Again: Alternatives to ebay

[Adrian C]

And there's CraigsList and Gumtree, both free to list.

Sold my car on Gumtree :-)

BTW eBay own Gumtree, and 25% of CraigsList.

[Scott M]

As a buyer I quite like ebay[1], the only problems I've ever had consist of not reading between the lines and asking questions about what's not said, usually on items with poor descriptions. That's caveat emptor though.

OTOH 'er indoors has sold a lot of stuff but had a slightly higher hit rate than yours of the "it never turned up, where's my money?" and "it's not as described" variety. Neither is terribly convincing as she goes to a lot of bother on both packaging and descriptions.

The latter is particlarly galling when something that's, say, slightly dented/creased/trimmed is described as being slightly dented/creased/trimmed and then the buyer the buyer starts kicking up a fuss because the item received is slightly dented/creased/trimmed.

[1] Favourite recent purchase: A Bluetooth USB dongle. Cost 99p including shipping from Hong Kong. Absolutely bonkers.

[tim.....]

Freecycle achieves the same end

tim

[tim.....]

Sounds fair for DVDs which you can just stuff in a jiffy bag and post for

50p.

But imposing it on a camera which will need to be wrapped properly and will cost 4-5 pounds to post doesn't seem on

tim

[The Natural Philosopher]

Therein lies the problem, as PayPal are utterly and completely on the customers side, not the sellers.

After a few bitter experiences, I wont buy using paypal, and I wont sell at all.

Generally I buy and collect, pay cash, and that's that, or use a cheque. If the seller don't like it, I wont buy.

Its gone rapidly downhill anyway..instead of good secondhand stuff, its now all shops and vendors.

I won a scanner the other day. 99p. I sent the person a cheque for £25, because 99p is simply ridiculous.

Just because no one else bid.

(It happens to be one of a rather limited subset of scanners that are fully supported by Linux)

So still good stuff to be had, but private selling? No thanks. The odds are totally stacked against you. The pikey at the other end simply has to say 'goods never received' and you are nowhere. In spite of proof of postage, courier sighed for receipts etc. etc etc..DAMHIKT.

[Davey]

There are a lot of people on eBay who bid on many many things at their starting bid or low price considering worth. If they win it dirt cheap, they relist (usually with a better title/description) and get a load more for it.

Fairy nuff.

[The Natural Philosopher]

I cannot be arsed frankly.

My wife buys stuff cheap off Toast, in end of year sales and the like, and often sells it on ebay for a profit..

[Mike Barnes]

I've used Freecycle for about 20 items. I get the impression that eBay is much more likely to get the goods to where they'll really be appreciated, especially as most of my stuff is fairly specialised electronic equipment, often priced in the hundreds of pounds.

[Dave Plowman (News)]

Indeed. One of the problems I had was from selling a roughly 10 year old Acorn IDE expansion card. The buyer found what he said was a crack on the board. Rather unlikely given the PCB was fibreglass. And then claimed to see it on the pic I posted in the Ebay ad. I only warranted it to be in good working condition and told him so. If it didn't work I'd refund. But he sent it back anyway. The 'crack' was the merest of scratches and didn't extend down the side or to the back. Could have been there from new. I told him I wasn't prepared to refund - and if he sent the postage he could have it back. Heard no more - until he tried to get a refund from PayPal - but had left it too late. Despite writing to him got no reply and I still have it. ;-)

[Dave Plowman (News)]

You need to get organised to do it easily. Like with most computer progs.

Freecycle - in London at least - gave me lots of grief and for no return. Not even one thank you email. Never again - I'd rather take stuff down the tip.

My favourite is a good autojumble. Can spend hours there. They usually have tools to bring it more back to DIY.

[F]

I came across this when listing an item the other day. Fixed it by listing the item under a different (similar) category that did allow P&P to be charged.

[Steve Firth]

I sold a camera battery that was new, in the original packing and in good working order. I very carefully pointed out in the advert that it only worked with a list of about ten Samsung Video Cameras and did *not* [in large red characters] work with the latest HD camcorders because it lacks a vital chip inside the battery. Confusingly Samsung give all their batteries the same part number even when they change the spec.

Someone bought it paying less than a third of the price I paid for it. Then when they got it complained to me that it didn't work with their camera. "Is your camera on the list that I posted in the advert?" "No." "Then it's your fault not my fault. But since it's your fault send the battery back at your expense and I'll refund your money. I won't refund the postage."

Never heard from him again either.

It seems like som buyers of s/hand tat think that the seller should behave like M&S and offer cash refunds even if the reason for returning the goods is "Wore it once to a party now I'm bored with it" or whatever the electronic version of that statement is.

[Bob Eager]

ploy to get the P&P included in the price and get higher final value fees - would it?

[pete]

I can't comment on the London situation, but where I am is on the edge of

3 freecycle areas. Since I keep all the emails they send me (as I do with *all* non-spam email) I have noticed that the number of WANT requests has pretty much doubled in the last year. I can't say if that's because of the recession, or just people getting greedy, or freecycle becoming better known (tho' then I would expect the number of OFFERs to go up proportionately - they haven't)

However I've stopped responding to WANTs as almost none of the people I have emailed in reply to things they're asking for have ever even bothered to reply to me. Not even a "thanks, but I've got it now".

Huh. Around here, they seem to have abandonded any pretence to follow the netiquette or to regualte it. Recently there have been animals up for grabs, a lot of "professional" WANT-ers who never offer anything in return and people from *way* outside the area sticking ads up.

[Mark]

There's quite a few things I've sold via ebay that I couldn't sell any other way.

I'm getting more dissattisfied with freecycle. People don't turn up when promised to collect. People offer stuff and it turns out to be broken. I try to collect and they have given it to someone else, People offerring non-existent items...

[Mark]

BT 2700HGV router @ 99p was my best purchase. However I had to sell some rather nice speaker stands at the starting price a few years ago.

[Scott M]

Agreed. For many things, Freecycle seems rather full of either the stupid or those trying to make money. Put up a fairly ancient, worthless & faulty laptop (P120 maybe) that wouldn't get past the BIOS on startup and was innundated with people wanting it - up to and including people wanting to know if it would run XP & office, whether their child could use it for homework, etc. The 'winning' bloke had that shifty look of one who only wanted it to try and flog on eBay.

OTOH, household things (wardrobes & a matress in my case) seem to go to genuine people.

[Dave Plowman (News)]

I was only offering stuff. A virtually complete kitchen's worth of appliances. All good clean and working - not new but not ancient either. Lots of contact desperate for the items - then don't turn up for the appointment *they've* made. One who did - and wanted the built in double oven unit arrived on foot. And expected me to deliver it.

Perhaps that's the way things are done these days. If so it's not for me. At least with Ebay there are easily followed rules.

[Dave Plowman (News)]

Same here - had a virtually new hover mower which only made 99p. And was collected too. ;-)

[Tony Bryer]

When I was preparing to emigrate I got rid of loads of stuff via Freecycle - the best was the guy who came round for a set of plug cutters and left with five cartons of DIY related stuff: he sent me a really nice note saying it was like having Christmas and his birthday all at once. But Twickenham being a fairly well off area, offers outnumbered wants by a significant factor and some stuff did end up at the dump.