I hate ebay

[bigben20]

So I bought a new battery for my T40 at ebay.
the guy lists the battery as brand new.
http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?Vi ... 6833037407
When I got the battery, I found out that it had 18 Cycle counts already and it won't hold charge more than an 50 minutes on extremely low settings. The battery was manufactured in 2003. And now he won't refund by money.
I am using my old battery which still holds charge for 1hr 30min after 162 cycles. Please avoid this guy. His ID: exswissch His email add: exswiss@patmedia.net

[brentpresley]

Did you pay with paypal? If so, file a complaint to get your money back.

And leave him negative feedback DETAILING everything so that no one else has the same bad experience.

[tfflivemb2]

Did you contact them for a return within 7 days of the auction end, as they state in their return policy? (Not that that excuses it, if it has clearly been used)

[LtTPfan]

Even if you didn't pay with PayPal, you can file with eBay as that was "misrepresented." Don't leave him negative feedback unless he's already left you feedback or you will receive retaliatory negative feedback (he has for others).

If you get stuck with it, try reconditioning it. The battery I received in my T30 showed only 39% capacity remaining. Fully charged it only had 29 Wh available. After reconditioning by deep cycling 3 times it's now at 45.21 Wh with a design capacity of 47.52 Wh.

[davidspalding]

eBay's just the venue, your issue is with the seller. He sure did claim it was new, but ... does he have a TP that he checked that in? Maybe he got it in a box from somewhere's and was assured it hadn't been used. Either way, if the counter is at 18, it certainly is not "never been used."

All comments above are right on the money, but I'd hold off on the negative feedback until you've exhausted the avenues with the seller: refund, replacement, etc. Reason: leaving negative feedback before he's had a chance to do right (with or without PayPal and eBay pressure) can just strengthen his resolve to do nothing further for you. Since he mentions a mutual negative feedback potential in all his auctions' return policies, it sure sounds like he is speaking from experience and know what he's talking about.

From another of this bloke's auctions:

Negotiated returns only! Every effort is given to resolve your issues with merchandise and therefore negative feedback is unnecessary and will be dealt with by leaving negative feedback, then we both lose.

He has a pretty large quantity of feedback, 99% of it positive, so I'd say you still have a chance of resolving the issue with him. 18 cycles is pretty low, y'know. I have a 3 month old T43, and I think that my UltraSlim battery is already at 29 or so (it get's used up entirely before the main batt kicks in), not sure what my 6-cell is. Anyway, hope you can work it out with the seller, the alternatives are troublesome and not guaranteed to be effective. Certainly, try ltTPfan's suggestion first. It may not be a new battery, but it could be close enough for the great price you paid ($30).

[LtTPfan]

He has a pretty large quantity of feedback, 99% of it positive, so I'd say you still have a chance of resolving the issue with him.

Unfortunately, you can't trust the rating of someone with such a feedback policy. Buyers are unwilling to risk retaliatory feedback so they don't leave a negative even though the seller deserves it. His rating would be lower were it not for the mutually withdrawn negatives he's gotten. He could actually have 50% or whatever unsatisfied customers but they are simply afraid to leave appropriate feedback. This guy is blatant about his policy, others are not so. I avoid these types like the plague (I have to trust him with my money but he can't trust me with my feedback?). If unsure about a seller's policy look at the feedback he's left for others to see if he's left feedback after the buyer's. Toolhaus.org has a free tool that is excelent for checking out someone's feedback, no need to search 100s of pages to read someone's negatives/neutrals.

[bigben20]

I contacted him within one week. He kept telling me battery is brand new and blah blah blah. But he won't refund my money. He threatened to leave me negative feedback if I do the same to him.
I dunno maybe I will make a fake account and ruin all his auctions cuz I don't want another negative feedback. Sellers with enormous feedback abuse it to their advantage. My one negative feedback is not gonna make much difference.

[christopher_wolf]

Bring the matter to the attention of eBay then; if you can provide hard evidence that the battery is not new (How many times it has been cycled, wear level which you can use NHC to check) then you have a good case against him and eBay should Honor it. If all else fails, however, you could try the P-p-p-Powerbook approach.

See; http://www.p-p-p-powerbook.com/

Good Luck and I hope eveything tunrs out OK for you.

[davidspalding]

I contacted him within one week. He kept telling me battery is brand new and blah blah blah. But he won't refund my money. He threatened to leave me negative feedback if I do the same to him.
I dunno maybe I will make a fake account and ruin all his auctions cuz I don't want another negative feedback. Sellers with enormous feedback abuse it to their advantage. My one negative feedback is not gonna make much difference.

