What NOT to do when buying items on Ebay (Venting)

[Sylentwulf]

#1 - Sending E-mails in italic, bold, green print, with a blue background does NOT make you cool, it makes you an idiot.

#2 - Sending money with a note saying "For the ebay auction" without your mailing address, e-mail address, user ID, OR item number also makes you stupid.

#3 - Sending 10 different payments for combined shipping makes sellers charge you $.60 PER PAYMENT. Don't do it. Paypal charges for this. Send ONE payment.

#4 - Asking questions AFTER you bid. Don't do it.

#5 - Writing in cursive that noone on the planet can read - Not smart.

#6 - Making up your own shipping charges is not fun, you will not get your item, or if you do, it will be sent media mail for half of what you paid.

#7 - Leaving negative feedback before contacting the seller - You just lost all rights to ANY refund or replacement you may have gotten.

#8 - BIG ONE - Turn your damn spam filters OFF. Yes, that means you - AOL, MSN, Yahoo, and Hotmail users. Neither I NOR ebay can contact you.

#9 - Doing either number 2 or number 8, Seriously, it's just common sense.

#10 - If you're international, E-mail for shipping charges BEFORE YOU BID. Yes, the 10 pound package DOES cost $50 to send to australia, it's not MY fault shipping is more than the bid price.

[chadtower]

##3 - Sending 10 different payments for combined shipping makes sellers charge you $.60 PER PAYMENT. Don't do it. Paypal charges for this. Send ONE payment.

While 10 is excessive and stupid, if you want to use paypal but have to fund the payment via multiple sources, the only way to do that is multiple payments...

[Savedman]

##3 - Sending 10 different payments for combined shipping makes sellers charge you $.60 PER PAYMENT. Don't do it. Paypal charges for this. Send ONE payment.

While 10 is excessive and stupid, if you want to use paypal but have to fund the payment via multiple sources, the only way to do that is multiple payments...

Couldn't you transfer money from those sources into your Paypal account and then send one payment? I've never tried it....just a thought.

[chadtower]

Not sure... if any of those sources are pure credit cards, probably not, for the same reasons you can't buy a money order with a credit card.

[Sylentwulf]

Unless you're paying from 10 different sources, you can ALWAYS combine payments into one payment. Here is the macro I have set up to answer that very question:

To pay for everything with one payment, you will need to change the shipping charges on one item to equal the total amount due (For example, if you owe $20 total, then pay for a $3.99 item and change the shipping amount to $16.01 to equal a total of $20.00)
OR
You can go to www.paypal.com login with your username and password, then click the send money link from the top of the page, this will let you put as many item numbers in as you want, and change the bid price and shipping charges to equal the correct amount. Please let me know if you have any other questions, Thanx again!

[Savedman]

Dosen't paypal have an "Auction finder" option now that looks at your ebay account and lists the ones that you have not paid for yet and gives you the option to pay the same username all in one payment?

[kevincure]

I'm curious about your number 8. I've never lost a message through my spam filter, from ebay or not from ebay (Yahoo Mail I use for the ebay related things). Why are your messages being tossed like that? Unless you're sending out mass emails with the same heading (you'd probably need to send a thousand at a time) it shouldn't be picked up in a spam filter.

[Sylentwulf]

Some attbi.com people sent out spam, and put all attbi.com users on spam filter lists.

BUT, they also don't get Ebay's e-mails most of the time either.

[SoulBlazer]

I don't know if people do what I do, but I have anything from EBay automaticaly into my 'safe list' in Hotmail. Also, if I buy something, I get their e-mail and put it into my safe list. Plus I always scan my junk folder before I toss anything out.

[Dobie]

I use yahoo mail, and I've never had a problem with my spam filter either. Ebay gets through just fine.

[Kairi]

My spam filter is on and I haven't ever missed an e-mail from a seller. *shrug*

[Sylentwulf]

I think it must be people who click a lot of attbi.com users to add to their spam filter, and eventually the spam filter just blocks them all, not sure.

I've never used a spam filter so I wouldn't know, it doesn't really hurt my wrist to click delete 4-5 times a day. Doesn't anyone else have a "fake" e-mail address for signing up for things on the web?

[SoulBlazer]

Sure I do -- I have three. :) I have my Hotmail account for public use, my Cox account for more secure activities, and a Yahoo account I ONLY give out for friends and family. But since EBay is kind of public, I use my Hotmail account for that.

Sorry to hear you've had such rotten luck.

Even if a message from a buyer or seller goes into my Junk folder, the subject headings are still good enough so I can flag them and read them.

[Savedman]

I think we need to remember that Silentwulf DID say that he was just venting :D . He didn't indicate that any of these happen to all bidders. He is a power seller having completed thousands of auctions. I'm sure he's run into his share of Bozo's. LOL

[Sylentwulf]

Yeah, 99% of peoples E-mails DO get through. But it is unbelievably frustrating when you keep getting "WHY WON'T YOU ANSWER ME YOU ASSHOLE?!" E-mails when you've replied to the moron 50 times.

Then they find out and they slink away saying oh sorry, I had my spam filter on. Trust me, it happens at LEAST once a week, and I've gotten 5-10 negatives because of it.

I just don't see why you would need a spam filter on the E-mail address that you don't give out to anyone except people you WANT to e-mail you <shrug>