How do I protect myself?

[Timothy Kline]

I recently won a fairly high-priced Atari MIO ($500+) from a seller on eBay that he listed as New in Box. It arrived non-working, and after running MIO diagnostics on it, there seems to be an issue with the onboard RAM.

 

Having contacted the seller, they are telling me that after they get the MIO back and can verify that it's the one that was shipped (no-brainer there), AND that it wasn't tampered with, he'll issue the refund.

 

What I want to know is how I can protect myself from a situation where he gets the MIO back, claims that it was tampered with (it wasn't, insofar as *I* know), and keeps my money. I'm not saying they will do that, but I guess I'm still suspicious since 1) there hasn't been any feedback from the person who bought the previous MIO I had bidded on at that time-- and maybe they are having the same experience with a dead MIO (different serial number); 2) someone kept "nudging" the bid upwards on the auction I won, quitting just before reaching my max bid.

 

In any case, I just want to know how best to protect myself as this is actually, after 18 years of eBaying, my first return of something I purchased.

 

If anyone here has ever purchased from http://www.ebay.com/usr/dbrentmcclureyahooand can vouch that I'm going to be fine, that would be tremendously helpful, too.

 

Thank you, in advance!

--Tim

[kennybrooks]

Buyer has the advantage here, as long as it was sold as working. All you have to do is file a claim with Ebay and state item was not as described. Very little the seller can do. Ebay will provide you with a refund. Sounds like the seller is going to want the item back, so the refund won't occur until a few days after the item shows as received (if Ebay has to provide it and the seller will not) (probably need to have signature confirmation in this situation).

[eightbit]

Just file the claim with ebay. Do NOT just send it back to him without going through the ebay resolution center and filing the claim. If you do that he can easily screw you over as ebay has no record of the return...or even that a return was taking place. Once ebay detects the tracking number has arrived to the seller they will refund you, done. They don't wait for him to inspect it and tell them go ahead and refund.

[Timothy Kline]

Thank you both for the responses and suggestions. As I said, this is my first time in 18 years, give or take, to have to seek some sort of recompense. In previous situations (all of them below $200), I simply ate the loss due to the rarity of the item and my hope in fixing this or that. But this was a significant chunk of change, and I am not so rich that I can simply eat this level of loss.

 

The only other time I nearly got burned was when I got caught up with an unsavory AtariAge scammer here over a Mega ST, and after several complaints from additional AA members, that seller has been banned. And that situation was handled directly through PayPal since it was a sale here.

 

So, this is my first for eBay— and after looking at eBay's terms and lingo for items listed as New, along with your helpful thoughts, I've gone ahead and submitted a formal request to eBay for a refund.

 

--Tim

 

 

[bojay1997]

Not to be critical, but looking at the auction listing, it was sold untested and as-is. Frankly, while Ebay will likely take your side and the seller seems willing to step up, the seller technically shouldn't be saddled with a return on an item he made no representations about. If you wanted a working item, you should have asked him to test it or provide such a guarantee before you bought it.

[Timothy Kline]

Not to be critical, but looking at the auction listing, it was sold untested and as-is. Frankly, while Ebay will likely take your side and the seller seems willing to step up, the seller technically shouldn't be saddled with a return on an item he made no representations about. If you wanted a working item, you should have asked him to test it or provide such a guarantee before you bought it.

 

It was likewise represented as New and in original box. Have you ever spent $500+ on an item that was sold to you as New, didn't work, and you said Oh well?

 

Too often, I've seen sellers try to use "as-is" as a way to absolve themselves of any obligations beyond taking the money. If the seller didn't want it to be understood as "New" then why use the term more than once in the listing?

 

--Tim

[bojay1997]

 

It was likewise represented as New and in original box. Have you ever spent $500+ on an item that was sold to you as New, didn't work, and you said Oh well?

 

Too often, I've seen sellers try to use "as-is" as a way to absolve themselves of any obligations beyond taking the money. If the seller didn't want it to be understood as "New" then why use the term more than once in the listing?

 

--Tim

Honestly, as a long time computer collector, when I see a "new in the box" piece of vintage computer technology that is more than 20 years old, I always work from the assumption that it may not be working (in fact, I assume that it will require some type of repair if I intend on using it) and I temper my bidding accordingly. Just because something is new and in the original box doesn't mean it is 100% functional. The fact that the seller disclosed to you that it was untested and sold "as-is" clearly in the listing and still is willing to accept a return shows that they are a really good seller and willing to go beyond despite the fact that you are holding them to a guarantee they never made. If working condition is important, you need to either ask for the item to be tested before purchasing or you probably should avoid "new" items as electronics can deteriorate over time regardless of how well they may be stored.

