E-Bay Horror Stories (Or humourous Ones!)

[yorks5stringer]

Here's a bit of an ebay story with a twist and 100% true!

My brother in law plays and buys and sells guitars and around 10 years ago saw a valuable sunburst or gold top Les Paul ( it might have been 1959?) on ebay. he bid for it but did not win it, only to get a second chance offer from the seller, I think it was around £2500 which he accepted.(The explanation was the winner was in the USA and postage was too much). He'd checked the provenance of the guitar and spoken to the seller who seemed genuine and knew about guitars.
The seller said to get the £ to him ASAP as he was working in Switzerland next week: if he got the money quickly he'd send it before he went. So my BIL sent the money, he'd had a few difficulties getting hold of the guy but always got through in the end.
The guitar arrived by courier in a case but not a shaped case, BIL thought "Ok fair enough, it's not a dealbreaker as long as the guitar is OK". He took off the wrapping paper, opened the case to find it filled with 3 bricks!
He contacted the seller who said it had been definitely sent with the guitar inside and it was the couriers fault. BIL spoke to the couriers who said it could not have been substituted. BIL contacted the Police ( who did not know what ebay was at this time). To cut a long story short the case went to court in the sellers home town of .........
Day one saw the prosecution make their case, then BIL was called by the prosecution, then the defence. The defence lawyer went thought his bank details trying to prove he'd received the guitar and had sold it on. They then called Chandler Guitars to establish the provenance of the guitar. Then the defence called a little old lady who under questioning said she'd seen the defendant wrapping this guitar up, in a park opposite a guitar shop, where he'd called to get some wrapping materials. She said she sat there every day and noticed this guy wrapping a 1959 sunburst/goldtop Gibson les paul.....
Immediately suspicions were raised, how would a little old dear know so much detail?
The detective on the case was a local guy and called his girlfriend who worked close by. He asked her if she knew the old lady. "Of course", it was the defendant's girlsfriend/partner's mother!
After lunch the detective went to the Judge and the case was halted, ultimately the old woman was charged with perjury and the guitar seller was charged again, fined and made to pay back the money ( which he still has not done). The Judge who knew nothing about ebay castigated BIL for sending off money for something he wasn't sure existed...! The defendant had money troubles and had just copied a photo from US ebay!
However the twist in the tale was that on day one, the detective said to BIL, I'll tell you something about the family of the defendant at the end of the trial.
Apparently the defendant came from a family of two parents and two brothers, of which he was one. When he was younger his mother left home so they stayed with their father. Then the guitar cheat brother left home. Some time later the remaining son died one day sat on the sofa, and instead of telling the authorities, the father left him sat on the sofa: for some reason he did not decompose and the room was just left closed. Time elapsed and for some reason, people were going to visit the house so the father wrapped dead son's corpse in an old carpet and dumped it in a park.
The body was found, the Police thought they had a murder: after investigations in the end the father was just charged with preventing a burial.

Edited December 30, 2009 by yorks5stringer

[Sarah5string]

My horror story was when I once sold a xbox 360 guitar hero game and guitar. Buyer paid no problem and I sent the guitar standard parcels and told him I'd done so. 2 days later I recieved an email saying he hadn't recieved it espite the address being correct. Odd, as the expected delivery time for parcels is between 3 and 5 working days, so i told him to give it a week and email me if it hadn't turned up.
The next day another email saying it hadn't turned up, and again, I told him to wait.
Couple days later the guy opens a dispute with paypal saying it hadn't been received, and because I didn't send it signed for, they immediately refunded it. So now I was out of pocket £70 plus fees and had no guitar/game either.
About 3 months later I get a knock at my door was the Royal Mail returned the guitar/game, which the buyer had refused delivery of and told them to return it to sender...he also left me negative feedback. I guess he just changed his mind but didn't have the balls to actually tell me before I sent it.

Edited December 30, 2009 by Sarah5string

[Sean]

[quote name='yorks5stringer' post='696229' date='Dec 30 2009, 12:03 PM']Here's a bit of an ebay story with a twist and 100% true!

