I'm contemplating buying some used video games on Ebay. But I have never used the service before. Do you guys have any bad/good experiences with Ebay. What do you usually buy/sell?

I've bought 5 or 6 things off eBay over the years.. Very good experiences overall. Just make sure that person has a good rating and good reviews.

Aye. I've bought all sorts of stuff from ebay, including some used games and they've all been fine. Just be aware that most people who sell used game on ebay sell them as is. There is always a risk that the games might be scratched and whatnot.

I've had a couple bad experiences with mislabeled stuff I bought for my mother, and another issue where they just never sent the DVD.

Otherwise, I've had good experiences. Just don't spend a great deal of money on an unsure buy. You get used to who's good and who's bad.

eBay depends entirely on the seller. If the seller has a lot of positive feedback and clear, well-written pages, they're a pretty good bet.

I've sold a few hundred things on eBay and bought plenty too. Overall my experience has been excellent.

Ive bought a textbook, 2 posters, a keyboard, and a sign. ALl of them were good situations, but like everyone else said just make sure they have a good feedback rating.

you dont want someone selling you a text file on how to become invisible!

omg, where can I get that MB?!?!

Let's see...

* Used pink bathrobe
* Rare mint snowglobe
* Smurf TV tray
* Pet rock
* ALF alarm clock
* William Shatner's old toupée
* Slightly damaged golf bag
* Beanie Babies new with tag
* Tchotchkes
* Watch
* Dukes of Hazzard ash tray
* Pac-Man Fever lunchbox
* Case of vintage tube socks
* Kleenex used by Dr. Dre
* Farrah Fawcett poster
* PEZ dispenser
* Toaster

When I started out it was good, but the bid sniping is out of control anymore. If you go from one of their stores it's really good, but you can sometimes find good auctions.

Just make sure the seller has good feedback and the comments are all positive and you'll be good.

i've had mostly good experiences but ran into some trouble sellers

one ripped me and a large number of people off by selling PS2 systems and games that he didn't have... he was arrested

another kept saying it was returned to him and he would ship it again but nver answered when i asked for a tracking number when he claimed to ship it fed-ex

couple of sellers had listings on ebay but said "the item is on backorder we'll ship on [datehere]" then "our shipment was damaged we should have another shipment on [datehere]" but they refunded my money

i've also had sellers ship something other than what was pictured (same type of item just not the variation or condition shown in the photo.. likely they had more than one and took photo of one which to me is lazy especially with used items especially surplus military canvas and leather items)

I've have great experiences as a buyer. Terrible experiences as a seller. ****ing douche bags that back out.

I've never used it. A friend of mine bought GRAW for me for my birthday on eBay, and the seller never sent it. He got his money back through paypal.

I've had good experiences with ebay. I think 36 out of 37 were great. Just one clown who promised for months that my items were leaving "this week". Finally did get them in the end.
I've only bought used games twice. Both times they were sweet.

Alot of pages that aren't in good engrish might be okay.


I buy alot of NOS (New Old Stock) stuff from sellers in Vietnam, Thailand, China, etc.

If they have 100% feedback and a score higher than 150 they're pretty much a safe bet.

I wouldn't buy any video games from Asian area sellers. Some of them only ship the discs in paper slips, which can be fine if you don't care about having a box or manual, and these games are often sold dirt cheap. Postage is also lower because they can just mail it out in an envelope. Also, some of them might be selling a non-english copy of the game or box. I've even seen sellers with high feedback that still ship pirate copies. Of course this could happen with local sellers too, which is why you should always check the finer details on the auction page and their feedback. I bought Condemned from a Canadian seller, apparently brand new for about $10, but it was the disc and manual only. They actually said on the auction page that they didn't ship box or manuals, so I guess I still got more than I payed for anyway.
If you're looking for rare or discontinued games, buy second hand from a responsible seller. Just check their feedback and see what else they're selling. There are some sellers that only deal in used games and these people can be a great source for finding rarer games. If you just want to pick up some games for cheap, check around the auction pages and find a seller that has an eBay store. Some of them sell new and sealed games at pretty good prices in their stores for buy-it-now, which is great for avoiding bid sniping. I got Bioshock new and sealed for $20 less than retail, even after the cost of postage.
Also, if you've just got a bit of money to blow and want to get a couple of games, try and get as many from the same seller. This is a really easy way to cut down on postage cost on just about anything you're buying as most of the sellers do deals on combined postage. Some do better deals than others though, so check that out too.


I hope that helps.

Also, I should add that some overseas sellers, particularly from China and Hong Kong, sell stuff at really cheap auction prices, but have a heavy postage cost. The most extreme cases of this that I've seen is with swords, that have starting bids of $0.01 but postage costs as high as $200, which is insane. As a comparison for a reasonable shipping cost, I bought a brand new video camera from Singapore, which arrived by courier in a very big box, and postage was around $120. I don't know why some sellers jack up the postage but be sure to always check first and figure out for yourself if you're getting ripped off before bidding. I don't know if anyone does this with video games but I thought I'd let you know anyway.

I've never bought games there, but we've had a lot of problems in the past. I'd say about half my transactions have sucked for numerous reasons. Yes, I only buy from people with high ratings. Here is a list of the ones that have sucked:

1. "won" a 12mb voodoo2, they shipped an 8mb one. Wouldn't SLI with my other card, the guy did offer to take it back, but then I was out 2x the shipping cost, so I just sold it (as an 8mb card this time). Or maybe I gave it away to someone on Massassi, I can't remember. (Speaking of which, if you need 2 12mb voodoo2 cards for free, pm me I'll send some to you.)

2. My brother "won" some clear taillight lenses for his car, they never showed up, the guy kept promising a refund but never did it, we had to go through paypal to get his money back (took over a month).

3. "Won" a wakeboarding boat fat seat that also was never shipped (seller promised a tracking number which we never got, item never arrived, seller continuously promised refund but never gave it). Also handled that through paypal again and got our money back over a month later.

There were a few more... this was all years ago, my brother and I never use ebay or paypal anymore, it's all a huge crapshoot and ebay makes money regardless of whether I get screwed, so screw them.

I hate bidding, I would rather just buy something outright.

IMO, Ebay would be tolerable if not for the rampant bid-sniping.

You just have to start playing the game like everyone else.

See, I don't want to play a game. I simply want to buy what I need without having to do anything else besides pay what I owe for goods/services rendered.

I don't steal auctions, since I consider it to be low and dishonourable.

There's no theft in waiting to the last second to one-up the competition. That's called smart auctioning. All a bid sniper does is keep a timer for you and SOME (granted, those you have to pay for) will place a bid for you if you give it your account info.

explain what you mean by bid-sniping?

I think I know, but I'm curious.

When people have software set up (or do it manually) to place their bid seconds before the auction ends, not giving you a chance to bid against them.

I never understood the big problem with this, though, because if you set your maximum bid immediately & someone snipes you, it was more than you wanted to spend anyway.

I like half.com for games & music.

Bid sniping is where you think you have an auction won, but someone comes along and out-bids you by 50 cents at the last 10 seconds.

It's just so petty. If some one wants to out-bid me, fine; just do it with a reasonable amount. To pay what I'm offering + the minimum increase is just wrong in my book. IMO, It demonstrates a lack of courtesy and respect, and it's like being stingy AND stealing.

Bidding at the very last second so no one has a chance to outbid them. They really should have a system like WoW's in place to keep that under control.

I've only had one bad experience with eBay, but that was my fault for not reading thoroughly.

Bid-sniping is a pain the arse but there's not really anything that can be done to avoid it. It's like JLee said, you put down your maximum bid to begin with, and if they out bid you at the last moment, then they're paying more than you wanted to anyway. If they've just sat around for an hour, slowly nudging their bids up until they're over you, then it's annoying as hell but that's kind of what an auction is. They can't prevent last minute bids because bid-snipers would just start their game earlier. The only thing they could do is to put in some kind of time limit between bids, like one every half hour or something.


