Ebay listings that irritates you

[veldpond1902]

It's listing like these that irriates the living hell out of me. Since when is Liberia in South Africa?it's as easy as google it 123 my 3 year old can do that.

 

it's like saying Germany is in England!!

 

And some poeple overseas actually think that we have lions walking in the streets and we have gravel roads, No schools and don't forget south Africans don't know what internet is.

 

http://www.ebay.co.u...=item33718faf5c

 

Any listings like this that irriates any of you guys?

[constanius]

I only get irritated when sellers won't ship to Canada?? or they insist on expensive signed-for, even though I offer to give them an assurance when paying by Paypal to leave excellent feedback even in the event of total loss & make no claim.

[Roger]

This looks like a case of "Key Word Spamming" as Ebay calls it.

From the Ebay Web Site: "Keyword spamming is when people use words or details (such as brands, item condition, model names, pop culture terms, product names, style and type) that have nothing to do with their items so that their listings will show up in search results"

 

And it also looks like the seller is lazy, as a cut and paste of the title is seen in the description.

 

So in other words the seller used "South Africa" to draw attention to thier ad.

[Roger]

I only get irritated when sellers won't ship to Canada?? or they insist on expensive signed-for, even though I offer to give them an assurance when paying by Paypal to leave excellent feedback even in the event of total loss & make no claim.

Well to be honest--I resemble this type of person. Not to be defensive or anything but here is the scenario---I sell coins that do not fit into my hobby collection. I do not ship outside the US for the following reason which has nothing to do with lost coins, insurance or the buyer themselves. It has to do with our lousy Post Office here in the US. Normally I ship from my residence with the Postal Worker picking up the packages--this works for all mail with US destinations. If the package is leaving the US then a customs form is required (unless is is a "Letter" in which a coin would surely get lost using a cheap envelope). Any Customs form on a package must be delivered to the Post Office itself. So for example I sell a 10 dollar coin on Fee-bay---Fee-bay Takes approximately 10 percent off the top, Take-pal takes another three percent, I have to take it to the post office using about 2 gallons of fuel (now $4.30 US a gallon). Now that I am at the post office I have to stand in line no less than 30 minutes (various reasons as to why the wait is so long but not good to discuss here) to drop of the package and have the Postal Worker there verify that my customs form is correct and legal. I then return home to lick my wounds because I basically paid out of my pocket to sell, package, transport, and otherwise deliver a coin that brought nothing to the fine experiance of coin collecting. Anyway that's my story and I am sticking to it!

[ikaros]

Yeah, it's a nice enough coin, but it would have to be one hell of a piece for me to justify giving money to someone who couldn't even be bothered to wiki Liberia. I mean, if you don't know anything about the piece you're selling, that doesn't justify just making up things about it.

[Mark Stilson]

I pretty much stopped buying on ebay. Local dealers only. But now that I moved I'm not sure about that. The only "dealers" near by are pawn shops, we buy gold and silver places, and give me your money I'll invest in coins for you. I may look at vcoins more though. Main thing that ticks me off on some sellers is not having pictures or blurry long distance ones. At least give an idea what you are bidding on. Seen too many people bidding on blank pictures or some kind of circle thing.

[Steve D'Ippolito]

It certainly doesn't raise your trust level, does it? And the whole issue of chinese counterfeits....

 

I never bought a numismatic coin off e-bay though I did at one time buy some bullion for close to spot. In one case the shipping and handling turned out to be more than the cost of the silver eagle (this was back when silver was six dollars an ounce), and you didn't discover this until you won the item (I think that that has since changed; shipping must be disclosed up front). The seller then basically tried to intimidate me into giving them a positive review by telling me they would put feedback on me in _after_ I gave them feedback (which I was planning to be very negative on). I left no feedback whatsoever as I didn't need a negative feedback when I had only bought like three items so far. (You were not allowed to rebut a feedback back then.)

 

I generally don't do e-bay any more, for anything.

