Yes, I'm calling you a liar.

[An Haddock]

This JUST happened not five minutes ago.

Old guy - late 70's I guess - wanders in the door.

First asks what we charge for Ebay selling and what we sell. (we're about the only place left in a 20 minute radius that still offers the service for people - you can't make a living running an Ebay store any more) - give him the details, etc.

Then we have this conversation:

OM - Old man
Me - stressed out computer geek

OM - I had come in a couple of years ago to get something fixed and they told me it would be over $200 so I took it somewhere else and they fixed it for pennies.

ME - That's unusual... it's usually the opposite here.

OM - Are you saying I'm lying?

ME - (dude, really?) No... we're usually cheaper than anyone else in the area. It's unusual someone else would be cheaper. What was the problem with the computer?

OM - I don't remember... it was a couple of years ago.

ME - (yeah sure) Were you looking into getting a hard drive cloned?

(I thought it might have been the old guy from this story but if my goldfish-like memory serves correctly, it didn't look like him)

OM - No, I can't remember what it was for.

(slowly wanders to the door)

ME - Well, thanks for stopping by.


Seriously. We ARE the cheapest place in the area. Unless we SEVERELY mis-diagnosed someone's problem, I can't see how he'd end up paying "pennies" to fix a computer problem. And if we HAD mis-diagnosed him, call me up and tell me so. It won't offend me. If anything it helps us to become better technicians.

Whatever. Most of our customers aren't miserable old farts. Maybe I should have said "Yes, I'm calling you a liar because I don't want your pennies."

I'm too nice.

[mhkohne]

First asks what we charge for Ebay selling and what we sell. (we're about the only place left in a 20 minute radius that still offers the service for people - you can't make a living running an Ebay store any more) - give him the details, etc.

Ok, now I'm curious - how much do you charge? And why can't one make money? I noticed the demise of the local sell-on-ebay place, but I never knew if it was fee changes or what that got them.

[Arcus]

I used to make a living off of eBay after I got laid off a little over a year ago. I stopped because my sales dropped to the point that I couldn't make it anymore. I went from making $2000+ a month to about $400 in December.

eBay has taken "the customers is always right" to a new extreme. They will always side with a buyer and will refund money even when it's clear that the buyer is ripping off the seller. The end of auction fees keep going up (even take a percentage from the money paid for shipping.) Add this to how they are always running insertion fee discounts on large number of listings (that only the largest sellers can take advantage of) that is clogging up the listings so the small sellers never get seen. More and more good buyers are getting tired of trying to find the few good items mixed in with all the cheap, low quality knock off garbage and are leaving.

[evilhomer]

What was he even trying to prove? Sometime, somewhere, somehow, you said something and sometime, somewhere else, someone said something else. Yeah, let's be a little more vague here because you know, I have a full recall of all something's from sometime ago. It's certainly feasible that someone else could have been cheaper (however unlikely), but with no details, there's nothing you can do to help the guy.

I guess he was just in the area and finally got around to telling you off.

[earl colby pottinger]

Liar

I am ready to call him a liar to his face.

In the years I spend as a computer service was free for a real minor thing like you plugged the power plug in upside-down (don`t ask) or it was the min charge $15.00 plus taxes (This Canada after-all).

Why charge pennies, the paper work costs more.

And if he is using it as a term for low cost, I refuse to accept terms that cheapen my work.

[CrazedClerkthe2nd]

I'd bet anything "somewhere else" either means some very shady, hole in the wall computer shop or he had his grandson/some high school kid "fix" it for $20.

[Jay 2K Winger]

I seem to recall that the Almighty Gord had a response to someone who tried to claim that another business offered a better deal. Simply put, He told them to go to that other business and take that deal. It always seemed to get them to backpedal when He wouldn't try to match the price/deal.

[An Haddock]

I seem to recall that the Almighty Gord had a response to someone who tried to claim that another business offered a better deal. Simply put, He told them to go to that other business and take that deal. It always seemed to get them to backpedal when He wouldn't try to match the price/deal.

Yes, Gord had a bunch of folks try that.

"But I went somewhere else and they said they'd give me $100 trade-in for my crappy Playstation!"

"I'll give you twenty bucks."

"But they said they'd give me a hundred!"

"Then I encourage you to go back to this hypothetical location and take them up on their offer."

"...um..."

"Door's to your left."

[Irving Patrick Freleigh]

Ok, now I'm curious - how much do you charge? And why can't one make money? I noticed the demise of the local sell-on-ebay place, but I never knew if it was fee changes or what that got them.

Unless you have storage bins full of stuff to sell or are dropshipping (which comes with its own set of problems), there isn't much profit potential anymore and ebay's feedback rules make it really easy for one or a couple of lousy buyers to get you banned from selling.

Sellers cannot give buyers negative or neutral feedback. Only buyers get that privilege to use against sellers. This is apparently to curb feedback abuse by sellers, and I don't doubt there were bad ones who worked the feedback system to their advantage, but IMO it's wrong to punish all sellers for the acts of a few. If you only sell a few items here and there, and you're unlucky enough to get a couple buyers who neg you for no good reason, you'll be banned from selling. Sellers who deal in high volumes can absorb a few negative feedbacks without a substantial hit to their score.

I still buy things on ebay from time to time but no longer sell. I do not leave feedback for any of my transactions. I refuse to take part in a rigged system, even if it's rigged in my favor.

[XCashier]

I still buy things on ebay from time to time but no longer sell. I do not leave feedback for any of my transactions. I refuse to take part in a rigged system, even if it's rigged in my favor.

Hubby and I sell stuff on eBay, and we do pretty well. Yes, the feedback is an uneven playing field, but I do appreciate getting feedback from customers, if only to let us know that they did receive the item.

We are, however, looking into other venues. Has anyone used any other auction sites, and do you recommend them?

[An Haddock]

I should clarify, perhaps: while we do sell things on Ebay for people, it's basically a side business. There's no way we could survive just doing Ebay stuff.

We're mainly a computer repair shop, which is what the old guy in the first post was referring to. We usually charge $80 an hour for computer repair. To put a new hard drive into a computer and load Windows it's usually a 2 hour job plus $60 - 80 for a new drive.

So right now, it would be around $230 + tax for a hard drive replacement.

When the old guy came in a couple of years ago, we might have been charging $70 an hour, but it still would have been around $200... so I'm guessing that's what we quoted him on. Again, how some other computer store fixed the problem for "pennies" I have no idea... unless it was something like a bad hard drive cable or loose connection that we missed.