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BS: Arrogant Americans on ebay
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Subject: RE: BS: Arrogant Americans on ebay From: The Fooles Troupe Date: 20 Mar 06 - 12:16 AM Wouldn't suplerfluity drive down the price Toenails John? (Da Debil made me do it!) |
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Subject: RE: BS: Arrogant Americans on ebay From: Q (Frank Staplin) Date: 20 Mar 06 - 12:51 AM Looking over my Ebay buys (174), I rated only two at less than satisfactory, and only one shipment was lost (details in post above). Several were from the UK. I think this shows that most people are honest in their offerings. |
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Subject: RE: BS: Arrogant Americans on ebay From: WFDU - Ron Olesko Date: 20 Mar 06 - 11:17 AM Sorry, but I am still scratching my head trying to figure out what the issues are with Ebay and Paypal that you are referring to. I have a basic account with Paypal. I have established an account that holds my money for sales that I've made, and when I request it, they have sent me checks. When I buy something, it is a quick and easy process. I do not have them do my bank account directly. I have not had any problems accepting Paypal, and I am still foggy on what you are referring to when you say "pay by credit card instead of Paypal" but still paying THROUGH Paypal. To establish an account as a buyer, I have to have money in my account. When I pay, how would I PAY by credit card through Paypal??? If I have a Paypal account, wouldn't that be where the money is coming from when I purchase something? Paypal, if they are charging me fees, appear to be fairly standard. For brokering these exchanges, one would expect that they take a percentage. I have not seen anything out of the ordinary when doing business through them. |
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Subject: RE: BS: Arrogant Americans on ebay From: SINSULL Date: 20 Mar 06 - 11:27 AM Not exactly, Ron. When I set up my Paypal account I used a Debit Card and my bank info. This was the basic free membership and I used it for years buying om eBay. My first sale went to someone who tried to pay by Credit Card. I got a very short and polite letter from Paypal stating that if I wanted to close the sale I would need to upgrade to a Premium Account. So, if someone pays by credit card I am charged about 2% of the selling price as a fee. I figure that into my minimal selling price. I don't understand what happened with SRS. I never had a sale pulled for offering Paypal before I upgraded to Premium. |
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Subject: RE: BS: Arrogant Americans on ebay From: JohnInKansas Date: 20 Mar 06 - 11:30 AM It has to be noted: Several people has demanded that Amuricans get off of eBay and use some local business. eBay is an American Company, so what are all you furringers doing using it. Yeah, it has separate branch offices in lots of places.... 21 spitball salute, wave the flags, play the lousy music. Obviously: JUST KIDDING! As has been discussed, especially by Joe O., a lot of Americans simply don't think in terms of markets outside the US when they post offers to sell, and have no idea what additional things are required in order to ship elsewhere and to deal with money exchanges across borders. It's reasonable to expect anyone making a business of selling on eBay to know what's involved and to accomodate international sales and shipping; but it's also understandable that less knowledgeable individuals are going to get a warm pair of pants just thinking about it. Trading across borders is very common, I understand, in lots of places; but it just doesn't happen much for many of the locals here. It is also possible that the specific individual originally cited may have run into that one bad guy somewhere in Europe, so it's really his choice to decline the risk of trying it again. I'd be inclined to "not take it personally." Just by way of "conversation," I did find Wiki eBay sort of interesting. Since I haven't done any dealings on eBay, I don't know if it's accurate; but it's got a fair amount of opinionating. John |
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Subject: RE: BS: Arrogant Americans on ebay From: WFDU - Ron Olesko Date: 20 Mar 06 - 11:46 AM Thanks Sinsull, that makes sense. In esscence, Paypal would be acting as a broker for the deal if the buyer is using a credit card instead of their Paypal account, so Paypal should be entitled to a fee. 2% sounds very reasonable to me. Is there any other cost with upgrading to a premium account? |
