OT: Don't try to eBay a bike if you have 0 feedback

I do a lot of eBaying, both buying and selling. I've been doing it for a few years now, and have
always dealt with good people. I've never seen any section of eBay as wracked with fraud as the
Cycling section is now. There are groups of overseas scammers who list high end bikes and con eBay
newbies into sending payment via Western Union--of course no bike ever arrives. eBay has been really
lax about getting rid of these scammers, so members have taken matters into their own hands. Certain
eBayers place high bids on any bike listing which appears fraudulent, protecting the newbies.
Unfortunately, the atmosphere of mistrust has grown to the point that ANY new eBay member attempting
to auction a high end bike has no chance of getting legitimate bids. eBay is going to lose a LOT of
business, and damage its' reputation if they don't get this under control. I wouldn't buy an item as
expensive as a bike from a seller with zero feedback, but there are trusting people out there.

 

What sites do you recommend for purchasing either used or new bikes from?

I found a few but were wondering what others found they had good experiences with.

http://www.bicycle-classifieds.com/ http://www.bicycletrader.com/ http://marketplace.consumerreview-
.com/cgi-bin/classifieds/classifieds.pl?db=Road&website=RoadbikeReview

are some I came across.

"Slider2699" <[email protected]> wrote in message
news:<[email protected]>...
> I do a lot of eBaying, both buying and selling. I've been doing it for a few years now, and have
> always dealt with good people. I've never seen any section of eBay as wracked with fraud as the
> Cycling section is now. There are groups of overseas scammers who list high end bikes and con eBay
> newbies into sending payment via Western Union--of course no bike ever arrives. eBay has been
> really lax about getting rid of these scammers, so members have taken matters into their own
> hands. Certain eBayers place high bids on any bike listing which appears fraudulent, protecting
> the newbies. Unfortunately, the atmosphere of mistrust has grown to the point that ANY new eBay
> member attempting to auction a high end bike has no chance of getting legitimate bids. eBay is
> going to lose a LOT of business, and damage its' reputation if they don't get this under control.
> I wouldn't buy an item as expensive as a bike from a seller with zero feedback, but there are
> trusting people out there.

 

"Riles" <[email protected]> wrote in message
news:[email protected]...
> What sites do you recommend for purchasing either used or new bikes from?

There is no reason not to use eBay to buy a bike. You just have to use common sense. I would never
deal with someone who has registered with eBay and has a high end bike for sale the same day. As
long as one only deals with people who have a history of doing honest deals on eBay, everything
should be OK. But dealing with someone overseas, who doesn't have a picture of the actual bike, and
will not accept PayPal(because they will not give out their bank info) is a bad thing.

 

"Slider2699" <[email protected]> wrote in message
news:[email protected]...
>
> "Riles" <[email protected]> wrote in message
> news:[email protected]...
> > What sites do you recommend for purchasing either used or new bikes from?
>
> There is no reason not to use eBay to buy a bike. You just have to use common sense. I would never
> deal with someone who has registered with eBay and has a high end bike for sale the same day. As
> long as one only deals with people who have a history of doing honest deals on eBay, everything
> should be OK. But dealing with someone overseas, who doesn't have a
picture
> of the actual bike, and will not accept PayPal(because they will not give out their bank info) is
> a bad thing.
>

There is an escrow service available through eBay. This is where a the escrow company holds your
money, the seller ships the bike, you inspect it, and if you approve the escrow services company
releases the money to the seller. If you reject the bike, then you ship the bike back to the
seller, and the escrow company releases the money back to you after the seller receives the bike.
It gives the buyer and to some degree the seller peace of mind in a larger transaction that is not
protected by ebay. EBay's protection limit I believe is $200.00 and above that figure you are on
your own. The buyer almost always pays the full cost of the service. As I recall it was around $50
on a $2500.00 item.

skip

 

"skip" <[email protected]> wrote in message news:[email protected]...
>>
> There is an escrow service available through eBay.

I totally forgot about that. Escrow services are a good way to have peace of mind, but it's still a
good idea to only deal with established eBayers. I can't believe anybody falls for the foreign
scammers, but I guess there's a sucker born every minute.

 

Slider2699 wrote:
>
> "Riles" <[email protected]> wrote in message
> news:[email protected]...
> > What sites do you recommend for purchasing either used or new bikes from?
>
> There is no reason not to use eBay to buy a bike. You just have to use common sense. I would never
> deal with someone who has registered with eBay and has a high end bike for sale the same day....

Unless of course, you are close enough to the seller to complete the transaction in person.

Tom Sherman - Various HPV's Quad Cities USA (Illinois side)

 

"Slider2699" <[email protected]> wrote in message
news:[email protected]...

> I do a lot of eBaying, both buying and selling. I've been
doing it for a few
> years now, and have always dealt with good people. I've
never seen any
> section of eBay as wracked with fraud as the Cycling
section is now. There
> are groups of overseas scammers who list high end bikes
and con eBay newbies
> into sending payment via Western Union--of course no bike
ever arrives. eBay
> has been really lax about getting rid of these scammers,
so members have
> taken matters into their own hands. Certain eBayers place
high bids on any
> bike listing which appears fraudulent, protecting the
newbies.
> Unfortunately, the atmosphere of mistrust has grown to the
point that ANY
> new eBay member attempting to auction a high end bike has
no chance of
> getting legitimate bids. eBay is going to lose a LOT of
business, and damage
> its' reputation if they don't get this under control. I
wouldn't buy an item
> as expensive as a bike from a seller with zero feedback,
but there are
> trusting people out there.

This is true. eBay is working on it, but it won't happen overnight. Of ocurse, anyone who sends
large amounts of cash money overseas with no escrow protection, etc., is an idiot, and deserves to
be ripped off!

One problem I see with eBay is that although identity is supposedly verified with a credit card,
eBay allows sellers to enter whatever they want for username and location. So some people are
deceptive about this, while others are either just stupid, or trying to be cute. One example is
someone who always has a bunch of old Italian bikes listed. I believe this seller is in the US
somewhere, but has "My Belgium Garage" listed as the location. So which (where) is it?

The name and location of the seller should be parsed from the credit card info, and displayed on the
item's main page. After all, eBay does ultimately keep track of people through their credit cards.
If someone is banned, they can't just use their own credit card again to open another account. So
why not let us all see who we're really dealing with?

Matt O.

 

>So why not let us all see who we're really dealing with?
>
>Matt O.

Good point IMHO.

Never use Ebay but i have bought a fair amount of stuff on Astromart which is a "free" service for
buying telescopes etc.

Astromart does not allow Hotmail, Yahoo or other easily gotten accounts and requires a real name,
addresse and phone number to be a buyer or a seller.

If you are not registered, you can read the ads but cannot respond. The initial response is routed
through Astromart so a potential buyer does not actually see the email address of the seller until
he receives a response.

Astromart is quite small, about 200 items per day, but it works.

jon isaacs