Im all for making a buck, but.....

[GibH]

I'm all for making a buck, but.....

$20 PLUS shipping for a ferrite core snap on choke you can buy at Radio Shack in packs of 2 for three bucks? This is a real "buy it now" price someone has on ebay. Shame on the offending party.

 

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[bazinga]

Re: I'm all for making a buck, but.....

Why shame on them? If they have willing and able buyers for the item, then who are you to judge? Not everywhere has a radio shack. What about people that live an hour from a radio shack? Many people don't mind paying an extra $20 for something if it means they save 2.5 hours of their life and $10-15 in gas.

 

[Smudge]

Re: I'm all for making a buck, but.....

A lot of times some dealers up charge for shipping to make up for their "discounted" list price. It's an old trick. Unless the item is really heavy, $20 seems awfully excessive to me.

 

[slowNsteady]

Re: I'm all for making a buck, but.....

Personally, I'm with Gib on this one. I use chokes on my machines and was blown away by the prices on ebay. I can tell you that Chokes for smaller cables (Fisher & BH) are cheap at Radio Shack. The Garrett uses a larger cable and I couldn't get one there. Had to find an electronics supply house locally. The price went up quite a bit. So, maybe a bad deal..... maybe not. But, the seller does reserve the right and people are willing to buy.

 

[mlayers]

Re: I'm all for making a buck, but.....

Maybe you should buy some and sell them for $18 and make that include the shipping. Then you can make a buck or two....Matt

 

[LM]

Re: I'm all for making a buck, but.....

Why shame on them? If they have willing and able buyers for the item, then who are you to judge? Not everywhere has a radio shack. What about people that live an hour from a radio shack? Many people don't mind paying an extra $20 for something if it means they save 2.5 hours of their life and $10-15 in gas.

Totally agree.
I recently bought an ebay auction only to find out after the fact that the guy lived a bit over an hour from me. He emails asking when I'd like to pick it up... I tell him that I'd rather just spend the $9 to ship it. He goes into borderline hysterics about how I could just drive out there and not 'waste the $9 and he wouldn't have to waste any time going to the post office..." but like you said. I'm going to take 2+ hours out of my life, burn MORE than $9 worth of gas when it can just be mailed?

The guy couldn't get his mind around this concept. Offers to drive it to me personally if I'll pay him the $9. I say OK, he shows up in a late 1980's Ford F150 that probably got 15 MPG, tops... About 40 miles each way, gas at X.XX a gallon, you do the math...

 

[bazinga]

Re: I'm all for making a buck, but.....

Why shame on them? If they have willing and able buyers for the item, then who are you to judge? Not everywhere has a radio shack. What about people that live an hour from a radio shack? Many people don't mind paying an extra $20 for something if it means they save 2.5 hours of their life and $10-15 in gas.

Totally agree.
I recently bought an ebay auction only to find out after the fact that the guy lived a bit over an hour from me. He emails asking when I'd like to pick it up... I tell him that I'd rather just spend the $9 to ship it. He goes into borderline hysterics about how I could just drive out there and not 'waste the $9 and he wouldn't have to waste any time going to the post office..." but like you said. I'm going to take 2+ hours out of my life, burn MORE than $9 worth of gas when it can just be mailed?

The guy couldn't get his mind around this concept. Offers to drive it to me personally if I'll pay him the $9. I say OK, he shows up in a late 1980's Ford F150 that probably got 15 MPG, tops... About 40 miles each way, gas at X.XX a gallon, you do the math...

Yeah, some people don't get it. To many people, their time is very valuable. I know mine is, at least to me.

 

[GibH]

Re: I'm all for making a buck, but.....

Yeah, some people don't get it. To many people, their time is very valuable. I know mine is, at least to me.

You got that right. Some people don't get it. Order it from Radio Shack or Mouser, save $15-$20 bucks and get it in the same amount of time. My time AND money are valuable to me.

 

[bazinga]

Re: I'm all for making a buck, but.....

Yeah, some people don't get it. To many people, their time is very valuable. I know mine is, at least to me.

You got that right. Some people don't get it. Order it from Radio Shack or Mouser, save $15-$20 bucks and get it in the same amount of time. My time AND money are valuable to me.

Yes, somebody could price shop and search on every possible website that might carry a particular item in hopes of saving some money. Or they could go to one website that they are familiar with, order it, and be done. Price shopping might take an additional hour or more for a person who isn't too internet savvy. To me, I am generally not going to waste an hour of my free time to save $20. My time is more valuable than that and I have better things that I could be doing.

 

[Woodland Detectors]

Re: I'm all for making a buck, but.....

I agree!

My wife just bought a bunch of baby clothes on ebay she thought she was getting a deal on.
Some of the shippers were reasonable, but a few charged my wife over 30.00!!!!! each transaction!!!! Nothing you can do about it.


My wife didn't realize people do this on Ebay to make people think they are getting a deal. Before she orders now, she always checks the shipping price first.


GREAT thread. Consumer protection

 

[Iron Patch]

Re: I'm all for making a buck, but.....

Nothing you can do about it.

Of course there is and you said it>>>> "Before she orders now, she always checks the shipping price first." It's called common sense. I have done many Ebay deals and always know what the bottom line will be, but that's not to say I haven't overpaid on shipping.

What really drives me up the wall is when the item is only worth a few dollars but the seller wants to charge registered post costing more than the item because they're worried if it goes missing you'll file a Paypal claim and they'll be on the hook for a whole $4.00!

 

[bigtim1973]

Re: I'm all for making a buck, but.....

What exactley does this choke cap do? Is it some sort of signal filter and does it really make a difference?

 

[S IL THer]

Re: I'm all for making a buck, but.....

What exactley does this choke cap do? Is it some sort of signal filter and does it really make a difference?

I am assuming this is what they mean

http://cgi.ebay.com/200x-Ferrite-Sn...133?pt=LH_DefaultDomain_0&hash=item1c16bf126d

 

[LM]

Re: I'm all for making a buck, but.....

The bottom line is all that really matters. Everything else is buyers psychology.

If you have two sellers- one is willing to sell you a $20 bill for $1 + $14.99 shipping while the other is willing to sell it for $19.00 + $1 shipping, who do you choose?

I guess it's just because I've been using ebay for so long now, but it's pretty much to the point where I don't even segregate shipping costs from item costs anymore and just view it all as one whole cost basis. If shipping cost is $5 and I'm placing a bid of $10, I view that bid as being $15.

What really drives me up the wall is when the item is only worth a few dollars but the seller wants to charge registered post costing more than the item because they're worried if it goes missing you'll file a Paypal claim and they'll be on the hook for a whole $4.00!

This is true, but I must admit that for every 1 dishonest seller I've encountered on ebay, I've encountered 5 dishonest buyers who weren't operating in good faith; abusing the paypal chargeback system, filing non-reciept complaints whenever they see an item was shipped without delivery confirmation, feedback extortion for partial refunds, etc... At this point, a decade or more into the game, most experienced ebayers have at least a bit of a bad taste in their mouths from crappy buyers; it makes sense that those few who are totally risk averse would require an airtight paper trail... Not my style personally, but understandable.