I bought a transformer for a light on eBay once for about $20 and received a Nitro Kit hobby Car worth about $500 I contacted the seller and he asked if I could post it on to the correct buyer and he would fix me up for costs and arrange for replacement to be sent to me Paid another $20 to post it on to the correct buyer but then never heard from seller again, sucks being honest some times
I avoid purchasing high value items from overseas sellers on eBay. Small purchases have so many problems these days, especially if they are from one of the big conglomerate sellers, that it's not worth the risk and hassle for anything too expensive. For example, this seller pops up everywhere but my experience with them has been lousy so I filter them from searches: simplybestprices-10to20dayshipping They are not the only ones. It's not about sellers making mistakes which is inevitable, but about how mistakes are handled. I've had good experience from some HK and Chinese sellers who quickly try to fix problems and respond quickly to queries.
I have bought approx $25K of camera gear from overseas on eBay, mostly HK-based, brick & mortar retailers with excellent ratings. No problems, even when a Canon body had a defect and had to be returned. Saved a bloody fortune.
But out if million eBay trades per hours these are small percentages ain't it? Though coins and bullion seems rife with problems. Fake ones are obvious eBay should do better but disputes buyers from novice or dodge coin sellers on grades, now that would be hard to police
Similar experience, I bought some sealed packs of cards, I got a different set of sealed cards of a much lesser value because the seller got the packages mixed up. The other buyer refused to return the packs he got (as they were a much higher value) so I ended up having to return the cards and get a refund, a lot of mucking about and expense for nothing, at least I got my money back.
Probably not quite that large, but the high volume generic sellers tend to devote far fewer resources to dealing with mistakes and addressing issues relative to the smaller, more specialised sellers, at least in my experience in contacting sellers. For expensive items I try to find an Australian seller even if they are a little bit more expensive than an overseas seller.
There's almost always going to be good and bad buying experiences if you buy enough through eBay. I've been a buyer and seller on eBay for many years. My feedback has always been 100% positive except years ago when some thug maliciously gave negative feedback for no reason at all to me and several other sellers he purchased from. That thug was quickly booted from eBay and my feedback was restored to 100% positive. I have made 1 or 2 mistakes as a seller but I seek to always rectify and errors I've made. As a buyer on eBay, I've had to open up several cases due mainly to sellers very poorly packing items sent to me. The worst instances are when a seller doesn't describe the item correctly and then refuses to want to refund you. This happened with about 8 coins I purchased in a group from seller paradisemint. That seller was also became very nasty when I pointed out where he described the item wrong and why this would prompt any reasonable person to request a refund. That seller is the worst I've ever dealt with on ebay....needless to say I will never again give that seller my business. On the other hand, I've had plenty of excellent buying experiences on eBay with numerous other sellers. .
Same here, I have 500 plus feedback, but it is mostly buying. Most items I buy on ebay are what I would classify as dollar shop items (up to $10 + or -) but nothing that will make me feel disappointed if it go south. Ie I been buying lots of dremel polishing and buffing fittings for $2 to $5 dollars per packs of ten to twenty including shipping. Where as the genuine dremel branded one are $10 to $20 or more for pack of 2 or 4. Stuff I sell on ebay are Nikon cameras and lenses, my other expensive hobby, I find it easy and simple, When I get tired of it or more likely a newer model come out I sell them. When I do I describe to the minute detail and I offer pickup (which seems to assure buyers even if they need postage). I think even the dollar shops on ebay with 500,000 99% or higher feedback are actually doing a good job. I would suspect even brick and mortar shops would be hard pressed to get that kind of feedback.
