Who here Ebays? I've got a couple questions

[Sasquatchhunter]

I just got an Ebay account and have made a couple purchases and have been very pleased. Now I've been looking at some knives and a few other outdoor type items, and a lot of the things I want to bid on are from Hong Kong or just "China." Are these items safe to bid on? It has detoured me so far, but am I just being too careful? Also, has anyone ever had any bad experiences? Is there anything I need to know/avoid? Thanks

 

[bobbittle]

Are they anything by a specific maker? More likely than not they're a cheap copy.

 

[indykid]

Been away from ebay for a long time due to their earlier payment scale, but when I went on recently I too noticed that a lot of stuff is marked as shipping from China. Personally as nice as an item seems, even if the original "American" manufacturer is the producer in China, I refuse to buy it. Don't want to take any chance that the product isn't exactly what I thought it would be.

Just my 2 cents.

 

[Sasquatchhunter]

Sometimes, sometimes not. One example of "fakes" is the Bear Grylls Gerber knives. You can buy them from China for like 8 bucks. That scares me.

 

[spec4]

Never had a problem. Bought a nice RC Tiger tank, works fine. Bought several other items internationally, all OK.

 

[bobbittle]

Sometimes, sometimes not. One example of "fakes" is the Bear Grylls Gerber knives. You can buy them from China for like 8 bucks. That scares me.

That's probably legit. That's more than they're worth anyway.

 

[Sasquatchhunter]

Been away from ebay for a long time due to their earlier payment scale, but when I went on recently I too noticed that a lot of stuff is marked as shipping from China. Personally as nice as an item seems, even if the original "American" manufacturer is the producer in China, I refuse to buy it. Don't want to take any chance that the product isn't exactly what I thought it would be.

Just my 2 cents.

That's sort of what I'm thinking. Plus, I'd rather give my money to someone in the States, but sometimes there seem to be some legit deals from overseas.

 

[bobbittle]

Never had a problem. Bought a nice RC Tiger tank, works fine. Bought several other items internationally, all OK.

Great. Now you've got me looking at RC Tiger tanks.

German Tiger I RC Tank RTR w/ Airsoft/Smoke & Tx

That thing is sweet.

 

[bobbittle]

That's sort of what I'm thinking. Plus, I'd rather give my money to someone in the States, but sometimes there seem to be some legit deals from overseas.

The old saying typically holds true: "If it's too good to be true, it probably is."

But yes, you can find decent deals. Buying from overseas isn't a biggie in my opinion. I no longer use eBay or its devil spawn PayPal, but had no issues doing such in the past.

My wife bought her wedding dress on eBay from Taiwan for $14. Looked just like the $500+ dresses she was looking at locally.

 

[slimplmbr]

Typically if it's a higher end item at a steal of a price coming from China, 99.999999% of the time it's a fake. A lot of knife companies are being copied including Spartan, Strider, ESEE, and RYP DPX gear to name a few that I have personally seen.

 

[other dave]

Only real problem I've ever had were a couple of counterfeit cell phone batteries and Paypal refunded my $$$. Be prepared for a 10 to 21 day wait associated with overseas shipping. CHECK THE SELLER'S FEEDBACK FIRST. Also they have some kind of high holy holiday during February and everything grinds to a screeching halt. Hope this helps.

 

[CountryBoy19]

I refuse to sell on ebay because their commissions are ridiculous for an online auction site...

