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The Ebay/Gamestop/Craiglist/Amazon/Goodwill/etc rant thread


Quest4Nes

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There's no point in charging for shipping anyways, since ebay also charges you an extra fee for doing that, on top of what you're already paying for. Meaning you either also pass on the charge onto buyers, in which case it'd just be better to pass it off as Free shipping anyways, or you eat the fee and potentially earn less than you would've normally.

 

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3 hours ago, PineappleLawnchair said:

There's no point in charging for shipping anyways, since ebay also charges you an extra fee for doing that, on top of what you're already paying for. Meaning you either also pass on the charge onto buyers, in which case it'd just be better to pass it off as Free shipping anyways, or you eat the fee and potentially earn less than you would've normally.

 

For stuff that can ship cheaply or flat rate, that's true; just add the shipping cost to the item price.  The cost of shipping something big and heavy, however, varies considerably with distance.  Sending a 30 pound monitor costs over $80 cross country, but only about $30 in state. To offer 'free shipping', I'd have to overcharge nearby buyers or take a loss on a cross country buyer.  If you advocate for free shipping, you're really asking for higher prices as most sellers roll the highest possible shipping charge into the item's price. 

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On 12/30/2019 at 5:30 PM, Estil said:

On that note, I also never understood the point of putting a reserve price on something.  If let's say you start the bidding at $10 and your reserve price is $100...wouldn't it just be a whole lot easier to make $100 your starting bid?

The idea of starting low is that it encourages lots of bidding vs setting a high starting bid that might only attract one person. If a bidding war happens, it might go crazy high.

But some people might be a bit turned off if a reserve is in place. 

I think it only works if you have a truly desirable item that you don't want to lose for a cheap bid. But I think BIN with best offer has taken that niche over.

 

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Ebay is effing with the search algorithm again. You can tell when you have my level of experience when they are screwing with stuff. Sales throttle.  Exact words not coming up for stuff thats on there. Filtering to dumb shit that they think you want etc. I hate them so much. Just let search be search. If I type Micro Machines, bring up things with micro machines in the title. Its not hard. Had to go to my listings and change Galoob from my brand name ( Which is correct) It filtered those out for things with Micro Machines in the Brand. Which is WRONG.  Stop trying to think for me. I hate their effing dumb ass catalog.

Edited by Quest4Nes
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On 1/1/2020 at 7:02 PM, Quest4Nes said:

Ebay is effing with the search algorithm again. You can tell when you have my level of experience when they are screwing with stuff. Sales throttle.  Exact words not coming up for stuff thats on there. Filtering to dumb shit that they think you want etc. I hate them so much. Just let search be search. If I type Micro Machines, bring up things with micro machines in the title. Its not hard. Had to go to my listings and change Galoob from my brand name ( Which is correct) It filtered those out for things with Micro Machines in the Brand. Which is WRONG.  Stop trying to think for me. I hate their effing dumb ass catalog.

I didn't notice, I hate that. This is a little off topic, but I can tell they are screwing with the YouTube algorithm. I like to listen to the news while I wash the dishes and I don't always like to pick the next video because my hands are wet. For the last two weeks or so I start out at a independent news video and they route me to CNN or MSNBC. They routed me to msnbc yesterday and just stayed there for video after video. The videos weren't even new, they were from 2015.

I guess what I am saying is if you think they changed the algorithm, you are probably right.

Edited by Californication
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If there was an angry face, I'd have put that on that last post.  I'd be pissed if I got re-routed to MSNBC while trying to go after something independent.  As much as Fox gets dumped on for their evening and wake up morning opinion shows MSNBC is pretty much 24/7 full of it, probably would have left it had it been CNN at least. 😉  Outside news I have seen this behavior on youtube as I do have a very tiny list of stuff I do keep saved, and I'll click one of those for while I want to hear things as I work or whatever, and lately it has gone onto some of their preferred bs which is aggravating.

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Gotta love gamestop. Guy at the counter kept trying to convince me not to buy Metalwolf Chaos. Told me 5 times this is a really bad game, you shouldnt buy it. Then after I kept telling him I'm buying it, he kept trying to get me to buy a used copy so I could return it because its "so bad". "You're paying more new just for a piece of plastic". "Look, there aren't any screenshots on the back". He was getting really pushy about it. Shut tf up and let me buy my stupid game. Jeez the point of the game is that it's bad. I know what I'm getting I to. Also just dont get into people's business about what they were buying. When I worked at a game store, I respected people and their purchasing decisions. I wouldn't interfere and judge people like that. 

 

20191228_145053.jpg

Edited by acromite53
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I literally just got that game the other day from their b2g2 sale, and was upset by lack of pictures on the back lol. But I have had similar experiences with gamestop before, last time that really irked me was I was buying a "new" copy of sonic mania for switch, and it had been opened and displayed and all the contents was just rubber banded to it. 

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14 minutes ago, Gutling said:

I literally just got that game the other day from their b2g2 sale, and was upset by lack of pictures on the back lol. But I have had similar experiences with gamestop before, last time that really irked me was I was buying a "new" copy of sonic mania for switch, and it had been opened and displayed and all the contents was just rubber banded to it. 

