I once got suckered for an “original, numbered, hot-off-the-set shooting script” for the movie Titanic. Cost me $40 to learn that it was actually a script that was taken directly from the movie - It didn’t take me long to figure this one out as I read the thing word-for-word while I was watching the movie.
:smack:
That was the first and last time I ever bought anything off of Ebay. I felt like such a :wally
I bought a couple of things that were not as advertised, and the sellers refunded my money, including shipping. There is a lot of deception going on there, unfortunately.
I just bought the VHS tape of the 1993 film “Gettysburg” (w/ Tom Berenger and Martin Sheen) when I really intended to get the DVD. I may resell the tape and go for the DVD.
I’ve had pretty good luck with eBay. I’ve made some dumb choices, but my BIG purchases (several Macintosh computers) have (so far) been great.
Well I’ve never ordered from eBay, but I’m going to pollute this board anyway…
I ordered from an infomercial once. :smack: Man, Nads is garbage. It took off more skin than it did hair! :eek: Jesus H. Christ, I suppose I should have known better than to buy a product called Nads.
My car. At first it seemed like a nice little car. A bit dirty and missing a few minor things here and there (door lock button, window roller knob thingy) but now it’s just turning into a piece of junk. It has this horrible vibration everytime I put on the breaks, it squeals constantly and it uses a quart of oil every 2/300 miles or so (which could call for an engine rebuild or a new engine if it isn’t an oil leak).
Well I didn’t technically buy it off Ebay, dad did, but he used 800 dollars of my money. And it’s the last time I’ll ever agree to car shopping on Ebay again.
Paid $73 for a diecast car. 2 weeks later found the exact same car at a small drug store for $20.
I bought what I thought was a genuine Camelbak for a very nice price.
It was a knock-off.
This tiered serving plate that matches my good china. It doesn’t fit in my china cabinet and I have very little non-ornamental use for it.
I paid $250 for a computer that won’t even power up 
Other than that, all of my ebay experiences have been great 
Where do I begin?! The long brown plaid skirt I never wear. The straw cloche hat that was tinier and uglier than it looked on the screen, and that I left in a drawer at a former workplace. The pup tent with supports that broke the first night of camping. The milkshake blender I never use. Any takers?
Oh, Lord.
$75 for a 1957 edition of Life magazine. I got caught up in a bidding war. I had to have it.
A week before, the same issue went for $15. A week after, for $18. The seller my week must have thought he died and went to Heaven.
When I was a kid, we had a game called “Kismet”- a Yahtzee like dice game that has you make poker hands and such out of rolling 5 dice. FOR YEARS I’d gone to every junk sale, yard sale, garage sale, toy store, vintage game store- no luck. NO ONE had Kismet (and it was one of my very favorite games ever). Finally, I caved and got it from E-bay- an original 70’s edition, so that was cool. $30. $30, for a dice game.
1 week later, I shit you not, I was at the little hardware/variety store in my small town. I looked in the game aisle and what did I see? After all those years of searching? Kismet. An updated version by another manufacturer, but Kismet just the same.
$7
Damn.
I’ve learned not to browse eBay unless I want something very specific. If I just get on there and poke around, I’ll soon be getting caught up in brand-new enthusiasms I didn’t know I had.
“Yes! Yes I DO need a set of eight Sri Lankan postcards from the 1930s! YES I DO!”
“Ohmigosh, a solar-powered Pachinko machine! How, *how *have I lived this long without one?!? Must… own… solar-powered Pachinko machine…”
Fortunately, common sense usually kicks back in before I actually bid. Once I rashly bid on something I couldn’t afford (I think it was a Martin ukelele), but some kind soul came along and outbid me, thank heaven.
