Monday 12 December 2016

A word from our sponsors


I have been using eBay for years now and have had around 2000 transactions through it, both buying and selling. Up until last week, I had 100% positive feedback, but then I incurred the wrath of a female antiques dealer who bought a decorative garden chair from me, then tried to arrange collection by a stroppy courier who sent me an abusive text because I woke him up at 11.00pm at night to make sure he didn't have a wasted journey.

The sale was made right in the middle of H.I.'s exhibition (which was right in the middle of the Christmas Market), so to arrange collection of it from my workshop 4 miles out of town was a bit of a logistical problem in the 2 hour windows when I could leave it.

When I had to change arrangements one night, I seem to have woken up his entire family, who all had to get up with him at 5.00am and drive to Bath from West Sussex, and he shouted at me in SMS.

I complained to the buyer, who said she would arrange another courier, but he had pissed me off to such an extent that I gave her a full refund and told her the chair was no longer for sale. She said she had to have it, as it was a birthday present for her husband, and said that in over 1500 collections made by the same courier, she had never had any problems with him.

I said (and this is where the 'hell hath no fury' factor came into play) that I knew she was an antique dealer, and 1500 birthdays for one man was quite a lot. I added that most people who do not want to be woken up by a late-night text message or phone call, turn their phones off when they go to bed.

Without any further discussion, she sent me a little red, negative feedback, bring my previous unblemished rating down to 97% positive. I have had many occasions to give somebody a negative, but I never have. This is why my ratings only show up as 1200 and something - I am not trigger-happy with negatives. I would rather say nothing, and have only once left someone a neutral feedback, and this was for quite a serious misdemeanor.

Now, every time I look at my eBay pages, I become angry with both her and eBay in general for denying me the right of reply as they used to. I think they withdrew this opportunity for the seller to give a response to a buyer who leaves negative feedback, because some of them became quite offensive and personal in the heat of the moment, as in: 'This silly cow lied to me, blah blah blah.'

INTERMISSION: I just looked out f the window and Ken Loach is striding down the street on a shopping mission. Right. Carry on.

I have had a Gumtree account for a couple of years and have never used it. Yesterday I dragged out my passwords and opened it up. I put the same garden chair onto it, using the photos I took for eBay, and listed it with text. So easy, and completely free, plus it doesn't seem to contain any advertising either. It also automatically advertises to people who are roughly in your area, so any monkey-business to do with collection is hopefully avoided.

I went into the pub and told someone I was experimenting with Gumtree as opposed to eBay. He informed me that Gumtree is owned by eBay.

If you go onto Wikipedia right now, you will be confronted with an appeal for donations from its founder, who says that when he first set it up, everyone told him he would regret not taking on advertising or sponsorship. Looks as though they were right.

My advice to Wikipedia's founder: Sell it to eBay and retire before the Monopolies Commission finds out.

39 comments:

  1. Just went back to Gumtree. I was wrong. There is advertising. Oh well, you can't get something for nothing.

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  2. How silly to give her husband a garden chair in the dead of winter. Like giving a child a bicycle for Christmas. Always a mistake.

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    1. It is not as if she didn't have plenty to choose from. Her business is Garden Antiques...

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  3. When I bought and sold on EBay, I had a 100 percent rating, until I got a neutral. Interesting how we take it personally (and I did).
    I quit selling on EBay, having run through everything I had to sell, but continued buying for some time, until all the rule changes irritated me sufficiently. It seemed to become a format for people to sell large volumes of product. If I had an interesting object to sell, it seems it would be lost in the pages and pages of Buy it Now.
    I did have one interesting delivery of a sale. I sold an antique hose winder for a friend of mine, and the buyer arrived at a local airport in his plane to collect it from the trunk of my car.

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    1. That must have been a very special hose reel.

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    2. More like he wanted an excuse to take the plane out of the hanger.

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    3. How big was it? Anything smaller that a 15 seater doesn't count.

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  4. That must have been some chair. I would have done the same and taken it off the site. She obviously knows its worth or something.

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    1. It wasn't the monetary value that I was quibbling about. As I told her at the time, I work with dealers constantly and know that they have to make a good mark-up. I do not resent this, but I hate being treated as an idiot with stories about 'birthday presents'.

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  5. Ive always given bad feedback if it was deserved.....
    Well on ebay anyhow..............

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    Replies
    1. How often has it been deserved?! Have you had loads of bad experiences?

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    2. I used to buy lots on ebay over a decade ago....things are a bit better organised now....i seldom go on it now.....

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    3. It's ok when it all goes well, but a pain when it doesn't - like most things. It is still cheaper than an ordinary auction house, but most auction rooms run sales concurrently with eBay these days.

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  6. Bloody hell...just like HARRY POTTER poof! And everything was gone!

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    1. " out with anger...in with love"

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    2. Yes, I am breathing deeply now... especially as I have checked to make sure she cannot contact me by my direct email address via Gumtree! She will have to go to my fake email address at tjstephenson if she wants to carry on trying to annoy me, and I KNOW I can block her from that! HA HA! Ding-dong, the witch is silenced.

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    3. Oh, and btw, I still maintain she is a mentally unstable sociopath.

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    4. I take solace in that she is not only attacking me.

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  7. Replies
    1. After my Gumtree advert went up, the whole format turned into the identical eBay's one. The difference is it is free... at the moment.

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  8. I have bought LOADS from eBay but never sold anything ..... had a bit of trouble at the start when someone hacked your not my account and bought things under my name and didn't pay ..... I had quite a few, shall we say, threatening emails until they realised what had happened .
    I am an excellent courier ... speedy and efficient ..... so speedy that I leave SIM cards in phones !!!
    Hope you get your 100% street cred back soon. XXXX

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    1. That's hacked into my account !! XXXX

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    2. You hacked my nuts? I didn't notice. I must be losing sensitivity. I will be dead before I get back 100%.

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  9. I have never entered the e bay world Tom so really have no experience to go on.

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    Replies
    1. I was waiting for that Weave. You - out of everyone else - do not disappoint.

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  10. Do you have Craigslist in your area? I have sold a lot of my stuff that I got tired of on Craigslist. Some weirdos always respond to the ads, but all the people who did actually show up at my house were just regular, friendly people. So far, I have not become a 'Craigslist murder victim'. Fingers crossed!

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  11. Of course, I had to go looking for your chair. If it's the one that I think it is, it has a nice deep slope-down to fit any butt!

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  12. I bought Elsa's dresses for my grandaughter on Ebay,was OK.

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    Replies
    1. H.I. has bought £1000s worth of designer clothes on eBay for peanuts. Clothes are good to buy, but not so good to sell.

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