Transactions gone wrong

[GPX | 1,435]

I’m curious to know how many of us here have had bad deals with online purchase(s)? I have a hunch it’s a lot of us. Also curious to know what are the commonest deals that have turned bad/nasty.

Poll is added and any other comments welcome.

Edited January 23, 2020 by GPX

[RH | 5,341]

I consider this to be covered under "Seller took ages to post" but in this case, it wasn't the sellers fault.  I ordered something from Japan and it took about two and a half months to show up.  Turns out, a really bad typhoon passed right over where the guy lived just 2 days before it was marked as shipped.  I wasn't even aware that'd happened. I was pretty upset with the guy, until I learned that.

But, I've also had my share of legit problems.  I bought a "sealed" Final Fantasy back around 2000/2001 and even then there were liars.  I was completely new and green to sealed/NES collecting and when the game showed up with shelfware under the shrinkwrap, I contacted eBay. They refunded me the money, the guy's account was closed and I was told to keep the game.  I wish I had kept it but in one of my rash sell-offs since that time, I got rid of it.  I think I wanted to just make a few extra bucks and get a legit sealed copy, but never got around to it.  It's a bummer.  It would be a gem in my collection if I had found a sealed, mint copy like I was looking for back then.

Edited January 22, 2020 by RH

[Skorp | 387]

Had too many to count. I had 2 where the seller backed out of an auction after I won. I've lost a couple of NES prototypes in the mail. They were actually stolen from the local post office and I have yet to see them out in the wild or any posts yet or sales on eBay of them. Another game got lost in the mail due to extreme poor packaging, but it was found I believe a month or two later. As a seller, I've had one item get lost by my post office and had to send the buyer another game to cover it, so sucks that USPS doesn't get hold accountable. Luckily, it was a cheap game.

 

So pretty much, my bad experience relates to USPS.

Edited January 23, 2020 by Skorp

[OptOut | 9,210]

I have had what amounts to two, maybe three bad purchases out of probably hundreds made, and nothing over about 10 to 20 dollars.

The poll here is a little misleading I think because all of us have been buying stuff online for years and years, decades at this point, and in all that time you're bound to have one or two bad experiences along the way. But, the poll makes the problem seem way worse than it actually is.

The actual percentage of bad transactions is in the low single digits, for sure.

[RH | 5,341]

I agree the percentage is low.  Other than the ones I mentioned, the only other major one I can think of was I ordered a new Super Princess Peach.  I got it and it was NOT the game pictured and the printed insert looked like it came out of a moderate ink jet. The guy didn’t even ask questions and immediately gave my money back, and covered shipping costs.

But, after buying hundreds of items, my experiences have largely been great.  I’ve had far more amazing sellers than bad experiences.

[Skorp | 387]

Yeah that is true. Bad is lower than 1% for me and I am sure for mostly everyone.

[Rhino | 105]

Is it sad that I've experienced almost all of these?

[Nesmaster | 402]

Transaction gone wrong: Yes

Problem: Global Shipping Program

Gouged cart from box cutter, gouged box from box cutter, GSP repackaging in insufficient material, GSP repackaging in a box WAY TOO BIG, one time it came to my house for some reason and was left in the rain, and the privilege of paying way too much for these kind of headaches.

Outside the above, I've also had insufficient packaging, poor packaging, shipping an item that wasn't the shown item, scam listing, postal worker folding a snes box to fit in the mail box, cancelling a sale after I BIN, and more I'm probably forgetting.

Customs opened a sealed Caltron and Shockwave on me, different times and countries.

[Gutling | 31]

Not too many out of all my purchases. I have had a few ebay'ers sell something, never ship it and refund it im guessing they never had it and just getting temporary loan lol.  And only a single item never arrive lost in mail, of course it was expensive and limited zelda game from rose colored gaming. I felt super bad, but he sent a replacement out to me. Still to this day never arrived or found out what happened to it.

[jonebone | 1,335]

I've had thousands of transactions so of course I've experienced a wide variety of bad ones.  But it is much lower than 1% for me.  Seems like I'm good for one or two a year at most, and never outright scamming. 

I don't consider "item has more damage than expected" to really be a bad transaction though, I consider those mostly just a miscommunication.  If I'm buying something from someone who is just selling their old games and calling them "MINT" then not only do I expect more like Excellent / Near Mint at best (I assume they are overdescribing) but I also try to ask for additional photos.  You still do get some surprises but you at least temper your expectations.  And it makes anything that you receive truly Mint that much special...

[fcgamer | 5,058]

I'm with @jonebone on this one. I have bought thousands of items over the years, and only once or twice, ever did an item never show up.

The biggest issue was once someone PCB swapped some boards in a few famicom bootlegs I bought...games were the same, but the period (ie shell and PCB) were totally wrong, rendering the item useless to me. I just never traded with the guy again, as I'm not sure if he was aware or not. 

[arch_8ngel | 1,597]

I've never had a bad purchase, but I have had a couple of bad buyers over the years.

