Check out this technicality on eBay: Illegal, immoral, or an example of Buyer Beware?

Read the comments for this eBay user at http://cgi2.ebay.com/aw-cgi/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewFeedback&userid=tru2dis2k and pay close attention to the third comment (and the only negative as of now – it’s from arturofuente13).

Then click on the item number at the right of that comment to see what the fuss is about.

So … word parsing at its greatest? Merely immoral, or could this be illegal as well? I think it’s damn funny, but probably only because it didn’t happen to me. What’s your opinion?

Buyer beware.

I saw that item when it was on sale, as my boss was considering buying a PSXII off eBay. We figured it out pretty quick. While its a shady way for the seller to conduct business, the buyer could have easily emailed the seller to clarify what was for sale (a standard procedure for me, btw).

let me point out that the item in question, while described as a “playstation 2 Original box and reciept” (without commas), it was listed in the category of:

“Photo & Electronics:Electronic Games:Sony PlayStation2:Systems, Accessories”

So, unless the box and reciept could legitimately be called a system and/or an accessory, I would think that it was fraudulent. certainly immoral.

While I agree that the buyer could (and should) have verified what exactly was for sale, it looks as if the seller was either deliberately misleading, or else incredibly dense not to realize that the bidders thought they were buying something else. Look in the bid history – the bids went up fairly steadily, upped by several people well beyond $100. Who in their right mind would bid that kind of money for an empty box? (Or is there some sort of PlayStation collector mania that I’m not aware of?)

Let’s look at it from another point of view. Suppose I advertise a “Playstaion 2” [sic], get a final bid of $450, and ship a knockoff that was made out of sticks and rocks in Uganda and is clearly labeled “Playstaion 2.” Have I misled the buyer?

In this case, IMHO, the seller was not clear enough to avoid a charge of false advertising. eBay item descriptions are not known for their adherence to perfect grammar and spelling, and I think it’s not unreasonable for a less-than-perfectly-shrewd buyer to assume the omission of “with” or “in.”

Also, what wring said while I was typing.

All that said, I laughed too!

wring, sure it’s an accessory.

What a horrible rip off. The buyer bought an empty box and reciept! But that is what the seller described. The buyer looked fairly new to the whole eBay thing.

If I really want something that is questionable, I’ll email the seller too.

I think it’s pretty damn funny. For that kind of money, I’d make sure what it was I was bidding on. But people pay for all kinds wierd stuff. The ones that get me are the auctions for computer parts (hard drives, processors, etc.) where the seller comes right out and says it doesn’t work and people still bid on it!

Pretty damn funny.

The buyer is a moron for mentally inserting the word ‘with’ in the subject “Playstation 2 original box and receipt”.

The seller is a jerk for not making sure that the buyer knew exactly what she was getting.

The rest of us get to laugh uproariously at the people who would sell their own kids to get a PS2.

(Of course, I’m fortunate to have a roommate who has so little of a social life that he camped out to be one of the first to get one … which means I had access to one without any trouble on my part. Nyah, nyah, to the rest of the world.)

Anyone remember this thread?

Same thing, only with a PSXI box.

I say buyer beware. You can’t call him on it for posting it in the wrong category - I’ve seen checker boards in that same category. The description was accurate, although the wording was a little better in the above reference. Gots to be careful, folks.

Shyah, I know. I sold a Pentium III 850 CPU on eBay and I came right and said “This thing don’t work, it’s broke” and started the bidding at $1. I got $100.00 for it.
I even told the guy that bought it in e-mail "Before you buy this, I want to make it painfully clear that this CPU DOES NOT WORK. A computer WILL NOT BOOT with this CPU.
A-Do you know what you’re doing
and
B-Do you know this doesn’t work.

The dude bought it, and I never heard from him again.
People are just strange, maybe he just wanted it for a paper-weight or something.
Who knows?

A buddy of mine posited that maybe he is an engineer and has the expertise and the tools necessary to repair the processor, in which case he just saved about $700 bucks.
But whatever. I made $100 on something I got for free.

I just checked out that auction, and it now has the seller (tru2dis2k) listed as “not a registered user”. This could either be because the user chose to be unregistered from ebay, or because they have been suspended from ebay. I’m hoping that this person has been suspended, and hopefully ebay will rectify this situation by getting the money back to the buyer.

I think that either tru2dis2k or ebay themselves is at fault here, and one of those two should repay the unfortunate buyer. Tru2dis2k was definitely decietful here, he was definitley an asshole moraly, but I don’t know what action could be taken against him legally. If nothing can be done to tru2dis2k legally, I think then ebay is at fault here, and they should repay the buyer. Like wring said, the auction was listed as a PS2 accessory, and I don’t think a box would qualify as an accessory. If the seller’s description wasn’t misleading enough, ebay’s putting this aucton in the wrong category would be.

Blunt, I’m guessing you’ve never sold anything on eBay. They don’t choose the category, the seller does. The only time a category get changed is if either the seller changes it on her own before bidding starts, or if someone complains and an eBay admin moves it. So I can’t see how eBay would be held responsible. That’s like holding a newspaper responsible because you got scammed by a company that advertised in their publication. In fact, it’s worse, because an ad in a newspaper would at least have to clear an editor; eBay has no such restrictions.