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Subject: RE: BS: Arrogant Americans on ebay From: GUEST,Dave Date: 20 Mar 06 - 12:26 PM All selling assumes an exchange which implies some sort of revulsion with yourself, the other party, or both. It's a sex thing - prostitution/threat of rape is the first such exchange. Adam & Eve broke their trading contract with God (now known as eBay). P.S. I'm selling records on eBay from the UK & sell happily all over the world... |
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Subject: RE: BS: Arrogant Americans on ebay From: Q (Frank Staplin) Date: 20 Mar 06 - 01:43 PM According to a shopkeeper in London that I deal with on EBay, some Americans send checks (Cheques) that are not in sterling despite a notice in the offering. A common UK bank charge for conversion is GPB 10 ($17.50). This is the equivalent of sending foreign currency checks or cash to the U. S. where the banks must levy a charge to make the conversion to dollars. These charges are caused primarily by government regulations. |
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Subject: RE: BS: Arrogant Americans on ebay From: Little Hawk Date: 20 Mar 06 - 02:11 PM Okay, so maybe I have to pay an extra 2% fee for a credit card paid sale through Paypal. So what????? What is the big deal about a 2% fee on a credit card sale? I don't get why that is a problem, Stilly. What about the Premium Account? Does it have a big yearly fee or something? Is there some part of this I am not getting? |
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Subject: RE: BS: Arrogant Americans on ebay From: SINSULL Date: 20 Mar 06 - 08:04 PM No. The only charge is for sales done on Credit Cards. That's for Premier. There are other privileges and charges for another account but i wasn't interested so I don't have the details. |
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Subject: RE: BS: Arrogant Americans on ebay From: Big Al Whittle Date: 21 Mar 06 - 03:00 AM Twould be of interest to know what Mr Bridge was trying to purchase and which scoundrel affronted him in this manner. I certainly shall have no commerce with this scurvy knave. We British must stand together. We will fight them on the Paypal site, we will fight them on the Mudcat, and on the Google search. We shall never surrender. And even if cyber commerce continued for a thousand years, they will say this was their finest hour. |
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Subject: RE: BS: Arrogant Americans on ebay From: Stilly River Sage Date: 21 Mar 06 - 12:56 PM When you pay with PayPal, it defaults to the account you established it with. I first set it up to pay from my credit card, but then to have a certified (or whatever) address within eBay (some sellers only ship to these guaranteed addresses) I had to use my bank account instead. It's all part of how they want to get the cash the fastest and cheapest way they can. eBay/PayPal always draw first from your PayPal funds, then your bank account. If you want to use a credit card once they have your bank account number you have to make a manual change during authorizing the payment and it comes up with a "DO YOU REALLY STILL HONESTLY WANT TO PAY WITH YOUR CREDIT CARD?" statement you have to answer. You have to do it with each purchase, you can't make that setting default. I actually was always using my credit card instead of my bank account because I figured it was safer, since the credit card companies have recourse built in for sales gone wrong. Had I realized that using my credit card was costing others I probably wouldn't have used it, just kept a little cash in the PayPal account, as I do now. The point is, or the point I was making is, that PayPal is owned by eBay and they're very pushy about how it is used, and though they suck you in with the "free" offer, it isn't really free. I figure the cost of credit card purchases into my auctions now so basically everyone pays more, even if they don't pay with a credit card, because I haven't taken the time to read all of the fine print to learn how to offer a discount if someone pays cash (all the while not uttering the "I prefer you not pay with credit cards" that eBay abhors). When you have a business account I think you pay for any PayPal transaction even if a credit card isn't used. That's where the 2% comes in. I usually make several dollars on these sales, but at worst I want to at least break even. eBay suggests you start sales low, like at 99 cents, and the increased bidding will compensate for the low starting price. But if you list something at 99 cents and that's all it sells for, and if you used an extra photo and/or a gallery photo and a credit card purchase is made (you pay 50 cents to collect), you lose money. Enough of those and eBay stops being a fun place to visit. SRS |
