What drives you round the twist?

Bought a lot of my gear on eBay, and frankly never felt really cheated or treated unfair. Same for a local type of Craigs list.

 

When buying 2nd hand gear, a healthy dose of common sense never hurts, no matter whether it's on eBay, the neighbour's lawn or an ad in a newspaper. If the price is too good to be true, it's probably to good to be true. If the description doesn't match the images, it's probably too good to be true. If the item has magical powers and never seen characteristics, it's probably too good to be real. If seller ratings are low, or the number of ratings low - in other words: if you don't trust it, stay away. I don't see this as "buyer beware", or "seller aware" (which is a more pleasant variation on the same theme), but simple common sense, and also not something that specifically applies to eBay.

I've been buying and selling on eBay for 20 years. And yeah, lots of things have changed. The vast majority of my buying and selling experiences have been positive. As a seller, what really gets me good and wound up -- well it's only happened to me once, but once is enough. It's when a buyer decides he doesn't like something I'm selling as is with no returns -- but plenty of photos with complete descriptions as always -- and eBay, using its "buyer protection" scam, reaches into my bank account and steals $200. I say eBay stole the money because this "buyer" never returned the item. I've been in contact with eBay over this and they say there's nothing they can do other than send him a message that I want my item back. I still send the guy eBay messages every month or two -- just to annoy him I guess. But he's never responded. He just ignores me, and gets away with it. That's what really sticks in my craw about eBay. And yeah, since eBay won't make him return my item, as far as I'm concerned, they stole $200 from me.

I've been buying and selling on eBay for 20 years. And yeah, lots of things have changed. The vast majority of my buying and selling experiences have been positive. As a seller, what really gets me good and wound up -- well it's only happened to me once, but once is enough. It's when a buyer decides he doesn't like something I'm selling as is with no returns -- but plenty of photos with complete descriptions as always -- and eBay, using its "buyer protection" scam, reaches into my bank account and steals $200. I say eBay stole the money because this "buyer" never returned the item. I've been in contact with eBay over this and they say there's nothing they can do other than send him a message that I want my item back. I still send the guy eBay messages every month or two -- just to annoy him I guess. But he's never responded. He just ignores me, and gets away with it. That's what really sticks in my craw about eBay. And yeah, since eBay won't make him return my item, as far as I'm concerned, they stole $200 from me.

I agree

'Great bokeh'. Since when was the out of focus background of an image more important than the subject? I don't understand the ridiculous obsession with emphasising this as an adjunct to a lens' performance.

Does seem ironic that the process of throwing the background out of focus to emphasize the subject has made that background the subject.....

'Great bokeh'. Since when was the out of focus background of an image more important than the subject? I don't understand the ridiculous obsession with emphasising this as an adjunct to a lens' performance.

 

You need to separate the bokeh question of "subjective artistic validity" vs "vital eBay selling point". Like it or not, the major impetus behind a lot of vintage lens sales today is the bokeh fetish. Lenses you couldn't give away ten years ago now fetch much higher prices. If you're a seller who happens to have acquired them ten years ago and outgrown them, thats a good thing, if you're a buyer, not so much.

 

All thru photographic history, lens mfrs have played whack-a-mole with lens aberrations vs rendering characteristics. Fix one problem, you wreck another factor. This is why certain lens brands or specific lenses had their own followings. In recent years, as new AF lenses are ever more optimized for digital, to look sharp as a tack with zero chromatic aberration when pixel peeping, they've had to compromise secondary characteristics like bokeh quality. That (rather perversely) drives many photographers to seek out older "flawed" glass to achieve the look they want for their work: they shop for bokeh first, sharpness second.

 

The whole situation goes in contradictory circles. On one hand, you have photographers desperately chasing down vintage "flawed" manual-focus glass, willing to pay crazy-high prices for some of it. OTOH, if a mfr tries to meet demand for these characteristics by designing them into modern convenient AF lenses, the attempt fails spectacularly (witness the unending backlash Nikon still endures for their 58mm f/1.4 AFS misfire). You would think having both vintage manual focus and newer AF options would be welcomed, but apparently not (aside from the domestic Japanese market).