I have a friend who works at eBay. I really think that if refused to honor his own return policy, AND sold you a used battery that he claimed was new, "never used," he's not only fully deserving of your candid feedback, but if you raise an alarm with eBay, any retribution (negative buyer feedback) he posts ought not to stay on the record. eBay is not a wild west frontier town where vendors get to run roughshod over the rules of the site.

I'm not going to pick sides here, but if what you state is accurate, he not only has sold you something other than he advertised (an eBay violation, I suspect) but he is not honoring a reasonable return policy (what you got is not what you thought you were buying, regardless of his stated policy). I would document everything (his emails, your emails, screen shots of the utility indicating the cycles count on the battery, screen shot of his auction description), and attempt resolution with Paypal (IF they you're entitled to that by Paypal rules).

Also send a complaint to eBay. FIRST. Let them try to arbitrate or clarify the rules in this matter ... BEFORE you file feedback. And if after all this, he files negative feedback on you (based on what, I wonder? lies? or that you tried to return something that wasn't what you bought?), refer it to eBay for action. Worst case, you might have a used battery for $40 (not a bad deal, frankly), best case, you might get your money back via Paypal and he might lose his auction rights on eBay. There's no telling.

If you want some tips on negotiating returns, look at Cem Kaner's "Alienware sucks" blog entry, "Bringing pressure on a bad vendor," at www.badsoftware.com/alienwaresucks/.

[davidspalding]

Chris: ROFLMAO at the p-p-p-powerbook.com saga. Particularly someone whose BBS handle was OMGWTFBBQ.

[davidspalding]

BTW, that TOOLHAUS.ORG is a pretty nifty site. Looking this seller up there yields clear indication that s/he is an idiot, knows little about Thinkpad equipment, ships stuff poorly packaged, and has naughty, nasty things to say about the buyers and their feedback.

Good lesson to learn: be very cautious who you give your money to.

[bigben20]

OMG! That was hilarious MAde my day. That was the best G4 I have ever seen. It definitely beats my T40

I am not gonna try to fight for $30 battery. I just wanna inform everyone what happened. I try to buy stuff from good sellers with near perfect feedback but I know sometimes it just won't work.

BTW, I am looking at this North Face Recon 2 backpack which is on ebay No I don't hate ebay. Any suggestions on this backpack?

[LtTPfan]

BTW, that TOOLHAUS.ORG is a pretty nifty site. Looking this seller up there yields clear indication that s/he is an idiot, knows little about Thinkpad equipment, ships stuff poorly packaged, and has naughty, nasty things to say about the buyers and their feedback.

Good lesson to learn: be very cautious who you give your money to.

Did you read the feedback he's left for others? Seems he's hipocritical about feedback when it comes to buying.

I find it VERY useful. You can sure get a feel for someone's character. That tells me a lot more than their feedback rating. Toolhaus has other tools including "Bidders," which checks the bidders on an item to see which items from the same seller they've bid on. I'm sure there are other uses but it can be used if you suspect someone of using shill bidders. Just look up some items from past auctions. Depending on circumstances of course, if you see the same bidders on other items, especially the same type of item and they've already won one, a red flag should go up.

[davidspalding]

To hell with fighting. Just file the usual complaints with Paypal and eBay and let them settle issues with the buyer. You bought a "new, never used" battery that reports 18 cycles and only works at 30% normal capacity. That's fraud. If you let the seller get away with it, then other people will get burned.

Your choice. Let other people get burned, or call a spade a spade. ... As another eBay user, I'd prefer you do The Right Thing.

[brainpicker]

I'll bet this guy has never had a "visit" from one of his customers! I had issues like this more than once, and now I spend whatever it takes to make sure they understand me. When you drive or fly a few hours and knock on a door the attitude changes abruptly. Make it known that you will be "coming to visit" soon should he not do the right thing. Maybe let it slip that some of your buddies want to come along.... you know..... just for the ride. A "road trip" of sorts. Of course he may live in one of those undesireable areas to visit (like Brooklyn) where businesses like this thrive (anyone who has bought a camera or electronics from a business there understands). I usually like to have a back up reason for my travel, and my visit to the vendor is just because I happen to be in the neighborhood.

Good Luck,
Yak

[K. Eng]

Just a friendly reminder to post in the right forum!

Everyone also be extra careful on eBay... the place can be a hive of scum and villainy

[epbrown]

When someone has negative feedback, doesn't everyone check to see why? I've got 2 retaliatory ones and I wear them as badges of honor - I've lets others know who they're dealing with and anyone who reads my two knows I was in the right and they're just payback. (My complaints all relate to shipping - everyone on eBay wants their money tomorrow and expects a month to ship.)