[constanius]

I often buy from ebay & am very happy with the transactions. Just before Christmas I noticed a seller offering some Princess Charlotte tokens, he had listed a group of one 5 integer, two 1 integers & one decem(tenth of an integer). I already had a 5 integer & a decem which I had posted here in exonumia, so wanted one of the two 1 integers but could not justify bidding on the whole group. I noticed the seller had included a link in his description to my post on these Charlotte tokens & described it as an excellent article. So I asked if he would be kind enough to let whoever was the winner know that I was interested in buying one of the two 1 integers from him/her as I wished to post pics of it here on CoinPeople. The seller replied that he had brought a large mixed assorted collection & until he had read my post he had no idea what the Charlotte tokens included in the collection were & so he looked through the collection again & he had another AU I integer available and informed me that it would be his pleasure to send it to me free of charge, he would not even accept postage.

 

The dealer was the Sussex Coin Co. I am way behind on posting my new stuff in exonumia but hopefully soon I will get going again & this will be one of the first that I post.

[ccg]

[almingbg]

Very nice, indeed, five stars to a dealer, but where's the irritating point?

[Finn235]

I've seen my share of listings that are just plain deceitful. One in particular standIs out: 8 circulated '64 nickels advertised as silver and listed for $20. Description was along these lines:

 

"RARE silver nickels! All silver coins made until 1964 were 90% silver. Nickels used to be silver too and are very rare. Silver coins are a great investment opportunity! Don't miss out!"

 

And a listing of 10 common date 50s and 60s nickels for the same price: "Pretty sure all of these are 90% silver."

 

I sent both of them a scathing message explaining why they have no business selling coins they can't even research.

 

And once some old nut job listed a "NGC Certified 1958 RARE S/D error wheat penny" for $300000. Along with a 1,000 word paragraph in ALL CAPS explaining how rare it is. Someone had already called her out and threatened to inform NGC that she was using their company name in a false advertising scheme if she didn't end the auction immediately.

[Steve D'Ippolito]

Great. Now we have idiots out there that assume that since a nickel looks like our formerly-silver denominations (well, other than the lack of that doggone red edge), it must have been 90 percent silver once just like the others were.

 

We've already lost the half dollar as a circulating coin because people never got the memo that they aren't silver any more. (A consequence of deciding to leave some silver in them after 1964, is that some people still think they are silver, and everyone hoarded them from 1965-1970--killing them as a circulating coin.)

[bill]

My peeve was a seller who listed 20 or "LA Stamp" Coca-Cola tokens from various US expositions. These are fantasy tokens and they fool people all the time who end up paying way too much money for them because they look old and sound good. I wrote to the seller asking him if he knew that the pieces were fantasies. He responded that people were not stupid, of course they were fantasies. That's why he was selling them as a batch for a couple of dollars each to other vendors who would then sell them for big bucks individually. He actually posted my question and his response on the listing! I noted the lot didn't sell and now he is selling the pieces individually. He still doesn't note that they are fantasies. Too bad Ebay's new policies on replicas don't include tokens.

[veldpond1902]

They just keep on coming how do you guys like this "VERY RARE" Rhodesia-Nyasaland penny.

http://rover.ebay.com/rover/1/711-53200-19255-0/1?icep_ff3=2&pub=5574633083&toolid=10001&campid=5335826004&customid=&ipn=psmain&icep_vectorid=229466&kwid=902099&mtid=824&kw=lg&icep_item=150759998757

[neweden]

Wow, 21 Rupia is only 43 cents US, for a rare coin what a deal.

[bill]

I do like the dancing elephants!

[ikaros]

Coming back to this topic... I agree, I hate the overusage of "RARE!!!1!!!!!" in descriptions -- just because it's more than 20 years old and/or the seller hasn't seen one before doesn't make it rare. Even moreso, I hate the people who can't be bothered to ensure that they're listing their items in the appropriate category.

 

Let's see. "Flawless gem PROOF!!" coins--with obvious thumbprints on the coin itself in the picture. And its close cousin, visibly worn coins described as "Uncirculated", "perfect condition", or "AWE$OME GEM BU!!!!!!!!"

