Selling things on eBay

[elizilla]

I've been putting some motorcycle parts up on eBay. Last time I did this, I noticed something about eBay: There are a lot of really stupid people out there. It hasn't changed at all.

I put up an ad to sell an instrument cluster. I got two messages asking if I have an instrument cluster from this bike? Um, yeah, that's why I put it up in an auction. Hello? (Last time I did this, I sold the cluster last, and got dozens of messages asking if I had one, so I decided to do the cluster first this time so maybe people wouldn't pester me about it so much. No such luck.)

Then someone asked me if I will sell the gauge lenses. The instrument cluster is an assembly, this is part of the assembly, the auction he's responding to has a picture that clearly shows that the lenses are on there. Does he think I am gonna take the cluster apart to sell him the lenses, when the whole thing is already up in an auction? Duh.

Another buyer asks if I will sell him the grommets that hold the side covers on. I told him no, because it would cost more for the shipping, than it would cost him to buy brand new grommets at the dealer, and new grommets would be better. He then wrote back and said, "But don't you have them?" I recognized the email address - this is the twitterhead who pestered me for weeks, to help him subscribe to sabmag, because he couldn't figure out how to send email to the listserv admin address with the right words in the body of the message. Eventually we did it for him, and a week later he was posting to the list asking to be unsubscribed. I'd say he's dumb as a box of rocks but it would be an insult to the rocks. I see his eBay user feedback has a sprinkling of negative marks from various sellers who ran out of patience. I hope he doesn't win any of my auctions. I've been deleting his messages.

One thing that's new since last time I sold stuff, is that eBay tells you how many people are watching your auction. There are 27 people watching the instrument cluster, and it's up to $285 with four days left to go. Go go go! :)

Comments

[bikergeek.livejournal.com]

There was some guy in London, UK, who was selling a non-running Honda C90 moped. He had to list the thing two or three times because of the number of "decerebrate turnips" (his words) who didn't understand that (1) this is London, UK. Not New London, CT; (2) they had to pick the bike up themselves and he would not deliver, when same was plainly stated in the item description; (3) all sorts of other nonsense.

People are stupid.

[bikergeek.livejournal.com]

OMG, I found a mirror of the original Honda C90 ebay auction:
http://www.netcentral.co.uk/satcure/honda/honda.htm

and another by the same chap:
http://www.netcentral.co.uk/satcure/honda/CB500T.htm

Funniest. things. ever.

ebay

[greyhat.livejournal.com]

I'm pretty sure you can cancel bids from buyers who have negative feedback - lots of sellers threaten this in their auctions. You have a fair amount of leeway before the auction actually ends.
p.s. what's your ebay name? I'm crankydevon.

Re: ebay

[greyhat.livejournal.com]

nevermind - I found you. :>

Re: ebay

[elizilla]

I'm not too concerned about bidders with a few negatives here and there. There are so many idiots, I'm sure anyone who does enough transactions will eventually find one. Most of the things I'm selling, I expect to go for between $10 and $40, not worth so much that I can't afford to give the benefit of the doubt. But if it looks like a pattern, different people have the same problem with the person, I don't want to deal with that person.

And after my earlier dealings with the twitterhead above I don't want to deal with him at all, not because of the financial concerns, but because I don't have time to correspond with fools.

[foms.livejournal.com]

Answer them by saying "No, I'm sorry, I'm not selling what you asked for. I'm selling only the instrument cluster."