My brother in law plays and buys and sells guitars and around 10 years ago saw a valuable sunburst or gold top Les Paul ( it might have been 1959?) on ebay. he bid for it but did not win it, only to get a second chance offer from the seller, I think it was around £2500 which he accepted.(The explanation was the winner was in the USA and postage was too much). He'd checked the provenance of the guitar and spoken to the seller who seemed genuine and knew about guitars.
The seller said to get the £ to him ASAP as he was working in Switzerland next week: if he got the money quickly he'd send it before he went. So my BIL sent the money, he'd had a few difficulties getting hold of the guy but always got through in the end.
The guitar arrived by courier in a case but not a shaped case, BIL thought "Ok fair enough, it's not a dealbreaker as long as the guitar is OK". He took off the wrapping paper, opened the case to find it filled with 3 bricks!
He contacted the seller who said it had been definitely sent with the guitar inside and it was the couriers fault. BIL spoke to the couriers who said it could not have been substituted. BIL contacted the Police ( who did not know what ebay was at this time). To cut a long story short the case went to court in the sellers home town of .........
Day one saw the prosecution make their case, then BIL was called by the prosecution, then the defence. The defence lawyer went thought his bank details trying to prove he'd received the guitar and had sold it on. They then called Chandler Guitars to establish the provenance of the guitar. Then the defence called a little old lady who under questioning said she'd seen the defendant wrapping this guitar up, in a park opposite a guitar shop, where he'd called to get some wrapping materials. She said she sat there every day and noticed this guy wrapping a 1959 sunburst/goldtop Gibson les paul.....
Immediately suspicions were raised, how would a little old dear know so much detail?
The detective on the case was a local guy and called his girlfriend who worked close by. He asked her if she knew the old lady. "Of course", it was the defendant's girlsfriend/partner's mother!
After lunch the detective went to the Judge and the case was halted, ultimately the old woman was charged with perjury and the guitar seller was charged again, fined and made to pay back the money ( which he still has not done). The Judge who knew nothing about ebay castigated BIL for sending off money for something he wasn't sure existed...! The defendant had money troubles and had just copied a photo from US ebay!
However the twist in the tale was that on day one, the detective said to BIL, I'll tell you something about the family of the defendant at the end of the trial.
Apparently the defendant came from a family of two parents and two brothers, of which he was one. When he was younger his mother left home so they stayed with their father. Then the guitar cheat brother left home. Some time later the remaining son died one day sat on the sofa, and instead of telling the authorities, the father left him sat on the sofa: for some reason he did not decompose and the room was just left closed. Time elapsed and for some reason, people were going to visit the house so the father wrapped dead son's corpse in an old carpet and dumped it in a park.
The body was found, the Police thought they had a murder: after investigations in the end the father was just charged with preventing a burial.[/quote]

fascinating. Surely that has the makings of one of those three-part ITV Dramas. Any TV Producers in the house?

[goaround]

I've been buying and selling on ebay for almost 5 years and never had a problem that has not been resolved amicably. It is not perfect but it is a huge market, I advertised a couple of cabs on here and in the local rag that didnt shift in weeks but went within a few days on ebay.

As a buyer if I see an item with a reserve I generally ignore it, as a seller you have a good chance of someone bidding just to find the reserve then not paying for the item.

As a seller I can see no advantage of setting a reserve over making the starting price the minimum you are prepared to sell for. If you receive a low offer politely reject it if you are not interested, if the item does not sell you might still be able to make a deal after the end of the auction (in fact most of my high value i.e £'000s sales and purchases have been done this way meeting the other party and completing the sale in cash). By making your listing as informative as possible you can minimise questions but as a seller I am prepared to put a bit of effort into answering all messages, even the illiterate teenager might have a birthday coming up and parents with some money to spend.

I've never used a sniper at the end of the auction, set your maximum bid and ebay does it for you.

[12stringbassist]

Ok, it's a guitar.... but....

I was in London the other day and Music Ground on Denmark St in London have a John Birch guitar on the wall labelled as being an ex-Slade instrument, with it having been used by Dave Hill. It's also in their store on EBay - at over £2k.

I asked them when the guitar was ever used by Dave Hill. They didn't know. They just said that it was ex-Slade. I told them it wasn't. I run a UK Slade website which includes a quite comprehensive page on their live gear at [url="http://www.slayed.co.uk"]www.slayed.co.uk[/url]. They just shrugged their shoulders at me.

It is the VERY same guitar that they have tried to pass off as being Ex-Sweet. Andy Scott was apparently furious about the idea of playing a bright pink penis / testicles guitar on stage and claims that the guitar was ever used by him were withdrawn.

