Buying a machine on Ebay?

Reading over these posts, I suddenly remembered the movie "Out of Africa" when Isak Dinesin (played by Meryl Streep) was headed for her new home with all her Limoges loaded in a wagon.

To "rose-lipped maidens and lightfoot lads"......... :)

Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit

hej: I tried to send an email offline to

snipped-for-privacy@hotmail.com

and it was rejected

i wanted to add some comments about the machines, prices, etc and they were in tables which i thought was not good to post to the newsgroup.

do the removethis and reply to me privately if you would like such and don't want your useful epost address compromised by bots.

klh in va

Cookie wrote:

G'day Phae

With all due respect, some Paypal sellers won't accept credit cards because they attract additional fees. Also US Paypal accounts don't attract fees to withdraw the money, whereas Paypal in Australia charges a fee under $150. For these reasons I will never accept Paypal card payments for any item I am selling, but of course, if I'm buying and the seller hasn't made this stipulation then I pay via Paypal and credit card to get double protection...specially for more expensive items.

Not try> >

Hi there Bronwyn :)

Like most people, I understand. Buyers and sellers each have to decide what is best for them given the prevailing fees, rules and restrictions. Most sellers who accept Paypal credit cards build the fees into their costs.

Phae

Choosing to buy based on feedback percentages is foolish. I have a

98.9 average.....very few transactions, under 100 with one negative. from the guy who stiffed me for the Palm. He on the other hand has a better percentage.....99.1, with over 30 negatives, BUT becuase his sales of $1.00 items is in the thousands he gets a better rating than I do.

I just wish there was a better way to judge----as there is not I read ALL the negatives. I have a web page just for that very purpose and it is very helpful.

type in the id of the seller and be amazed.

Great website!!

But if you receive more than something like $1000 a month, you are required to get a commercial account, in which case no matter what form anybody pays you in, you get charged.

THere's a Firefox extension called AllTheNegs or something like that that will give you all the negs of a person.

I generally email people that I want to buy something from and feel them out. Of course, any seller who makes a ***big*** stink about this or that on their auction listing -- the most common being that if you want protection from damage you have to get insurance because they are not responsible, yadda yadda (I mean a BIG HANGING-OUT stink, not just a disclaimer), I figure they are not the kind of person I want to deal with.

I don't bid just based on feedback...if the seller has less than 100% (heck, even if they do have 100% sometimes), or I have any reservations whatsoever, I email the seller with questions. I base my purchase on those responses.

-Irene

-------------- You only live once, but if you do it right, once is enough.=20

--Mae West=20

--------------

I think you mean this site?

I also read how sellers RESPOND to neg. feedback....if the seller calles the buyer names, or makes outrageous comments, that's a negative for ME!! But if the seller makes honest comments in response to negs, then I will consider bidding.

-Irene

-------------- You only live once, but if you do it right, once is enough.=20

--Mae West=20

--------------

Hang on, let me go look -- it's called Ebay Negs, and you open the person's feedback, right click on the page, and pick either Open Ebay Negs or Open Ebay Negs in new tab.

For those fearing ebay, my experience: I have 295 had ebay xactions and no problems and most of them have been purchases, and sold some fairly big ticket items too, including a $5000 guitar. Bought several vintage sewing machines as well, with no difficulty, and bought things from GB, Belgium, NZ, Aust., Can., Indonesia, HK, Ger., etc with no probs. I glance at feedback if the dollar amount is over $100, IF I think of it.

Just avoid hard-nosed argumentative people spoiling for a fight and who are overly suspicious and there'll be no problems, as they are usually devious and dishonest themselves and no fun to deal with. They're the ones would rather win an argument than make a sale. Treat people as equal human beings and they'll respond in kind and work with you to make things right when misunderstandings arise, in my experience.

For items over $300, I give my phone number and request same and have a little chat before or after the sale. Nothing beats prompt payment and courteous direct communication for heading off difficulties.

Ebay is great; a worldwide tag sale!

JPBill

Oh gosh I'm sure with you there. Some of them do go on and on and on about how they won't give a refund no matter what and all kinds of strange instructions or a lecture! Good grief. Another one that gets me is the failure to indicate a shipping charge or use that thingy where you enter your zip code. I also won't bid on anything where the shipping cost is too far out of whack.

I bought my first embroidery/sewing machine on ebay. It was a good purchase. The seller had good ratings and had cared for the machine well. It was a little scary to spend that sort of money for a machine on ebay so I know exactly how you feel. I had intended to buy a machine locally but had several strange experiences at the local dealer so tried a different route. If you are careful, ask questions, research the seller and the machine, you have a good chance of having a good experience on ebay. Mine was great. I think one of the biggest dangers on ebay is succombing to auction fever. ;-) Good luch with your purchase.

Marilyn in MN

If you're using Mozilla's Firefox, there's a plug-in for it. Called eBay Negs, you can right click right from the eBay page.

It's a violation of eBay rules to offer PayPal as a payment option if you won't accept a credit card payment.

A I hate PayPal - I think they're evil incarnated.

Are you sure? When did that change?

On Fri, 12 May 2006 15:15:04 -0700, Melinda Meahan - take out TRASH to ay Phae

I have had my credit card refused on a number of occasions. Mostly because it is registered to my business in a different country than my delivery address. I always ask first. I have only had it refused 3 times where they preferred a Pay Pal account instead and one was about a year ago on a large purchase which I declined to complete the process. It also was not a problem for the seller as they went on to get even more for the machine.

I'm absolutely positive. I'm not sure when it changed - I think it was last year some time, but here's a link to their payments policy:

which starts out "Sellers who offer PayPal as a payment option on eBay (either using logos or text in the item description) must accept all forms of PayPal payment including account balance, bank account transfer, and credit cards."I can't type much more here or I'll be on a soapbox, but this provision was clearly made to line eBay's pockets. I strongly dislike their heavy handed tactics, and I would never turn in a seller who didn't take credit cards. The more eBay rules that kill the person-to-person contact, the less I like the market place.

But it's ammo if you ever need it. :)

Angela