 

With regards to missing packages... have never had that happen to me, in either direction of a transaction.

[TDIRunner | 2,965]

I only had one bad experience which just happened to be on NA.  We made a trade.  I sent everything on my end, but I only got about half of what he agreed to send me.  Oddly enough I should have known better since his feedback included several people saying that he was flaky and took a long time to ship things (he was still positive overall).  I gave him the benefit of the doubt and continued to message him, but eventually he just stopped replying.  Since no money was exchanged, I had no buyer protection.  Fortunately, I got something out of the deal since he shipped one of the items, but overall I got less than what I traded.  

All things considered, with that being my worst experience, I've done pretty well over the years.  

[captmorgandrinker | 1,660]

Percentage-wise, mine is also way low, but it still happens.

I think the worst luck I have is any time I buy an Atari lot that includes a console.   They're almost never packed right and they end up cracked all to shit.

[DoctorEncore | 3,691]

11 hours ago, Nesmaster said:

Transaction gone wrong: Yes

Problem: Global Shipping Program

Gouged cart from box cutter, gouged box from box cutter, GSP repackaging in insufficient material, GSP repackaging in a box WAY TOO BIG, one time it came to my house for some reason and was left in the rain, and the privilege of paying way too much for these kind of headaches.

Outside the above, I've also had insufficient packaging, poor packaging, shipping an item that wasn't the shown item, scam listing, postal worker folding a snes box to fit in the mail box, cancelling a sale after I BIN, and more I'm probably forgetting.

Customs opened a sealed Caltron and Shockwave on me, different times and countries.

I've had customs open multiple sealed games on me. There goes 50-75% of the value before I even got the item.

[jonebone | 1,335]

2 hours ago, DoctorEncore said:

I've had customs open multiple sealed games on me. There goes 50-75% of the value before I even got the item.

The worst story I recall about opening a sealed game was a Sqoon that got opened at the border for poor @1upped

[Tanooki | 5,191]

1) Years ago, maybe when I was still on NA there was this UK pos I bought a GBA game from and he ended up running a scam selling some freshly minted new line of GBA bootlegs as originals.  These games even with big clear images has the right plastic cuts, molds, and colors, and the labels were seemingly spot on to the original.  It was not until I got it a couple weeks later and opened it to clean it I found the truth.  Angry I went on, found the guy had a heap of now bad reviews for bootlegs, and ebay just gave everyone their money back and let them keep the junk, then not just banned but erased the dudes account.  I never did re-purchase Alien Hominid.  It was so perfect, you had to blow up a clean image online to realize that some of the text fonts on the label were literally 1 pixel too narrow (1 spray of paint) even the paint matrixing and color from their machine was right.  These days they're common.

2) PCE Duo I got during Christmas vacation, wasn't packed well enough in a larger box.  The flatter box got squeezed I guess despite not looking bad outside.  Pushed in the CD spindle, bent it too, knocked the pots out of alignment(which I did correct), and also broke the micro switch on the CD drive motor from some kind of impact damage popping the tiny spring.  I had to lose it for another week and a half to send it off for repairs.  Buyer did pay for the damage, but I had to pay for the added shipping.

[DoctorEncore | 3,691]

47 minutes ago, jonebone said:

The worst story I recall about opening a sealed game was a Sqoon that got opened at the border for poor @1upped

After two episodes of this happening, I no longer buy sealed games from overseas unless it's from a large online business. Thankfully the games I bought were nowhere near as valuable as Sqoon.

[GPX | 1,435]

5 hours ago, DoctorEncore said:

I've had customs open multiple sealed games on me. There goes 50-75% of the value before I even got the item.

Customs is actually a main reason that is often undermentioned. Speaking of which I have some brand new Megadrive games that have been kept at the overseas airport for nearly a month. I’m guessing customs would have something to do with this awful delay. 

Added to the poll!

[GPX | 1,435]

18 hours ago, OptOut said:

I have had what amounts to two, maybe three bad purchases out of probably hundreds made, and nothing over about 10 to 20 dollars.

The poll here is a little misleading I think because all of us have been buying stuff online for years and years, decades at this point, and in all that time you're bound to have one or two bad experiences along the way. But, the poll makes the problem seem way worse than it actually is.

The actual percentage of bad transactions is in the low single digits, for sure.

The original intention was to see what the main problems were and what was more frequent. Over time, we might get to see more which is the worse of the evils.

The poll was never intended to conclude that transactions are mostly bad experiences. For what it’s worth, I think bad experiences from my end (talking about wanting to leave negative feedback) is roughly 2-3%. I also feel it’s happening more frequently with each passing year.

[themisfit138 | 523]

Nothing really bad. Some items were never sent and a few games got stuck in customs. 

[AstralSoul | 523]

The majority of my transactions are good ones which is definitely a good thing. But the most common thing that gets me is the listing states the game is in mint condition, works, tested, etc, and I receive it and it's none of those things. It's hard to judge in photos the condition of a game. Other than that the most common thing was shipping took forever because of a crappy delivery service.