They did that to me with Valfaris. The gave me an open copy, put a plastic clear sticker over the side where it opens and said for return purposes its new. I guess their logic is, it hasn't been played so it's nes, but that doesn't meake sense because if you buy a new game, open, return 2 min later, they will call it a trade in because it's been openesdand can't be sold as new.

Edited by Californication
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8 hours ago, acromite53 said:

Gotta love gamestop. Guy at the counter kept trying to convince me not to buy Metalwolf Chaos. Told me 5 times this is a really bad game, you shouldnt buy it. Then after I kept telling him I'm buying it, he kept trying to get me to buy a used copy so I could return it because its "so bad". "You're paying more new just for a piece of plastic". "Look, there aren't any screenshots on the back". He was getting really pushy about it. Shut tf up and let me buy my stupid game. Jeez the point of the game is that it's bad. I know what I'm getting I to. Also just dont get into people's business about what they were buying. When I worked at a game store, I respected people and their purchasing decisions. I wouldn't interfere and judge people like that. 

 

20191228_145053.jpg

When I was buying my Switch at GameStop (took advantage of a trade-in deal they had) I bought Super Mario Odyssey with it and the dude was trying everything in his power to get me to buy Breath of the Wild instead.

”It’s a better game.” “You’ll get WAY more play time out of BotW.”

The whole time I’m thinking “I promise I’m an adult that can figure out my own purchasing decisions.” Just let customers get what they want.

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4 hours ago, Californication said:

They did that to me with Valfaris. The gave me an open copy, put a plastic clear sticker over the side where it opens and said for return purposes its new. I guess their logic is, it hasn't been played so it's nes, but that doesn't meake sense because if you buy a new game, open, return 2 min later, they will call it a trade in because it's been openesdand can't be sold as new.

Yes that irritates me so much. That happened when I bought Wild Guns reloaded. So now my "brand new" copy has lovely sticker residue on the front. It's not new gamestop! If they are selling without being sealed, sell it to me for a used price. That is such a rip off. Paying a new price for an opened product. Get out of here with that crap.

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Administrator · Posted
9 hours ago, The Strangest said:

When I was buying my Switch at GameStop (took advantage of a trade-in deal they had) I bought Super Mario Odyssey with it and the dude was trying everything in his power to get me to buy Breath of the Wild instead.

”It’s a better game.” “You’ll get WAY more play time out of BotW.”

The whole time I’m thinking “I promise I’m an adult that can figure out my own purchasing decisions.” Just let customers get what they want.

That's where you reply with "are you gonna ring me out or does your manager need to?"

Reminds me faintly of an interaction I had when I bought a controller at Best Buy many moons ago-

Cashier- "Do you want the $5 protection on the controller?   Covers blah blah blah"   
Me- "No, I'm good."
Cashier- "Well, my Dad's controllers break all the time"
Me- "Well, I know how to take care of my things."
Cashier- "But what if one of your friends breaks it?"
Me- "Then I'll be sending them in here to buy me a brand new controller."

 

Just take the fuckin' hint!   I know you get a bonus, but I couldn't stand Best Buy at the time as it was anyway, and they had a killer sale on whatever controller it was (maybe PS2?  360?)

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It will never ends arggh. Especially sucks for international buyers. I had to ship a few PS2 games and it cost them $37 dollars calculated ship. Just goes up and up. That's why I just can't do free shipping on $30 or less. I still will offer free shipping on more expensive items.

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Bought some games privately and paid through PayPal. I included an itemized list in the description. Well what do you know Prince of Persia was one of the games and it got flagged for manual review. Can't cancel the payment and it takes 'up to' 72 hours for review and for payment to go through. Called and they said they can't do anything about it. 

Edited by A_Feisty_Pickle
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On 1/4/2020 at 6:57 AM, Californication said:

They did that to me with Valfaris. The gave me an open copy, put a plastic clear sticker over the side where it opens and said for return purposes its new. I guess their logic is, it hasn't been played so it's nes, but that doesn't meake sense because if you buy a new game, open, return 2 min later, they will call it a trade in because it's been openesdand can't be sold as new.

I've been hanging around r/GameStop and have learned that this is called a "gutted" copy. They do this because they use the games for display. If a GameStop location only gets 1 copy of a game (this is typical for smaller markets), then they won't have any sealed copies at all. 

Usually I try to avoid this but sometimes they have a daily deal and the shipping is $6 so I try to get the game for local pickup and depending where I go I might be getting a gutted copy. 

When they put the sticker over it, it means that if you break the sticker it's no longer new. Nothing confusing there. 

On 1/4/2020 at 11:08 AM, acromite53 said:

Yes that irritates me so much. That happened when I bought Wild Guns reloaded. So now my "brand new" copy has lovely sticker residue on the front. It's not new gamestop! If they are selling without being sealed, sell it to me for a used price. That is such a rip off. Paying a new price for an opened product. Get out of here with that crap.

They will never sell gutted copies at a lower price. It's their way of doing things. They will go out of business first. 

