I just wondered what your experiences of ebay were as I've decided my bargain hunting days are over!I'

When I first opened my account I got a travel cot and highchair at bargain prices and was very pleased but since then my luck has ran out!

1) Bought a pair of Levis jeans new with tags size 27 waist. When they arrived they has no size tag in and were far too small (daughter tried them on as well) seller wouldn't refund so they went in the charity bag!

2) Bought another pair of jeans new with tags. I tried them on and they fit and left good feedback. I then noticed that they had oil spilt down the back of one of the legs. They went in the bin.

3) I bought some clarins moisturiser. Looked genuine so i left good feedback. When I opended the bottle to use it it smelt awful! It was either fake or had gone off.

4) I bought my other half a Ralf Lauren hoodie new without tags. When it arrived it looked like it had been washed a hundred times and went straight in the bin. The seller wouldn't refund so I left negative feedback.

I then decided to sell something. I only charged £2.75 postage when it came to £4.62. The buyer has said that it has arrived damaged so I've had to give a full refund so I'm out of pocket.

I've now closed my account!

Did you raise disputes for the items that that you were unhappy with?  Anything that arrives damaged (where the defect is not described in the isting), wrong sizing etc should be reported to ebay as 'significantly not as described' so that a resolution can be reached with the seller - either returning the item for a full refund or negotiating a partial refund if you are happy to keep the item but would have paid less for it had you known it was damaged. 

The postage on the item you sold was your own fault, really.  Weigh something on a set of standard kitchen scales and then use the calculator on the Royal Mail website to estimate postage.  Where ebay sets a cap on postage (like for clothing) and your postage may be legitimately more expensive that the cap, then you should set a start price on the item at a level that will ensure that you cover your costs. 

Photographing items well usually counteracts any false claims of items arriving damaged.  I photograph an item from all angles and describe clearly and accurately, including any reference to minor faults or damage.  If something is genuinely damaged in the postal system, you have recourse through RM's claims system for compensation providing you have used an appropriate method of postage.  I have had to use it a few times for lost/damaged items and have always recovered my costs.

Sounds like you have been unlucky (or a dream customer for shoddy sellers as it appears you let them off the hook too easily) as I've been using ebay for many years for buying and sellign and out of approx.1000 transactions, have had only half a dozen or so that did not go smoothly but were satisfactorily resolved using ebay's dispute resolution system. 

My vote is eBay - Good :)

You do have to be careful, particularly with high end brand named products or cosmetics as there are so many fakes out there, but you can take steps to make sure you aren't defrauded.  If it looks to good to be true - it probably is!

You should always use the online support to resolve issues, check your items as soon as they arrive (before leaving feedback), and ask questions before you buy.  Most sellers will send extra pictures, more detailed measurements and better descriptions if asked AND the way they handle your initial enquiry is a good indicator as to the way they will handle the sale.  Always check feedback too, you can spot a 'wrong un' a mile off in most cases.

As Shaynlola says you have to weigh your stuff carefully (with packaging) before listing.  I sometimes weigh a few similar items then group them all into the same postal band for my convenience - it's a pain weighing everything.  If necessary you simply adjust your start price to cover.  I recognise that I might be out of pocket on postage from time to time but it's mostly ok.  I also sometimes pay out of my own pocket to add Recorded Delivery or additional compensation if I think the buyer looks a bit dodgy.  It might cost me a couple of quid BUT it's worth it not to have to get into a dispute if they try and start mucking me about!!

eBay is like most things - it has its advantages and disadvantages.  You just need to work out what they are :)

Sadly there are crooks in all walks of life who will try it on! For some, selling & buying stuff on Ebay is one way of making a fast buck. Some sellers will try to pass off fakes as genuine while some buyers will say an item has arrived damaged so as to try and obtain a refund.
Do your homework, read the listing, read their feedback even if it is positive as this can say a lot too.
When i sell stuff i try to be as honest as possible and i always use a saved document on my computer about my terms and conditions of sale which i copy & paste into the listing. This saves you typing out the same old things over again for each listing and ensures you don't forget to add important things. Then potential crooked buyers will realise you are nobodies fool!
There are many honest buyers out there and i think they outweigh the rotten apples!
My best purchase was an antique style high level cistern & loo with a vanity sink in mint condition. It was the genuine article. I'd seen them advertised for £3k and i paid £50! The seller lived in a mansion! What a bargain!

I love eBay.  I buy and sell on it and in approximately 500 transactions have only had a few bad apples.  Someone once bought a good leather bag from me then claimed it wasn't leather.  After it was gone I had no recourse and she wouldn't pay the cost to send it back funnily enough, so now I take photos of the bits that say 'leather' or whatever.  When I list items I'm always extremely honest.  When I've bought cosmetics or perfume I've always looked for someone saying 'genuine' in their listing.  Although I guess dishonest people may still say this!