Edited December 15, 2016 by bojay1997

[Timothy Kline]

Honestly, as a long time computer collector, when I see a "new in the box" piece of vintage computer technology that is more than 20 years old, I always work from the assumption that it may not be working (in fact, I assume that it will require some type of repair if I intend on using it) and I temper my bidding accordingly. Just because something is new and in the original box doesn't mean it is 100% functional. The fact that the seller disclosed to you that it was untested and sold "as-is" clearly in the listing and still is willing to accept a return shows that they are a really good seller and willing to go beyond despite the fact that you are holding them to a guarantee they never made. If working condition is important, you need to either ask for the item to be tested before purchasing or you probably should avoid "new" items as electronics can deteriorate over time regardless of how well they may be stored.

 

I'll keep that in mind going forward. And I certainly believe that the seller is just as willing as I am to see both parties leave this in a way that there is no bad feelings going forward. And I think we are both working to that end as of this writing. Thank you again for the thoughts, bojay1997.

 

--Tim

[Mark Wolfe]

I've been in a similar situation years ago with a camera repair

 

It arrived not working and the email from the eBay seller who provided the refurb service said things about checking that parts were not "tampered with" or "swapped out" and I must say that put me on the defensive

 

But ultimately once I returned it he checked it and found the problem, fixed it and returned it in working order

 

I agree with the previous posted that when an eBay auction says "as is" you are pretty much forewarned that it's possible it may not work

 

Had it been me, I would have asked if they could test it and if not I would not bid any higher than what I could recoup scrapping it for parts for sale regardless of what it was

 

In reference to your feeling that someone was ghost bidding in an effort to get the most out of your highest bid, I have to say from well over 15 years of eBay experience that I've had that feeling before as well when I see a new bidder with no feedback or history bidding but ultimately if a seller engaged in that it could very well backfire. They have no way of knowing what your maximum bid would be so they could easily bid themselves into a corner. It is much much easier to just set a reserve price

 

It's not paranoid, it is a possibility but you can't worry about that stuff or it will drive you crazy

New people join and leave eBay every day. You can never know what is behind a bid.

 

I'm not familiar with the thing you bought but RAM should be easy to get for just about anything, even if it is hard soldered to a PCB

 

If I had to choose something to fail on a computer, I'd have to go with RAM or maybe a peripheral card that I can find out in the wild

 

Better that than the motherboard directly (unless as I said the ram is hard soldered)

 

Hope it works out for you, I can def relate to that feeling of wondering if you're being screwed but that is what the seller is thinking too so at the end of the day you have to trust the system and the rules or don't use eBay

Edited January 11, 2017 by Mark Wolfe

[Jaymiester]

They have no way of knowing what your maximum bid would be so they could easily bid themselves into a corner. It is much much easier to just set a reserve price

 

 

 

Sure they do. They just bid really high to expose your max, then they retract their bid and run the price up to just under your max. The only way to avoid this is to bid on the item in the last few seconds.

[Timothy Kline]

I should've followed up on this. The seller and I worked out a solution, although it still left me with a non-working item. I would have no reservations in buying from them again, actually, because we were both looking out for the other person's interests and not just our own.

 

The sniping thing has always bugged me, but at times it has seemed like the only way to win an auction in today's eBay climate as well as avoid getting "nudged" up in a bid by someone the seller knows (or the seller themselves under a different account). What I typically will do is do an initial bid with a short-term "maximum" bid set as well. This is my way of declaring my interest in the item. I'll then watch how the auction goes, looking for "nudging" especially. If, as the auction gets closer to ending, it hasn't crossed my more realistic maximum, I'll usually wait to join in on the obligatory snipe bids in the final minute with the final "max" bid and if I win it, fine. If not, better luck next time.

 

But I have seen plenty of auctions where someone shows up out of the blue to snipe at the end, or at least try.

 

Too, I am someone who immediately pays for the auctions I win. None of that 3-days later stuff. If I'm buying from you, you can be sure the money will be in your Paypal pronto, too. I give extra creds to sellers who have their items ready to ship, but many of them take their sweet time, sometimes taking as long as a couple weeks to ship it out, and hastily throwing it into a box with little to no protection in the process.