If everyone lives in terror of retaliation, feedback becomes useless. The only time I've come close to being defrauded on eBay was a seller who'd sold the same laptop to 5 of us and kept the money. I was contacted by the other buyers after the auction ended but before I'd sent payment, explaining the guy was a thief. He'd collected nearly $2000 in a week. When I asked why he still had a 100% feedback rating, everyone claimed to be afraid they'd get a negative feedback and didn't want to ruin their perfect scores .

If you're straight in your dealings on eBay and the other guy is a crook, your score will always be better than his. Stop worrying and ding the guy.

[LtTPfan]

If you are only a buyer, will NEVER sell anything, have at least 2 positve feedbacks, then you don't have much to lose from receiving a negative. If you have 1 or less feedback and you get a negative, many sellers won't sell to you, or want you to jump thru hoops. If you might want to sell something one day, then a negative can hurt you because no, everyone doesn't check to see why, in fact most don't, heck they don't even read the ads.

[epbrown]

Really. I've got a 120 auctions, probably a 70/30 split between buying and selling, with 2 negatives. I always read someone's feedback score when I'm interested in an auction and I only read the negatives. How someone - especially a seller - reacts when there is a problem is much more revealing than when things go smoothly. I'm amazed at some of the childish behavior I see in response to negative feedback from eBay sellers. I've passed on a lot of auctions due to the attitude displayed.

epbrown

[LtTPfan]

Really. I've got a 120 auctions, probably a 70/30 split between buying and selling, with 2 negatives. I always read someone's feedback score when I'm interested in an auction and I only read the negatives. How someone - especially a seller - reacts when there is a problem is much more revealing than when things go smoothly. I'm amazed at some of the childish behavior I see in response to negative feedback from eBay sellers. I've passed on a lot of auctions due to the attitude displayed.

epbrown

Believe me, you are a more astute buyer than most on eBay, really. My wife, whose account I share, has 11,000 positive feedbacks and 7 negatives, all from idiots, which is obvious from their comments. Reading a seller's responses to negative/neutral feedback received, and the feedback they leave others, is far more telling than their rating number but most buyers only look at the number. Like I mentioned, they don't even read the ads. This is obvious from the questions that are asked. For example, one of my sons recently sold an Xbox 360. In the ad it very clearly stated in two places that the winner could pick it up if desired, rather than pay any shipping fees. He got several questions asking, "If I win, can I pick it up?" Geez! Not to knock him, but someone here, I believe a new member, bought a Thinkpad with a 4-year warranty, then after the auction found out the warranty offered was only 1-year from IBM and 3-years from Mack. He obviously hadn't read or understood the entire ad. This was for hundreds of dollars, and he didn't understand EXACTLY what he had bid on

[davidspalding]

I'll bet this guy has never had a "visit" from one of his customers! I had issues like this more than once, and now I spend whatever it takes to make sure they understand me. When you drive or fly a few hours and knock on a door the attitude changes abruptly. Make it known that you will be "coming to visit" soon should he not do the right thing. Maybe let it slip that some of your buddies want to come along.... you know..... just for the ride. A "road trip" of sorts....

That could be easily misinterpreted, and get "messy." YMMV, but I wouldn't announce ahead of time, as it could be legally actionable in some places (asserting that "I might come visit," and "I might be bringing some 'friends,'" etc.). I would just call from a local cafe/diner, and say, Hey, I'm here at [name of diner] down on [name of address], and I thought I'd buy you a cuppa coffee so we can come to a resolution on this. Or, would you prefer that I come to you..."

Thanks for the reminder, Mod. Quite right, quite right.

[LtTPfan]

I would just call from a local cafe/diner, and say, Hey, I'm here at [name of diner] down on [name of address], and I thought I'd buy you a cuppa coffee so we can come to a resolution on this. Or, would you prefer that I come to you..."

I'd say, "Come on over, we can examine my gun collection while you're here, including my registered M16 machinegun. I'll also show you my armour piercing ammunition."

[BruisedQuasar]

I contacted him within one week. He kept telling me battery is brand new ... leave me negative feedback if I do the same to him.
maybe I will make a fake account and ruin all his auctions cuz I don't want another negative feedback. Sellers with enormous feedback abuse it to their advantage. My one negative feedback is not gonna make much difference.

Many consider me an expert online buyer. I tell them this. Even with all my precautions, I consider each ebay buy a crap shoot. It is absolutely reasonable for you to blame eBay. They advertise and hype all the things they do for buyers. The bottom line is eBay is BUYER BEWARE. All the eBay hype does is disarm inexperienced buyers and sets them up for rip off.

