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beefmuffin

My Opinion: We Should Be Able to Share Ebay Experiences

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Hi all - I guess maybe I'm feeling a bit encouraged by what I felt was a fair and open discussion about the 14-day editing feature and the weighing in of the members of our forum community on the topic of something related to our use of the board as a way to communicate and share information and insight relating to our common hobby/interests.

One thing I've noticed is that there is currently no permitted way to share our experiences on ebay except within the very narrow confines of scams or shill bidders. I think this prevents us from sharing with each other useful and relevant information about something ALL of us do: buy/sell things on ebay. I've had many great experiences, and sometimes I've managed to post about them without having my posts locked or taken down. Other times I feel the need to share some of the bad experiences I've had with sellers being dishonest or having very bad attitudes, etc which I'd like to be able to share openly about and would especially love to know if I'm the only one who's had similar dealings with sellers, etc. Not intended as anything other than just a factual, objective account of my experience dealing with so and so.

The argument is that this isn't necessary because you can leave feedback on ebay. However this isn't always the case. I've had numerous sellers cancel sales on me because they didn't like the price things sold for - you can't leave feedback on the item because the sale didn't happen. I've had at least one occasion of a seller just cancelling bids and banning me because I didn't pay within 2 days even though that requirement was never written anywhere in their listing. There's no way to leave any meaningful feedback in these cases, and there are plenty of other examples.

So - do any other members of the forum think we should have a place here where we can share our ebay experiences? Maybe we can agree on limits and/or guidelines to avoid people being unfair or vindictive, or whatever reasonable limits make sense. But I think we should be able to communicate openly about it here, since it really is a significant part of the vintage r/c collecting and enthusiast experience.

Mods: is this something we can at least discuss among the group? Maybe if there is sufficient support we could put it to a vote?

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I agree to a certain extent but these threads are usually just a "vent" rather than a useful warning to other buyers. eBay is such a big world that the chances of coming across a bad seller and remembering them are slim.

As a mod on another forum that had regular revenge biding going on against what was seen as bad sellers who had been outed in posts I would hate to see that spread here.

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As a mod on another forum that had regular revenge biding going on against what was seen as bad sellers who had been outed in posts I would hate to see that spread here.

In honesty I have no idea what "revenge bidding" means, and I certainly am not in favor of people taking revenge on each other. However, if you treat people poorly you should have to accept that people may share that experience with others. It's just one of many good reasons to be honest and respectful when dealing with others - I know I always am... and most people I've done business with are too. But, there are exceptions... and I think there should be a place for us to share and discuss them. There should be limits - no calling for anyone to do anything, or wishing people ill, etc. Sharing information without it turning into a wild west, frontier-justice posse should be possible (my opinion again).

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Thinking about it, one possible variant of the idea would be to give people a place to tell their stories about sellers, transactions, etc but keeping the sellers'/buyers' identities anonymous. It wouldn't go as far to helping people avoid repeating others' bad experiences, but would at least give us a place to vent a little and commiserate.

ps- By the way, peeps, don't be afraid to chime in with your opinion or thoughts. I have it on good authority TWINSET won't ban us just for talking about it. Actually, he never said that, LOL... but I have faith! :P

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I have no real opinion...

But I'll add as a Noob, that I wasn't aware that there was any particular Rule against talking about EBAY... I've posted links that other people might be interested in; I think all of it related to my own builds or various other ORV threads... Most of the time, these are vintage or rare parts that might be useful to someone... I look at it as a community service... That said, I don't sell on EBAY so there is no reason for me to point out anything there except good community relations... I think Beefy can attest to that...

I'll have to go back and re-read the rules... I'm only on two other MBs and those places are pretty much free-for-alls (though I've pretty much quit one b/c those people never talk about what we're supposed to talk about so I'm bored). Anyways, having "rules" is new to me...

Terry

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Hey Terry - well it's not exactly you can't post links to helpful ebay finds, etc. But I think the current rules say you can't really say negative things about certain sellers or post about having bad experiences, etc. I know for a fact posts like this happen anyway... but I'd like for it to be officially OK just to talk about this sort of thing and have a place to do it. The concern I think has been that it's "trashing" sellers, etc... but that's not really it. It's just a fact of life for us it would be nice to be able to openly discuss.

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Hey Terry - well it's not exactly you can't post links to helpful ebay finds, etc. But I think the current rules say you can't really say negative things about certain sellers or post about having bad experiences, etc. I know for a fact posts like this happen anyway... but I'd like for it to be officially OK just to talk about this sort of thing and have a place to do it. The concern I think has been that it's "trashing" sellers, etc... but that's not really it. It's just a fact of life for us it would be nice to be able to openly discuss.

I'm on another MB where people sell used audio equipment to each other all the time. These are sometimes very high priced items (microphone sets for several thousand, etc). And sometimes there are people that rip other people off, but mostly people are really *kind* in their affairs... We let people talk about it, and we police ourselves. If something gets out of hand, the Mods step in and Mod, but mostly all they have to do is tell people to cool off... It doesn't "fix" anything, but it does get the word out that so-and-so is sketchy...

As for what happens here, I don't care. I'll follow the rules. I have no reason not to do so...

Terry

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Ben, as I already told you by PM, if you have a bad experience with a seller, leave them negative feedback explaining the issue - if you need to, post follow-up feedback with extra details.

If they refuse to ship goods, tell eBay.

Name/Shame threads are one-sided if the seller's not a member here so we only have the author's point of view, not that of the seller.

Where crime or fraud is committed, we have a forum, for anything else we don't

Please contact Chris if you want to push this any further.

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