Some answers about Ebay purchases :-)
[ B.O.Y.S.: Boys On Your Screen (The Message Board) ] Written by Hulann am 03 Apr 2001 23:41:33:
As an answer to: Some questions about Ebay purchases written by Sensitive Stephen am 03 Apr 2001 18:47:17:
Is it possible to buy/sell on Ebay using a pseudonym or a nickname? I realize that you need to actually send/receive by some real address, but there are always PO boxes and things like that you could use. But does the other person in the transaction need to know your real name? ----
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The answer to this is no the person who your buying from does not need to know your real name if you choose not to do so however ebay will require verification of user thru a credit card if you decide to use a Yahoo or Hotmail account as your e-mail contact. Some sellers will not send items to P.O. Boxes and they ussually say so in thier ads they run on ebay and all this means is you just find another seller to deal with. This does not mean you are totally free from being anonymous since a seller can request a user id contact request which would e-mail to you thier contact info as well when they get yours and what is revealed here is your name plus city and phone number. Ebay does require a real person to register but just so you know my ebay account is my roomates so my name is not associated with ebay at all.When someone sells a VHS movie on Ebay, are they obligated to only sell an original commercial copy, or does anyone sell copies of a commercially released VHS or even a copy made off of the air? Are there Ebay rules about this? Do sellers typically represent their goods fairly and accurately? -----------
Video, CD and any copywrite protected material are required to be geniune and not copies in order to be listed on ebay. In can happen from time to time a seller comes along and sells homemade copies but with a complaint to ebay from a few buyers these sellers are eventually forbidden from selling on ebay. Most sellers will describe thier items as acuratley as they can however some may leave out details or hide the defects well sort of like small print in a contract inorder to fetch a higher bid on an item. Honesty is what ebay is built on and as far as my experience goes many sellers underestimate to grading of item for fear of that negative feedback which is a whole subject all it's own to explain.
If you order something and feel you were burned (e.g., you get a copy of a tape that was probably from a rental store and at the point of wearing out), what are your options for refunds, returns, etc? ------
Most of the time you are left on your own to deal with the seller on items that are not up to standards and many sellers list retuen polices in thier ads. As a rule I try not to buy from sellers who say all sales final in thier listings but even if that was in the ad thier is still room to argue if the seller missrepresented that item to making it seem better than it really was. On extream cases of fraud you can get ebay services involved in solving disputes for a nominal fee but this is usually reserved for item of some value.
---I once had some D.J. lights that I bought as new items that arrived D.O.A. and had much problems with the seller that lasted with 6 weeks of frustrated e-mail exchanges until I involved ebay services to help me out. Then I was given a refund within two days after asking for help. Just to note that out of about 500 ebay transactions I have now done only a smal handfull (less than five have I either been ripped-off or not recieved item as described) for me one out of 99 is not a bad number considering that fraudulent sellers can and do exist on ebay even with a the things ebay uses to try and not allow fraud to happen on ebay.
I realize all these issues are probably addressed somewhere on the Ebay help system, but I'd rather hear it from people I trust who actually have used Ebay to boy, er, I mean buy and sell items. Any thoughts?
-----The choice is still yours to take part in ebay however I really doubt anyone confronting you with being a boylover based just by what you buy on ebay which I should warn you can be searched for by anyone on or off ebay once they know your ebay nick for a period of 30 days. this means anything I bought, sold or bidded on is a searchable record that anyone can see and keep track of so keeping your ebay nick seperate from bc dealings is a must. I have tagged a few potential bl's myself over the time on ebay and sit for hours tring to guess what bc nick I'm bidding against however thank godness for ebays new e-mail protection policies that allow only the High bidder and seller access to e-mail addresses. I'd hate to think I just outbid a bc friend for that autographed Billy Gilman CD :-P
Ebay for me has been fun a pretty much safe as long as I remember to protect my security as well as one should do on bc. I remember an expeirence of shouting out on bc my winning an certain item and recieving a n e-mail a short while later a letter from a bc friend pointing out I just potentially revealed my Roomates name address and our phone number simply because I have our internet store linked with my ebay nick :-(
I do hope to be a potential rival of yours someday as we go head to head unkowningly on an item we both want and neither one of us really know its Sensitive Steven Or Hulann bidding on that item. BTW Since bc has been down I have won bids on over 150 videos on ebay mostly videos featuring boys in them of course :-P --- But don't worry trying to track me down there are over 110,000 videos and over 30,000 dvd's listed on ebay today and more everyday to search for so happy hunting :-)
There can be much more to talk about and I invite you to e-mail anymore questions that might pop up if you so desire.
{{{{{{HUGZ}}}}}}}
Hulann