ebay advice needed

[trisdg]

Can anyone give me an opinion on this scenario please. Not sure if someone's trying to somehow screw me over. Or do you think I'm being the villain?

I've recently been after a new trumpet clip on mic for live gigs as mine is a bit old and the clip has just broken. Did a bit of research and decided on one (Shure beta 98h/c) that would be about £180 new from Thomann. Found one guy selling one on ebay that looked in mint condition for BIN £120 + £12 P&P or 'make an offer' so I emailed him asking how old it was.

He immediately replied saying it was 10 months old. I straight away wrote an email asking if he'd take £100 inc P&P if we did the transaction outside ebay, but used paypal for security. Now I know this is cheeky, but I thought it was worth a shot anyway.

Waited a couple of days and he didn't reply. So I sent him another email asking if he'd accept £100 + £12 P&P going through ebay.

Again waited a couple of days and no reply. I googled him and found his website: http://matheuwatson.com/ so thought this looked legit and the ebay description must be genuine.

Then I made an offer of £105 + £12 P&P which was immediately accepted, so I'm presuming this was automated. About 5 mins later I got this message from the seller:
Hi there sorry about this but the payment e-mail given to you matheuwatson@hotmail.com no longer exists. Could you please cancel that payment and instead make the same payment to info@matheuwatson.com Thanks for your help,

Kind regards M

Can this also be automated? Or did he reply himself? At this point I also realised that the £12 shipping was listed as going 2nd class and thought that was a bit steep.

So I'm thinking why has he not changed his details for his account? The guy has a 100% rating from 55 transactions, 36 as a seller (which includes various studio/recording items). The one bad feedback he has states: inaccurate description, £refunded, comms disappointing, I'm out of pocket=1/10

So considering his lack of comms for the previous emails and asking me to use a different email address for payment I wrote another email, just for clarification that this guy wasn't just ignoring me because of my earlier question about doing the sale outside ebay. You know I'm just about to send this bloke £117, so I feel the least he could do is reply to one email. Even a one sentence answer to put my mind at rest that this person is legit.

So I wrote saying that I'd cancel the paypal payment, but would like the item shipped special delivery as I think the £12 should easily cover this, and once he replies to this email I will send the money to his other paypal address. TBH even if he said no and it would be shipped as per the description I would have still paid him, I just didn't want to be ignored.

Another 2 days later and the seller still hadn't replied, so I wrote him another email repeating my previous request saying:
Hi Matheu, Just wondered if you've got my email re shipping the mic. I'd like it sent special delivery please. Once you confirm this I'll send the payment through. Could you let me know if this is going to be a problem. Kind Regards

That was yesterday and I've still not had a reply.

Do you think this guy is somehow going to try and scam me or he's genuinely just this bad at replying to emails? He replied straight away to the first email, and also I got a reply immediately after buying the item. Then, nothing but silence.

I don't want to send him the cash on principal, as I feel I'm being ignored, but don't know if he can now negatively affect my ebay status as I'll be a non-payer.

Would you just send the cash knowing that if it did go pear shaped you'd have the buyer's protection, or would you just walk away?

Any opinions and advice would be greatly appreciated.


Regards,
Tris

[mab]

In short, I'd await his response and I wouldn't send payment until he responded. If he doesn't respond then I wouldn't send the payment. If he doesn't have the diligence to politely respond when a question is posed, then I would be concerned with other aspects of the transaction.

The worst that can happen to you as the buyer is receipt of a non-paying bidder strike which, from what I can gather, doesn't impact your eBay status in isolation. He can't leave you negative feedback.

With any luck, you've hit the nail on the head and your bid was automatically accepted. He's lay on a beach taking a few days holiday with no internet access and will be profusely apologetic upon his return and confirm RMSD is no prroblem for the amount you have committed to pay. The previous 'poor comms' feedback doesn't necessarily reconcile with this outlook but you never know...

Good luck.

[Tooks]

There's no excuse for poor comms, and it does erode your confidence in somebody if they aren't very responsive.

In this case though, he might be interpreting you as somebody who quibbled over the price, and now wants a postage upgrade! I'm not saying you are, but it's one version of events.

Personally, I'd just pay up and then await the item, and remember to agree stuff like sending via a different class of postage up front next time.

If you're still in eBay, then you're covered anyway so your £117 is safe.

You could always just give him a call if you're that worried too, as per above post.

[steptoe]

So you have the potential loss of £117, not to mention the hassle of dealing with a knob, all because of a £60 price difference between a new item and a used one.

Lifes too short.

[pilch23]

Why are you continuing to try and deal with this!!!!!!!!! eBay should be a smooth transaction, if all parties keep to the rules. Move on.

[trisdg]

He's probably just useless at eBay comms. Some are, I'm afraid. If t was me I would also want some comms to confirm the shipping and I'd also be concerned about how long the item would take to ship if he's so slow at replying to a simple email.

What I do in situations like this is simply call them. You can request his contact details via the eBay system, including his phone number. You can probably also find them on his website. I would then pick up the phone and have a quick word. Whenever I've done this the transaction has gone smoothly and hearing their voice on the other end of the phone allows me to make a quick assessment of their credibility; it's more difficult to BS over the phone.

Give him a call and I'm sure you'll work it out.

- - - Updated - - -

Here ya go, details were on his site:

Matheu Watson
T+44 1997 421 511
M +44 7590034119

Cheers for that. I was putting off calling, just because I'd rather deal by email than phone.

Just called and both numbers went to voicemail. I didn't bother leaving a reply as I'd still be in the situation of have to wait for him to reply. So will call him later.

Edit: If it still goes to voicemail and he hasn't replied to my email, then I think I'll give up on it.

Tris

[trisdg]

In this case though, he might be interpreting you as somebody who quibbled over the price, and now wants a postage upgrade! I'm not saying you are, but it's one version of events.

He did have 'make an offer' listed. Thought I'd email him first just to establish comms. lol

[pilch23]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rQ9x1...eature=related

[trisdg]

So you have the potential loss of £117, not to mention the hassle of dealing with a knob, all because of a £60 price difference between a new item and a used one.

Lifes too short.

Just ordered a new one online from https://www.musik-produktiv.co.uk for £167

I can't see the point in listing stuff on ebay if you're not going to do the simplest thing to guarantee the sale. All he had to do was send me one email

Hey ho, live and learn.

T

[trisdg]

You should now request a cancellation of the transaction due to no contact from seller.

Cheers. Didn't know I was supposed to do that.

Was on 'live chat' with customer services for the last half hour of work. Didn't get the feeling that anything was going to get resolved quickly.