game sellers on eBay are SO STUPID!

[greg]

Some ASSHOLE on eBay sent the mint condition NGPC Biomotor Unitron I bought in a flimsy, sad-assed bubble mailer. The box is all smashed and ripped now. This pisses me off. Undamned told me he recently bought a mint condition Mega Man NES game that got the same treatment. I am so SICK of these idiot sellers! When I bought my Lunar games for the Sega CD, those were shipped in a bubble mailer and these were smashed up too. Do people just not complain about this? Do most people who buy a mint game not care if it gets smashed up in the mail? Why do these game sellers think they can get away with such shitty customer service? I always ship the games I sell in boxes.

A part of the problem is that stupid eBay has a ridiculously low maximum shipping price for domestic sales. Too many idiots were listing stuff for only a penny and had $15 shipping charges or more, so eBay's response to this was to put a shipping price threshold. Now when I sell games, I have to either list them under the vintage category or just list the auction at a higher starting price. It shouldn't have to be this way.

[PsychoGun]

don't even look for stuff on ebay, it sucks.

[greg]

don't even look for stuff on ebay, it sucks.

Well, I've no idea where else I can purchase a game like this. It's either deal with faggots on eBay like this guy or deal with faggots on Amazon Marketplace.

[Slump]

Yeah, shipping can be a real pain on ebay. I recently ordered Neon Genesis Evanglion Manga on there for a decent price and the moron sent in some kind of torn up shoe box filled with the books and a bunch of cut up news paper. When I received it the mail man walked it personally to my door with a WTF look on his face because it was completely torn apart and held together with bits of duct tape. All the books were there but two were bent to hell. Not sure what goes through sellers heads sometimes. That said, sometimes decent sellers are willing to take your shipping concerns into consideration and wrap up a product how you would like them packaged. Those can be rare though .

[Acid King]

Maybe they do it because the games aren't mint in the first place and they figure that any complaints they get can be blamed on mistreatment by the post office.

[PsychoGun]

don't even look for stuff on ebay, it sucks.

Well, I've no idea where else I can purchase a game like this. It's either deal with faggots on eBay like this guy or deal with faggots on Amazon Marketplace.

I know it sucks man, but I only buy shit in person at a store, or from an "online" friend I trust.

don't use ebay, don't buy from independent sellers.

use actual companies who offer returns/exchanges/refunds and you won't get screwed.

i've never had any problems since i've done that.

[drunkninja24]

I've bought some things on gamegavel before and not had problems, but sellers there are probably a little more attentive to things like that.

[Ed Oscuro]

Exactly the sort of thing I wanted to hear since in my case a buyer made a stupid bid and then made a song and dance about my shipping timeframe, despite my havingagreed to ship it to his country. Probably was trying to rob me of the bid money and the item since he only started making noise the week after the auction ended. Buyers don't seem to get that the deck is stacked against the seller. Anyway, about bad packaging - this is nothing new, I've had this problem intermittently since 2002. The solution is to buy from sellers with a good reputation and obvious experience. If you are worried that an item might be shipped badly, send a question in before the auction ends about shipping - ask if they will ship in a cardboard box with stuff inside to keep things rattling around. If they don't give you a satisfactory response then don't bid. And don't buy flimsy shit if you can help it

I've bought some things on gamegavel before and not had problems, but sellers there are probably a little more attentive to things like that.

Since they are smaller and game focused you'd think people might be more careful than some guy who doesn't know or care what he's selling, but you never know. Kaboomer (former owner of the site) was trying to seduce former eBay sellers who couldn't take eBay fees. Using extremely cheap mailers is still a tempting way to save money. I didn't hear anything to indicate that Game Gavel put a bigger emphasis on good seller policy, though since they're smaller I'm sure there are less likely to be festering problems, but you never know.

[greg]

The solution is to buy from sellers with a good reputation and obvious experience. If you are worried that an item might be shipped badly, send a question in before the auction ends about shipping - ask if they will ship in a cardboard box with stuff inside to keep things rattling around. If they don't give you a satisfactory response then don't bid. And don't buy flimsy shit if you can help it

I did contact the seller about having him ship it in a box. He said it would be $2 extra. I sent him the extra $2. He mailed it in the bubble mailer anyway. If it was cart-only, I wouldn't care. But these games get smashed easily in the mail, and this is just inexcusable. Looking at his feedback, not enough people are upset about this lousy sort of "customer service." Why don't more people complain about this sort of crap?

[ROBOTRON]

Time after time I've warned people here about the evil sellers of Ebay.

[ryu]

Why don't more people complain about this sort of crap?

Probably because it doesn#t happen all that often. I've never recieved anything completely broken via mail, and I often have stuff shipped in bubble wraps.

[Ganelon]

File a dispute to ship back at his expense while mentioning the fraud (and then a chargeback if it's denied or you can't work out a resolution). Some folks only think about the bottom line and have no pride as a seller. Still, it's often worth it to take those risks if you find a good deal. My local postal services are pretty good at handling packages with care; the main thing I look out for when it comes to shipping is to never buy from Canada without making sure a box is used. Chances are fairly high that your package will get crushed at least a bit without one.

