Comments on: Nothing Aberrant in These Prices

By: Gregory the Fish

Gregory the Fish — Fri, 23 Sep 2016 17:20:14 +0000

rich: honestly, i just assumed others understood the policy. it is spelled out on ebay if you look for it. perhaps i should be more careful. i did straight-up catch a guy one time pulling a switcheroo. i pointed out how i knew and he got really, really defensive and angry.

bill w: the seller is hoping you won’t got to all that trouble and they will be able to give a partial refund and still make a killing on a fucked record. i NEVER accept anything but a full refund or a full refund with returns if shipping is paid both ways by the SELLER.

By: Bill W.

Bill W. — Fri, 23 Sep 2016 01:30:50 +0000

I’ve been slightly undergrading my lps and it works out fine, plus you get great feedback. Unfortunately I’ve purchased a few recently that were way overgraded. One was graded E+ with “beautiful fidelity”. I was shocked when I saw the condition, plus the sound was awful. I would have graded it a G with a detailed explanation. Yeah, the guy gave me a refund, but why not just grade it properly in the first place?

By: Smitty

Smitty — Thu, 22 Sep 2016 18:50:59 +0000

Can’t say for certain that marking “no returns” wards off scammers. I will say that it hasn’t hurt my sales at all. I think most long time sellers with good feedback are reasonable people that will be more than happy to work with their customers if there is an issue. I have been on both sides of that equation and it usually works out fine in the end. But there are always exceptions…..

By: Rich DG Mono

Rich DG Mono — Thu, 22 Sep 2016 18:39:21 +0000

Well if marking ‘no returns’ is scaring off scammers, I guess that’s a good thing…maybe it does. With that, I think you potentially lose honest buyers for the reasons I mentioned above. But I guess I shouldn’t assume ‘no returns’ means ‘I will raise hell if you don’t agree with my grading’.

By: Rich DG Mono

Rich DG Mono — Thu, 22 Sep 2016 17:41:11 +0000

For what it’s worth, Greg, I offer returns and in all my years selling records on eBay I have never had someone return a record for any reason other than the described or actual condition not aligning with their expectations. So from my experience, indicating that you offer returns should not open the floodgates to superfluous returns.

But Greg, if you mark “seller does not accept returns”, how can you expect all potential buyers to understand that what that really means is, “I will accept a return if we don’t agree on the grading or if I made a mistake, but otherwise I don’t accept returns.” Surely there’s sellers out there who really mean “If you have a problem with my grading you will need to take it up with eBay” when they indicate that they do not accept returns (which I feel is a rather unpleasant way to enter into a business transaction), so how do you except honest potential buyers of yours to distinguish you from those other mistrusting sellers? I imagine you have an explanation of your return policy included in each listing.

By: Smitty

Smitty — Thu, 22 Sep 2016 17:35:00 +0000

As a regular seller of records on Ebay, “No Returns” is not enforceable. I advertise my listings as No Returns to try and scare off scammers. There are several unscrupulous buyers out there looking to game the system unfortunately. I’ve been selling on Ebay since 1999 and have run into several of them. Unfortunately there is little recourse for the seller. However, if there is a legitimate issue, I always try to make good. On a side note…..Brian Anderson: hope you enjoy your new records!

By: Gregory the Fish

Gregory the Fish — Thu, 22 Sep 2016 17:07:57 +0000

a return is not the same as “item not as described”. a return is when you return it simply because you have changed your mind or for some reason that is not the seller’s fault.

i don’t offer returns because i sell so little that it would kill my bottom line for people to send a record back because their wife got mad at them or something. but if someone has a grading problem or if they point out a flaw that i missed, i ALWAYS take it back and pay shipping. secretly, i have a subtle system for detecting switcheroos, and i caught a guy doing it once. he got banned from ebay and i got to keep his money AND got my record back. haha.

By: DaveS

DaveS — Thu, 22 Sep 2016 15:25:16 +0000

Having just finished selling off a couple of hundred records on eBay, it is tough to keep everyone happy. The buyer has the preponderance of the doubt on eBay and some buyers take advantage of that with threatening negative feedback unless you acquiesce to their demands for deep discounts after they bought the record. I think some buyers are also hoping that when a record says VG+, it is secretly NM- and they return it at the sellers expense if it is not. Worst situation is that some international buyers use US/domestic shipping services. I sent the records to a US PO Box and a company packages up lots of smaller shipments for transport to say Japan. Eventually it makes it way to the buyer who inspects it. If they are not happy for whatever reason, they won’t pay to return it and then give negative feedback unless you cut the price in half. The way eBay does feedback is that so long as the buyer pays, the seller cannot give negative feedback even in the case of post sale blackmail.

I have to admire some of these big sellers like bobdjudak. He must be bending over backwards to keep his 100% rating.

By: Rich DG Mono

Rich DG Mono — Thu, 22 Sep 2016 13:54:03 +0000

Exactly, Richard, which makes it even more of a turn-off when a seller doesn’t offer returns. If eBay is going to force them to accept the return anyway, why then do they still write ‘seller does not offer returns’? Because in many instances, they probably don’t trust their customers, which is probably in some cases a reflection of the fact that the seller themselves shouldn’t be trusted.

I’m not at all into how the collector world is built up on a foundation of mistrust and no one giving anyone the benefit of the doubt. You put a little faith in the world, the world puts a little faith in you, that’s how I operate.

By: Richard

Richard — Thu, 22 Sep 2016 08:22:52 +0000

I’m pretty sure “no returns” isn’t enforceable. If the item is “Not As Described”, Ebay will always ask you to return the item for a refund (probably minus return postage costs). The problem is, if you’ve bought from a different continent, you’re going to lose $20 plus due to the cost of return.

Some sellers are good, in that they’ll let you keep the record and refund – this is obviously only for cheap items.