e-bay: the good, the bad, and the ugly

I began using e-bay nearly two years ago, not long after I moved here. I had been inspired by my friend Susan (macsusan2 on e-bay) as she had collected what appeared to be a pile of junk and sold it for US dollars...what could be better? So we have the good, the bad, and the ugly.

The Good: I bought several movies for pretty good prices, especially the hard to find ones. I have also sold many dozen sets of cod's ears, and cod's ears earrings. I was also quite excited to sell a Bob Dylan book for $35. For the most part, the sellers and buyers have been great to deal with. Good communication, A +++ sellers/buyers, as we e-bayers like to refer to them.

The Bad: I had several items that never sold, didn't even get a single bid or enquiry. I tried to sell my Sponge Bob Squarepants costume, as you might recall, but shipping costs were astronomical, so I let the guy off without buying it. I certainly wouldn't pay $50 to ship a cardboard box. I have also been outbid so many times on items I REALLY wanted, some right at the LAST seconds of the auction.

The Ugly: my experience this week. I had ordered a VHS tape - Something to Talk About and Julia Roberts is one of my very favorite actresses. Well, the tape finally arrived after 3 weeks in transit, which is not usual, even for tapes coming from the US. I had bought other items in this time and had them delivered. I should have known something was up when my envelope was stuffed into my mailbox in a plastic wrapper. The wrapper had a kindly notice on it from Canada Post - we're not sure if it was sent this way or if we trashed it, but either way we are really sorry, and are making every effort to improve our services. I'm paraphrasing, of course, but you get the picture. The video tape looked as though it had been hit smack in the centre with a 20lb sledgehammer, and then run over in a mack truck. I don't know where it had been, but someone did a number on it. The seller did not package it properly to begin with. It was simply stuffed into a plain manila envelope with no cardboard, bubblewrap or other protective materials. So, I thought even though I didn't purchase insurance from the seller, I would send along some pics of the item and appeal to her good side. Its not there. Or should I say, she's not there. When I tried to contact her, e-bay informed me that she is no longer a registered seller. When I checked out her past feedback, there were 6 negatives in the past 6 months. So who knows whats going on. All I know is that I am out the money and I have a bag full of shattered plastic and nowhere to leave negative feedback. If you want to know who she is, her e-bay userid, which is no longer registered, whatever that means...she must have consciously cancelled her account, or got booted, the gal is grandmasangelsbaby so stay away from that missy. I have had items that I sold show up shattered twice, so I simply replaced them for the buyer, at no cost, and made sure packaging was even better the second time around. This paid off because I have 100% positive feedback.

I still have a bunch of stuff to list there and it will be my project this fall to get somethings up and going again. I am running out of cod's ears, so have to fall back on my other items or go scouting for new.

so that was my version of the good, the bad, and the ugly...don't forget to check out Clint's version...The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly