Vfox Posted July 23, 2008 Report Share Posted July 23, 2008 I'll keep this short...sorta. I've been all over a certain online auction site attempting to communicate with a real person that works for the auction site. Well, I've tried for nearly an hour and I am fairly convinced they do not exist. I am fairly certain these new policies of theirs are basically an excuse to downsize all the people who used to help the community. This effectively makes their customer service extinct. I'm sure it's been said a million times, I'm sure I'm spewing the same crap over as millions of others, but what happened to customer service, to customer appreciation, to the customer actually mattering even a little? Why are we given automated crap-mail that does nothing? I'm frustrated because nothing has been done, great policies or not, they are just as worthless as the automated emails they are sent in and rarely, if ever enforced. Why can't this auction company just suck it up and lose a few bucks in the short term to gain millions in sales onces we feel it is safe enough to bid again? Greed certainly ruins everything, both corporate and personal. I wish for just one day I could go online, bid on ANYTHING and know for sure it is legitimate and as described. Whether it's the slab game, the crap-slab grades, the estimate grades, the bad photos, the fake coins, the misrepresented lots, the overly wordy auction with nothing pictured for sale, the overly wordy auction with an overly wordy explanation of a lot you could possibly win if you bid a certain amount, the etc etc BS, I cannot go more than 3 auction listings without seeing something wrong. From the sound of it, nearly everyone agrees and nothing is acted upon. Thanks anonymous online auction site, you are ruining a great hobby and I can't even contact you to let you know. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Uncle Charlie Posted July 23, 2008 Report Share Posted July 23, 2008 How about looking at my eBay auctions, how good are they? I always try to offer honest value.View My eBay Auctions! I just barely got this new eBay ID though. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
grivna1726 Posted July 23, 2008 Report Share Posted July 23, 2008 Thanks anonymous online auction site, you are ruining a great hobby and I can't even contact you to let you know. That auction site can ruin the hobby for you only if you give it that power. Ignore the online auction site and form relationships with a small number of key dealers who can get to know you and your tastes and interests. Maybe that sounds old-fashioned in our modern online world, but it works. Choose wisely and you'll never miss that online cesspool. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
YeOldeCollector Posted July 23, 2008 Report Share Posted July 23, 2008 This might sound odd, but eBay is superb for what I want! Hammered coins is such a niche collecting era that there are very few unscrupulous sellers of hammereds on eBayer. I only know of one whom also has several websites. Whenever I have a problem with eBay I just ring up and am not put on hold but am passed straight over to someone in London who can actually speak English. They try their best to resolve the problem so I cannot complain. I find that the major problems regarding coins on eBay is milled coins, luckily I chose raw hammered then! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Delta Posted July 23, 2008 Report Share Posted July 23, 2008 eBay (including PayPal) is one of the most appalling companies I have ever dealt with and it is a crying shame they are in the position they are in. Many companies offer "online support" but the key difference is that most other companies actually bother to read what you are saying and help you. Plus they often have a telephone number in case you really need urgent assistance. eBay never read your email. they send automated replies, they do not cater to issues outside the script. Even if you do call them they refuse to talk to you unless you are a premium seller. They argued with me for 40 minutes once when I had a simple question about a fee they added to my account. That is stupid. The result was me seeing 16 emails over three months and eventually asking a third party about the legality of the fee. They have also assisted someone in defrauding me of £650 / €820 / US$1300 and will do nothing to help me regain it despite the fact I now have a court decree against the fraudster. Anything I can do to bring them to a demise I'd be happy to, and I'll be happy to see the day they go under. They do not deserve customers. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Drusus Posted July 23, 2008 Report Share Posted July 23, 2008 I have had few problems with the site...only a few problems with people using the site. Like recently here a person came in ranting about the site...turns out he has deeper problems than just the site. I deal with those best I can an move on. Luckily I have made contact with very good, honest dealers there and seldom venture out of my comfort zone....only here and there if I see a dealer I have never had transactions with selling something I want...then they either go on buddy list or not... I still get decent deals there for coins many dealers dont bother to sell (like notgeld and low value ancients in a market where sellers are even selling these high). Certainly it isnt going to destroy the hobby...dealers and collectors are doing a fine job of that on thier own the bumping the price higher with flipping and slabbing to eek every last dime out of a coin. Profiteer TPG companies, crazy misinformation. If its between paying 30 bucks for a 10 dollar coin at a dealer...or braving said online auction site and maybe still getting the coin for a reasonable price...give me the later and let the high priced dealer slabbing an hiking coin prices, or just hiking them to eek out even more profit ...price themselves out of business. To be honest I just dont understand why people get ripped off so much there? Do people not have favorites? Do you not find honest dealers there? build a favorites list and use those sellers more often because they have shown themselves honest? I have a whole list of good honest dealers that sell there and before I will ever go searching other dealers, I will always browse these guys and find something good...Only here and there will I try a new dealer...if I get burned...write it off and go back to my proven list of good sellers for a bit. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