[veldpond1902]

Like this one Ikaros NICE-CONDITION

 

http://rover.ebay.com/rover/1/711-53200-19255-0/1?icep_ff3=2&pub=5574633083&toolid=10001&campid=5335826004&customid=&ipn=psmain&icep_vectorid=229466&kwid=902099&mtid=824&kw=lg&icep_item=300663429944

 

Nice piece of metal

[just carl]

Regardless of what a seller may say, the only really important thing is did it sell and yes that one did. AND there were 14 bidders that didn't care what he said obviously. Sellers say all kinds of things to get your attention, they don't know, they really don't care, and/or they really, really just don't care as long as it sells.

[ikaros]

Just the sort of thing I meant, Veld -- although in his favor, he didn't call it "RARE!!" or "SC@RCE!". If I had posted that coin, I would have allowed myself no more than 'Circulated'. It wouldn't meet my personal criteria for 'nice'.

[ikaros]

Regardless of what a seller may say, the only really important thing is did it sell and yes that one did. AND there were 14 bidders that didn't care what he said obviously. Sellers say all kinds of things to get your attention, they don't know, they really don't care, and/or they really, really just don't care as long as it sells.

I suppose the question is, then, would it be appropriate for those of us who do know better to intervene? Should we be reporting auctions that would not meet a technical definition of the terms used to describe the items?

 

Myself, I only report the ones that are just plain in the wrong place because I really haven't come across anything egregiously wrong in a while. I wouldn't report Veld's example above, even if it doesn't meet my definition of 'nice', because the seller isn't making a specific claim of condition.

 

While it's hard to really judge the condition of a coin by its photograph (the excellent work done by various members here notwithstanding and whose results I wish I could duplicate!), there's some obvious things we can tell -- the thumbprinted proof described as 'GEM PR00F!', for example. Personally, I think that's fraudulent. But does that rise to the level where we should step in?

[ccg]

As much as I hate seeing people being taken advantage of, grading and rarity are two things that I feel are best left to the buyer and seller.

 

For one person, a mintage of 100k is huge. To another, it's tiny.

 

As for grading, virtually all dealers that I buy from I have of have mental notes on where they each stand relative to my own standards. One of my favourites, for example, has a tendency not to consider cleaning as a problem and as such doesn't mention it, while another is conservative, but will use BU to describe a full lusture 100% brown copper. (for me BU implies full red)

[ikaros]

As much as I hate seeing people being taken advantage of, grading and rarity are two things that I feel are best left to the buyer and seller.

 

For one person, a mintage of 100k is huge. To another, it's tiny.

 

As for grading, virtually all dealers that I buy from I have of have mental notes on where they each stand relative to my own standards. One of my favourites, for example, has a tendency not to consider cleaning as a problem and as such doesn't mention it, while another is conservative, but will use BU to describe a full lusture 100% brown copper. (for me BU implies full red)

Yeah, things like mintage, that's a judgment call--100000 is a lot for some series, and next to nothing for others. And really, even referring to a coin as BU is a judgment call.

 

I'm talking about the things that genuinely approach fraud -- I don't think any collector would agree that a proof with a visible thumbprint on it is 'gem'. If a listing says a coin is 'graded MS 65' and there's visible wear on it in the picture -- that's the sort of thing I'm talking about.

[Steve D'Ippolito]

And misuse of the term novodel is fraud too.

[just carl]

I suppose the question is, then, would it be appropriate for those of us who do know better to intervene? Should we be reporting auctions that would not meet a technical definition of the terms used to describe the items?

 

 

I'm afraid many here are missing the point. Of course in this instance it may not be true, but if you ever study advertising, you would have learned that the most important thing in that buisness is getting attention and then next, retention of that item. If you watch TV, listen to the Radio, read newspapers, etc you would have been exposed to numerous variations in advertising. ONE very, very sort of advertising is to irritate people. Yes sounds contraversial but oddly enough it works and works well. Wrong words, wrong sentences, wrong information and guess what? You remember that add and you remember that item. Now your in a store and looking for an item similar to that irritating add. Most end up buying the one advertised since they remember that item and have no idea of others.

ebay is sort of an advertising challenge to those with such backgrounds so they may well make ofvious errors to get your atention. Note how the one being discussed here would probably have gone almost unnoticed but now it is getting a massive amount of attention.