Have any members had a really negative sale on any groups or forums?

[beefcake]

Only bad eBay I've had is a dragon ogre shaggoth that I got for a bargain. I imagine this is the reason I never received it. Got my cash back through PayPal as the seller stopped all Comms. Don't list at a small price if you aren't willing to post it. (Maybe they did post it but the lack of communication was odd)

[Vermis]

High elf Tyrion. This one. A tall, chunky, heavy metal mini, attached to a wide, flat metal base topper and wide flat base, at a perpendicular angle, by a single skinny horse's ankle. The seller thought it'd be a good idea to just cram it in a tiny jiffy bag. When it got to me, it wasn't quite so perpendicular. You can guess what happened when I tried to straighten that skinny horse ankle.
I opened a dispute against this dingbat, but it was an incomplete mini sold for a few pounds, so I just let it slide, and stamped caveat emptor on my forehead. That's the worst minis-related transaction I've had, thankfully. Still irritating, though!

[Hobgoblin]

Here's a timely and interesting article:

http://www.theguardian.com/money/2016/apr/25/ebay-seller-beware-buyer-guarantee-exploited-scammers

My sole negative experience on ebay was a 99p win - for a huge amount of miniatures - that resulted in an immediate refund and a claim that the items were "lost". A certain amount of illiteracy on the part of the seller had made the stuff very hard to find; I chanced upon it by sheer luck. Oh well - at least I got my 99p + postage back!

My (very limited) experience of buying through this forum has been excellent.

[The Voivod]

I have had minor problems with transactions on the net, but luckily we where always able to deal with it in a gentlemanly fashion.

The only trouble I really got where with retailers.
One who made an incredible ammount of trouble over sending me the wrong item after allready being difficlut to actually being able to pay.
I also had a substantial pre order on some hordes stoff on mealstrom games, which I never received when the company went down.

There has also been some rather unpoilte sellers on the dutch ´Marktplaats`, but they just missed their sales.

[Annie]

I've never had a problem,  and I've sold quite a bit across various forums - usually in one of my purges! I've seen a few rooms roof to ceiling with unopened/assembled figures and determined it won't happen to me! So occasionally I have a big sweep of anything I'm not going to get to realistically any time soon.

I haven't bought as much second hand bar some stuff from Oldhammer but that all went smoothly.

My weird anecdote to add to the discussion is: When I sell on Facebook groups,  I've had a lot...a lot!... of people message to say they've checked out my profile,  and live near, so will come and collect if I give them my address. When I mention that I don't live where my Facebook details say (I have a mostly locked down account but it shows a couple of bits as standard), and that I can post them no problem,  they ALWAYS disappear.

That's not mega creepy at all.

[The Mystic Spiral]

My weird anecdote to add to the discussion is: When I sell on Facebook groups,  I've had a lot...a lot!... of people message to say they've checked out my profile,  and live near, so will come and collect if I give them my address. When I mention that I don't live where my Facebook details say (I have a mostly locked down account but it shows a couple of bits as standard), and that I can post them no problem,  they ALWAYS disappear.

That's not mega creepy at all.

Never let them in!

I've made that mistake twice!

Was all British about it. Should have never opened the door.

One had a massive hygene problem and stayed for an hour criticising the painting and claiming they were not real GW(they were, no ebay recasters in those days). Bought 1 figure out of a box of about 100 assorted. Spent the rest of the day emptying every aerosol with a fragrance in it into the front room.

J

[Annie]

When I was about 11 I was selling some Pokemon cards at a village car boot sale.  A guy wanted to buy one but had run out of cash, and somewhere naively in conversation I had mentioned I lived in the village.

That evening,  who knocks at the door but Mr 40 something dude looking for 11 year old Annie to trade pokemon cards. He had been knocking around the village on a load of doors trying to find where I lived with pretty much "the girl that was selling at the car boot" and eventually found me.

My parents actually let him in out of Englishness and he stayed for what felt like an eternity swapping pokemon cards whilst my eldest brother gave him a death stare.

The card he'd been so desperate for wasn't even rare, it was part of a starter deck you could buy anywhere.

[The Mystic Spiral]

Got to admire his insanity, going round a village asking for a little girl. How'd he not get lynched?

Oh well, seems you mugged him for cards anyway. Serves him right.

J

[LeadAsbestos]

My worst was selling my all-Beastman Blood Bowl team, the Sheep Shaggers, via eBay. Painted, converted, team banners, cheerleaders and coaches. Got delivery confirmation, but the buyer claimed it never arrived, and it being an overseas US to UK transaction, eBay refunded his money. Probably 12 years ago now, and it still burns my ass. I hope to see them on a forum someday so I can know who to hate...

[eilif]

Interesting to hear about in-person transactions.  I've sold quite a few things (not usually game related) in-person, usually via craiglist and while I usually meet in a neutral location, I've also often had folks come to the house or gone to other folk's homes and never had a problem.

On my end it might help that some folks find my neighborhood to be a bit scary so perhaps they don't want to stick around.  For whatever reason I've had no problems with folks pleasantly coming, buying and leaving.

[Annie]

I did collect some figures from a chap a couple of years ago from his house, but it was on a local wargaming trading group. His girlfriend was making him sell his hobby collection dirt cheap and converting the money into IKEA furniture,  it felt like vulturing the belongings of a dead person!  

Also, the street was coincidently swarming with police following a drug bust on a neighbour,  and with a load of police watching, had to go knock on someone's door and exchange cash for a suspicious looking packet.

As I left she said "we have enough for that table now!" and I imagine now, every time he puts his coffee down on it, he sees the swirling faces of all his treasured armies and has a small cry.

[Mr. Peabody]

Annie, I think you just described the most negative sort of sale one could imagine... 

[throwsFireball]

<snip>

Jesus, it doesn't even matter which one I snip, these are all pure trauma.

I feel hurt just reading them.

[Tactalvanic]

Only one dodgy issue,  again e-bay. but got refunded for non-delivery, tried polite negotiation, got the list of excuses.

It got "in the post" maybe 8 times, before I politely suggest full refund and don't bother posting it again... then no further communication so opened the issue with ebay just before timeout.

Sad as I had really wanted the mini - and they actually had good feedback from other people, I suspect though she was selling her partners tat, so maybe he was not really happy about it.

Others have been close shaves, if I have any doubt I simply stop as its simply not worth the stress.

but boy am I glad my better half has no need to convert my mountain of madness into Ikea furniture...

[Kommando_J]

I have to say this thread has opened my eyes, until recently any second hand stuff I bought off ebay, it was only on LAF that I started buying/selling.

I've had three bad buys, one guy on ebay ticked the wrong box on the label so a fee was required to pick it up at the postie...which cost more than the mini, eventually forgot about it.

The second was from Northstar where the minis came miscast(it was around the Christmas rush so taking them back would have been unfeasible) I cleaned them up anyway although it has soured me on Northstar(first time buyer).

On LAF the closest i've gotten was a buyer taking ages to actually pay for the things as he had no paypal set up and had to use a library computer(essentially not prepared in advance) LAF moderator sorted it out though and we were both happy.

Until I started selling I had no idea paypal took a cut/what f&f was...and until this thread had no idea it was so taboo.

I do it as like others i'm only trying to get rid of the things and as I get so many nice deals myself i'm inclined to sell them cheap, if I wanted profit I could easily get it on ebay, and as i'm generally selling single/small batches paypal charging would make things not worthwhile, I guess in future if people do have a problem with it i'll just charge slightly more to offset it.