 

Just yesterday, I received an Atari system from a seller who clearly did little more than drop a dirty piece of couch foam into the bottom of a tall box, dropped the Mega ST/4 in it with an already-popped thin sheet of bubble wrap and nothing else, and slapped some loose packing tape across the top flaps. Needless to say, it arrived with one side of the case shattered from some sort of mishap between the seller and myself, from all of the flopping around it must've done on its travel.

 

What blows my mind is that the seller would have been P*SSED if someone had shipped an item like that to HIM and it showed up in the condition this one is, yet he obviously had no qualms with putting someone else through that experience. And considering what the final tally was for the item!!

 

I was willing and happy to pay what I did for this particular system, but NOT that much for a shattered one! Ugh!

 

--Tim

[Mark Wolfe]

 

 

Sure they do. They just bid really high to expose your max, then they retract their bid and run the price up to just under your max. The only way to avoid this is to bid on the item in the last few seconds.

Pretty much misses my point, but you bring up a well known eBay tactic which is never bid until the last few seconds... that's really the best way to go if you can be there for the ending

[Mark Wolfe]

I'm with you on the Pay immediately thing as well as following strict shipping ethics... I don't fuck around either and I don't tolerate it from bullshit sellers like that

 

As a seller I also do not do auctions with a reserve. If I want a price for something then I list it at that price otherwise I set it at a $1 and let the games begin ... always being sure I have my ass covered on ship charges

[Gentlegamer]

I bid my max in the last three seconds of the auction.

 

I'd prefer everyone do the same and let the highest bid win, instead of people bidding against the number on the screen and driving the price up needlessly.

[Guest]

I bid my max in the last three seconds of the auction.

 

I'd prefer everyone do the same and let the highest bid win, instead of people bidding against the number on the screen and driving the price up needlessly.

but doesn't both have the same effect?

whatever happens, a bidder will stop when the price reaches his/her limit, the only difference with last minute bidding, is it gives the purchasera chance to review their bidding limit in real time. This is how actual real-world (non-ebay) auctions work

 

scenario 1

bidder A enters max bid $50 and ebay increments bidding automatically upto $50

bidder B enters maximum bid of $55 ebay increments bidding automatically upto $50

bidder B wins auction @ $55

this scenario would only work properly with "sealed bids" - if everyone went into ebay and bid their max in last 3 seconds of an auction, final sale prices could be just as likely to sell for higher prices. bidding your max in the last few seconds forces people to add a bit on "just in case" ..

 

scenario 2

bidder A enters bids of $25, $35, $40 and $50 in final few minutes

bidder B enters bids of $25, $35, $45 and $55 in final few minutes

bidder B wins @ $55

Edited January 15, 2017 by Guest

[Gentlegamer]

No, because many bidders aren't bidding their best bid, they are just bidding against the number on the screen, then get caught up in trying to win. This is what pushes the auction up too high.

 

Most people don't think of max bids, they bid low ball, just enough to "win" against the number on the screen. it's how I win probably 90% of the time with my max bid in the last three seconds.

 

ex. Auction is currently at $10.55 with max of $15. In the last seconds another bidder and I bid $20 and $25 respectively, I win for $20.25. if we bid before the end, that $20.25 is sitting there on the screen waiting for someone to try to better it, which would need $25.25 to do so. So either they try to guess my max and push it closer and closer to $25, or just over bid pushing it up even more.

 

A blind auction actually gets prices to come down.

 

If everyone bid max at the end, I guarantee the final auction prices would drop across the board on most items.

[Retro STrife]

Sniping is the way to go. I disagree that is in somehow wrong or disingenuous. Auction bidding is all about getting items for the best price. To do that, I prefer if everyone snipes at the last second and the highest bid wins. Far more annoying than sniping is people who fight over an item with bids when there are 5 days left to go. I sell on ebay, but I understand that everyone is there to get a good deal--not jack up the price with a bidding war so the seller gets rich. Sniping ensures the best result for buyers.

 

If you can't be there at auction end, plenty of online programs will make the snipe bid for you. I have no problem setting up my bid with those, going to sleep, and checking in the morning if I won. Nothing wrong with people doing that.

