924Board.org

stevekat · Joined: 19 Jan 2008 Posts: 719 Location: Los Angeles, CA

Anyone similarly notice eBay is becoming unusable? For months things have been becoming progressively worse. Try searching for 924 or 924 Turbo/931 parts, and one has to wade through pages and pages of worthless headlights, wiper blades, radio antennas all with 40 duplicates and that are also compatible with Ford Vans and Volkswagens in order to find a few relevant pieces for our cars. Used to check things every day or two, now go there rarely and dread the experience.
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"Never get out of the boat. Absolutely goddamn right. Unless you are goin' all the way."

Gone to new home: '81 924T, US version, CGT Intercooler, UTCIS-PT, Euro DITC, Greddy Trust MBC, Forged Fuchs Flat Dish 6's, Factory Recaro's.

joecitizennn · Joined: 12 Sep 2005 Posts: 2096 Location: no mans land

ya. Repeditive ebay ads for the same product need to be banned. I would never buy a product from some a-hole who advertises it 20 times in a row.

Captain_Kirk · Joined: 17 Dec 2009 Posts: 243 Location: Colbert, WA

If you put a minus sign in front of a word, it takes it out of the search. So if you type in "Porsche 924" you get everything with those two words. But if you type in "Porsche 924 -xenon" it eliminates the auctions with the word xenon in them.
Here's my saved search and whenever I come across multiple posts of another item, I add it to the minus list.

porsche 924 -hid -xenon -rack -ad -hat -spec -sachs -lift -relay -projector -hitch

Right now at this moment, if you type in "Porsche 924" you get 7953 auctions. By using my saved search with all the minus words, I get 5446 so that eliminated 2500 auctions that I can do without.
Otherwise I get more specific, like type in "Porsche 924 shock" if looking for shocks only.
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1977 924na BlackSeaRD.com Torque Tube SuperBearings, Xenon air dam, 200# Weltmeister springs, Bursch header, 944 exhaust, Audi throttle body

Rich H · Posted: Sun Nov 14, 2010 8:33 am Post subject:

Driving me up the wall with the 'intelligent' searches
If I'm searching for 'Lotus Esprit' I'm not after Mercedes Esprit parts!

Just search for what I typed in FFS!!
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1994 Lotus Esprit S4 - Work in progress...
1980 Porsche 924 S2 DITC Turbo - Original spec
1978 Homo-Sapiens - Tired spec
1953 Landrover S1 - Pensioner Spec

D Hook · Joined: 02 Nov 2002 Posts: 3158 Location: Omaha, NE

We noticed this about 8-9 months ago. Drives me nuts. Have to get more specific in search I guess.

For awhile I was searching using "924 -dell" because Dell has a battery that uses that number and half the results would be for that battery. Now it doesn't help much.

Also, be sure you're searching in just "Ebay Motors" and not "All Categories".
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'80 924 n/a SOLD

Grenadiers · Posted: Sun Nov 14, 2010 9:04 am Post subject:

I skip ebay, and just buy whole cars sitting in fields waiting for their next victim~!
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'83 944 Track car.
'88 924S Track car.
'89 944 Turbo
2004 Winnebago Vectra monster RV
2012 Jeep Wrangler
2014 Kia Soul
2001 Ford F350 powerstroke

datatrain · Posted: Sun Nov 14, 2010 12:35 pm Post subject:

Actually what makes me crazy is the bid prices. When you bid, automatically you get an out bid message but you have not the slightest idea by how much. If I knew the current bid on an item I could at least increase it or pass without wasting my time.

I'm looking for a back up computer. There are thousands of listings. It seems as they all have preset bids. A 20 dollar item is far form 20 bucks. It sucks !!
_________________
'78 924 NA with Collector plate
33 year old car, with me for 21 yrs
Mint '92 318i BMW
Near mint '98 Buick LeSabre
VE7HFR

gohim · Joined: 02 Nov 2002 Posts: 4459 Location: Rialto, CA

eBay calls this "feature" an enhancement. If you haven't noticed, most Private Sellers have been removed, and Commercial Sellers are paying nothing or very little to Spam their ads, because in many cases the large Sellers only pay when they sell something.

Kinda like a consignment bazaar now.