I understand your seller has hundreds of sales and high positive feedback rating. I put about a dozen people into eBay business and speak with them weekly. Consumers tend to know only about the buying end of online business. Let me tell you, it took a lot for this seller to maintain a high feedback rating. I could fill pages about the routine unreasonable demands and scams aimed at sellers and the weapon the immature or dishonest buyer uses on sellers is negative feedback.

Competitive price sellers of tech components must sell used items "as is" to protect themselves from scams, but to maintain high feedback scores they actually bend over backwards. The "as is" is to protect themselves from theives who buy an item to exchange bad parts for good and then they claim the purchased item was dead on arrival. VHS rental & sales of used VHS movies is shark water. Scam artists buy, remove the tape and replace it with old movie or cheap blank tape & return it as "doesn't play properly".

Cashier checks are a major scam. The most forged instrument of all. . Never accept one for a high ticket item, especially a automobile.
The Fed has no laws or regulations on bank cashier checks, so banks are very negligent about handling blanks. They are stolen routinely.

Private checks are easily recalled by the authors. Accept them only if you cash them (for cash) at a branch of the bank of origin. Then, they cannot be recalled. Anyone can deposit cash into a checking account. Many times I have been told "insufficient funds" be ready to demand and take the check back before it can be stamped. "Ask how short?" Many times the account is slightly short. Once I deposited $10 to cash a $5,000 small business account check. Not a bad deal at all compared to not getting my money at all or spending a grand or two in legal fees to get my due.

Having years of experience in business and with eBay businesses, buying and selling, I think it likely the seller being discussed is honest and really thinks he sent you a new battery, as one person has said already. When a buyer seems fast to threaten with negative feedback, even an honest seller will shut down, suspecting a buyer is trying to scam him.

Actually, he has more to lose from a negative than you do, provided you do not have other negatives already. Even a seller with 99.8% positive from 10,000 sales will experience reduced sales from a single RECENT negative but most sellers will sell to a buyer who has only one negative. Like most buyers, most smaller sellers do not bother to look at feed back. I do find however, outstanding sellers such as sellers with hundreds of sales and 100% positive feedback tend to examine buyer feedback. They must. Their profit margin is so low they cannot afford being scammed or to end many auctions with a dead beat highest bidder (one who fails to follow through).

Most people marvel at the crafty intelligence of scam business people and con artists and many comment: "Just think if he turned legit?" Well, the truth is dishonest and con artist business people are usually incompetent business people who resort to crime. The same is usually true of scam online sellers.

A simple way to protect yourself from dishonest eBay sellers is to never buy from anyone with less than hundreds of sales and 99.7% positive feedback. Never buy from a person who hides his feedback and beware of the seller with few listed sales who is listed by eBay as being registered with eBay for several years. There is a serious chance his feedback fell to a very low percentage, leading him to create a new eBay name with zero listed sales and zero feedback. I would stay away from sellers who have under 100 sales but their auction post looks very corporate and uses the words "We" & "our policy is..." and other evidence he wants you to think he is an experienced professional seller.

Professional sellers are well aware of overseas rip offs. Nigeria specializes in them. There is a glut of unemployed college graduates in Nigeria who are fluent in English. They gather at internet cafes and use the public PCs to get eBay sellers to send them products. In fact, these rips offs are a major Nigerian industry!

Also beware of the seller who uses a female seller name, but the auction language reads like a man wrote them. Many eBay buyers find female sellers tend to be honest. Cons notice this as well.

In sum, eBay raw deals are not one sided. Sellers get scammed all the time & the 2nd rate scam buyer's number one weapon against sellers is negative feedback. Then, there are the crazies who think it fun to go about bidding and not following through and to post negative feedback for no reason at all.

I marvel at how easily my new-at-eBay selling friends easily sold costly items when they had under 20 sales. One friend began by selling a hand made wooden (scale model) remote control boat (of a specific river tug boat). It went for $900! He had zero sales & zero feedback at the time!

YOU WERE ADVISED WELL. Negotiate first. Never begin a complaint with an apparantly stand up seller with attitude and threats. There is no fire alarm hurry to do that. You can always threaten him later if he refuses to make good. I advise against threatening at all. In general, Never tell any potential opponent the negative you will do.

I speak as a strong consumer activist who placed a defective bike-type exercise machine in the door way of a busy Dunham's. I paid $400 dollars for it and suffered because I was one of the few buyers of a home exercise machine who uses it for more than a few weeks. Two weeks after warranty (60 days) the pedal assembly came off a the frame. Not even a cheap outdoor bike does that! Dunham's kept replying 'it is out of warranty'.

