The Talking Machine Forum — For All Antique Phonographs & Recordings

What's up with Ebay? I have gotten ready to bid on something and the auction is ended with "Item broken or lost" It seems to happen often. Excuse me if this is the wrong place to ask this but I smell a rat. Are the sellers trying to get an anxious buyer off the pot?

Not sure what is going on, but I've ended two actions early when it got within a few days of the end and there were no bids. It was irrational of me but I was irritated - and Ebay doesn't give that as an option for ending an auction

It is possible someone contacted them to buy the item outside of Ebay.

That is what I think. It's not kosher.

I quit buying phonographs on EBay totally

If someone wants an eBay item badly enough, they will sometimes make an offer to persuade the seller to end the listing early. The seller can give eBay any explanation they like, knowing that it will be impossible to disprove.

I was once cheated out of a machine after I had won it. It was a Columbia 113a portable, the big American designed model weighing about 15kg. The seller claimed that it had been damaged when his wife dropped it whilst packing it, but he made this claim before I had paid for it!

Would you pack an item before receiving payment? I wouldn't.

At least my story had a happy ending. Last year I bought another 113a at a PROPER auction, where I paid in cash and carried the machine to my car.

I see auctions ended early from time to time and suspect what it really means is that the seller got a good offer outside of eBay. Sometimes things listed on eBay are advertised locally and it turns out to be first-come, first-served.

Clay

epigramophone wrote:
Would you pack an item before receiving payment? I wouldn't.

Sometimes, yes. I mostly sell small items such as watches and if there are any bidders it is easy to pack it and seal it in a flat rate box ready to print the label and ship. Not quite the same as your case I admit.

There are some rational and reasonable explanations for ending an eBay auction or fixed-price listing early.

I've been buying and selling on eBay for 16 years, and consider it to be merely an advertising medium. By design, a very tiny percentage of my sales are concluded there. eBay is simply too expensive (10% commissions, plus 3% PayPal fees, including shipping charges) and too unresponsive to resolving problems on either end of a transaction. And they are virtually oblivious to fraud.

There are multiple ways that I sell, and repeat customers are a major part of my volume. There are times when an item is both on eBay and my website and inquiries come in from both sources. Or a customer has visited me and purchased something in person, while it is still on eBay. What should I do, turn down real business in the hopes of an item selling on eBay?

A few years back, at Union, I negotiated a deal with a well-known seller for an Edison Opera. After we shook hands, his wife came over (she had been at the other end of his booth talking to another buyer) and announced she had sold the Opera to her customer, and as it turned out for a lot more money, too. I put myself into his shoes and graciously backed out of the deal, and refused to take a share the extra profits from him. The reason I tell this story is to demonstrate that sometimes sellers get themselves in a bind and buyers need to be a little open-minded.

I'm going to Wasilla, Alaska at the end of February. No, I ain't crazy. A good customer there can't figure out how to set up some complex machines that I just sold and shipped to him. It's part of my commitment to all of my customers, to help with any problems down the road. Selling exclusively on eBay would preclude such an investment of time and money.

Raphael

Billybob....some very oddball and strange things
happen on ebay. It comes with the territory.
Sometimes you get the bear, and sometimes the bear gets
you.

Chuck