[eric the red]

Last week I had my Reynaud Twin Mark 3's  for sale on Audiogon auction and got one bid for $600.00 for them. Four hours before the auction ended, the high (and only) bidder emails me and says " Sorry but my son bid on those speakers without our permission but we'll pay for them if we win the auction". Right and I believe everything everyone tells me on the net... I emailed back saying that I didn't quite believe the story and this winning bidder person emailed back saying "It's too bad that everyone has to be so cynical these days and my husband is a Los Angeles police offer and we run a strict household blah blah blah" I let that one go and back went the speakers on auction...
     I'm selling my amp on auction #2 now for a ridiculous starting price and for the first three days I got four different people asking me if I would end the auction early for a LOWER price than my starting bid. Hmmmm....
     So auction #3 for a pair of Platinum Audio Solos ended on Monday with the winning bidder sending me at least 3 different emails during the auction asking about them, and after he won the auction, promised to Pay with Paypal and asked for amp advice for the speakers. After a few days of not hearing from him, I emailed Audiogon and asked them what was up with the winning bidder and they said he had given them a fake email address, Audiogon closed his account and end of story. Lucky for me the second highest bidder wants the speakers and his bid was only 5 dollars less than the winner.
     Tack on my Ebay amp win with the seller from Hell and I'm batting 4 for 4 and leading the internet auction Majors this week

[bubba966]

Sounds like you should take an auction break...

My A'gon luck has sucked this week as well. I was lined up to get a DTS LD (ID4) from a guy for $35+ S&H. I was pretty happy as that disc regularly sells for $125-$150+. He said that it'd be about $8 to ship it, but if I gave him my addy he'd give me a better quote. So I did so, and he replies back (after he's said it's mine)

Hey brian,I just had a buyer email me back, that contacted me before...I'm very sorry about the mishap....thanks mike

     

Yeah, my ass...

[JoshK]

Brian,

Hope you left him appropriate feedback!

[Ears]

I guess i have been lucky with A-gon as i have bought and sold at least 17-18 items there in the last 2.5 years or so,some to non- members even.
 The only bad thing out of all these deals has been a loose conector on one end of an AZ mc2 digital cable, and this could have been from shipping.
However, I have noticed a lot more people not returning emails on whether a new listing has sold ect.

I also notice a lot more Paypal and money order only  in advance ads.
I have a big problem with paypal only option, and find it to be something that should be left for E-bay.

I don't have a problem with the paypal concept itself, it is just that some of us like to have a c.o.d option for instance, and adds with paypal gennerally will not do c.o.d, no matter your feedback rating.

I find that ordering c.o.d., you get your purchase to your door the quickest without a lot of delays in the seller, mailing it out.

I have waited 10 days for items, only two find out the seller forgot to send the item that i mailed a m/o for.
I have had others take a full week after receiving a postal m/o before getting around to sending an item.

Another problem i have is all of these audio gear/ wire/cable companies selling there merchandise and not taking Credit cards direct without using paypal.

Any legitimate company takes cc direct if they want my business, or at least offer c.o.d. and do not force me to use paypal.....rant off.

I still find A-gon to be by far the best place to buy or sell new/used gear

[Carlman]

When I sell things on Agon or Ebay, I prefer that people use PayPal but, I don't charge fees.  I think it's kind of an insult that a seller charges a buyer for instant guaranteed funds... especially when the buyer doesn't know the seller and hasn't seen the product.

In fact, when I do sell stuff on ebay, if you 'buy it now' I offer 'free shipping and paypal'.  The auction ends quicker, I get Paypal and the product is out the door next day.

If there's no incentive other than time savings, who cares?  I lived without it this long, I can wait a few days for the seller to get my check.  

Agon is getting more popular, so you're getting more rif-raff like ebay.  Ebay is like an online Flea Market.  I'll bet the regular vendors are starting to outnumber the regular folk now.... Just a matter of time for Agon.

-C

[Tonto Yoder]

Last week I had my Reynaud Twin Mark 3's  for sale .... Four hours before the auction ended, the high (and only) bidder emails me and says " Sorry but my son bid on those speakers without our permission but we'll pay for them if we win the auction".

I don't see the problem if they offered to pay the $600; instead, you chose to call them liars??   The situation seems quite different from them saying, AFTER the auction, "Sorry, my son bid on those speakers. We won't pay."