I mostly go with buy-it-now, I rarely look at the auction pages. If you know what you're looking for, you can usually find it at a good price, especially if you're patient.
The powersellers, selling thousands of different items a month, are usually terrible with communication and items can get lost or delivered to the wrong person. One game I bought was delivered to someone on the other side of the country, but thankfully I got a full refund, even though it took a couple of weeks. You're best off buying from a store that's dedicated to one type of item, like video games. They'll probably be more serious and professional if they're selling a wide range of a specific item. And feedback matters most to those kinds of stores, so if something does go wrong they'll be more likely to try and resolve it with you.

Bid sniping could be solved with last calls. 5 minute pushes after last bids, ensuring the highest price point for the auction.

That's how WoW does it. Bids within the last few minutes actually extend the deadline. They really should do that, but I imagine eBay is scared of pissing too many people off.

Neat, Firefox says Ebay and ebay are spelled wrong, but eBay is correct.

Gunbroker does that as well- any bids within the last 15 minutes of an auction cause the auction to extend out to 15 minutes again.

That would be great... too bad it'll never happen.

Yes and no. While it's technically a larger bid, the increase is so insignificant that it may as well be the same as what I offered. (I doubt that the seller is going to appreciate the few extra cents) That's why I consider it to be stealing the auction.

If some one outbids me by several dollars at the last minute, then I have no problem with it, because in that case they did want it more and were willing to pay more.

See the difference?

What would you do if the auction extended after each bid? Keep bidding back and forth until you went up a couple dollars? If you bid that price right off, then you won't have any issues.

Meh.

except that that person also puts in a max bid, not necessarily just 50 cents higher. ebay automatically chooses the smallest increment to bid. like if earlier in the auction, the current high-bidder's max bid was $5 and you would pay $10 for the same item, you'd put $10 as your max bid, but ebay would only bid $5.50, until someone else bid their max of $7. since you are still the current high bidder, ebay would automatically up it to $7.50. then if somene else comes along, and would pay $15 dollars for said item, you would no longer be the high bidder, but ebay would only show the high bid at $11.

so theoretically, bid-snipers could have bid significantly higher than you, but because of how ebay works, they dont pay that price.

Now I remember what the other one was, I bought Soul Reaver for PC on ebay and the guy sent a fakking demo disk or something. The auction claimed it was a full version, and the people offered to send it again, and the next one was ALSO a freaking demo disk. I don't get how they get high ratings with this stuff.

ebay is great for buying really specific esoteric things. For example, I needed a PSP with a specific (rare) firmware so I could run custom apps on it and ebay came through for me very well on that one.

From what I've experienced, yes, eBay sets the next bid at the minimum amount it can (50 cents above the high bid), but it does it awhile before the bidding ends and not a couple of seconds, unless the bidder snipes in those last few seconds.

i was in a bidding war with a guy for star wars trilogy wide screen on vhs (1999 or 2000). $90 and 7 days later i had a box set still in the cellophane. i was so freaking happy it wasn't all banged up and used. i would've wanted it regardless.

it all depends on the seller.

So set a higher max bid AND QUIT WHINING.

a friend of mine once made a bid in the last 2 minutes of an item and he bid quite abit over what he was willing to pay (an amount that could be "explained" with a "decimal point in wrong place") a bid sniper had set the max bid to some insane amount to guarantee the win and ended up paying (or at least trying to back out of paying (though my friend recieved no second chance offer)) over $2000 for something only worth ~$200

and that's another thing... being outbid is not always the end of the world usually you can find the same thing from another seller or you can always hope for the second chance offer... i've recieved a few second chance offer emails usually happening after i found the item elsewhere and i did jump on one such offer (buyer didn't back out seller simply had more of the same item)

I've bought several games and even my bass guitar off of eBay. I've had good experiences. I check for high ratings, any negative comments, and good communication with the seller. And lots of photos.

But It's neither since they're still paying, it's just being crafty.

It's like calling a football team crap because they won a game with a goal in the last minute. :/