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Subject: RE: BS: Arrogant Americans on ebay From: Scoville Date: 21 Mar 06 - 01:19 PM I've never had trouble shipping to Canada but I've shipped some things to the UK and to Germany that turned into headaches. Took FOREVER and the buyers thought I'd ripped them off. I had to do a lot of begging to get them to be patient and not trash my feedback. I mail promptly and I really do try hard to make people happy whether they're buying from me or selling to me--I can't help it if the mail systems decide to sit on your package for awhile. I still ship overseas but I have to post caveats all over the page so people don't get their shorts in a wad. The other issue that comes to mind is that a lot of stuff I've sold isn't, to my mind, worth what it would cost to ship abroad. I guess anything is worth what people will pay but I've still had people get honked off if it costs more to ship than it did to purchase, especially if I already had to charge them extra for oversized mail or if the item was heavy. This applies to intra-U.S. shipping, too. I sold somebody an electronic typewriter for $10 but it cost $60 to ship it to New York. I had it in big, bold, red letters on the page but they still tried to give me a hard time. I cannot imagine what it would have cost if the buyer had been from Sweden, where the thing was originally manufactured. SOme other issues that come to mind could be that 1) some eBay sellers are somewhat new to the process, if they are not "professionals", and may not be comfortable shipping overseas or dealing with international payments. 2) the paperwork can be a pain if the item has any significant value. 3) insurance claims can be [even more] annoying. |
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Subject: RE: BS: Arrogant Americans on ebay From: Stilly River Sage Date: 21 Mar 06 - 03:48 PM I'm learning as I go, and expanding my offerings as I figure out what is doable. I can envision limiting some sales to the continental U.S. for the reason you state--that it would simply be too difficult to ship out of the country. Case in point--I have an antique Brown (Grisly) bear rug, head and claws and all. Old, kind of dusty, never used (stored in a cedar box), in great shape. But not necessarily easy to send out of the country. It was shot/made nearly 100 years ago, so the process for tanning may be an issue (did they use anything toxic?). I'd like to sell this thing, I never use it. My great uncle brought it back from Alaska when he was there in 1912, or ordered it soon thereafter. eBay doesn't handle many of these, so research is difficult. They go for $8-10 thousand new and big, but who knows about antique? My research is cut out for me on this! SRS |
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Subject: RE: BS: Arrogant Americans on ebay From: Naemanson Date: 21 Mar 06 - 05:06 PM Joe Offer - "I suppose most groups don't deserve the stereotypes they're saddled with. Americans are described as "arrogant" - but that's seldom the case." Actually Joe Americans generally are not so arrogant in their own homes and on an individual basis overseas. But we all have to admit that our Government and our businesses are very arrogant and are not above shoving the "little guys" around. The exception to individuals being arrogant is many of the individuals in our military, generally the younger men in the lower ranks. They seem to take American power personally and like to flex their muscles overseas. They have been fed a line of propaganda and run around talking loud and wearing t-shirts with jingoistic sayings on them. Fortunately they are not as common anymore. Here in Guam we have 7,000 Marines coming from Japan in the near future and I expect to see a lot more of that. They are being kicked out of Japan because they couldn't be controlled. |
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Subject: RE: BS: Arrogant Americans on ebay From: Stilly River Sage Date: 21 Mar 06 - 06:11 PM Unlucky Guam. Sold another box of books. Not very big, and I think I started this one at $2.99. It went for $7.78 and PayPal just gobbled up 69 cents to process a credit card. I did get the "print mailing label" function to work this time--it never would when I had Symantec's Firewall in place. Postage came out the same as I weighed at the post office when I first packed the box, but the delivery confirmation costs less this way. So the 46 cents I saved on the confirmation helps offset the PayPal fee. SRS |