I have to admit, I think it’s funny, too. I don’t find the description to be misleading, it’s says “this is for the P2 box and receipt.” And that’s what you get – the box and receipt. More importantly IMO is the fact that the opening bid was 10 bucks. Did people think bidding on the actual P2 unit would start at $10? Come on.

And IMO a box is an “accessory.” What else would it be? There isn’t a category for “garbage.” Anyway, some people might want an actual box – older toys, for example, are more valuable with the box than without it.

I don’t think the seller has the obligation to put “this is a BOX. It is not the ITEM that CAME IN the box, it is the BOX.” A truly ethical seller would make sure the buyer knew what he or she was buying (as LEX did), and hopefully would not take advantage of a person who was clearly making a mistake, so I will agree that the seller is a jerk if he tries to hold the buyer to the deal. But beyond that, put me in the carpe diem category. Either the seller is a jerk or the buyer is stupid or both, but it certainly isn’t e-bay’s fault. They don’t warrant that sellers will be angels or that buyers will be smart.

I think that either tru2dis2k or ebay themselves is at fault here, and one of those two should repay the unfortunate buyer. Tru2dis2k was definitely decietful here, he was definitley an asshole moraly, but I don’t know what action could be taken against him legally. If nothing can be done to tru2dis2k legally, I think then ebay is at fault here, and they should repay the buyer. Like wring said, the auction was listed as a PS2 accessory, and I don’t think a box would qualify as an accessory. If the seller’s description wasn’t misleading enough, ebay’s putting this aucton in the wrong category would be.

I have to admit, I think it’s funny, too. I don’t find the description to be misleading, it’s says “this is for the P2 box and receipt.” And that’s what you get – the box and receipt. More importantly IMO is the fact that the opening bid was 10 bucks. Did people think bidding on the actual P2 unit would start at $10? Come on.

And IMO a box is an “accessory.” What else would it be? There isn’t a category for “garbage.” Anyway, some people might want an actual box – older toys, for example, are more valuable with the box than without it.

I don’t think the seller has the obligation to put “this is a BOX. It is not the ITEM that CAME IN the box, it is the BOX.” A truly ethical seller would make sure the buyer knew what he or she was buying (as LEX did), and hopefully would not take advantage of a person who was clearly making a mistake, so I will agree that the seller is a jerk if he tries to hold the buyer to the deal. But beyond that, put me in the carpe diem category. Either the seller is a jerk or the buyer is stupid or both, but it certainly isn’t e-bay’s fault. They don’t warrant that sellers will be angels or that buyers will be smart.

The $10 opening bid doesn’t mean a thing. Very often bids will start at 1 cent. You just to let the market and bidders take over. Lets say it truly was a PS2. How long do you think the bids would stay at $10? Not very long, as you can see by the auction in discussion.

I sell/buy on ebay often enough, and that was damn shady at best.

I’m with the seller here. He/she hasn’t done anything wrong. Like Jodi says, what other category could it have gone in?

Don’t you wish you’d thought of it. I know I do.

**
Many bids on e-bay start at ridiculously low start prices. It is not at all unusual for an item that retails for $100 or more to start with a beginning bid of $1 or even less. The opening bid merely establishes the minimum cost the seller must pay e-bay for it’s listing.

Moreover, I would still say that to call a box an ‘accessory’ in the classification of electronic gear is incorrect. And, in point of fact, there are categories on e-bay for things such as paper/cardboard products and items, cereal boxes and the like.

I don’t think that e-bay is at fault, I do think the buyer was less than steller in their purchase (I would and have e-mailed sellers for a better description of items) but that option isn’t always obvious (it should be, isn’t always).

I still think the seller if not outrightly fraudulent, was at the least, immoral in their selection of category. I do not believe that the box an item came in is generally considered to be an accessory. After all, when you buy it at the store, it doesn’t say “comes complete with box”, although it may say “comes with adapter, 2 game controls and one game”.

Carpe diem? I’m assuming you meant caveat emptor…Is that presumptuous of me, or are you having a hard day? :smiley:

Umm, eBay specifically prohibits misleading listing titles.

I think the title is blatantly misleading.

Buyers can only beware of so much. When sellers are deliberately fraudulent, even the most careful of buyers can get screwed. (FTR: I’ve never once had an unfixable problem as an eBay buyer or seller in over 200 transactions.)

And what the seller did was fraud: A deception deliberately practiced in order to secure unfair or unlawful gain.

Regardless of the category, the item was misleadingly described.

As somebody already noted, the seller has been suspended and is no longer an eBay user. I’m sure that eBay also found the title misleading.

I’m hoping the buyer paid using one of the protected forms of payment and can get the money back. (There are several payment methods where the buyer is protected in cases of fraud like this.)

Jeyen

Actually, Carpe diem applies really well to the seller, who made $425 on about 50 cents’ worth of paper & cardboard. hahaha