just carl Posted July 23, 2008 Report Share Posted July 23, 2008 You obviously do not have AOL and tried to contact thier customer service or help desk. Same with HP. If you can get through at all you end up in India where you constantly hear Jebberish with nothing but repetitious nonsense. Call any company today and you hear "press one for... press two for.... etc. I'm afraid there are no longer people out there. Someday your answering system will contact their answering system for everything and nothing will ever get done. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Drusus Posted July 23, 2008 Report Share Posted July 23, 2008 I'm afraid there are no longer people out there. Someday your answering system will contact their answering system for everything and nothing will ever get done. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Vfox Posted July 23, 2008 Author Report Share Posted July 23, 2008 That auction site can ruin the hobby for you only if you give it that power. It's not so much that I gave it the power to slowly destroy a hobby, it's that they gave themselves authority over what they sell, and that is anything. As long as they are getting money they could probably sell hen teeth with a blurry photo. Now, not to be contradictory or anything but I honestly have only been ripped off for a $5 1983 proof set on any auction site. I have never had any real trouble and I have gotten a vast amount of great coins at reasonable prices. My complaint is that there are NO safeguards really in place that are enforced that stop scammers and counterfeiters from pandering their goods there. If I were a new collector I would feel so threatened. How do I know my items are legitimate if they are raw? Are TPG's the only law in the coin world? Should I trust the word of a TPG or common sense? Who is protecting my interests? I want this hobby to flourish and grow, but if new collectors keep getting burnt online they will give up and quit the hobby. My local dealers are great, but their selections are small and prices are generally high. The best deals I've gotten have been online but only because I knew what was safe to bid on. For every 100 legitimate auctions out there, in my opinion 30 or more of them are bull. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Drusus Posted July 23, 2008 Report Share Posted July 23, 2008 In anything...and I do mean anything like coins or antiques you will ALWAYS have those scammers...always have, always will...and they have always been on ebay. I recently dealt with a well known dealer on a well known site that sells coins (not ebay or auction...retail) who was less than honest about what he was selling. It was cheap notgeld but it was the old picture the best coin in a lot of 50 and send a coin that wasn't near as good. I sent the coin back for a new one like pictured in the listing and again got a lesser coin. I kept both lesser coins and moved on...I wont use him again...lesson learned. So it can happen to you anywhere. Recently I found that a hammered coin site I thought had great coins is selling a lot of fakes...I was shocked and glad I didnt buy anything as I was planning to. To be completely honest I would rather have to see the scammers and take the chance then for ebay to set themselves as an authority...because they are not. If they can assemble REAL experts (not sellers on the site) that will work to police their coins without adding expense, all the better. But I don't want ebay acting as authority nor do I want collectors who see 'questionable' coin being the authority either. I don't want them to do anything in that direction that will make prices go up. I just accept that like in anything, there are scammers and honest people and you just have to be careful. New collectors who get burned are collectors that possibly didn't realize this or are buying without knowing enough. This is why I attempted to keep a running list of good sellers...that dropped long ago....but its the most important thing in this hobby and the biggest help to me when I get word of mouth of good honest sellers. If a good list of scammers and good dealers can be maintained and constantly updated, that would be the best way to avoid the problem sellers. If I get burned once or twice...I accept that as a possibility, new collectors will have to realize this...its always been the case...fakes and fake sellers are nothing new at all. All the same, I have acquired good coins at fair prices there and every time I do I add another good seller to my list. I have done this without buying a single TPG encased coin. (okay...just one) As for running new collectors off...thats always an interesting concern people have. Its interesting to me because I couldn't care less if new people start collecting coins...I am not selling coins so its no loss of business to me and to be honest...the less people out there competing for a coin, the better prices I get so as a buyer...I am not that driven to draw in new people to the hobby....new collectors aren't a concern. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Delta Posted July 23, 2008 Report Share Posted July 23, 2008 Incidentally I think the only think that could take down eBay as the dominant auction site is what would in effect be a "Federation" of specialised psudo-independent auction sites. That being someone making highly specialised auction systems for different areas of selling all under one centralised company. My reasoning behind it being that, take us for example, if we where offered an auction system totally tailored towards numismatics then it would offer a number of benefits over ebay which tends to take its regular format and customise it a little. Same could be done for cars, art, etc... Sellers get the benefit of better selling tools while knowing buyers are still free to login to all sites with a single login. Meh, I don't think I am explaining this too well. Any company simply offering the same services as ebay would by nature fail, as such a business is only strengthen by monopoly. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
