eBay, and Why It Sucks.
Not because of service charges, or anti-porn policies, or an uneven stance on copyright/trademark enforcement, or the fact that it and PayPal are one and the same and PayPal has its own varieties of suck to choose from. These are all contributing factors. But not the main reason. Which is to say, the thing that's got me all perturbed right at this moment.
It's because people can use it without being trained to recognize certain situations and what they mean. Stupid people are on eBay, in other words.
Case in point: I was looking for some ink cartridges for one of my printers. Sometimes you can find deals on eBay better than from any other online outlet like Amazon or the rest. So I did a search for my cartridge type, and scanned the list. A series of listings of seemingly identical type came up - all of the same price, using the same picture, the same seller ID. A business selling multiple sets of the same ink cartridges, right? That would be a reasonable assumption.
Normally - and especially when the item is something fairly common and available elsewhere - I HATE the entire bid/wait/re-bid/wait/ohshiti'mbeingoutbidatthelastsecondrebid process. Just hate it. I want my stuff, I want it now, I don't want to freaking fight people for it. I only tolerate it for a really good deal or a rare item. (Not to mention that my job schedule means that most auctions end when I'm sleeping or at work, so even if I wanted to have a bid war, the timing blows.) So of all these identical listings, I should have picked the one single listing that had a "buy it now" tag, right? Well, that was my stupidity for the night - I didn't. None of these listings had bids. I didn't think they were in huge demand. So I just chose the one ending soonest and made a bid on the exact price listed. It was going to be a few hours, I wouldn't have to pay immediately, no biggie.
This morning, come to find out that my own stupidity has been outbid. Someone has decided to pay more for the cartridges than me.
Now, think about that. I know there's sometimes people who have mule accounts that try to heat up a bidding war to drive up the selling price of an item. There's a risk to that, in that sometimes the bidder you're trying to squeeze extra dollars out of will just give up and leave your mule holding your unsold item.
But let's assume for the hell of it that this is an honest bidder. I looked at the bid listing, and "2***1" only has 7 bids - probably not very experienced.
So that person probably had to do the same kind of search as I did to find the same listing of compatible items, and the same string of duplicate listings. Of all those, they chose the one I was bidding on to settle on. They also passed up on the Buy It Now auction. I rechecked - none of the other listings have bids, so it's not like they're just buying everything of this type. Why? What sense does that make?
The only thing I can think of that makes any sense is that they wanted a listing ending soon because they needed the ink ASAP. But still, that doesn't make any sense with the Buy It Now auction providing instant gratification.
If it isn't mules, and there's no logical reason to outbid me when other auctions have the item at the same price, then the only remaining possibilities are oblivious stupidity, or perhaps some sort of maliciousness. "Hey, let's outbid that guy just to screw with his day!" I wouldn't put it past someone to be that petty and mean. But in any case, this person has just added a whole dollar onto the price of an item that wasn't there before, when simply thinking about the bid a little would have kept the price at its original listing. Congratulations, eBay moron, you are paying your stupidity tax.
I just watched the auction end, no other last-minute bids. So what was the point?
And that's why I hate eBay today. For the morons.
It's because people can use it without being trained to recognize certain situations and what they mean. Stupid people are on eBay, in other words.
Case in point: I was looking for some ink cartridges for one of my printers. Sometimes you can find deals on eBay better than from any other online outlet like Amazon or the rest. So I did a search for my cartridge type, and scanned the list. A series of listings of seemingly identical type came up - all of the same price, using the same picture, the same seller ID. A business selling multiple sets of the same ink cartridges, right? That would be a reasonable assumption.
Normally - and especially when the item is something fairly common and available elsewhere - I HATE the entire bid/wait/re-bid/wait/ohshiti'mbeingoutbidatthelastsecondrebid process. Just hate it. I want my stuff, I want it now, I don't want to freaking fight people for it. I only tolerate it for a really good deal or a rare item. (Not to mention that my job schedule means that most auctions end when I'm sleeping or at work, so even if I wanted to have a bid war, the timing blows.) So of all these identical listings, I should have picked the one single listing that had a "buy it now" tag, right? Well, that was my stupidity for the night - I didn't. None of these listings had bids. I didn't think they were in huge demand. So I just chose the one ending soonest and made a bid on the exact price listed. It was going to be a few hours, I wouldn't have to pay immediately, no biggie.
This morning, come to find out that my own stupidity has been outbid. Someone has decided to pay more for the cartridges than me.
Now, think about that. I know there's sometimes people who have mule accounts that try to heat up a bidding war to drive up the selling price of an item. There's a risk to that, in that sometimes the bidder you're trying to squeeze extra dollars out of will just give up and leave your mule holding your unsold item.
But let's assume for the hell of it that this is an honest bidder. I looked at the bid listing, and "2***1" only has 7 bids - probably not very experienced.
So that person probably had to do the same kind of search as I did to find the same listing of compatible items, and the same string of duplicate listings. Of all those, they chose the one I was bidding on to settle on. They also passed up on the Buy It Now auction. I rechecked - none of the other listings have bids, so it's not like they're just buying everything of this type. Why? What sense does that make?
The only thing I can think of that makes any sense is that they wanted a listing ending soon because they needed the ink ASAP. But still, that doesn't make any sense with the Buy It Now auction providing instant gratification.
If it isn't mules, and there's no logical reason to outbid me when other auctions have the item at the same price, then the only remaining possibilities are oblivious stupidity, or perhaps some sort of maliciousness. "Hey, let's outbid that guy just to screw with his day!" I wouldn't put it past someone to be that petty and mean. But in any case, this person has just added a whole dollar onto the price of an item that wasn't there before, when simply thinking about the bid a little would have kept the price at its original listing. Congratulations, eBay moron, you are paying your stupidity tax.
I just watched the auction end, no other last-minute bids. So what was the point?
And that's why I hate eBay today. For the morons.