eBay problems, resolutions, shenanigans, questions and info (not bike finds)

Not sure of your point Hacked?

£20-£25 is normally the average for shipping, are you suggesting that this is unfair on the vendor?

I'm happy to pay reasonable postage- and have in fact already paid that which the seller asked, I just feel that the extra (£70) they are now asking is unreasonable.

Not sure of your point Hacked?

£20-£25 is normally the average for shipping, are you suggesting that this is unfair on the vendor?

I'm happy to pay reasonable postage- and have in fact already paid that which the seller asked, I just feel that the extra (£70) they are now asking is unreasonable.

The point is

It is a bike fitted with ROD brakes
It is a challenge to dismantle and put back together
Are YOU able to do it?
The seller prob cannot dismantle it and it and is telling you the price he will be charged for shipping it complete in a VERY VERY big carton

Do you get the point I am making now or do I need to draw pictures ??? (joke)

Thinking about the size of the carton needed to put the bike in complete it would be around
2m X 1.25m X 0.8m

Having shipped around 8 or 9 of these over the past 3 years I would say that £40 is more like the price it will cost

Make the suggestion of 2 cartons and using a cheap reseller of courier services on ebay to the seller

Try looking at a company called www.senditnow.co.uk I haven't used them but their prices for collection and delivery seem good.
Any old codger can take apart things like rod brakes so I don't see the problem with the vendor doing just that and chucking it all in a carton.
Hope it works out, it's a bit cuntish of him to start crying over the postage costs just because he didn't sell for it as much as he wanted; like you say that's what the reserve is for.

well whatever it takes, the seller should have thought of that before he sold it.

the ROD brakes are irrelevant, if they are hard to assemble then dammit should have though of that too before he bought it, whatever the erroneous details, dammit got the bike and the postage for an agreed price, he paid, and the seller is being a prick.

just gutted about the price obviously, actually i feel quite sorry for him, he might have loved that bike.

hacked2, are you the seller?

you seem to be trying quite hard to put dammit off the bike.

to be fair, my bike was shipped to me with the wheels taken off, everything else kept in place, in 2 boxes for about 20 quid. Doing it that way would not require the rod brakes being tampered with. £90 for shipping is ridiculous, the seller could drive the frame to your door for less!

+1 on that, ninety just doesn't even make sense.

I know everyone kind of holes up in London (the London bike stuff always goes for more) but it's well worth checking the map and looking at train ticket costs buying a week in advance and doing the collection yourself on bikes/frames - discount ticket prices will be very similar or less than the seller is asking for postage. I appreciate not everyone has that kind of time if they have families etc. but a weekend jaunt 150 miles somewhere gets you out of London for the day and gets a bit of reading done, check a city or town out - you'll be back in plenty of time to get your usual Saturday night pints in etc and you ensure the bike / frame is as you expected it to be and you can pay cash when you're happy (I'm basing this on a "normal" buy here rather than the Pope's Colnago.) Then again I used to be into collecting soul records so maybe my appetite for long buying treks is to be looked on with pity.

Jeez I've travelled 150 miles just to flick through a thousand records with utter disappointment..

I had a lovely trip to cambridge to pick up my current frame :) tickets £20.

I had a lovely trip to cambridge to pick up my current frame :) tickets £20.

It's like a master card ad:

train tickets to cambridge: £20
Bicycle frame: £150
Ridiculous Hed trispoke: £100 (+)
Having a bitchin' HHSB: priceless.

Well I had a look at train prices- £41.80 return, 7 hours travel time.
So that's out.

Then I had a look at Parcelforce, who quote £20.99 for a 15 kilo load- which I think is roughly what the bike weighs.

Last time I needed to ship a bike I just went to Evans and asked for a box- so would £25 sound unfair to anyone?

£20.99 to ship, plus £4.01 of duct tape etc is what I was thinking.

As has been pointed out it has ROD brakes (is it the convention to capitalise that?) so the chap who owns it might have a fun time turning the handle bars around- I'm willing to offer them a little more for the faff of working out how to disconnect the ROD brakes.

