I won an aucton for a Harley Davidson Ken #2 on ebay. The seller had good feedback.
The doll just arrived today, although he was packaged well, his head was off and rolling around in the bottom of his box. Nothing in the description said he had a loose head and I find it kind of hard to believe his head popped off during shipping. The picture in the auction had a flash and I couldn’t see if the neck was loose or not.
It is easily repaired, but if the doll is taken out of the box, it loses a lot of value.
The seller listed in the auction that all sales were final and as is.
So what do I do ? Leave negative feedback ? Or neutral feedback ?
It depends.
First, I would suggest being really nice and recognizing the terms of sale and appealing to the seller’s kindness.
Regarding feedback
If you plan on using Ebay alot in the future you should know that if you leave negative feedback there is a really good chance that it will get it reciprocated. BTW the feedback next to the name is net feedback. Go into details and you will see any negatives and what the person says about the seller. If you want to list the auction Ill try and help more. There is alot you can tell by other aspects of the auction which you haven’t mentioned.
Christ, dragongirl, I’m going through some Ebay bs myself right now with a guy who sold me a karaoke player, but didn’t ship the 10 pack of cd’s he promised in the auction. This guy is giving me the royal run around about those cd’s, but I have threatened him with neg feedback if I don’t get them.
Ebay has a thing called Safe Harbor, handy. Here you can voice your complaints regarding damaged shipments among other things. I have had to use it as well as filing a fraud claim with USPS on another auction I won.
I will agree with the Kid and recommend contacting the seller via e-mail and nicely stating the problem. If he/she has positive feedback across the board, it’s usually because they have been honest in their dealings.
I keep telling myself to quit Ebaying, but there’s always something I want and so I keep going back. Guess I’m hooked, huh?
Good luck, dear and let us know how things turn out.
Looking at that picture on the page you linked to, I’d raise holy hell.
Is there any way that item could have gotten damaged via shipping? From what I can tell, there’s no way a bit of jostling by the mail carrier could have popped Ken’s head off.
Ok here’s my take after seeing the auction and the seller. BTW this ain’t a legal interpretation as if that wont soon be obvious. This is also just one man’s opinion.
Barbigirl is clearly a reputable seller. It’s pretty hard to rack up 650 positives with no negatives. . She does say all sales are final but she doesn’t say “as is.” Unfortunately, this looked like a liquidating sale so there is a good chance she doesn’t have another one. In my experience Safe Harbor isn’t worth the trouble for small ticket stuff but then again Im lazy. In any case your best first course of action is ass-kissing.
Whether true or not, I would say something along these lines for maximum sympathy.
"Your boyfriend is a collector of Harley memorablia (and like most collectors is always concerned about the condition ) and you were really excited to find this blah blah blah and since you were such a big fan of barbi growing up you thought this was the perfect gift for his birthday blah blah blah.
Unfortunately, when it came the head was off the doll and while it may be good for a demonstration of the dangers of motorcyles (which I’m constantly trying to tell him!) it’s probably not so good as a collector’s piece. You understand that she indicated the sale was final but could you exchange it for another one. blah blah blah
In my experience, people on Ebay tend to be more willing to accept responsibility when you tell them they aren’t responsible. My guess is she is going to tell you she doesn’t have another one (because it was a closeout) at which point I would plead penury and ask for your money back. If that doesn’t work, sell it on Ebay with this ad:
ULTRA-RARE HARLEY MOTORCYCLE KEN WITH UNATTACHED HEAD!
If the annals of collectible history have told us anything, its that factory seconds consistently outperform saleable collectibles! The upside down airplane stamp! The great double stamped quarter bubble of 1856! Those pens from the mint with the shredded dollar bills in them! Own a piece of history! As much as I want to keep this amazing item I'm selling it along with my house to finance the purchase of a Barbie with a tiny plastic nub right where the clitoris would be! If, in 100 years, this item doesn't get 10 fold your purchase price at Christie's, I'll trade you my Clitoral Barbie for him!
…maybe we’ll get lucky and she’ll be a doper and will have seen this thread and will do the right thing by dragongirl. Either that or face our wrath in the pit!
Yes, but for like the city of San Jose, what would a safe harbor do for her? Safe harbor is usually used for
people to complain about illegal auctions, but it can be used for other stuff.
Handy, I consider you with almost 13 thousand posts, one of the busiest people on SDMB, but I’ll be damned if I can find a correlation between the ports of San Jose and the nickname Safe Harbor on EBAY. If you are trying to tell me they are both unsafe, okay, but you need to back it up, don’t you?
I too have posted to the forums and the answers I have gotten to my auction problems have always pointed me to Safe Harbor where I attempted to work out the problem before resorting to neg feedback.
Please elaborate a bit further on your post, because you’ve got me confused as to what you mean.
No disrespect intended, I assure you. I just don’t understand why you don’t think SH is a good place to start resolving problems, especially if the seller has positive feedback across the board.
I’d try and work it out with the seller first, dragongirl. Safe Harbor seems like overkill if the seller is willing to work with you. Have you tried to contact the seller and tell her what happened yet? Most people are more than willing to work it out without resorting to leaving neg/neutral feedback.
Another question: Why is the box so important? I collect model horses, we care about the condition of what is inside the box, most of my boxes end up in the trash. It doesn’t affect the value of the model horse even if it has no box. I don’t get it. Are there people who collect empty boxes too?
I can’t really say exactly why the boxes are so important, but they are. If you want to sell a barbie doll for top value it has to be NRFB(never removed from box).
Thanks for all of the suggestions, I think I’m just not going to leave any feedback at all, she didn’t leave it for me. I’ve decided to open the box very carefully and replace Ken’s head. I won’t be able to seal the box up again, but at least I can still display him nicely.
When I buy myself another Harley Ken #2, I’ll just open this one completley and play with him and keep the other one NRFB.