Speaking of which, that's one of the major reasons I really like to buy from Amazon. They normally use sturdy boxes and keep games trapped under plastic wrap so that they don't get banged up. Unfortunately, even there you start to see deficiencies like packaging carelessness where a game box is smashed up a bit on the sides or manufacturing issues where a manual wasn't inserted correctly so that it gets bent or that an inner box was bent although an outer case had no issues.

[maxlords]

I always ask the seller to ship in a box, etc, volunteer to pay extra. This has never happened to me....yet. I'm also picky about the feedback of the sellers I buy from and I don't buy a ton off eBay...only the occasional item here and there.

I'd say:

2/3 forums
1/12 eBay
3/12 local and/or in person

Excluding new releases of course. I buy new stuff on Amazon sometimes too, and every once in a while, it shows up damaged. I just return it and get a new one.

[evil_ash_xero]

I always ship in boxes.

[E. Randy Dupre]

Why don't more people complain about this sort of crap?

Probably because it doesn#t happen all that often. I've never recieved anything completely broken via mail, and I often have stuff shipped in bubble wraps.

Yeah, I've never had a problem either, and I've bought a shit-ton of old games off eBay sellers over the years. It's not *that* difficult to make sure that the person you're buying from has a brain in their head.

[greg]

Well, again, I communicated with the guy, he told me that a box would be $2 extra, so I paid the extra for the box. He still sent it in a bubble mailer. The thing is, no game should be sent in one of those, unless it's a cart-only item. Unfortunately, as I said before, eBay puts a limit on how high you can charge for shipping, so if you want to ship it via priority mail in a box, you'll have to add a mandatory insurance to the sale or something in order to have the shipping cost match what it will actually cost to sell the item.

When I sell a game, I wrap it in bubble wrap and put it in a solid box. Boxes cost more than envelopes to ship, naturally. If it costs $5.50 to ship it and eBay says that I can only ask for no more than $3.50 (dunno where they pulled that number from), I have to make up for the cost somehow. eBay can be a real pain in the ass for both buyers and sellers.

[maxlords]

Great thing about us non-US people is that eBay only does that shipping thing to US sellers They don't tie anyone else's hands like that at all.

[Magic Knight]

Great thing about us non-US people is that eBay only does that shipping thing to US sellers They don't tie anyone else's hands like that at all.

I live in Japan, and if I want to sell on US ebay, I have to follow those same shipping rules. So I can only charge $6 if sending a Neo Geo AES cart to the US. Maybe it's changed now, but I've stopped selling on ebay anyway.

[Ed Oscuro]

If the seller lied to you about the shipping method, you could easily bust their balls. Go look at the Help section and start a refund process.

In response to Magic Knight:
Apparently you can set your own shipping if you go through some rigamarole...I was only able to charge $4.00 for priority shipping on the 360 games I sold, when a priority box + shipping costs $4.90. If you have shipping & handling costs, it gets better!

On the other hand, for a large item I shipped (a patch panel, which actually went to somebody in the state) I was able to set my own shipping for, $15, off what some online store was charging. This turned out to be almost twice as much as I needed so I sent the extra money back, which is easy to do via PayPal.

So I'm not sure what's going on there - in some categories it seems to say "select an amount up to $x.00" but not in others.

Right now I need to get eBay to lower eBay fees bloated to $30, apparently mostly from an item which wasn't sold - well, it was, but the buyer demanded a refund after making some baloney claims, so they got it. It's sitting there in eBay and showing that it's not been paid for...but it was and got refunded...what the hell?

Unfortunately eBay's online chat help has been experiencing "high volumes" of claims with wait times of over an hour...well over. When it looks like you have only 2 minutes and some seconds to go, but there's 30+ people in line, guess what? Add another hour! This is the THIRD DAY I will have tried to get in. Ironically I almost got in the first day, but was away from the PC the moment somebody was around so they booted me off. Their phone lines don't seem to be taking callers, and I don't have the patience to sit on standby for two hours anyway.

It really pisses me off to think that we could be throwing more money at another Meg Whitman who will take cash hand over fist to fund spurious political ventures (hay at least she isn't Carly Fiorina) while we can't even get basic support.

But on the plus side, they have started another free to list period, through the rest of the year. If only I write a legal document in my auctions so no Brazilians can try to scam me, but so that legitimate foreign buyers can bid, I'll be good, I guess!

[neorichieb1971]

I collect steelbooks and most merchants send them in flimsy cardboard wraps. How 95% of them get to me unscathed is beyond me. I have much worse luck with Ebay though, almost 50% of them are dented upon reciept. When it comes to packaging of games/dvd's and blu rays I would like the packaging of the disc to be robust for shipping. Since no bricks and mortar establishments operate in the UK anymore for DVD's and blu rays it seems stupid that getting them through the mail can wreck them before you even open them.

[Ed Oscuro]

Aaaand I'm waiting again, because the robot "I understand your question is about billing" promised to put me on hold "for 2 to 3 minutes" in which time I actually spent 10 minutes and got disconnected at the end.

In the meantime eBay sent me an email asking if I wanted to take a survey...

...oh yes, I took it indeed.

