On Thu, 5 Oct 2006 12:48:28 -0400, "jerryl"
wrote:


"Ray Turner" wrote in message
...
On Thu, 05 Oct 2006 12:14:18 +0000, -zero wrote:


eBay is a big yard sale in a rough neighborhood.

Never EVER buy from people with less than 98% positive feedback,
and a minimum of 50 transactions.





Friends don't let friends buy on Ebay - regardless of sellers feedback.



I've purchased many things on Ebay and never got stung. If the seller has a

I've bought about 14 things and only had trouble with 1.

I bought a CD copy of Open Office 1.1, an " MS Word" emulation that is
free, but I didn't have the time to do a download. I went with this
guy because he promised quick shipping. It took about 2 1/2 weeks,
and arrived long after I downloaded it.

I complained and he said if I didn't give him good feedback he'd give
me bad feedback even though I had paid immediately. He pointed out
that it would lower my percertage of good far more than his, since he
sold hundreds or thousands of things.

What difference does it make if a buyer has gotten good or bad
feedback? They have to sell to the highest bidder, and they don't
have to ship until I pay. They are bound by the ebay rules for the
first part and have no risk for the second part, and I'm sure they
know it.

But I still wanted to keep my percentage good at 100%, so I decided to
settle for a copy of his other CD, which had lots of freeware and
shareware on it, that he said was useful for debugging. Probably was
but it was poorly organized, had no index pretty much, and almost all
had to be installed before it could be used.

He had lots of excuses. Claimed the wild fires in California had
interfered, (but also said he shipped only a day or 2 later because of
that. Both his cd's came with a printed note, the same one, that
something had gone wrong so the shipping was delayed. I'm sure
everyone gets that.

good feedback score and has been on quite awhile, it's usually safe to buy.
I also pay by credit card just in case. Like everything else "Caveat Emptor"

AIUI, the founder of ebay thought everyone would be honest, but by now
they have been forced to hire 100's of lawyers to handle complaints
(and that only relates to the problems aboven above the level that
non-lawyers can handle.)