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Subject: RE: BS: Arrogant Americans on ebay From: Richard Bridge Date: 21 Mar 06 - 06:39 PM You can't get a premium PayPal account (so my German seller tells me) if you don't have a credit card. I'm still waiting for the 6 days for a think called an "Echeque" (not known to any banking law textbook I am aware of) to clear - then maybe I'll get the kick mic I eventually ebought. So tell me - if I pay by PayPal, how do I scam a seller? If, as I suspect, the answer is that I cannot, what is the seller's pretext for refusing to ship to ANY destination (including the mother country) outside the USA (other than the arrogance that no American of course except for governments and junior military types displays (much))? |
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Subject: RE: BS: Arrogant Americans on ebay From: Little Hawk Date: 21 Mar 06 - 06:50 PM One thing you can do, Stilly, is set a reserve price on what you are selling. If the bidding doesn't go that high, you don't lose a red cent, you just try and sell it again later. If it never sells for as much as you consider acceptable, well, then at least you have not taken a loss on the sale, and you're still got the item. I would tend to stay away from selling inexpensive items that are also heavy...it doesn't sound like a very practical notion when you work in the shipping charges. The items I buy and sell are not very heavy, accordingly the shipping charges are not so bad. No way I would try to sell and ship a used electric typewriter like someone mentioned! The shipping charge would be astronomical. |
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Subject: RE: BS: Arrogant Americans on ebay From: Richard Bridge Date: 21 Mar 06 - 06:52 PM You do lose from reserve: listing fees. |
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Subject: RE: BS: Arrogant Americans on ebay From: Little Hawk Date: 21 Mar 06 - 06:53 PM Okay. How much is the listing fee? |
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Subject: RE: BS: Arrogant Americans on ebay From: Little Hawk Date: 21 Mar 06 - 06:58 PM The other thing is to start an item off at a first bid price that you consider acceptable. True, it will not get as many bids. It may not sell at all. If not, you list it again, and try again. How about that for a method? |
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Subject: RE: BS: Arrogant Americans on ebay From: Scoville Date: 21 Mar 06 - 08:17 PM I don't normally sell heavy items but the typewriter was too good to just dump. Really. It had a memory, a little viewing screen, and was perfect for somebody who didn't quite need a computer. I was told it went to an elderly cancer patient. I don't know if that was true, although I can't imagine anyone would spend $70 on a 25-year-old obscure-brand typewriter and lie about it, but I hope it has a good home. Other than that, anything bigger than an average shipping box goes to Goodwill or gets sold to the used book people. Not worth the effort. I sold a large-ish painting once and the guy bitched at me because I had to charge him for the oversized box, and then couldn't mail it until Tuesday after the auction closed because it was over a federal holiday weekend. He had 1 feedback so I figured he was a newbie and told him how the eBay world worked, after which he apologized. Goober. Actually, I really don't care as long as you don't screw up my feedback. |
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Subject: RE: BS: Arrogant Americans on ebay From: Stilly River Sage Date: 21 Mar 06 - 09:24 PM LH, I'm not selling heavy stuff, and since these are paperback novels, I can send them media mail, which along with the postal library rate, is as inexpensive as it gets for mailing stuff. You do have to be sure it's packed well and taped up tight when it goes at this rate because it isn't the best treatment around. And on today's package she paid for insurance. This is my version of an online garage sale, though I'm not calling it that. I'm working on increasing my feedback score and I'm making a few dollars. I'm reading through the book descriptions and getting a nice overview of what my Dad was reading, though I don't have time myself to read most of them. Garage sales (in theory) tend to start with things priced at about 10% of the original price. These books probably don't make any more than that, but since I didn't pay anything for them (except to store them and lug them around the country along with everything else from both parents' estates) there isn't a loss on them that way. Though I'm not asking much for them, I don't want to just give them away because of the whittling down on income that eBay and PayPal do. SRs |
