Sleazy eBay Sales Tactic #3,583

On 5/15/2009 11:14 AM Twibil spake thus:

I wonder if eBay's fine print doesn't prohibit such transactions.

Interesting that the seller doesn't say who makes the bridges, only that they're made in China. The pictures look pretty good: wonder how they measure up to the Japanese or Korean (e.g., Samhongsa) brass models? Is this the future--fine brass from China rather than the usual Asian sources?

Speaking of eBay, I finally got an answer from them the other day about that whole brouhaha over the guy selling the "brass trains": they sent me an email which started "Thanks for letting us know about a suspicious email you received which was related to item #230341723537."

Well, I didn't get an email from the guy (I did, but only because he also sent a message through eBay's messaging system). They were telling me all kinds of stuff about how to identify email headers, recognize spoofs, etc. Totally clueless about what the problem actually was.

By the way, the relisted auction for that item ended with a winning bid of $28.67 (+ 12.50 for shipping).

It does. You may not try to auction off intangibles on eBay, and that's exactly what they're doing.

I filed a complaint, so we'll see what happens..

~Pete

On 5/15/2009 12:20 PM Twibil spake thus:

Let's hope you get a more clueful answer from them than I did.

Brass, my ass. You can see the plastic mold lines in some of the photos.

On 5/15/2009 1:25 PM Rick Jones spake thus:

Where? Looks like brass to me; the walkway piece simulating wood planks could be embossed brass, or it might be plastic, but the rest of it looks like the real stuff.

Well, here are the "list" prices

On 5/15/2009 2:50 PM David Nebenzahl spake thus:

In fact, this picture

--don't know if link will work for you) definitely looks like brass; look at the solder joints.

My initial impression was from the 4th picture down on the eBay page; the end on view of the blue deck bridge. I thought the lines on top of the girders looked like mold release lines but with a second look I'm not sure. In the 2 photos of the through truss just above that picture the brown decking and handrails look like molded plastic parts to me. In general, a lot of the photos don't look "right" for brass, but appear more molded material to me.

Two results:

1. eBay sent me an email thanking me for reporting the auction, but says (as they did before when that other seller claimed that eBay had told him that *you* had all sorts of bad feedback) that for legal reasons they do not share any action they may take against a seller.

I'm just happy to see eBay trying to police the more underhanded sorts of sales ntactics.

On 5/15/2009 3:40 PM Twibil spake thus:

Don't you know--it was for an "error in the listing":

The seller ended this listing early because of an error in the listing.

(Perhaps that's eBay-speak for "We (eBay) pulled this listing because the seller is an unscrupulous lying bastard who tried to get away with flouting our rules".)

He's BA-AAAAAACK!

But now he's got a chart showing his over-inflated list prices, his "discounts", and your shipping costs, which reveal that his discount prices are close to what he's been using as opening prices for his auctions for the last few months anyway......except that now you have to pay him for the privilege of buying from him...

Anybody wanna buy a bridge?

~Pete

Twibil wrote: [...]

"Unavailable" again.

Heh heh

wolf k.

One never gets a clueful answer from eBay. Sometimes one gets some satisfaction, such as having an issue resolved, but never clueful answers. Particularly with regards miscreants.

Nice bridges. What was the price?

Well, here are the "list" prices

OUCH!

On 5/15/2009 10:08 PM LD spake thus:

Um, that's kinda the $64,000 question here. (Whoops, may have dated myself with an obscure reference here.) Seller can't seem to decide to just play by the rules and sell them "normally".

What was that cheat's name? Van something?

He's (?) been putting them up for auction for 6 months or more that I'm aware of, but nobody ever seems to bid on them (probably because of his prices*), so "normally" isn't working for him.

This might be because he paid the Chinese too much himself and *has* to sell at these prices to recoup his investment, or it might be simple greed coupled with a recession/depression that has driven off a lot of the upper-end buyers who would normally be his market.

In any case, this "membership" thing that he's trying now reeks of desperation.

~Pete