Photo at [url="http://i.ebayimg.com/13/!BSd91K!BWk~$(KGrHgoOKiwEjlLmVWD3BKDW1OW!dQ~~_12.JPG"]http://i.ebayimg.com/13/!BSd91K!BW...#33;dQ~~_12.JPG[/url]

[b]Perfect for the local Jehovah's Witness PopStar? Not.[/b]

According to Ebay "The instrument was custom built for 70s Glam Rock Band Shawoddy woddy"

Pure class!!

Edited December 31, 2009 by 12stringbassist

[OldGit]

[quote name='12stringbassist' post='697170' date='Dec 31 2009, 01:33 PM']I run a UK Slade website which includes a quite comprehensive page on their live gear at [url="http://www.slayed.co.uk"]www.slayed.co.uk[/url].[/quote]

Oh Hooge Respect for that man. Slade are/were brilliant!

[robocorpse]

[quote name='bassatnight' post='695445' date='Dec 29 2009, 10:46 AM'][i]Hey,
I live near you can you call me?[/i]
Steve.[/quote]

Whats wrong with that one? Anything that can be done to get round the monopolistic stranglehold ebay have over pretty much the entire used market is a good thing in my book, and if someone comes over tonight and pays me 400 quid for the bass/amp/whatever thats on ebastard for 450, I'll take it, as cash in hand face to face is safer than any amount of ebay "seller protection" especially if the buyer lives within comfortable driving distance, and I don't have to pay ebay and paypal for the privilege of being systematically ripped off when their "seller protection" is a total farce to begin with. I loathe and detest the way ebay treat honest sellers, and avoid them wherever possible. Call me old fashioned, but don't we all prefer the good old "service station with bundles of cash" method on this here forum?

[pete.young]

[quote name='12stringbassist' post='697170' date='Dec 31 2009, 01:33 PM']According to Ebay "The instrument was custom built for 70s Glam Rock Band Shawoddy woddy"[/quote]

Glam Rock Band? I think not!

[karlfer]

[quote name='robocorpse' post='697301' date='Dec 31 2009, 04:22 PM']Whats wrong with that one? Anything that can be done to get round the monopolistic stranglehold ebay have over pretty much the entire used market is a good thing in my book, and if someone comes over tonight and pays me 400 quid for the bass/amp/whatever thats on ebastard for 450, I'll take it, as cash in hand face to face is safer than any amount of ebay "seller protection" especially if the buyer lives within comfortable driving distance, and I don't have to pay ebay and paypal for the privilege of being systematically ripped off when their "seller protection" is a total farce to begin with. I loathe and detest the way ebay treat honest sellers, and avoid them wherever possible. Call me old fashioned, but don't we all prefer the good old "service station with bundles of cash" method on this here forum?[/quote]



Couldn't have put it better!
The most infuriating thing is since ebay bought paypal, I have to offer paypal.
I sold a bass on it lasy year for £440 and it ended up costing me £70 for the pleasure.

BLOODY BANDITS.

[MB1]

[quote name='12stringbassist' post='697170' date='Dec 31 2009, 01:33 PM']Ok, it's a guitar.... but....

I was in London the other day and Music Ground on Denmark St in London have a John Birch guitar on the wall labelled as being an ex-Slade instrument, with it having been used by Dave Hill. It's also in their store on EBay - at over £2k.

I asked them when the guitar was ever used by Dave Hill. They didn't know. They just said that it was ex-Slade. I told them it wasn't. I run a UK Slade website which includes a quite comprehensive page on their live gear at [url="http://www.slayed.co.uk"]www.slayed.co.uk[/url]. They just shrugged their shoulders at me.

It is the VERY same guitar that they have tried to pass off as being Ex-Sweet. Andy Scott was apparently furious about the idea of playing a bright pink penis / testicles guitar on stage and claims that the guitar was ever used by him were withdrawn.

Photo at [url="http://i.ebayimg.com/13/!BSd91K!BWk~$(KGrHgoOKiwEjlLmVWD3BKDW1OW!dQ~~_12.JPG"]http://i.ebayimg.com/13/!BSd91K!BW...#33;dQ~~_12.JPG[/url]

[b]Perfect for the local Jehovah's Witness PopStar? Not.[/b]

According to Ebay "The instrument was custom built for 70s Glam Rock Band Shawoddy woddy"

Pure class!![/quote]

MB1.
....Can you imagine whipping that out at an audition? .....Sorry!.... i'll Get my coat!

[robocorpse]

[quote name='12stringbassist' post='697170' date='Dec 31 2009, 01:33 PM']Music Ground[/quote]

Scum, through and through. Mention them not!