'Buying' from Ebay...

[TomWilko]

...I have been on the lookout for new watches and i was having a quick look on Ebay and it shocks me at how much it appears you can save on the RRP price. I am looking in particular for a Seiko watch and ones that £150 + in the high street are far far less, normally under £100!!

Has anyone had any experience with these, I presume they are imported...and if so, what are the imports like from places like Hong Kong [not just watches i am talking about here]

Before i put any bids in i want to make sure what i am getting is up to the standard i could expect over here.

Thanks

Tom

[TomWilko]

Please ignore this thread, i already decided Ebay would be a bad idea for such large transactions

[steve threlfall]

Be careful mate. It would be very easy to get ripped off over a watch. I like to see what im buying in person, especially when it comes to watches. You may get sold a knock off.

edit smart choice

[MD]

I caught my sister trying to sell a £1,200 watch she bought, she decided to sell it over eBay and someone contacted her after it was closed without a winner, they offered £750 for the watch and she accepted except the person was in Spain and wanted to sell escrow, anyway I get a call from my sister asking to arrange a delivery to Spain, I asked why and then said I was not happy about this as the escrow company was one I had never heard of, anyway, I went over to her without her knowing and withing 3 minutes had seen the mails did some digging and found she was about to be ripped off. So when they emailed while I was there I wrote a reply saying I knew it was a fraud and that I would be reporting them, within 30 seconds my sisters hotmail account mailbox was emptied and everything was gone. It became apparent my sister had to sign up for said escrow site, this was run by the fraudsters and she had stupidly used the same password as she does for other accounts when she signed up on the 'escrow' site, basically they had had access to her mail all week and had it not been for me my sister would have lost alot more than a watch.

safe to say I got uber amounts of brownie points and a nice birthday present


be careful on eBay, be almost ruthless with yourself and you will be fine, beleive its oo good to be true? it probably is.....

m@

[bertie]

Have to say I wouldn't agree with the comments above - scams although common are easy to spot and there are a LOT of bargains to be had on ebay - seller feedback is a great help.
I find it quite funny that you're immediately suspicious of anything cheaper than a set high street price - no wonder companies get away with selling their overpriced wares here!

If the item is from hong kong, find out the model numbers and compare, or ask the seller for any clarification you may need

[silent ben]

I caught my sister trying to sell a £1,200 watch she bought, she decided to sell it over eBay and someone contacted her after it was closed without a winner, they offered £750 for the watch and she accepted except the person was in Spain and wanted to sell escrow

Same thing almost happened to me when i was trying to buy G4 powerbooks, i did a whois on the escrow site and found it was registered to a hotmail addy. i got contacted 2 months later after posting my experience on a forum by a guy who had paid £3k and lost it all. Long as the person has a rating over 50 if they're in a foreign country, they can be trusted i feel.

I've brought headphones from germany, and got then for 80% of the retail price, an ipod from america and saved £40 after postage and vinyl records from holland all without hitches. Long as you check the seller out, it will be ok.

Ben

[ACiD303]

I buy a lot from ebay, it's usually my first source of whatever I need to buy . . . the watch I had my eyes on RRP was £80, I bought the watch for €5.00 (from germany) + P&P, had no baterry and was used (which suited me perfectly coz I dont like wearing new-looking things anyway) . . . I replaced the strap with my old watche's and the battery (sent it away to keep the seal) and whoopah, total spent <£20

HK items can be dodgy (land of fakes), but some things are genuine . . . I bought a metal Gundam which rrp cost £120 here, the exact same thing cost me <£30 inc p&p from HK.

Likewise, alot of clothing I also buy from ebay, alot of stuff you dont normally see in the high street (even when you do, it's still cheaper on ebay) and before I used to spend £40-£60 on jeans, now I spend between £8 - £20 inc p&p for something I like even more than stuff I see in the high streets.

[TomWilko]

Same thing almost happened to me when i was trying to buy G4 powerbooks, i did a whois on the escrow site and found it was registered to a hotmail addy. i got contacted 2 months later after posting my experience on a forum by a guy who had paid £3k and lost it all. Long as the person has a rating over 50 if they're in a foreign country, they can be trusted i feel.

I've brought headphones from germany, and got then for 80% of the retail price, an ipod from america and saved £40 after postage and vinyl records from holland all without hitches. Long as you check the seller out, it will be ok.

Ben

With these items though it is almost impossible to fake...wheras a Seiko watch [what i am after] could prolly be forged ten a penny, and seeing as I have never owned an 'expensive' watch before I could probably be fooled into thinking something was genuine when its actually fake quite easily.

[silent ben]

With these items though it is almost impossible to fake

Not fake, just might be ripped off.

Ben

[khizman]

yeah, you gotta be really careful when either buying or selling on ebay since there are alot of dodgy ppl around

[Atomic]

Only if you buy from people with low feedback, if you stick to the longterm sellers (1000+ positive feedback) you'll be ok really.

I've bought loads of stuff and am yet to get ripped off, you just gotta be sensible.

[Ceefer]

Even sellers with decent positive feedback numbers need to be checked carefully, because of account hijacking. I was ripped off last year when I tried to buy a copy of Windows XP from a seller with 300+ positive feedback. Needless to say my cheque was cashed but the software never arrived. The seller had 'hijacked' another Ebay user's account, posted hundreds of items for sale (including laptops at £1000 - £1500) then did a runner after collecting an estimated £40,000. I was one of the luckier ones as I got most of the money back through Ebay's fraud protection system which only covers you for something like £115 or so.

So, be careful. Look closely at the feedback. If the seller is offering a laptop for sale and all the previous sales have been say, cuddly toys, then be very suspicious!