My younger sister is a big fan of Christian Bale, so for her birthday a few years ago, I bought her a leather fanny-pack from Pocahontas which said actor had signed and apparently worn (there were sweat stains and everything!). I got caught up in a bidding war, and as the price rose, so did my certainty that Ashley needed this fanny-pack. $87 and ~four years later, Ashley’s Sweaty Christian Bale Souvenir is sitting in a desk drawer at home while she’s away at college. Yeah, I kinda regret that one…
I regret anything that I’ve bought on a whim. Most of the time I go, like someone else mentioned, with something specific in mind, but when it’s late and I’m just browsing (especially if I have money in my paypal account.), I end up with crap.
Lately, I bought a HUGE lot of winter maternity clothes. They looked okay in the picture, but once I got the box and opened it, I realized that I wouldn’t be caught dead in about half of it, and about half of what was left was stuff that I never would have chosen on my own, but would have worn if someone gave it to me. I can’t believe I bought that.
I also have a huge envelope full of vintage/retro (mostly 60s & 70s) postcards sitting around, because I decided that I needed that too. What the auction didn’t say is that a lot of them were written on, so I can’t even send them to people, like I’d planned.
The big one, though…
When my husband and I first discovered Ebay, we didn’t know about “sniping” or even just waiting till the last day or so to bid. We found this huge lot of cure stuff (Every CD/Cassette/Vinyl Album/box sets/video/book/etc. etc. etc. that they’d ever released, plus soundtracks that they contributed to. It was at $450 or so when we first saw it, and by the time we won it, it had gone up to $900. Eep. Since then, we’ve decided to slim down our CD collection, and most of that stuff is going to go back up on ebay, for a fraction of what we paid, I’m sure.
I bought a copy of the original Wallace & Grommit DVD. The seller had a couple of dozen copies he was selling in a dutch auction for $39.95. The DVD was out of print and this was a good price, so I bought one.
A couple of weeks later, I found out why the seller was dumping Wallace & Grommit DVD’s. A new reissue of the DVD came out with a number of extra features that weren’t in the original. And it was selling for $19.95.
Ummm, anyone want to buy a DVD?
On a different occasion, I was almost the victim of outright theft. A seller was listing a number of CD’s for great prices. I obviously had my suspicions he was illegally duplicating CD’s, but I didn’t think he’d steal from me. I checked his record and he had over two hundred positives. So I bought a bunch of CD’s and, as per his request, sent a check (I should have been suspicious by his refusal to use PayPal).
No CD’s arrived. I waited and still none. I started sending e-mails. I didn’t get any replies at first. I finally got one saying there had been a problem, but he was now sending my order. Meanwhile, I was contacted by email by another buyer, who said he hadn’t received his order from this guy. By this time the seller had closed down his eBay account. My order still didn’t arrive and I sent new emails. No response and then I started being told his email accout had been closed. By now, it’s been over four months since I made the purchase.
I’m now completely annoyed. Enough so that I spend several hours using what information I had on this guy to track him down online. I then sent him a postal letter, using his real name (which wasn’t the one he used for eBay or his email), and told him he better send my package or I would be calling his local police department.
A week later, I received my order in the mail.
Let’s just say a $3 cellphone faceplate that resembles a beer pint is lot better in theory than reality.
I paid $50 for Jedi Knigt 2. The day after I made the post, while the auction was still going on, I saw that Frys had an increadible deal. They were selling this brand new game for $20.
What is worse is that I have since been very disapointed in the game.
Ha!! I purchased not one but two copies of the
“Hope Floats” soundtrack… I just love Harry Connick Jr., and the CD was out of print. I must have it. So, off to ebay I went, and lo and behold there were about 15 copies for sale. Well, that wasn’t good enough, I had to have it that very day. Two auctions were ending within 2 hours of each other and I just had to know, couldn’t wait another day. So, I bid on both, won both, and being a woman of my word, paid for both. Thank God, it was a low priced item. I just couldn’t wreck my name over a $20 CD. I probably could have emailed one of the sellers and explained, but c’est la vie. Now I hope a REAL copy for the house and for the car, oh boy!!! I could have burned myself a copy, but no…had …to…have…it…now!!!
The first rule of successful ebay buying:
PATIENCE.
Also, I once purchesed a used Nori. Nope, that was not a good idea.