Zebedee, would you mind PM'ing me the terms and conditions you use?  I don't do this, but maybe I should start so it would be good to see what kind of thing you put.  I hope you don't think I'm being cheeky.  :)

I think I have been a little naïve!
I have just contacted the seller if I have been unhappy, not ebay.
The postage was completely my fault I thought £2.75 would cover it.
I've spoken to a couple of people who have made quite a bit of money for christmas selling things but I'll stick with my decision.

I read sellers feedback very thoroughly. If no one has complained about them in the past and they have 100% feedback I feel fairly safe. If they are down to 99% for example I want to know why and read the lot.

I'm the same rocknrose and it has saved me from some bad purchases. I recently thought I'd found some bargain LED collars, the seller had a 99% rating so I checked what the negative feedback was about and lo and behold every negative feedback was about how the led collars were really poor quality and tended to break after only one or two uses.

> I read sellers feedback very thoroughly. If no one has complained about them in the past and they have 100% feedback I feel fairly safe. If they are down to > 99% for example I want to know why and read the lot.

We do this too. We only buy (so far) and most of the things are DIY bits. So far (fingers crossed) we haven't had any problems. However, I would never buy clothes/fashion accessories/electronics etc etc from Ebay :)

> If they are down to 99% for example I want to know why and read the lot.

If you go to the following website, it's possible to see all negative and neutral feedback without wading through the positives. It helps to read negative feedback to see if any dispute was managed or if they just had a whingy buyer/seller.

http://www.goofbay.com/

Tagging on the end..

Also paying with Pay Pal is very good. Making a claim with them is another way to resolve any problem as they seem to be very much on the buyers side.  I always pay by pay pal also keeps me safer as no one but pay pal gets my bank details.

we sent a dvd when the weather was raining for about 4 days solid, the buyer wanted his money back as the envelope was wet when it was delivered , we explained that we could not help the royal mail getting the parcel wet, the envelope was a bubble wrap one and i thought that the dvd would not of got damaged with just it getting wet, he then said that the dvd box was damaged the end was broken, so we asked for the item to be returned and we would refund his money he refused and we said we want to the see the damage as you said in the beginning it was just a wet envelope, he said we where to refund his money first but i would not i said that as we have a 100% feed back score we required the item back and he then said well i have sold it to my brother he is not bothered about the end of the envelope being damaged so it was not the box at all, and he still wanted us to pay him back as he is fussy as he said, he never opened a claim against us and we barred him from bidding on any of our items again

> Also paying with Pay Pal is very good. Making a claim with them is another way to resolve any problem as they seem to be very much on the buyers side.  I always pay by pay pal also keeps me safer as no one but pay pal gets my bank details.

We gave up using ebay as Pay Pal was dreadful for one of our transactions :-( Sold an expensive item for £300, payment by PP and notified by them that payment was  received. so posted item off to buyer. Next day received notification from PP that the buyer's PP account was under investigation so payment couldn't be transferred on to us as they had frozen his account. Waited a week and heard nothing so contacted them and we were told we had to wait another week whilst they continued their investigation but we weren't allowed to be told what exactly was being investigated. Heard nothing for a couple of days and then were told that all the money in the buyer's account had been used by PP to refund money to purchasers that had bought from our customer and then they had closed his account.

When we asked when the money he owed us would be paid into our account we were told that it wouldn't be as they had used it all to refund payments to his customers and there was no money left in the account.  We were left £300 out of pocket and were told to claim under PP's payment guarantee system - we did and were awarded £90 as this was the amount left after they had deducted their fees and charges. We were out of pocket by over £200 and never got it back. Stopped using ebay after that and will never use them again.

Harley, that's terrible.  Prior to posting, had you transferred the money to your bank account, or had you just left it in your paypal account?  If you hadn't done so, I wonder if by transferring it to your bank account straight away it would have had a different outcome.  It's really not fair that you lost so much money.

> Prior to posting, had you transferred the money to your bank account, or had you just left it in your paypal account?

We had left it in our PP account ready to buy something we were bidding on.

Not that it now makes any difference, but I wonder if you had transferred it if that would have made a difference?  Maybe that's a move worth making in future to try and protect from these kind of things happening.  It sucks though.  :(

I think ebay has had its day, and i also think its a buyers market not a sellers.

> xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml">a buyers market not a sellers.

Had some misguided 'lady' a few weeks ago return an item for a refund, my listing says in Big font - Black or Brown, she wanted tan, I was busy and sent a brown (tan being a shade of brown :-) ).
I got a message back saying it was my fault she had all the inconvenience because I hadn't pointed out to her that tan was not offered