Really bizarre eBay experience...

[mdsalemi]

After buying and selling for nearly 15 years on eBay, one might say I've seen it all, or nearly so. Until last week that is.
I bought an audio component, new, at a 20% discount off of MSRP. The unit typically sells only at MSRP, and used ones go for just 15-20% off so this appeared to be a good deal. I've been looking around at many sources to buy it, and everything has been the same, so I was reasonably certain on pricing.

After paying for it with PayPal, nothing happened. Days go by, and nothing was marked as shipped. So, I contact the seller through eBay, and no response. I do the same a day later, and no response. Now, it's time to get annoyed (not worried because of the eBay and PayPal protections) as the unit was paid for, and no shipping information. On Friday I called eBay and was about ready to cancel the transaction, but opted to obtain the seller's personal info (yes, eBay gives you that upon request). Well, that's when I started to worry...he's listed with one name out of San Antonio, TX. His phone number was in Mineola, NY. Further complication was his Paypal email address was one "name", and the eBay information was another. Now this is really starting to smell like day-old tuna...and I was planning on filing a complaint with eBay on Sunday, the earliest day I could do so.

Finally, on Friday night I get this lovingly crafted apology about how sorry he was, and how orders got backed up, and that he'd ship it right away for delivery on Sunday. Nothing happened. Late on Saturday, there was STILL no shipping information posted. At about 10PM on Saturday, my phone beeps, and finally there's tracking information--the unit finally  shipped--but there is no carrier information, thus no way to use the tracking number! The shipper was listed as "third party affiliate" and the origin was a town in Indiana. Oh, boy...

On Sunday morning, the doorbell rings, and sure enough, the US Postman is there, with the package...I look at the return address, and it's from AMAZON! I open it up, and it's got a gift receipt from Amazon inside...so the unit was bought as a gift, from Amazon.  !!!???

I double checked the Amazon pricing and it was $100 more than I spent...so I don't know what happened or who this guy is, but it did all work out in the end.

[DaveB]

That's an unusual one! It's good that he was prepared to hold up his end of the deal.

I had something of an ebay addiction, starting way back when it was only a few years old and quite small - the search term 'Mercedes' returned a list I could scan through in just a few minutes. I came across a few bad sellers, but far more good and friendly and funny ones! NOS W113 parts would come up fairly frequently, from unfinished projects I guess. After a while the good stuff dropped off and the competition among buyers increased.

So now I have my own stash of NOS and NLA 230SL parts, and the project car, and still haven't done anything with it..

(I do still remember winning a pair of NOS in the box all red tail lights for $500, and the seller returning my payment saying he 'couldn't sell them that cheap'!)