[Ed Oscuro]

Vanity update: Well, I got things taken care of. Was told that in the future I just block anybody trying shenanigans like those. Fine by me. I know the louse's YouTube Poop Channel anyway

[Ganelon]

If only I write a legal document in my auctions so no Brazilians can try to scam me, but so that legitimate foreign buyers can bid, I'll be good, I guess!

Well, I'm sure you've seen the horror stories by now. There's a reason people avoid Brazil. A seller tried to scam me he only time I ever bought from a Brazilian on eBay (eBay let you know who the winners of auctions were at that time so I was also able to contact other buyers in the same situation). Thank goodness for easy disputes.

[undamned]

The solution is to buy from sellers with a good reputation and obvious experience.

It's not *that* difficult to make sure that the person you're buying from has a brain in their head.

Double fail. The Megaman auction of mine that Greg mentioned earlier was from a seller w/ 100% positive feedback for hundreds of sales. I made the assumption that he couldn't have sold that much game stuff crappily and still have 100%. Wrong. Unfortunately, the damage was minor enough to make me look like some OCD monster if I made a stink about it, but notable enough to degrade the value of a collectible item that I spent a lot of money on.

If you are worried that an item might be shipped badly, send a question in before the auction ends about shipping - ask if they will ship in a cardboard box with stuff inside to keep things rattling around. If they don't give you a satisfactory response then don't bid.

This. I think I've had only one seller flake on me after my giving explicit packaging instructions. When it comes to high dollar fragile items, it's hard for them to think you're crazy for giving them desired packaging details.

I imagine if the damage is significant enough you can get your money back using the "Item Not as Described" deal.
-ud

[neorichieb1971]

Well think of it this way, give yourself a pat on the back for being an awesome passer of things. It is the responsibility of the package designers these days. Most stuff must be sold online now. If Nintendo's future systems have games in cardboard boxes they need to be shot.

[greg]

I received a response from the guy. He's now claiming that he sent me an e-mail and already offered to refund me my $2. What a lying d-bag. This is the dispute I filed with PayPal:

I requested the "Biomotor Unitron" videogame item be sent in a box immediately after payment 9/30. You shipped the item 10/1, then on 10/2 you said it would be $2 extra, which I promptlypaid. The item was not marked as shipped on eBay, and as of today you still never marked it as shipped. I received the item in a bubble mailer, smashed flat and ripped, and DEFINITELY not in MINT condition as advertised. Now you are lying and claiming that you e-mailed me afterwords and have offered to refund the $2. There is no record of that e-mail on eBay which you claim you sent. You are a dishonest and inept seller and an embarrassment to videogame sellers on eBay.

I expect the following:
$35.99 refund for the auction price plus shipping
$2.00 refund for the extra money I sent, you kept, and pocketed dishonestly.
$2.00 refund to help cover the costs of me having to send this game back to you because you are an inept seller with incompetent packaging. The shipping plus tracking will likely be more than $2, but I'll be generous and leave it at $2. If you do not, I will leave negative feedback for you on eBay.

Because he's a lying d-bag, I will not just send this thing back and trust him to uphold his own refund policy. I'll send an update when this is finalized.

[ncc1701p]

I was talking to Greg offline and said this:

A 'game' is usually a PS2/xbox/xbox360/wii game that is in the same sized dvd case. Dreamcast and PS1 discs, etc are Compact Disc based. So I would imagine that ebay figures well they're all the same so we'll cap shipping at this amount because it doesn't weigh that much. And like Magic Knight mentions well there are odd-sized games (Neo Geo AES) and also Neo geo pocket, GBA, DS/DSi, Sega Master system/Genesis, and plethora of older vintage games which have delicate housing (Intellvision,Atari,NES/SNES/n64). I hate ebay having to cap it but at the same time they do it cuz of fraud. Its a nasty double-edged sword. I'm also very picky when buying from a seller. If 5 sellers have the same thing well I go w/ the mid-tier to upper depending on feedback and style. Not 100% accurate.

This dingleberry on ebay should just bounce you your shipping money pack or a full refund. You could ask him to swap a box out. If he is willing to work with you (doubtful).

[Ed Oscuro]

But again, eBay's shipping cap isn't even enough to buy a Priority box, you're 90 cents short.

The "fraud" Greg mentions is mainly people trying to put eBay fees into eBay shipping...kind of like how people off eBay ask you to pay a 4% "PayPal tax" to cover expenses. That's not fraud, that's eBay's problem.

[maxlords]

Great thing about us non-US people is that eBay only does that shipping thing to US sellers They don't tie anyone else's hands like that at all.

I live in Japan, and if I want to sell on US ebay, I have to follow those same shipping rules. So I can only charge $6 if sending a Neo Geo AES cart to the US. Maybe it's changed now, but I've stopped selling on ebay anyway.

Right....only eBay US does that though. I sell stuff on eBay Canada and I can charge whatever I want for shipping.

[KBZ]

bought a DC BBA once. Magically it transformed into a mere Modem by the time it got here! Returned it to the seller, he said he sent the real BBA. And I got the SAME modem in the mail! yay!

seriously, fuck ebay.