The alternative is you go to Walmart and all the games are in security boxes or behind glass. Which I would prefer, honestly. The display boxes always get so much wear and tear just from the customers that have no manners. But that's a more expensive system and GameStop probably can't afford it. 

You can remove the sticker residue completely, with no mess or damage to the plastic, with Bestine or Goo Gone. I've done this on probably a hundred or more boxes at this point. It will look like there was never a sticker there to begin with. 

Edited by MiamiSlice
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2 minutes ago, MiamiSlice said:

They will never sell gutted copies at a lower price. It's their way of doing things. They will go out of business first. 

 

Well they do sometimes.  I've received a 10% discount in the past for this exact situation for complaining that the game was no longer "new."  It's rare and completely dependent on who is working, but they can do it.  It's just a simple price adjustment at the register.  

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I didn't mind because I wanted to play the game.

The only thing that sucked was the very next day the game went on sale for $10 less. 

I had debated whether I should have ordered another new copy and return it with the receipt of my opened copy. In the end I decided ot wasn't worth the hassle and Valfaris is the first game I have paid full price for from GameStop since Black Ops 3 traumatized me.

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On 1/3/2020 at 11:56 PM, acromite53 said:

Gotta love gamestop. Guy at the counter kept trying to convince me not to buy Metalwolf Chaos. Told me 5 times this is a really bad game, you shouldnt buy it. Then after I kept telling him I'm buying it, he kept trying to get me to buy a used copy so I could return it because its "so bad". "You're paying more new just for a piece of plastic". "Look, there aren't any screenshots on the back". He was getting really pushy about it. Shut tf up and let me buy my stupid game. Jeez the point of the game is that it's bad. I know what I'm getting I to. Also just dont get into people's business about what they were buying. When I worked at a game store, I respected people and their purchasing decisions. I wouldn't interfere and judge people like that. 

 

20191228_145053.jpg

 

It's funny how that game was held up as some lost hidden gem until it finally everyone got a chance to play it. Now people can't wait to tell you how overrated and bad it is.

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My biggest gripe with eBay is how little they care about bootlegs. And it continues to get worse and worse.

So many pirates out there, and they are getting really good at looking completely like the real thing, even with box and everything. PC Engine CD is really bad off (the creator of them always states that they are copies, but eBay resellers don't care if they can make a buck), but NES and especially SNES are getting possibly even worse lately.

Stuff like this is obviously illegal to even sell, so it's pretty distasteful that eBay does absolute nothing to keep it at bay in spite of continuous complaints. Makes it very hard to spot original copies, and I've been close to making mistakes more than a few times.

Aside from that, I'm pretty happy with eBay in general. I wouldn't have been able to find 95% of my video game collection without it.

Edited by Sumez
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14 hours ago, Sumez said:

Stuff like this is obviously illegal to even sell, so it's pretty distasteful that eBay does absolute nothing to keep it at bay in spite of continuous complaints. Makes it very hard to spot original copies, and I've been close to making mistakes more than a few times.

Do you know the specific laws on this?  I don't doubt what you're saying, but I would think there's also stipulation in such laws that people facilitating the sales of such material, even if they're not selling it themselves, would be similarly culpable under the law.  If that's the case, why not start complaining directly to the FBI?  They're responsible for investigating criminal counterfeiting and things associated with it, so if enough examples of blatant counterfeits were thrown their way, I can only imagine they'd have to start looking at it seriously and knocking on doors at eBay.  If they get a threat at potentially being investigated by the FBI with the possibility of further action if things don't change, I could easily see bootleg everything rapidly becoming a thing of the past, although I could also see eBay overreacting and folks having issues selling the real deal for a while, too.

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7 minutes ago, darkchylde28 said:

Do you know the specific laws on this?  I don't doubt what you're saying, but I would think there's also stipulation in such laws that people facilitating the sales of such material, even if they're not selling it themselves, would be similarly culpable under the law.  If that's the case, why not start complaining directly to the FBI?

I don't want to make any assumptions about laws outside of the obvious (selling copyrighted material you don't own the rights to). But yeah I believe you are correct - if eBay aren't actively doing anything to prevent sales that they are made aware of, then I assume they are culpable.

That said, I'm sure there's some kind of reason this stuff is able to keep going on.

Edited by Sumez
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4 minutes ago, Sumez said:

That said, I'm sure there's some kind of reason this stuff is able to keep going on.

Yeah, eBay presumably pays their share of taxes and nobody (both the little guys as well as the actual copyright holders) is doing any big time complaining about eBay versus the folks peddling such materials.  I've heard of big time copyright holders giving eBay a call and all of a sudden certain previously universal bootleg material vanishing overnight (DVDs of the original cut of the Star Wars trilogy were common for a while, then Lucas shook his fist at eBay and they vanished overnight and only sporadically and randomly appear these days, at least compared to 10-15 years ago), but nobody threatening eBay directly for facilitating the bulk sale of counterfeits the way they do.  Might be worth a shot to start spreading awareness of that as an issue to see how many folks you can get to write/call/email/etc. their local law enforcement/FBI office and get something started.

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