I do buy though... I've bought lots of stuff on ebay... the glory days were about 4-5 years ago when Microsoft's live.com came out. They were running a promotion where you use live.com to search for things to buy and if an ebay "buy it now" option showed up you clicked it and live.com would offer X% cashback up to 35%. This was totally unrelated to ebay so the ebay prices were still the same, live.com just offered this additional cashback. Anyways, it led you to believe that you had to get the item to come up in the live.com search, but if you search "antique doll" you were sure to get an ebay listing in the search. Clicking that listing takes you to ebay then you can navigate to any other item and buy it. Ebay listings for most things are pretty competitive, but you add in 35% cash back and they're a screaming deal. I bought several thousand dollars worth of optics (SWFA sells on ebay) and reloading equipment on there at 35% cash-back. 6 weeks after purchase I got my cash-back checks in the mail and I was a happy man. I've used ebay less so recently but I still buy. I've had many things come from China or Hong-Kong. Mostly electrical stuff. I've only had 1 problem and the seller was a bit problematic to deal with. The item wasn't as advertised. He kept offering a partial refund. I had to get very blunt with him and demand a full refund because it wouldn't work for my purpose at all and a partial refund was unacceptable. They realize that the majority of their cost is in shipping so they will try to buy you off with a partial refund and let you keep it vs. a full refund. The seller asked me to ship it back. I quoted him the exact price that USPS was quoting me for international parcel post which was double what I paid for the item. He declined, gave me a full refund and let me keep the item.

 

[Archbishop]

Buy stuff from overseas from time to time on ebay. Biggest thing to keep in mind is only pay what you're willing to loose. If it's crap toss it and keep moving. That being said, most of what I've bought has worked out not problem.

 

[Mr Evilwrench]

I have a red star just from purchases, so you know I've been in it for a while. I buy some stuff from China or thereabouts; I know we want to think it's all cheap crap, but at least some of them are honestly making pretty good stuff these days. Kind of like the Japanese went from a reputation for crap to top quality.

I don't know how much I'd go for knives, but I've bought cell batteries and whatnot, which are cheap enough I can just write them off if they suck. I've bought stuff from all over the world. You just kind of have to have a sense for it.

Ebay has definitely gone downhill since the old days, ten years ago thereabouts. It's pretty much buy it now, now.

 

[Libertarian01]

To Sasquatchhunter,

I am not a huge Ebayer but a friend is.

Basically, everything everyone else has said is right!

That said, when you buy from outside the country you do have less recourse than from somewhere inside the US. At least within the US you can contact local BBB or Chamber of Commerce. Try doing that in Xiangdo Province.

I would never purchase a rare item from overseas. Say you want to buy an original WWII Japanese officers sword and the going rate is $3,000. I might(?) purchase it from a company in China only IF it can be researched outside of Ebay. If it is coming from Christie's Auction House Chinese division - no problem. If, on the other hand, it is coming from OneHung Lo's Traders Emporium I would probably pass.

That said, a Japanese WWII officers sword would be something I wouldn't trust from just anyone in the US, but at least in the US if you are cheated you have a wider range of legal responses.

Regards,

Doug

 

[Hoosierdood]

I just celebrated my 10 year anniversary being an eBay member. I will not buy OR sell from or to anyone outside the US. I won't even deal with Canadians. Maybe I'm overly paranoid, but you open yourself up to getting screwed big time. Sure, you can find good deals. But there is much more risk. And I'm not much of a risk taker.

BTW, I have only been scammed ONCE in the last 10 years. EBay quickly resolved the issue and gave me a full refund.

 

[fullauto 45]

I generally do not buy outside of the USA. I also do not sell to outside the USA with very very few exceptions. Also watch selling any "gun parts" to certain states.

 

[steve666]

Be sure to use Paypal to make payment, that way if there is a problem you can get your payment refunded. I've had a couple of items that were supposedly shipped from China that didn't arrive after a considerable wait. When I contacted the seller I was told that they were "lost after shipping" and had to get refunds.

 

[pirate]

Only buy from China or Hong Kong if you don't expect quality and you don't mind waiting 3-4 weeks to get your item. I have bought from dealers there on ebay plenty of times for things that I didn't mind breaking over time and they worked their purpose just fine. It just takes forever via standard shipping to get to the U.S.

 

[GTM]

I just got an Ebay account and have made a couple purchases and have been very pleased. Now I've been looking at some knives and a few other outdoor type items, and a lot of the things I want to bid on are from Hong Kong or just "China." Are these items safe to bid on? It has detoured me so far, but am I just being too careful? Also, has anyone ever had any bad experiences? Is there anything I need to know/avoid? Thanks

For me it's not worth the potential hassle in the likely event that the product is fake/undelivered/scam. I don't care what it is, if it's not in the US I don't even give it a second glance, even with Paypal protection.