numismatic nut Posted July 23, 2008 Report Share Posted July 23, 2008 I would say don't buy anything really pricy on ebay. I too have been scamed on ebay, but only once so far (in 3.5 months). Just watch your back. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Uncle Charlie Posted July 23, 2008 Report Share Posted July 23, 2008 I have to say eBay is both the best and worst thing that's ever happened to me. Great deals and terrible scams, and I'm lovin' it! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Vfox Posted July 24, 2008 Author Report Share Posted July 24, 2008 I would say don't buy anything really pricy on ebay. I too have been scamed on ebay, but only once so far (in 3.5 months). Just watch your back. I've gone over 7 years on my online-auction account with only one incident. I do feel the need to be very careful but I do not feel the need to only buy cheap items. As long as you are careful and you ask people on this site before you bid you should be ok. Sometimes. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Drusus Posted July 24, 2008 Report Share Posted July 24, 2008 If you have gone seven years with only one incident...I think you are doing rather well avoiding the crooks. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Vfox Posted July 24, 2008 Author Report Share Posted July 24, 2008 If you have gone seven years with only one incident...I think you are doing rather well avoiding the crooks. I completely agree, as I said I am a bit overly careful. If I question a coin at all I don't bid. My concern as I said before is for others in the hobby. I don't sell many things honestly so I have no reason to want more people in the hobby other than having others to talk about it with. I do however have a strong feeling about what should be allowed on these auction sites. It's kind of like this in my eyes...if you knew not to pet the neighbors dog because it would attack you, you wouldn't...but if you saw a young stranger walking to that dog to pet it...would you alert them to the danger, or let them get mauled? In either case they would learn not to do it again, but only one would save them from much anguish. I can't be the only one who feels those who don't know better should be alerted. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Drusus Posted July 24, 2008 Report Share Posted July 24, 2008 I believe that is the best way to handle a place like ebay...as it pertains to new inexperience collectors....be here to offer advice and warnings...because ebay, as it is, is much like any other market...there are crooks and always will be. You will never stop crooks completely... I think a place like this and other coin forums are the best way to counter crooks with good advice. But there is also something to be said about personal responsibility and common sense, they need to seek that advice before making the plunge, they need to be made aware that, in general, in everything, human nature is often predatory. I would go as far as to say a forum like this would be even more useful if it kept a list of crooks (yes, they change names...put that name up as well when it surfaces) and good sellers...I know another forum does this with ancients sellers...dont try to destroy ebay or complain all the time, be proactive. They are really damned if they do, damned if they dont in many cases. Dont get me wrong, I am not completely satisfied with ebay... they have problem they can fix, I am not a cheerleader for them..but like I said in the other thread...if ebay were to pull 8 out of 10 suspected fakes...many would rail that they didnt remove the last two for some reason and not mention the 8 they removed...I also have found that many people who have a driving hate for the place have other issues...they have problems with capitalism in general or big corporations so they will always be antagonistic towards such things. So often I see a person with a thousand transactions on ebay...they come here and rail against ebay because the most recent transaction was not satisfactory and ebay didnt immediatly take action or, in the end, couldnt or didnt make things right...saying ebay is evil and should be destroyed...forgetting about the previous thousand transactions that went just fine. I dont envy ebay...I sometimes think that dealing with some of the people who use ebay is probably like watching over a playground filled with 8 year olds...sellers who have no clue how to operate a business and communicate in a civil manner and buyers who are much the same way...when these people meet on ebay...they have to deal with it. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Vfox Posted July 24, 2008 Author Report Share Posted July 24, 2008 I think a place like this and other coin forums are the best way to counter crooks with good advice. But there is also something to be said about personal responsibility and common sense, they need to seek that advice before making the plunge, they need to be made aware that, in general, in everything, human nature is often predatory. dont try to destroy ebay or complain all the time, be proactive. Agreed, I and many others have shouted this from the rooftops. Come here first, ask questions, get opinions and real people for answers. This and many other forums will not throw you under the bus, we are here to help everyone. Same with being proactive; coming on here to complain does nothing in the end. But successfully dealing with online auction firms in the removal of counterfeit and grossly misrepresented items does worlds of good for us all. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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