Obviously I will be sure to ask them to document in exhaustive detail how they managed the black art task of disconnecting them so that I might have a (probably vain) chance of reconnecting them afterward.

try interparcel, it's easy to get a quote once you have an idea of the weight and the dimension of the box.

They just emailed me- they always use DHL, who quoted £90.
Other options are unavailable it would seem.

They are unwilling to dismantle the bike to any degree at all, and so have decided to refund me the cost- and will not give me the option of arranging a courier.

Hey ho, anyone got an old classic lurking anywhere that they would like to go to a good home?

I was looking at an item on eBay, on my iPhone.
Going to press "Watch this item" I hit "Buy it Now", it took me to the confirmation page and I thought sod it I may as well have it, so pressed confirm.

Now the issue is twofold- number one I am an idiot, and it is the wrong part.
Number two I contacted the seller and explained that it was a mistake, and could I possibly retract the bid, sorry for the inconvenience etc.

He says fine, but wants a fiver for wasting his time, fees etc.

The item price was £20 (with postage of £4, but I'd have picked it up).

Now I have never sold anything through ebay- will relisting it cost him £5?

What would the lfgss community call a fair price in this situation?

Might be better to just have it and pass it on to someone here, perhaps? What is it?

Not a fiver but he could charge you the full amount and you were a duffer so take your punishment :P

Might be better to just have it and pass it on to someone here, perhaps? What is it?

No one here would be interested- it's a foglight lense/assembly (waits for pitchforks etc).

Not a fiver but he could charge you the full amount and you were a duffer so take your punishment :P

That is, to be fair, what I thought. In giving me the chance to get out of it he is doing the decent thing, just wondering if £5 is really what it costs to list the part really.

http://pages.ebay.co.uk/help/sell/fees.html

it took me to the confirmation page and I thought sod it I may as well have it, so pressed confirm.

pay the man whatever he's asking,,, i guess. he hasnt done anything wrong.

What if the auction (or Buy It Now listing) has ended?
If the listing has ended and you’d like to withdraw from the purchase for any reason, you should explain the situation to your seller and ask them to agree to mutual withdrawal from the sale.
If they agree, they can file an Unpaid Item Dispute and state that you both agreed to withdraw from the sale. They’ll then receive a credit for the fees they were charged when you won the item. In addition, as long as they state you both agreed to withdraw from the sale, and you confirm this when asked by eBay, you won't get an Unpaid Item Strike against your account.

.

bump

I did a search, and there are a couple of threads on general eBay stuff, but none that act as a resource for resolving problems on eBay. I was thinking it might be handy to have a thread where, if we have any specific problems, we can post them here and get some advice on how to resolve it, whether to take formal action, demand a refund etc.

I'll start...

Bike was delivered yesterday, and while the description said that the bike was in "great" condition, it's clearly not. There are some very deep, visible scratches, which go down to the bare metal, the headset was loose, and it turns out the star-fangled nut is slipping, the brakes are poorly maintained, with fraying cables that need replacing, and the cones on the rear wheel are loose, and closer inspection suggests the bearings might need replacing.

None of these were listed in the description.

I don't want to jump the gun, as I've e-mailed the seller but haven't given them enough time to respond, but I was wondering what you think would be an appropriate response on their part? What would you do if you were the seller? It's likely to cost me something to replace the cables and to sort the bearings and headset out, while the scratches are particularly annoying. If I'd known the bike was in this condition, I definitely wouldn't have bid what I did on it.

So at the moment it seems my options are to return the bike and get a full refund, or to ask the seller to compensate me for the parts that need replacing, as well as for the damage to the frame itself.

Would be grateful for any thoughts - and if anyone else wants to use this thread to ask about their own problems, go for it.

Same thing happened with me.

Some peoples ideas of restoration are a rattle can and some shit stickers!!

I wouldn't by a car from ebay without seeing it first and the same applies to bikes.

One mans 'excellent condition' is anothers 'fair'.

Do you still want the bike?

Will a discount make you happy?

Did you get a good deal regardless of condition?