Ebay Mishaps

[Zhuchengotyrant]

Hey everyone, here you can post your worst eBay stories. Anything like being outbid to getting scammed and everything in between.
For me, I once ordered a CollectA Beishanlong and Mercuriceratops, but they never came. The seller is trusted so we came to the conclusion that it got lost in the mail. Oh well  . The other mishap is that I had a bid of $55 for the Battat Ouranosaurus, which i had been looking for for almost 9 years. The auction ended at 8:48 am and I fell asleep ten minutes before! I woke up an hour later and I saw I had lost by two dollars... This was my fault for falling asleep, but its painful nonetheless. Hopefully I get Ouranosaurus eventually! 

Now everyone can tell their own eBay mishaps.   

[Roselaar]

I once got outbid on an auction but got the lot to me sent anyway, by mistake...

[IrritatorRaji]

I only had one, I found it kinda weird. Bid on a JP3 Animatronic Spinosaurus, lost, then about a week later the seller contacted me saying that he had an altercation with the winner of the bid and that he was willing to sell the Spino to me instead for, about, £100 more than my final bid. I found it weird and just ignored it. I did manage to get a Spino in the end.

[tyrantqueen]

I paid £60 for a custom painted Papo Spinosaurus, but never received it. The seller was closed down later (by eBay) because he was a scammer.

[Reptilia]

Did you get back your money, TQ? I never had any misfortune on Ebay with dino figures, but I bought very few there. Had some bad experiences buying records though.

[Halichoeres]

I took a chance on a lot of discontinued figures which were described as "near mint" but accompanied by blurry, out-of-focus photos. The seller assured me that her son 'wasn't really that into dinosaurs, so he never played with them.' When I got them, I found that some had clearly been stored in direct sunlight, faded and sticky from plastic degradation. Others had been repainted and even had parts chopped off to make them resemble other dinosaurs (e.g., a Battat Stegosaurus had had its plates lopped in half in an apparent attempt to make a Wuerhosaurus, and an old Safari Triceratops had been modified to look like a Chasmosaurus). The repaints were awful, and the paint had rubbed off on the ones that hadn't been repainted. I wrote a polite note to the seller suggesting that her son might have been more into dinosaurs than she remembered, and she responded with a lot of sarcasm, incredulous that the horrible repaints could have been his work. When I filed a complaint, eBay decided in the seller's favor and sent me a stern warning about false accusations. That was probably the angriest I've ever been over an eBay transaction, although I've also had some very unpleasant experiences with buyers.

[ceratopsian]

My only dinosaur mishap on eBay was a problem with a courier the seller used.  This particular courier has a poor reputation for reliability here in the UK.  They claimed they had left the figure in the outhouse at the front of our property.  We don't have a shed in the front garden.  They then said they might have left it at a house a few doors down the road.  I pointed out that was a gated property, so unless they had scaled the seven or eight foot gates to leave the package in the non-existent shed in the front garden.....  The seller was very good and sent me a replacement by Royal Mail, I seem to recall.

I had more trouble with buying Thelwell pony figures on eBay.  One poor seller wrote to me in deep embarrassment saying she had chipped a piece off the figure while lifting it down to pack.  She refunded me happily (also offering a discount if I was happy to take it with the chip).  A less pleasant experience was another seller, who kept saying she would post the figure next day/later that day etc.  But she never did.  In the end I had to contact the dispute resolution service, who immediately found in my favour.  It seemed other people had been experiencing difficulties with her recently.  I didn't get the feeling she was a scammer but rather someone whose life had suddenly spiralled out of control.

[Pachyrhinosaurus]

I only had one bad experience with an eBay seller and that was last year when I tried to buy solar eclipse glasses. I meant to buy them at the local museum but they were sold out by the time I came around so I resorted to eBay. I bought a lot of three sets and I received a package with a piece of cardboard inside it. I took it up with the seller (before filing a formal complaint) and he claimed that the glasses were inside the cardboard, but really it was a single sheet and there was no fitting anything in there. The seller then threatened me for fraud and told me that he had taken pictures as proof he sent them. I asked to see said pictures and he sent me a refund (minus shipping).

[Shonisaurus]

For now I have not had any problem with any of the many eBay sellers all figures have sent me in perfect condition well packaged and the only thing I can say reading the various testimonials of members of the DTF I have had in my case quite good luck and I thank you very much because I have not had problems with the eBay community so far, and it is appreciated.

[tyrantqueen]

My only dinosaur mishap on eBay was a problem with a courier the seller used.  This particular courier has a poor reputation for reliability here in the UK.  They claimed they had left the figure in the outhouse at the front of our property.  We don't have a shed in the front garden.  They then said they might have left it at a house a few doors down the road.  I pointed out that was a gated property, so unless they had scaled the seven or eight foot gates to leave the package in the non-existent shed in the front garden.....  The seller was very good and sent me a replacement by Royal Mail, I seem to recall.

I had more trouble with buying Thelwell pony figures on eBay.  One poor seller wrote to me in deep embarrassment saying she had chipped a piece off the figure while lifting it down to pack.  She refunded me happily (also offering a discount if I was happy to take it with the chip).  A less pleasant experience was another seller, who kept saying she would post the figure next day/later that day etc.  But she never did.  In the end I had to contact the dispute resolution service, who immediately found in my favour.  It seemed other people had been experiencing difficulties with her recently.  I didn't get the feeling she was a scammer but rather someone whose life had suddenly spiralled out of control.

It wasn't MyHermes, was it? Because I have a lot of anger for that company and stopped using them. I lost a £120 Transformer because of them

[ceratopsian]

It wasn't MyHermes, was it? Because I have a lot of anger for that company and stopped using them. I lost a £120 Transformer because of them

You are quite correct, this was the firm.  I've had other problems with them delivering things too from non-eBay firms.

[Archosauria]

Last night I was on eBay and I tried to find a 1988 Carnegie Dimetrodon. I found *one* on eBay, available only on a bid. It was $10 (for the lowest bid), which I thought was a pretty good deal. It isn't a great model so I wasn't about to spend much more than $10.

So I placed my bid and before I could click "confirm bid" someone else placed a higher bid. I placed a higher bid by about 25 cents, and they did it again. I placed yet another bid, and I lost immediately again.
Finally, I placed down about $5 and I managed to hold it for about three minutes. But then my bid lost again.

I just gave up. Clearly my rival bidder wanted that Dimetrodon much more than I did