Edited January 29, 2017 by Retro STrife

[Retro STrife]

Also, I disagree with those here saying to the OP that he should be SOL because the auction saying "As-is" somehow absolves the seller of responsibility, especially for a $500 item. If you sell on ebay, you need to provide good customer service. Within reason, the seller needs to accommodate buyers...not the other way around. If your $500 item doesn't work, you take it back. As long as the buyer didn't do something shady, the seller needs to take the loss. I agree with Tim that "as-is" is too often used by sellers to avoid responsibility or to sell broken items under the guise of them not knowing if it works. Not gonna fly with ebay...if you list the item as "New" or "Used", ebay requires that it works...by using those designations you represent it as a working item. That trumps your "as-is" nonsense in your auction. Therefore, the only exception is if you list it as "Not working or for parts" in which case you are representing it to be broken. So for sellers that really don't know if something works, they need to post it as "Not working or for parts" if they don't want to take a return on a broken item. Otherwise, buyers are going to win their claim for the return, as they should. And, as a seller, I find that being nice and just agreeing to the return makes you less likely to get screwed over, compared to if you put up a fight with a buyer. Piss off a buyer, and you might get a box of rocks back, and negative feedback. Not worth it. I'm with Tim on this one.

Edited January 29, 2017 by Retro STrife

[bojay1997]

Also, I disagree with those here saying to the OP that he should be SOL because the auction saying "As-is" somehow absolves the seller of responsibility, especially for a $500 item. If you sell on ebay, you need to provide good customer service. Within reason, the seller needs to accommodate buyers...not the other way around. If your $500 item doesn't work, you take it back. As long as the buyer didn't do something shady, the seller needs to take the loss. I agree with Tim that "as-is" is too often used by sellers to avoid responsibility or to sell broken items under the guise of them not knowing if it works. Not gonna fly with ebay...if you list the item as "New" or "Used", ebay requires that it works...by using those designations you represent it as a working item. That trumps your "as-is" nonsense in your auction. Therefore, the only exception is if you list it as "Not working or for parts" in which case you are representing it to be broken. So for sellers that really don't know if something works, they need to post it as "Not working or for parts" if they don't want to take a return on a broken item. Otherwise, buyers are going to win their claim for the return, as they should. And, as a seller, I find that being nice and just agreeing to the return makes you less likely to get screwed over, compared to if you put up a fight with a buyer. Piss off a buyer, and you might get a box of rocks back, and negative feedback. Not worth it. I'm with Tim on this one.

If that were the case though, there would be very few, if any, NOS old computer parts available for sale on Ebay as there is no way to guarantee that an item sealed in the box and never used is fully functional. Both buyers and sellers need to be reasonable just as the OP and the seller were here. If a guarantee that something is working is important to you, then you should only bid and buy things that are tested (i.e. not NOS). Personally, I understand the risk as do most computer collectors and I have found most sellers and buyers to be reasonable. Ebay does favor the buyer in most cases, but you need to understand that the pro-buyer Ebay position has also driven some good and honest sellers away and reduced the supply of certain items where there is a lot of fraudulent return or buyer complaint activity. It's just not the black and white issue you are painting it to be.

[Retro STrife]

If that were the case though, there would be very few, if any, NOS old computer parts available for sale on Ebay as there is no way to guarantee that an item sealed in the box and never used is fully functional. Both buyers and sellers need to be reasonable just as the OP and the seller were here. If a guarantee that something is working is important to you, then you should only bid and buy things that are tested (i.e. not NOS). Personally, I understand the risk as do most computer collectors and I have found most sellers and buyers to be reasonable. Ebay does favor the buyer in most cases, but you need to understand that the pro-buyer Ebay position has also driven some good and honest sellers away and reduced the supply of certain items where there is a lot of fraudulent return or buyer complaint activity. It's just not the black and white issue you are painting it to be.

 

 

True, for NOS, I do agree with that, assuming the item is new and sealed or packaged up. In that situation, the item is sealed, so there is no way to test it. The seller doesn't want to break the seal or disrupt the packaging and devalue it. So everyone is in the dark. So it makes sense that some of the risk is shared. But, as to any unsealed items (whether "new" or used), I disagree. But I know sometimes there's a gray area. In this specific case, though, I looked at the item on ebay that the OP bought and I side with him, since it is not sealed and can't even be guaranteed that it is unused. Always better, though, if some middle ground is reached on an expensive NOS item, and sounds like they did.

 

That being said, my problem is more so with the sellers that sell used items "as-is" and say things like "I don't have a system to test this game on" or "I don't have an old TV, so I can't test this system". That's fine, but if it doesn't work, a return should happen, regardless of any "as-is" nonsense they tried to put in their listing. (Which, again, is trumped by ebay's policy that if you list it as new or used, it has to work.) Otherwise it's too easy for disingenuous sellers to claim that things are untested when they know it doesn't work. When I sell, nothing is more annoying than a return, but I know it's the right thing to do.

Edited February 1, 2017 by Retro STrife