To return to the original thread: Sellers dishonestly including names of sought after kit to attract searches. For example describing a 135mm Zeiss lens as a Flektogon.

 

And the auction site changing things without notice. Before if you were watching the end of an auction, it stayed on the listing so you could see what the item sold for. Now it automatically redirects to another similar item it thinks you might be interested in.

Oh, and it’s rare, rare, RARE. Did I mention that it was RARE?

Wow - you folks covered my pet peeves in spades. Being a buyer & seller for over 18 years I've had 99% good buying experiences, probably because I'm ery wary of things I can't touch and inspect in person before I commit to buy, and as a seller I go out of my way to professionally present items to answer questions in advance potential buyers might ask. What really gripes me though, are the individuals who steal good sellers' identities and photos offering to sell items at a significant discount from market value...and often they post 20-50 different items at once, sometimes across various categories simultaneously, and the person whose identity has been stolen is clueless unless we report these scumbags to Ebay and they take down the listings. So each week I do scan certain categories for suspicious postings and report them to Ebay, but the eels are very slippery.

And the auction site changing things without notice. Before if you were watching the end of an auction, it stayed on the listing so you could see what the item sold for. Now it automatically redirects to another similar item it thinks you might be interested in.

 

I absolutely hate this latest pointless change: it defeats the whole purpose of monitoring an auction to see how it ends (whether you bid or just want info). When this started a couple weeks ago, it took me days to figure out WTH eBay was doing, and that clicking on the warning "this listing is no longer valid" text would take you to the actual ended listing. eBay seriously needs to pull its head out of its rear and stop trying to be the next Amazon. eBay management and all its doltish investors need to get it thru their thick skulls: there is no "next Amazon" and never will be. It was a one and done phenomenon (yeah, you have Alibaba, but thats China-run and a whole different ballgame).

 

eBay has made one counterproductive change after another, year after year, chasing its demented Amazon fantasy. None enriched the experience for most users (most make things worse, without moving them closer to being Amazon one iota). Infuriating: if I'm monitoring a second hand vintage Nikkor macro lens listing, how is redirecting me to a brand new 18-55mm AF zoom useful? All that does is annoy me and make me swear a blood oath NEVER to purchase any brand new item from eBay that rewards this marketing idiocy. Sadly, another imminent change they announced is a wholesale revamp of the search engine. The default results will be displayed in their new "headline news" style, forcing you to dig around and use non-intuitive overrides before you can see a single traditional listing (assuming they even allow it anymore).

 

While we're at it: eBay and PayPal need to cut the pandering to mobile devices at the expensive of the full PC/laptop experience. I'm not writing my listings on an iPhone with the tip of my nose, and when I need to look at my overview I want every detail thats supposed to be there, not a page thats 70% useless white space. PayPal has become utterly impossible to navigate: you can't get a live running total with balances at all. Why on earth not? Isn't your running balance a crucial piece of info? They could be robbing you blind and you wouldn't know from the new overview system. They actually force you to download a gigantic unwieldy spreedsheet PDF to get a "snapshot" of your running balances now. Ugh: how exactly does this help people, on phones OR computers?

Edited June 12, 2018 by orsetto

I believe eBay has a drop down menu option for “desktop view” on mobile devices.

Over inflated prices. Adaptall mount for anything other than Leica - £15. Leica mount £100!

I believe eBay has a drop down menu option for “desktop view” on mobile devices.

 

Yes, that does indeed come in handy to check important details they left out of the standard mobile interface.

