I recently had a couple of very different ebay experiences.
The first was very positive and relates to the camera above. I’m very fond of Minolta cameras and have several. I came across a listing for a Minolta Maxxum 7 and 28-80mm lens at a very attractive price. It was shipped quickly and when it arrived I tried it and everything seemed fine. Then I turned it off and tried again. This time I got an error message. Turned it off. Turned it on. Again everything seemed fine. Pressed the shutter release. Error. After ‘googling’ a bit I discovered that this is a known problem. Apparently there’s a small plastic part that breaks. It’s essentially unfixable as the parts are no longer available. So I communicated with the seller telling him that the camera, advertised as working, in fact wasn’t and giving him the information I’d found on the web. After a couple of messages over a few hours he sent me a message apologizing and saying that he would refund my money (including the shipping). Since the camera was non functional I shouldn’t send it back, and I should keep the lens for my inconvenience (which was a nice thought even if I already had two or three of these lenses, purchased with Minolta bodies I wanted).
What a wonderful experience!
The second – not so much. A large piece of metal fell off our cooktop hood and fell on a blue and white china spoon holder and broke it. My wife was a little upset so I decided to see if I could find something suitable on ebay. Eventually I found a nice, vintage delft blue and white spoon holder that I felt sure she would like. So I purchased and paid for it. Time (about three weeks) went by and nothing was received so I contacted the seller to ask what the status was. He replied: “I’m sending it now I haven’t had any help until now so sorry for the inconvience (sic)”. Ok, fair enough. More time went by so I contacted the seller again. This time he replied: “I can’t ship this item for $2.16”. $2.16 was the advertised amount. I contacted him again asking what price he could ship it for. No response. All this time the item was marked as shipped even though it hadn’t been. Finally I sent a formal request through ebay. This time the seller responded: “The item has been stolen that’s why it never got shipped. And PayPal is holding my money”. I responded that this wasn’t my problem and that he should refund my money. After waiting the required amount of time I requested ebay resolve this and they very quickly refunded my money. So in the end all’s well that ends well. Not such a pleasant experience though. I’ve been using ebay for several years and this is the first such experience I’ve had.
That Minolta camera is lovely though. I’ve still got my eye out for one.