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Subject: RE: BS: Arrogant Americans on ebay From: open mike Date: 21 Mar 06 - 09:29 PM when i purchased a musical instrument from Sweden, i used an international money exchange program i did the transaction at my local bank teller travelex was the name of the company. I chose to have them send me a check which i then sent to the seller. they first wanted to send it to the bank, and i would have to come back there in a couple days to pick it up. I convinced them to send it to me as i am nearly an hour from the bank in town. this was one way to conduct international business. |
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Subject: RE: BS: Arrogant Americans on ebay From: SINSULL Date: 21 Mar 06 - 09:39 PM For those of you trying to get rid of stuff, FreeCycle is a godsend. BatGoddess put me on to it. This week I had a FAX machine picked up. Thursday, a couple is picking up a chair I was going to have to haul to the dump - a very large chair. |
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Subject: RE: BS: Arrogant Americans on ebay From: Little Hawk Date: 21 Mar 06 - 10:37 PM Here's another way to get rid of hard to dispose of items. Put them in an old purse or a cruddy old suitcase you don't need, preferably a locked one, and "accidentally" leave it sitting by the bus stop or the park bench in any major city for just a few minutes. It will usually disappear as if by magic! I heard about a man who got rid of his dead dog in this fashion, not wanting to pay a vet some outrageous fee to do it for him. (he lived in a highrise apartment, so he couldn't bury the dog in the back yard) A handy way to get rid of Jehovah's Witness books or something else unsaleable like that (the used bookstore won't take them...) is this: Drop them in a downtown mailbox. Where they go from there is hard to say, but you won't see them again. Don't do this too often at the same location, however, because the post office may become suspicious of your activities if you do. You can also drop them into the return slot at the public library, afterhours! I particularly love doing this with books that are simply 100% impossible to sell...but you don't want to just throw them out because that would be wasteful, and waste is immoral! ;-D |
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Subject: RE: BS: Arrogant Americans on ebay From: number 6 Date: 21 Mar 06 - 10:41 PM Stuff you want to get rid of .... here in the southern penninsula of Saint John, you just put it out on the curb ... goes in no time. sIx |
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Subject: RE: BS: Arrogant Americans on ebay From: Little Hawk Date: 21 Mar 06 - 10:43 PM Yeah. That can work too. But not with Jehovah's Witness books. |
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Subject: RE: BS: Arrogant Americans on ebay From: number 6 Date: 21 Mar 06 - 10:45 PM Yeah I know ... they'd take them, then be back knocking on your door the following Saturday handing you the books right back to ya. sIx |
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Subject: RE: BS: Arrogant Americans on ebay From: Little Hawk Date: 21 Mar 06 - 10:50 PM That's why I recommend the library afterhours slot. It's perfect. |
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Subject: RE: BS: Arrogant Americans on ebay From: number 6 Date: 21 Mar 06 - 10:55 PM I'll try that next time LH ... but I'm sure, some how, some way they will be back to haunt me with that book. sIx |
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Subject: RE: BS: Arrogant Americans on ebay From: Little Hawk Date: 22 Mar 06 - 09:15 AM Of course they'll be back. But at least you will have gotten rid of the book, and you'll have made a |
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Subject: RE: BS: Arrogant Americans on ebay From: Ebbie Date: 22 Mar 06 - 12:14 PM Stilly, your brown bear rug is probably valuable to collectors or to some nouveau-rich - is there some way you can reach them? Or perhaps an estate auction? There are magazines for enthusiasts too. |
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Subject: RE: BS: Arrogant Americans on ebay From: Becca72 Date: 22 Mar 06 - 01:22 PM I think the real problem here isn't arrogant Americans, but just simply that someone doesn't like to be told "No". Regardless of how many other American sellers have agreed when prompted further, it's up to the individual whether they will break their "US shipping only" rules and you just have to live with it. It would be one thing if the auction offered international shipping and then that offer was revoked. But if they've said right up front that they don't want to ship outside the US and they mean it, then I'm afraid you're SOL, my friend. |