 

My complaint is eBay keeps eroding the desktop browser interface to make it look more like their simplified mobile interface (pointlessly removing significant info and replacing it with dead white space). If they're gonna merge the interfaces there won't be any good option for those who hate swiping and digging for info that should be immediately visible, at least on a PC screen. It isn't just eBay: other websites are dumping their full desktop interface option, replacing it with a mobile knockoff (ridiculously inefficient on a PC screen). I get that they don't want to pay coders to maintain both versions anymore in an era when 90% of their views are on mobile, but the shift to a simplified Fischer-Price web paradigm is frustrating.

"Minty" - indicates either an idiot seller, who doesn't realize that the word is meaningless, or a wiseguy who hopes that buyers won't know that

"Oh, and it’s rare, rare, RARE. Did I mention that it was RARE?"

You mean it is no longer available at K-Mart?

My pet peeve is when I ask a seller a list of questions about the lens they're selling (Does it have: fungus? separation? oil on diaphragm? haze? scratches on glass? sticky zoom? stiff focus?), all of which was of course necessitated by a description that read "Great condition" and included one phone picture....

 

And they reply with: "No dust. It's perfect."

 

Okay then!

My pet peeve is when I ask a seller a list of questions about the lens they're selling (Does it have: fungus? separation? oil on diaphragm? haze? scratches on glass? sticky zoom? stiff focus?), all of which was of course necessitated by a description that read "Great condition" and included one phone picture....

 

And they reply with: "No dust. It's perfect."

 

Okay then!

 

I've had that happen to me pretty often! I immediately delete them from my watched list and move on.

My pet peeve is when I ask a seller a list of questions about the lens they're selling (Does it have: fungus? separation? oil on diaphragm? haze? scratches on glass? sticky zoom? stiff focus?), all of which was of course necessitated by a description that read "Great condition" and included one phone picture....

 

And they reply with: "No dust. It's perfect."

 

Okay then!

Why would you expect anything else from someone who posted a 2 word, 1 photo listing?

I've had that happen to me pretty often! I immediately delete them from my watched list and move on.

Why? If they say it's perfect and you get it and find a problem, you just send it back and eBay will give you back every cent you paid, including shipping.

Why? If they say it's perfect and you get it and find a problem, you just send it back and eBay will give you back every cent you paid, including shipping.

 

I'd rather not waste the time and effort returning the item, especially since there are usually a number of much better auctions to choose from.

I'd rather not waste the time and effort returning the item, especially since there are usually a number of much better auctions to choose from.

Yeah, returns are a pain but, while there may be lots of other auctions of similar items, they can hardly be better. With wordier auctions, you have to be much more cautious, because most descriptions can be interpreted multiple ways or subject to opinion, allowing dishonest sellers to weasel out. "Perfect" can't be interpreted to mean anything but perfect. It either is, or it isn't.

 

I agree that that kind of cavalier attitude on the part of a seller may make a buyer uneasy, but it's a safe gamble, these days. I don't expect anything to be perfect but, if someone tells me that an item that I want is perfect, I'll buy it because it's probably good enough, even though it's not perfect.

Did I type f/1.2?

 

Sorry, silly me, I meant f/2.0 !!

Little print in Ebay ads that says "Example picture from flickr (not my image)"....

Little print in Ebay ads that says "Example picture from flickr (not my image)"....

 

Or, for that matter, listings for used items that show only a stock photo of the new item. One lens listing I saw included only a photo taken from kenrockwell.com, complete with watermark. The seller was not in fact Ken Rockwell.

Or, for that matter, listings for used items that show only a stock photo of the new item. One lens listing I saw included only a photo taken from kenrockwell.com, complete with watermark. The seller was not in fact Ken Rockwell.

That should be reported to eBay, immediately. That's a copyright violation, and not something they tolerate. They'll yank that listing in a heartbeat.

That should be reported to eBay, immediately. That's a copyright violation, and not something they tolerate. They'll yank that listing in a heartbeat.

I reported it to Rockwell, since it was his copyright. I don't know if he did anything about it; he didn't respond to me.