Ebay DISASTER. Anyone else????

[linus]

So the vintage pedal that was lost in transit showed up today and is even better than I had hoped. I'm very happy.

However, the seller of the EQ module (sent the wrong one) seemed to think that my expecting him to either send me the right one or refund my money was out of line. Hopefully it will get straightened out though.

[linus]

Sometimes I feel like I spend more time fixing broken equipment, and chasing down loose ends (like this stuff) than I actually spend recording...

not to get far off the thread but fixing broken equipment is a pet peeve of mine and it's my own damn fault. I have so much broken stuff hanging around and yet I still comb ebay for new-to-me gear. Right now I have the following repairs that need to be done:

- bad output jack on my backup bass
- frozen pots on my other bass
- Prophet 600 has something wacky w/ one of the oscillators - the polyphony is not right...
- old Synare 4 that doesn't work (but used to sound so neato)
- busted lug on my homemade bass drum
- my Otari 8 track needs serious repair - new heads, the works (probably not worth the money it would cost to fix it)
- horn out on one of my P.A. cabs
- a pile of headphones that don't work
- a pile of cables that have shorts
- ADATs (are always XXXXing broken anyway)
- Record player needs a belt
- bass cab needs a new speaker...

This list doesn't include the mod I want to do to my Bassman. Wow. I had no idea the list was this long until i started looking at it - good lord, what's wrong with me? Anyone else get themselves into this boat? This sucks! And (to get back on topic) I STILL am on eBay every damn day!

Let's see...

My Aphex Compellor seems to work OK but the right channel LEDs act weird.
My board (Oram BEQ) has several iffy channels
The Optigan organ is non-functional
My second computer that I use for soft-synths, and mastering is dead, waiting for parts from Dell.
Pair of Quad Eight line amps need to be racked as pre's
Pair of Klangfilm EQs need to be racked.
Auditronics EQs need phantom and DIs
Audix 35102 pre/eq needs to be racked.
Ampex 601 mono 1/4" deck needs a tune-up.
Level-Loc desn't seem to work
I have an old Gibson J45 in need of an extensive neck reset (not a simple fix)
Two Univox Les Paul Specials that need extensive work
The door on the Iso-booth I built should have a better seal.
Then there is all the stuff I need to sell on Ebay... Of course I'll post stuff here first before sending it to Ebay but that's a big job in itself.


Aaargh!!!

[Roboburger]

scored a poorly listed AT 4033 for 157. Paypaled the money and waited. after two weeks, I called the guy and got the sob story. Him and his buddy ("Dude B") had a group and were getting into recording and Dude A paid for the mic, but Dude B had possesion of it and was supposed to give it back, but since the auction decided he was owed the Mic and was not giving it back. Give him a day or two to straighten things out, and he'd call me back.

I didn't hear from him, he stopped answering emails and taking my calls.

I gotta buddy who is a internet geek, and he was able to give me Dude A's home phone, address and all the names attached to his dotcom. Dude A placed the auction, Dude A recieved my paypal money. My lawyer buddy explained this to me; If Dude A was not in possesion of the mic at placement of auction, a federal charge could be argued for, as a fraud was perpetuated across state lines. You're not allowed to sell something you don't have (Unless you're an airline, apparently) possesion of. I should fax all the evidence to his local police station, as that is the jurisdiction for where the fraud took place.

I called the local police (Lee's Summit, Mo) and they took my call and said yes, it was a case for them. They knew the street where he lived and would stop by. They loved my evidence pile and were more than happy to let me fax it to them. They drove by his house and said I had a federal case on him, and he better get the mic to me real quick.

It arrived the next day, FedExed and packed meticulously. I got follow up calls from Dude A, Dude B, and the Lee's Summit police. Sweet.

My eBay account was hijacked by a nigerian fraud dude, and that was interesting, but I posted that story already.

[JeffPatterson]

I've had great luck with ebay over the years. Once I ordered something that was never sent and I was unable to get the seller to respond. Paypal credited the amount back to me so it really wasn't much of an issue. But to date, I've ordered about 140 "things" from ebay including some musical gear and with just one exception, as mentioned above, all good.

Best of luck in getting this resolved.

Best, JP

[apropos of nothing]

Here're my ebay tips:

Always ship FedEx. Although they're politically much more icky than UPS, they are way better shippers, and stuff I've shipped and received through them arrives intact, whereas I've had largely bad luck with UPS (AKA "Oops"), and have known enough people who worked in their shipping centers who talked about literally throwing packages around.

My ebay seller must have >98% positive feedback. 98 is on the low end, too. >99 or better 100% is much cooler.

Amen on asking questions.

Was the item you received properly packed? Cuz even with Oops, shit rattling around inside is over and above. If there was any kind of packing job at all, that shouldn't happen. I've packed a lot of crap for transit across country (including >$2000 electic violins), and had very good luck overall. Its not hard to pack so that something won't get screwed up in transit, but it does take skill and care. Double-boxing is where its at -- a solid (no move, no shake) box inside a second box that is insulated so that the inside box has a little (bot not much) wiggle room. Ask for it. Describe it if neccesary.

Sorry about your hassle. Sucks. Hope you get your money.

[waxboy]

I've recently ordered a Mac G4 off of Ebay for about 400. It was an older gigabit ethernet model - and to this day it still has not arrived.

Been waiting for about a month and a half now - and the shipper indicates its still "in transit", I've been trying to track it the whole time and he didnt give me the right tracking numbers.

Id say it's a nightmare, but Im ready to be speaking with them on Monday so we will see how that goes. He shipped it UPS ground and its beena nightmare - and when I ask him about it (obviously frizzled about the whole thing, BUT completely professional!), he states "what right do you have to make accusations and demands!?"

"umm, I gave you 400 dollars, thats my right you bastard"...

Oh ebay.

BUT on the plus Side I just got an AT4044 and RNC compressor in under a week of shipping, sometimes you win out.

[space_ryerson]

I went through ebay/paypal hell over a juno-106 that arrived not as described, and damaged due to poor packing. I did get my money back in the end though.

[Ryan Ferris]

I posted this in it's own thread, but seeing that it fits here, I'll repost it. A possible E-Bay "distaster" in the making? Probably not, but a misleading discription, maybe?

I just bought a used Spirit m12 mixer on E-Bay and I received it on Friday. I've tried it on two sessions and it sounds fine (it's replacing an m8 and it doesn't sound any different from that). The problem is that the clipping light for channel 6 sometimes lights up even when the gain for that channel is all the way down. I've even had it trigger the light when nothing was plugged into that channel. When I contacted the seller he told me the following:

"I'm glad your liking it other than the clip LED. I don't know that it was doing that while I had it, but it has been "mothballed" for a little while now. I wouldn't worry about it too much - the device which controls the clip LEDs and the meters are OpAmps which aren't in the signal path. Chances are, they're misreading the voltage going to the mic pre and indicating a clip when it's just not there. Since the opamp isn't in the signal path, it shouldn't have any effect on the sound."

Since I know relatively nothing about the innards of such mixers, I just wanted to check with those of you who know more about this. Does that sound right to you? If it's not going to effect the sound quality, then I don't care about miss triggerings of the clipping light. I use the preamps on this board to go into my DAW and I primarily use the clipping indicator on my audio interface to set my incoming levels.

BUT if it means that the board is breaking and will lead to other problems, then I think I should try for a refund because the seller said it was in excellent condition.

What do you think?

Thanks!

-Ryan