[eric the red]

The only previous Audiogon feedback that the winning bidder had was a negative from someone who said that this person had "Squelched on a deal" after agreeing to purchase something. Yes an email  4 hours before the auction ended saying that "We just discovered that our son had bid on the speakers without permission and that they were in the process of purchasing some Taylor Reference Moniters blah blah blah" from someone with bad feedback makes me skeptical. Does your "son" normally bid on alot of audio equipment auctions lady? Do I wait for them to decide when to send me the money for a product that they obviously don't want? If they pay with Paypal will they decide to cancel the transfer of funds at the last minute on a purchase they really didn't want in the first place? How am I to know that this person wasn't fabricating the whole story and was just some non-paying flake? The guy who won the auction for my Solos went so far as to email me with system advice the day after the auction ended, asked for shipping costs and kept me hanging for 4 days with promises to pay with Paypal before he disappeared off the Audiogon radar. From my experience dealing with Audiogon and Ebay auctions, the rule that "winning bids are a binding legal contract" don't mean much to either Ebay nor Audiogon when it comes to handling disputes.

[Mad DOg]

Last week I had my Reynaud Twin Mark 3's  for sale .... Four hours before the auction ended, the high (and only) bidder emails me and says " Sorry but my son bid on those speakers without our permission but we'll pay for them if we win the auction".

I don't see the problem if they offered to pay the $600; instead, you chose to call them liars??   The situation seems quite different from them saying, AFTER the auction, "Sorry, my son bid on those speakers. We won't pay."

if you've sold alot on eBay, you've probably seen many excuses similar to this type...and to me, this sounded like an excuse...my guess is if the bidder did win the auction, eric the red most likely would not have gotten his money...it was simply the bidders way of trying to get out of a high bid because he had second thoughts. of course i could be wrong but due to the 2 occurences below, i no longer give folks the benefit of the doubt...

i auctioned off a camera on eBay. the winner contacted me by email asking me to call him. i did. he said that the check would be in the mail. 2 weeks later and still no check or money order. i call him and no one answers. finally almost 3 weeks later, i receive a call from the winning bidder who tells me that his home was destroyed in a tornado. so being the nice guy that i am, i say no problem, if you don't want or can't pay for the camera, that's fine. just tell me. he says he still wants it and will send out the money order or check...i never got anything. no check. no money order. i tried calling again to confirm that he wouldn't be paying as i didn't want to receive a check later after selling the camera to someone else and couldn't get ahold of anyone and he never did return my call.

i auctioned off a pair of speakers FOR LOCAL PICKUP ONLY on eBay...so guess what? an out of state bidder bids at the very last second and wins. so i contact him asking if he was located locally as the auction was for local buyers only. i even mention to him that if it was a mistake, i had the other bidders who had lower bids offer to buy them if his bid was a mistake. he replies that he is serious, he's moving to CA within the next month and asks me to hold for a few weeks. if i can't hold them, he could have his lady friend in the area pick them up. So I reply for him to pay me and i can hold them....well a week after not having received payment, i email him. no reply. i email him again. no reply. i email again this time threatening to leave negative feedback. guess what? he replies that he was out of town. yeah, right...says he isn't moving out to CA anymore so he won't be purchasing the speakers. of course by this time, the 2 other bidders who had offered to buy the speakers had already moved on and purchased other stuff.

and there are more stories....these just take the cake in my book!

[Marbles]

ETR, I just noticed what your listening to....

That will be me and my White trash neighbors in about 7 hours      

That's the plan for tonight anyway.........

[Tonto Yoder]

Did you ever give the high bidders the chance to honor their bid????
If not, I'd say you were the "deal squelcher."  Skepticism about the transaction was certainly warranted, but I'd think the bidders needed to be given the opportunity to prove themselves dead-beats or worthwhile.

It's not like you were going to ship the speakers before payment or that you lost the $595 bid because of the $600 higher bid.

[eric the red]

I had a bad feeling about the whole deal from the first email. I've done enough selling to know when I'm hearing a bad excuse for not buying something and yes I squelched the deal and got absolutely no protests from the winning bidder nor did I feel like wasting anymore of my time on someone who obviously did not want my speakers. If anyone wants to BID on them the auction ends on Monday BTW

[Dozer]

Eric:  It's not a REAL bogus story until the lady's kid bids AGAIN at $610 - now THAT would take some REAL BALLS.

I happen to love agon - my only troubles have been with shippers - never with traders (knock wood).   Right now USPS has lost a package that I underinsured by $300 thinking "what are the chances something will happen"?    I'm sure this serves me right for something bad I did along the way in life...

I would never do a transaction on line that I couldn't shrug my shoulders over if it went bad...  I assume such a thing is only a matter of time - so far so good.