bad of a deal. I did the buy it now and apparently, the item was not ready to be shipped and in addition could not be sent to my workplace instead of my home. So, I'd still be waiting and would be taking a trip to the fedex center (30 min. drive). Then, I realize he's charging me ~$13 for shipping. Then, I get the notification that the item is back in stock at Newegg.

Stay with me here; I'm not an irresponsible guy, so I just bite the bullet, go through with buy-it-now and wait. When I finally go pick up the package, there's a Newegg packing slip in it with the eBayer as the bill-to and me as the ship-to. The guy bought it on Newegg and had 'em ship it directly to me. Now the chump feeling sets in especially when I go back to Newegg and see they only charge $1.99 for super saver FedEx, which is how it was shipped. So I got charged ~$12 extra for the unit, ~$11 extra for shipping and had to make the trip to the FedEx center to boot when all I had to do was wait a few days or even contact someone at Newegg to see when it was going to be back in stock. The guy's got like 1300 positives compared to my 27 so obviously if I leave him a negative it's going to hurt him a lot less than when he leaves me one in return. The money is not enough for me to justify disputing the charge -- after all, I did buy-it-now and that's a contract.

I ended up just sending him an email explaining how I don't respect his business practices, especially when he makes it so obvious that he's just buying it, overcharging on shipping and the item and passing those charges on to me. All done most eloquently though. I suppose that he could claim the extra shipping was for "handling" but seeing as how the item is never even in his hands, I'm not buying that. I really don't want to get negative feedback, since my account is over 5 years old and untarnished, but I hate feeling like a chump. If you're still reading, thanks for reading my rant. This is a great forum.

Technically and legally, the seller did nothing wrong. Morally, he was wrong to jack the shipping charge that much, but most sellers do. You bought his item and agreed to his price, so it should not matter one iota where his product came from, or how much his cost was for the product or shipping.
We are a capitalist society, and as such we are out to make $$. Just because you find a seller's item elsewhere cheaper, or a seller has an item drop shipped direct to you from another seller, does not mean anything. You say you wanted to leave him a Neg.?? for what? because you received what you paid for? his cost for an item or shipping means jack ****. Most of the technology items sold on ebay are drop shipped. Sellers need to compete, and to do so, they sell at the lowest possible price, pad shipping charges, and make money on volume. 1000 items sold at 2.00 net per profit is better than 50 items sold at 20.00 net per profit. Your seller probably only cleared $2-3 after it was all said and done. Paypal fees and ebay fees eat up most of the gross profit.
Bottom line: If you don't agree to the seller's terms and prices, don't buy. Simple as that. I understand how you feel, and it does suck knowing you paid 13.00 for 1.99 worth of shipping, but life sucks. get used to it.

Originally Posted by Motorcity

Technically and legally, the seller did nothing wrong. Morally, he was wrong to jack the shipping charge that much, but most sellers do. You bought his item and agreed to his price, so it should not matter one iota where his product came from, or how much his cost was for the product or shipping.
We are a capitalist society, and as such we are out to make $$. Just because you find a seller's item elsewhere cheaper, or a seller has an item drop shipped direct to you from another seller, does not mean anything. You say you wanted to leave him a Neg.?? for what? because you received what you paid for? his cost for an item or shipping means jack ****. Most of the technology items sold on ebay are drop shipped. Sellers need to compete, and to do so, they sell at the lowest possible price, pad shipping charges, and make money on volume. 1000 items sold at 2.00 net per profit is better than 50 items sold at 20.00 net per profit. Your seller probably only cleared $2-3 after it was all said and done. Paypal fees and ebay fees eat up most of the gross profit.
Bottom line: If you don't agree to the seller's terms and prices, don't buy. Simple as that. I understand how you feel, and it does suck knowing you paid 13.00 for 1.99 worth of shipping, but life sucks. get used to it.

I aggree with your thoughts except for the closing...life doesn't suck because of how businesses operate, you can choose not to trade with them, it's that simple.

Here is an example, I just purchased an Opus 150. This site has the same price as another competitor, except for the shipping. I bought from the competitor with guaranteed 2 day shipping while MP3's is an if'y 2-3 days and almost double the shipping cost. To run a business successfully, you have to watch the market and adapt to it.

Well, I was going to do the same thing - buy it from eBay, because Newegg was out of stock. Then I checked my priorities ) and I found that I can spend some more time for my software, while waiting for the auto-notification e-mail. The e-mail from NewEgg arrived like 10 days later and purchased the DVD from them.
Now I see that NewEgg reduced the price - they sell it for $5 less now. What do you say to THAT!
I know how you feel, but it was your decision to buy-it-now. The guy found a way to make a few bucks, so what? We all do that in one way or another.
Next time you make a decision, make sure you are comfortable with that. And enjoy your new part .

__________________________________________
My CPC - http://www.neoslogic.com

more power to the guy. it sounds dodgey, but thats what most businesses do. you agreed to pay... he got the unit to you.
sounds harsh etc etc, but tbh he did nothing wrong.

tom.

Originally Posted by m_dunnie

I aggree with your thoughts except for the closing...life doesn't suck because of how businesses operate, you can choose not to trade with them, it's that simple.

Here is an example, I just purchased an Opus 150. This site has the same price as another competitor, except for the shipping. I bought from the competitor with guaranteed 2 day shipping while MP3's is an if'y 2-3 days and almost double the shipping cost. To run a business successfully, you have to watch the market and adapt to it.

I didn't mean it to sound the way it does. In actuality, life does not suck at all. My thoughts regarding how I meant that comment to sound are not how they look after re-reading my post. You are right, market trends do dictate costs, and sellers as well as buyers constantly have to do their homework.
Basically what I was trying to convey was the thread starter's rant was meritless. To **** and moan over how he received an item he bought or how another person sold it to him is just wrong.