No threats. I simply took it down, waited for the store to be busy, blocked the doorway with it and spoke to the manager from the door way, which gave me a good reason for speaking loudly. Otherwise, he could have me arrested, then I lose big. I said, "You know I am a good, regular customer and Dunham's should be ashamed for selling us products they know to be worthless. I paid $400 for this. 2months, two weeks later it is no good. I would be stupid if I ever buy anything here again--unless you do something for me about this" I did it this way so customers could see how brand new looking the bike was ("see it was well taken care of")

The manager helped me move it from the door way and politely asked me to the back room and refunded the entire price and a $20 off store coupon for my trouble. Keeping my head and being polite but firm is what got me justice.

When I deal with store clerks, I always make it clear I am not mad at them because I know they do just what they are told to do. I put a wedge between a low paid store "associate" and the company. just like a smart attorney puts a wedge between a jury and the prosecuting attorney.

[davidspalding]

Great backg info, Quasar.

I just happen to be reading on Paypal about their buyer protection plan for purchases. OP, *if* you used Paypal to make payment, you *can* lodge a complaint if the item sold is not what was described.

https://www.paypal.com/us/cgi-bin/websc ... _complaint

It's a fine line, but "T40 battery in good condition" could cover a wide latitude of batteries. But "New" and "Never used" is pretty explicit. I would send the seller a pic of the Power Manager software indicating that the battery has been used. And another pic showing it fully charged, and only offering 50 minutes of run time.

An honest seller, well one like ME, would admit that a mistake was made, and offer some resolution. If not, you have that Paypal option. You can make the same case to them. If only because "never used" tells me, new in the box, NO discharge cycles. Maybe 1 or 2 from someone actually putting it in a TP to verify condition. But 18?

The guy probably didn't know what he was selling ... or you're yanking our chain. Either way, you *have* options. You can learn about the process, and become a better eBay consumer, by using them. Or, for $30 you got a nice backup battery for around the house use.

[tfflivemb2]

Keep in mind that paypal only allows you either 30-60 days to file a complaint. I ran into this with a 40GB hard drive that I bought, that turned out to be an 810MB hard drive from an old Toshiba.

I had returned the drive to the guy and he said that he never rec'd it, even though it was delivered with delivery confirmation.

Paypal told me tooo late.

[LtTPfan]

I had returned the drive to the guy and he said that he never rec'd it, even though it was delivered with delivery confirmation.

Paypal told me tooo late.

It might have been too late for PayPal but it likely wasn't beyond the statute of limitations for theft.

[tfflivemb2]

It wasn't worth it for me for a $40 drive, and the return shipping about about $4. Now, had this been a laptop, that would be a different story.

[dsvochak]

After reading all this, I thought it might be time to update the "Official eBay Bidding and Buying Thread" http://forum.thinkpads.com/viewtopic.php?t=741 so I did.

Any other current updates would be appreciated by me, and perhaps by all.

Thanks in advance.

[BruisedQuasar]

[/quote]Paypal told me tooo late....
It might have been too late for PayPal but it likely wasn't beyond the statute of limitations for theft.[/quote]

There are no grounds for a theft charge. This is strictly a business matter.
A person who pays by paypal and feels they got a raw deal has three courses of action. Complain to Palpay immediately. Send a contest letter to your credit card company & file a complaint with eBay through a link in "My eBay".
If you are past Palpay and Credit Card limits, I would complain to Paypal anyway and to eBay

Do not be afraid to give the seller a negative. If you get a retaliatory negative, file a complaint or contest about that with eBay. Post in your negative feedback to the seller for all to see that the seller threatened you with neg feedback if you give him one. Remember as you write your feedback comment that the auction numbers always follow, so users can click on that and see original claims of seller.

Many sellers do not have the luxury of refusing to sell to a buyer with one negative. Besides, the professionals are not dolts. A person with lets say 50 feedback, 99% positive & one negative is assumed a good buyer. Besides, your complaint is not something silly like one day late, box was opened (when auction states item is open box but unused).

Your seller may have failed to record the serial number on your battery so he cannot tell if it is the same one he sent you. That is his problem, not yours.

[JaneL]

I started to send out individual PMs to the perpetrators and just delete the messages, but I decided to do this openly and in the thread.

Messages like "I'd say, "Come on over, we can examine my gun collection while you're here, including my registered M16 machinegun. I'll also show you my armour piercing ammunition."" and "Make it known that you will be "coming to visit" soon should he not do the right thing. Maybe let it slip that some of your buddies want to come along.... you know..... just for the ride. A "road trip" of sorts." are completely inappropriate for this forum.

Locking this thread now.