Pet Peeves On Ebay

We all like to complain (at least I think we do)
Everyone has a pet peeve about ebay. Many of us buy stamps there. Some of us sell. Let's face it, there's always something that bugs us about sellers (I always try to be fair when selling, but then I'm perfect )
I was wondering what bugged everyone the most. Share the most annoying thing you find with ebay sellers. Don't get personal, no names.
And you only get one peeve. I'll start.
Last night I found an item that I just HAD to have. But the seller, located in the US, lists only shipping costs to the US, even though he/she ships internationally. I have to contact the seller to get charges (they haven't responded yet I take that back, response was good).
Often when I come across this there are just hours left in the auction, so time is of the essence. And more often than not, the charges are very reasonable. But I don't want to get surprised with a $50 shipping charge on a single stamp that's just across town.
So that's what bugs me. How about you?
And if this topic has appeared before, my apologies. I look and did not see.

The current thing that gets me suspicious and cheesed off - ebay stamp images that are tiny, click the 'enlarge' icon and no change. First thing it tells me is that the Seller is inexperienced or something(fault) is being hidden.

Past experience has shown if a Seller won't show a large obverse and reverse image, one takes a RISK bidding. (unknown sellers)

Do you recognize these ebay seller profiles?

The Rip-Off Artist: He lists items at higher than catalog value, which do not warrant it in the least, and if you make a reasonable offer, he prohibits you from ever making another offer again.

The Lazy Fisherman: Offers items at twice their value and you can only Buy it Now.

The Crafty Fisherman: Offers items at twice catalog as Buy it Now but will let you make an offer for half of the offered price (full catalog value).

The Crafty Newbie: Offers many cheap items with free shipping, often losing money with many of the purchases, just to pad his positive rating.

The Careless Newbie: Offers nice items, not properly described starting at low bid and free shipping.

Oh, there are others, but that is the basic set.

#1. Overpricing. Selling items at way above market price because it is "rare" in someones mind, as uninformed as it is.
#2. Overcharging for postage and "handling". You purchase a stamp, P&H should cost no more than 44 cents plus 6 cents for the envelope.(period)
#3. Most ship quickly, some wait till once a week or once every other week to ship. Just deal with it and go to the darned PO and mail it already.

I wish there was a "non-preferred seller" forum someplace, so one could actually put ones complaints down for all to see.

My personal peeve is sellers that only give the option for 1st class mail and then wait 3 or 4 days to get it in the post.... What's the point????!!

But really I have had mostly good experiences on ebay.

Overcharging for shipping. I cannot count the number of times I didn't bid because the shipping charges were $50, $60, even $75 for an item (Usually originating in the UK)

When listing US stamps on ebay.com (US listings) using catalogue numbers from catalogues other than Scott. If listing on another ebay site (Ebay.de, ebay.com, and so on) I have no problem with using Michel, SG, or whatever. Want to sell your item in the US? Use a US-based catalogue!

Brian

My biggest pet peeve is the way ebay's stamp categories differ across its various platforms.

I collect Germany pre-1945, so I frequent ebay.de as often as I do ebay.com. Despite the language barrier, it's considerably easier to find what I'm looking for on the German site because of the way ebay categorizes things on ebay.de. For example...

Let's say I'm working on my German East Africa collection. On the German ebay, I can go to Germany--Germany up to 1945--German Colonies and Offices--German East Africa, so every listing I see is German East Africa.

On the US site, I can only go to Germany and Area. I then have to keyword search for just German East Africa, which causes me to miss the occasional good lot. Not to mention the pain of having to sort through tens of thousands of DDR and BRD lots.

I think I know why they do it, but that doesn't make it any easier.

I have to differ slightly with this opinion. If a seller of Germany knows the Michel number, I would prefer they use that number in addition to the whatever the regional catalog preference is (Scott in the US, SG in the UK, etc.) If only because, as a specialized Germany collector, I live and die with Michel. I don't know Scott numbers, and if I'm not sitting in my office at home, I don't always have the ability to translate Scott into Michel.

Pet Peeves

1. Quoting full Catalog value in the description for an item with either missing Perfs, clipped corners, etc. Quoting a MNH price for an item with no gum.
2. UK Shippers charging 2.5 British Pounds for shipping 1 Stamp which from the us to the UK is .98 cents.

I have always believed that there should be no barriers of class, creed or race in Philately. And to that end I have always happily dealt with fellow collectors in Other Middle East countries, Pakistan and even Afghanistan. I have had many nice exchanges with collectors in the Palestinian Territories [Palestine to me] and have some nice [and scarce] postally used covers with P.A. stamps affixed.

So my biggest pet peeve on ebay and other auctions, are sellers who won't send to Israel [only]. There are many and not only from Arab Nations, also from the USA and UK. Politics should not enter our hobby in this way but sadly they do.

Londonbus1

For any auction site, not just ebay, when a seller has a bunch of cheaper stamps and charges $1.00 shipping PLUS a nominal amount, say 30c, for EACH OTHER ITEM! So if you buy 10 items, you end up paying $3.70 postage for something that fits in a basic first class envelope.

1) The Nigerien stamp scam... as a newby I bought a beautiful souvenir sheet only to find it was listed in Scott's as a fraudulent stamp. If the seller had been upfront about what it really was, I might have bought as a nice cinderella. I felt a little sick about inadvertenly supporting fraud but I'm still keeping it in my "lessons learned" pile.
2) Inflated shipping
3) Feedback catch-22. This goes with #1 - As an occasional buyer/seller, if I give legitimate negative feedback to a power seller, it barely affects his feedback score. If he dings me back, of course, it has a significant impact on my score.

In this case, I was trying to make a commentary about US stamps being sold into the US market only, but in reality, I feel this way about world-wide stamps being sold into the US market.

Differences in catalogue numbers aside, there is a potential language barrier, a fluctuating currency market, and the simple fact I may or may not have the appropriate catalogue. Flipping the situation, were I to list a stamp for sale on ebay.de, it would be silly of me to use a Scott catalogue number for the stamp.

I like the Michel catalogues a lot, and am starting to become acquainted with them. Scott has a really ugly numbering system for Germany stamps, but it's what I was raised on. Eventually I will learn what the equivalent of Scott 9NBx is in Michel (Berlin Semi-postal).

JamesW, a good question, and I think well answered from all the replies.
My gripes have been stated above, mainly postage, you buy a few lots from the same person, but they do not combine and reduce the cost until you have a go at them.
In terms of costs I was buying from New Zealand for a while, and I found that quite reasonable. I have bought stamps from the US and Canada, for what I thought was reasonable postage costs too.
And (I know you said only one) (but again as above) trying to sell damaged stamps as though they were perfect! Quoting catalogue values etc that are meaningless for stamps in that condition.
When it comes to catalogues I admit I am blinkered, I have SG and other books that usually quote SG. I have not seen a Michel catalogue for a few years now and I have never seen a Scott, so apologies to all those who in turn use these. Though I do have a NZ Campbell Patterson!

I spent some lazy time this weekend after a busy week at work searching around for something to add to my Exhibition collection.
I was at various sites but did not find too much.
What I did find was on ebay and each item I found something, I was barred from bidding.
"The seller doesn't send to Israel".

It's becoming commonplace now and is truly frustrating.
I have written to some of the sellers as they are not all 'Israel only' and asked them to change their settings. No replies yet.

Londonbus1....needs to start a new collection !

Londonbus1

If they won't ship to Israel, why would you want to buy from them!! But anyway, judging from your english, you are not a Sabra. Have you no relatives who can accept shipments for you?