eBay: Can I trust this guy?

[Devil_H@ck]

I've been wanting an MP3 player for at least 2 years now and I decided to take a look on eBay, now that the new 4th generation are out.

I found this guy who sells over a 20 new 4th generation iPods, but I don't know if I can trust him. His feedback is private so I can't read it, but he does have a feedback score of 2918 and his positive feedback is 95.2%, also he's been registered since '99 and I guess it's pretty hard to have such a good score if you set people up all the time.

Here's the guy's eBay profile: http://feedback.ebay.com/ws1/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewFeedback&userid=minime1957&iid=5712589701&frm=284
And this is an example of what he's selling: http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&category=67838&item=5712587767

Should I trust this? I've only bought once on eBay and it went flawless, but I don't want to lose $300.

I'd really like to know this, since I can save a lot of money this way. The iPod 40Gb costs €450 here, which is a lot, it's what has been holding me back of buying it.

 

[mercator]

I'm not a power ebayer or anything

I have made quite a few purchases on ebay over the last two years and have never been ripped off (knocking on wood now ).

As a rule I don't buy from anybody with a negative feedback in the past month. This guy has 31 negatives and 20 neutrals already! In my view a neutral is as bad as a negative, so count 51.

I would give it a pass.

/Dave

ps, never seen that private feedback thing, what is that all about?

 

[Devil_H@ck]

Hm, yes, if you add the neutral votes (which I too consider bad ones) to the negatives, there's a negative vote for each 2 positive ones.

So, I better wait for another person to sell one?

The private feedback thing, well, I don't know why anyone would enable it. It looks like he's got something to hide, that's another reason why I'm suspicious.

 

[Richard C]

That's still quite a lot of negatives. The details of the negative comments are more important than the actual percentage IMO but for some reason this seller doesn't want anyone to read this.

Why would anyone not disclose the details of their feedback? Maybe you should ask him.

 

[Devil_H@ck]

Good idea.

This should get the message over:

"Hi,

It's me again. I'm wondering why you've made the feedbacks you get private. No offence, but it really looks as though you've got something to hide and it's kind of holding me back to bid on your auction. Could you please make your feedbacks public?

Best regards, Anthony Van Herrewege"

 

[squadra]

If it doesn't have to be an ipod, creative sells 30GB devices (zen xtra) which are just a little over 300€ (in Holland)
Only downside is that the outputlevel is a bit too low.

 

[Devil_H@ck]

If it doesn't have to be an ipod, creative sells 30GB devices (zen xtra) which are just a little over 300€ (in Holland)
Only downside is that the outputlevel is a bit too low.

I wanted to buy a Zen at first, but then a friend of mine bought one and I find it really bulky. Two other friends of mine both have a 3rd generation 40 Gb iPod and well, it's fantastic, really slick, nice, etc. I definitely want a iPod, not a Zen .

* Oh, btw, the front always tends to come loose on my friend's Zen, which I think says something about the quality. I'm not saying it's bad, it's just that it's not as good as it could be.

But let's not turn this into a Zen vs iPod topic .

 

[jeff mai]

but I don't know if I can trust him.

You'd be stupid to do business with this guy. Recent feedback indicates you have a 1 in 3 chance of feeling ripped off afterwards and he wont let you read other's comments to find out the nature of the complaints!

Save for an extra month or buy from someone else. If there is no one else matching his prices there must be something fishy happening.

 

[ralph-bway]

Hi,

This seller has TOO MUCH negative & neutral feedback, and they are hiding the comments. BEWARE & AVOID this seller. Read on if you want some suggestions on buying on Ebay that I've from experience, sometimes expensively so.

Feedback on Ebay is critical. Before I buy from anyone I take a hard look at their feedback. It is not just the numbers and the seller's percentage. The most important info you can get from someone's feedback is not available with this seller.

If you look you'll see some sellers have multiple positive feedbacks from the same person. That is shilling up their rating. I've asked Ebay about this and got a vague response about it. You can't see that with this seller.

I concentrate on negative and neutral feedback. What is the feedback of the person who left it. Sometimes a seller has a couple of negatives and the person who left it has a lot of negatives themself. I'm inclinded to give this seller a break. But if a lot of different people with high ratings are giving someone a negative & neutral, I stay away.

Does the seller have a new ID icon? Sometimes you can see their old ID and feedback. I always email a seller with a new ID and ask them why they changed it. My id is ralph-nyclimo, I'd love to change it to ralphbway, but I don't because I don't want to lose my 46-0 positive feedbacks.

Also look around the net for stuff. I bought 4 pairs of speaker wall brackets on Ebay from a seller with excellent feedback and found out later that they would have been $40 less with the shipping from Parts Express.

Shipping - Find out EXACTLY how much the shipping and handling charge is. If you look some people list it and some don't. Do you want to find out after you win the bid that the s/h is outrageous.

So much for my ranting, I hope I've helped some of my diyaudio brothers and sisters, who, have been so helpful to me.

Best

 

[karma]

talk about stupid on ebays part now thay can make there feedback comments private.

what are the techs at ebay thinking

sad

 

[Devil_H@ck]

K, I found some other people who sell the 4th generation 40 Gb one and one of them has no negative feedback, should be OK. Now if only people would stop bidding $50 more than the previous bid the price would stay low...