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Subject: RE: BS: Arrogant Americans on ebay From: GUEST,Folkiedave - cookieless in Spain Date: 22 Mar 06 - 01:47 PM I have done a lot of transactions on Ebay with America and had very little in the way of problems. If you are buying (in my case often) a book - then ask if it will fit into a Global Priority Envelope which is $9.00 which I factor in when buying. These take as little as 3 and as many as 10 days to arrive. Rarely longer. I have also had large items shipped by sea. A set of Dover Child arrived in a US Mail bag (as sewn by prisoners in countless films) and took months, and for some reason came from California via Dover. But it arrived and I made the cost up selling the "Genuine US Mail Bag" on Ebay!! But don´t get me started on arrogant American tourists in the Alhambra in Granada......... |
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Subject: RE: BS: Arrogant Americans on ebay From: Scoville Date: 22 Mar 06 - 03:30 PM I have no qualms about recycling useless books for paper. Anything the used book guys won't take--and they'll take almost anything--gets the cover stripped off and goes off to the masher. |
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Subject: RE: BS: Arrogant Americans on ebay From: Richard Bridge Date: 22 Mar 06 - 05:14 PM I resent not so much the refusal (although I do not like it) as the apparent reasoning. If he had even said "Sorry, but..." it would have been better. I do not accept that England is to be aligned with the well known scam territories that afflict ebay. What would you make of someone who said "I don't sell to Jews"? Or - "all you foreigners are the same"? |
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Subject: RE: BS: Arrogant Americans on ebay From: SqueezeMe Date: 23 Mar 06 - 07:44 AM Hey, don't knock the Jehovah Witness books! Some of the older ones are fetching four figure prices from collectors! Anything pre-war (WWII that is) is well worth eBaying. Those mail sorters must be cleaning up! :-) MC |
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Subject: RE: BS: Arrogant Americans on ebay From: Mr Red Date: 23 Mar 06 - 07:52 AM If the guy has had bad experiences and his only income comes from Ebay then his attitude is understandable - if maybe brusque. I have to agree with Clinton - it is anarchy out there and impoliteness is not the worst that can happen. |
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Subject: RE: BS: Arrogant Americans on ebay From: Scoville Date: 23 Mar 06 - 05:07 PM What would you make of someone who said "I don't sell to Jews"? That is a false analogy and I resent the assumption that that is why so many American eBayers don't ship overseas. Did he explain to you later that he had been ripped off? I've never been ripped off but I would say that I've certainly "lost money" in terms of time and inconvenience when shipping overseas. Lost money isn't necessarily stolen money. If he's had items disappear or be destroyed in the mail, insurance claims can be a royal pain in the butt to process and it's sometimes hard to convince the buyer that you really did send the item, it just didn't get there. If he does this a lot, or, as a bunch of others have pointed out, as his main/a major part of his income, this adds up really fast. It's even worse if you ship lots of small items instead of a few big, expensive ones--endless trips to the PO because people want stuff shipped NOW and don't want to wait for your weekly Wednesday mail run. If that's all he said, I wouldn't be so quick to assume that he thought you were a crook. It might just be that he really had lost too much income shipping overseas. Bottom line is, it's his prerogative. Nobody is forcing eBayers in England to ship the the U.S., either. Old Jehovah's Witness books are worth something? Damn! I'll have to stop turning the dogs loose on them . . . |
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Subject: RE: BS: Arrogant Americans on ebay From: Little Hawk Date: 23 Mar 06 - 05:24 PM I see. So I need to keep the Jehovah's Witness books for about another 50 years and THEN cash in... Hmmm. Is it worth it? |
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Subject: RE: BS: Arrogant Americans on ebay From: SqueezeMe Date: 23 Mar 06 - 06:42 PM Probably not, but find the ones grandad and grandma forgot to put in the mail box or the library return shute and you could be in the money! Or better still, go knock on a few JW doors, tell them (nicely) that their modern books stink, but have they any older ones they can give you. Like, say, 50 years old.... Works for me. MC |
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Subject: RE: BS: Arrogant Americans on ebay From: Little Hawk Date: 23 Mar 06 - 07:38 PM Hot JW antique books! The next big black market item. |