I lost interest in buying and selling on eBay almost three years ago, after being a pretty involved for over ten years. Then I got kicked off for refusing to sell some computer hardware to some Buyers who invented fake US Addresses to join US eBay (actual shipping addresses located in New Zealand, Israel, Germany, and (3) in Canada).

datatrain · Posted: Sun Nov 14, 2010 12:40 pm Post subject:

No... yu must be in error. Canadians are far too nice to do that....LOL
_________________
'78 924 NA with Collector plate
33 year old car, with me for 21 yrs
Mint '92 318i BMW
Near mint '98 Buick LeSabre
VE7HFR

mikebola · Joined: 07 Sep 2009 Posts: 361 Location: Parkside, PA

I don't know about everyone else, but my main gripe about ebay is that a good percentage of the sellers try to rip you off. In the past year, I had to pursue 6 refunds due to something failing, receiving the wrong item, or only half the order came in. I only made 18 or 20 purchases.
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proud owner of a 1979 924 Sebring Edition with a 931 trans that looks horrible but somehow runs...

Martijnus · Joined: 29 Dec 2006 Posts: 2019 Location: Netherlands

datatrain · Posted: Mon Nov 15, 2010 4:53 am Post subject:

I disagree completely. If you watch auctions you know to the penny how much the current bid is.

Watch Barrett Jackson auctions and you'll see the bidders discussing with their wives, freinds and floor managers what to bid or even if they should bid again.

That's how it should be !
_________________
'78 924 NA with Collector plate
33 year old car, with me for 21 yrs
Mint '92 318i BMW
Near mint '98 Buick LeSabre
VE7HFR

gohim · Joined: 02 Nov 2002 Posts: 4459 Location: Rialto, CA

There are both Dishonest Buyers and Dishonest Sellers on eBay. You gotta remember that eBay has technically earned it's fees from the Seller once an auction is over, whether the auction is completed or not.

And Sellers are not able to leave Negative FeedBack for Buyers. What's almost wore is that in certain "what eBay deems as risky categories" the money collected by PayPal is not tranferred to the Seller until after up to six months or after the Buyer issues Positive FeedBack. Meaning that as the Seller of computer items I would have been subject to have all of the money that's been paid to me (including shipping charges) held by PayPal (no interest paid) for up to six months after the action is over the the Buyer has the item. Lots of Buyer never issue Feedback, either positive or negative, so I would have been screwed for six months at a time. I was running up to 100 auctions a week, and paying up to $500 a week in shipping charges. If I had stayed involved in selling heavily, I would been handing eBay up to $2000 a month from covering the shipping charges on items sold and ship, for up to six months at a time. I figured after six months, PalPay would have been holding about $50K belonging to my business, and the amount would hold steady after about six months. That's a $50K interest free loan to PayPal, and I was a relatively small eBay Seller. I would have had to take out a loan for $50K, and paid interest on the money that PayPal was holding while getting no Interest on the money myself.

And a times, up to half of my auctions were being ruined by Nigerian Scammers and DeadBeat Buyers. I had a number of laptops that I was selling for parts (figured $50-$75 final auction price) being bid up to $5,000-$10,000 by the Nigerian Scammers. And, eBay charged me for their Fees at the end of each auction, even though I informed them the auctions had been ruined by Scammers, and that I was never going to get a penny.

datatrain · Posted: Tue Nov 16, 2010 2:16 am Post subject:

I had no idea Ebay was now operating in this manner. It's discouraging to be a seller now. But I guess it's more profitable to cater to the big guys.
_________________
'78 924 NA with Collector plate
33 year old car, with me for 21 yrs
Mint '92 318i BMW
Near mint '98 Buick LeSabre
VE7HFR

emoore924 · Joined: 13 Apr 2004 Posts: 2822

A couple of thoughts that might help out.

If you don't want to see something in your search, you can say -I -dont -want -to -see -this, or you can say -(I,dont,want,to,see,this). Same thing, different syntax -- the parens are a little easier to manage IMHO, but use what works for you.

Also, eBay bidding format is kind of better for the buyer, not necessarily the seller. Here's why:

As a buyer, you bid the amount you *would* pay for something, say $50. You only ACTUALLY pay a little more than the amount the next lowest bidder would pay, usually a buck or so.

So if you're willing to buy something for $50, and you bid $50, and the next lowest bidder is only willing pay $21 and bids $21, you pay $22, not $50. So that's better for you as a buyer and the same as an in-person auction lilke barrett. You only pay a little more than the next highest bidder is willing to pay.

In contrast, a sealed-bid (or "Dutch"?) auction works in favor of the seller because he/she is able to maximize what someone will pay. In the former example, the two bidders would place their bids in an envelope, then the envelopes would be opened and the $50 bid would win, thereby making an extra $28 for the seller.

I agree ebay is pretty cr*pped up for both private sellers (I was one) and private buyers looking for them. Too much noise in the pipeline.

Off to Pelican or CL (using searchtempest, of course) for me...