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Subject: RE: BS: Arrogant Americans on ebay From: Stilly River Sage Date: 23 Mar 06 - 09:59 PM As a test I've switched my sales over to say I'll sell internationally, but they have to wait for my invoice so I can tell them how much the shipping will cost. I don't know if that will spoil the effect, but people who want to buy from overseas know things are going to be more expensive. I look at some of the precious objects for sale from China and know they have a scam going--the item is listed for $9 and the shipping is $160. Of course they want $160 for the item and the shipping is probably so slow that it only costs $9. But if someone gets in there and bids the item up they get something over the cost of shipping. This is pretty easy to sort out when you see that some shippers are quite reasonable from the same area. I ended up not selling to the guy from Italy because he couldn't bid since my ad said U.S. only. So that's why I've switched it for a while, to see what happens. If it is a headache, I'll stop shipping to the rest of the world. (For now I can't see a huge market for used American paperback mysteries in Asia or South America--I doubt I'm going to be troubled by much international postage). As to the bear rug--I've done some preliminary research. There are some sites that will occasionally buy rugs and resell them in their shops or magazines. I think if I did it on eBay I'd put in a reserve price and I'd run it for a long time (30 days) to give buyers a chance to discover it. This rug stays in the U.S. because to start shipping skins is more bother than I want to deal with. SRS |
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Subject: RE: BS: Arrogant Americans on ebay From: GUEST,Yogi Date: 23 Mar 06 - 11:57 PM are you sure the bear is actually dead, and not just forgot to wake up from long-term hibernation ? |
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Subject: RE: BS: Arrogant Americans on ebay From: SqueezeMe Date: 24 Mar 06 - 07:36 AM Hey, Little Hawk, before you take the mickey any more, check out the listings. Item # 7012345241 for instance. (Sorry, can't handle blue clickies). That's the only 4 figure sale recently, but there have been many others. Look at other recent prices too. (eBay search 'Jehovah') So get down to that mail centre and apply for a job! :-) And save me a place in the queue! MC |
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Subject: RE: BS: Arrogant Americans on ebay From: GUEST Date: 24 Mar 06 - 08:02 AM To Richard Bridge; Why not shop Ebay for some skin that is not so thin? |
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Subject: RE: BS: Arrogant Americans on ebay From: Janice in NJ Date: 24 Mar 06 - 08:29 AM I have bought United States silver half dollars (1807-1839) on eBay from dealers in the U.K. and Germany, and I have never had any problems with either eBay, Pay Pal, or the vendors themselves. The problems have been with the very high cost of registered air mail, and the U.S. Customs inspection fee. Even though the reimportation (repatriation) of U.S. coins is duty free, the Customs Service still charges an inspection fee whenever it handles an incoming parcel. What incoming items the Postal Service decides to send to Customs and which it doesn't is entirely a hit and miss affair. If the outside of the package has a label that says "Contents: U.S. silver coins," then it shouldn't be sent to Customs unless there is something suspicious. Since a label like that might as well say "Steal this package," it is absolutely necessary to have it shipped by registered mail. The dealer's commercial insurance will not cover coins shipped any other way. |
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Subject: RE: BS: Arrogant Americans on ebay From: Stilly River Sage Date: 24 Mar 06 - 10:37 AM Good ol' Catch-22 in the postal and inspection system. Here is that eBay Jehovah's Witness book link. They made a little more than the $2 asking price! Next to "History" click on "bids" and see how it ballooned. If you're selling something you rely on those new to eBay to drive the prices up in the days before the auction closes. I never like to show my hand, unless it is something that is so low and I can take or leave if I don't win it. Sometimes placing that one bid at the beginning will get it if no one else is interested, and you might forget to go back and put in the bid at the end. I've lost things a couple of times that way. SRS |
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Subject: RE: BS: Arrogant Americans on ebay From: Richard Bridge Date: 24 Mar 06 - 11:46 AM 100, thank you |
